History's Greatest Escapes with Morgan Freeman - Season 1
Season 1
Great Escapes with Morgan Freeman is an eight-part series from The HISTORY Channel hosted and executive produced by Morgan Freeman. The five-time Academy Award nominee and one-time Academy Award-winning actor has appeared in hundreds of films and television roles. One of his most famous and beloved performances was in Shawshank Redemption, a film focusing on the exploits of a group of inmates inside the fictional Shawshank State Penitentiary.
In the series, Morgan will explore real-life prison breaks that have captured the attention of the public. It's an up close and personal view of what the prisoners are faced with in executing their break outs. Famous escapes from Alcatraz, Dannemora, Pittsburgh State Penitentiary and other locations are recreated with actors playing key roles and interviews from some of the prisoners themselves, their families, their cell mates and from the guards and prison employees that tried to prevent the escapes. Along with the interviews and recreations, the series will utilize new software technology called Unreal Engine to recreate—with great verisimilitude—the prisons themselves.
Episodes
Alcatraz
Four men conspire to break out of one of the most notorious prisons in American history. Three make it to the water's edge... but what happened to them when they left the island remains a mystery to this day.
North Country Breakout
Stuck in prison on life sentences, two men used engineering smarts and psychological manipulation of several prison employees to escape Dannemora Prison.
El Chapo
El Chapo became one of the most notorious and murderous drug cartel kingpins in modern history. His audacious escapes from maximum-security prisons in Mexico became the stuff of legends. He is now in a US supermax prison in Colorado where he is remanded to this day.
Conquering the Wall
Six men, led by the mastermind, Nuno Pontes, escaped Pittsburgh State Penitentiary by tunneling to freedom under the massive wall of the prison. They made it as far as Texas before being caught and returned to prison.
Escaping Hitler
Allied prisoners used all kinds of forgery and engineering tactics to tunnel out of a German Prisoner of War camp. Almost all were caught, fifty were executed and three made their way to freedom.
Belfast Breakout
Almost forty prisoners locked up in HM Maze prison for actions undertaken as members of the IRA, escaped in a food truck. Many were caught right away, some years later, and some were never seen again.
Fleeing Hellmira
Two desperate murderers made an audacious rooftop escape from the forty foot high Elmira State Prison.
Assassin's Flight
James Earl Ray, confessed killer of RFK, was a notorious escape artist. His most audacious escape involved manufacturing a ladder made of plumbing pipe and going over the wall of the Brushy Mountain State Prison.
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