Cell Out

Forget Clint Eastwood’s Escape From Alcatraz, Kurt Russell’s Escape From New York and Tim Robbin’s Shawshank Redemption. While it’s awesome to see a cunningly crafted prison break, the following prison and jail getaways are the real deal—and totally awesome!

1. You’ve heard the motto, If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Pascal Payet was obviously aware of this as he escaped from jail not once, not twice—but three times. With a helicopter. Top that, Andy Dufresne!

2. Ever heard of making a gun out of a bar of soap. Well, a similar approach actually worked as John Dillinger used it to great effect when he busted out of jail in 1934. The old-school gangster made a fake gun out of wood and shoe polish to escape from an “escape-proof” cell at an Indiana county jail.

3. In the movies, it’s cool when the hero clings to the underside of a car to escape certain death or evade the bad guys—just check out Kiss of the Dragon and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Well, French-born arsonist Julien Chautard essentially used this tactic when he ducked behind a prison van in London and clung to the vehicle’s underside before slipping away.

4. Supposedly, no one ever escaped from Alcatraz. However, in 1962, Frank Morris and John and Clarence Anglin made dummy heads out of soap, toilet paper and real hair (!)  to trick guards into thinking they were in their bunks during the evening roll call. The three convicts paddled a row boat across San Francisco Bay. Authorities say they drowned—but no bodies were ever found . . .

5. You’ve seen Midnight Express? Meet the real-life story: Billy Hayes, the 22-year old American who was sentenced to 30 years in a Turkish prison for smuggling hash. After six months of planning, he fought a prison guard and stole his uniform (taking $2,000 his father had smuggled into prison inside a photo album) and escaped to Greece using a rowboat. He made it back to the U.S., wrote a book about his ordeal (the movie was based on this) and became an actor, writer and director. I love happy endings.