Stalag 17 (1953)

Director:

Billy Wilder

Writers:

Donald Bevan (play) and
Edmund Trzcinski (play) ...

Release Date:

10 August 1953 (Brazil)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | War

Tagline:

Hilarious, heart-tugging! You'll laugh...you'll cry...you'll cheer William Holden in his great Academy Award role! (from reissue print ad)

Plot:

When two escaping American World War II prisoners are killed, the German POW camp barracks black marketeer, J.J. Sefton, is suspected of being an informer.

Plot Keywords:

Spy | Escape | Pow | Barracks | Guard

Awards:

Won Oscar. Another 4 nominations

Cast

William Holden	...	Sgt. J.J. Sefton
Don Taylor	...	Lt. James Dunbar
Otto Preminger	...	Col. von Scherbach
Robert Strauss	...	Stanislas Kasava
Harvey Lembeck	...	Harry Shapiro
Richard Erdman	...	Sgt. 'Hoffy' Hoffman
Peter Graves	...	Price
Neville Brand	...	Duke
Sig Ruman	...	Sgt. Johann Schulz
Michael Moore	...	Manfredi
Peter Baldwin	...	Johnson
Robinson Stone	...	Joey
Robert Shawley	...	'Blondie' Peterson
William Pierson	...	Marko the Mailman
Gil Stratton	...	Clarence Harvey 'Cookie' Cook (as Gil Stratton Jr.)

Runtime:

120 min | Germany:116 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | German

Colour:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

West Germany:16 (f) | Australia:G | South Korea:12 (2004) | Finland:K-16 | Norway:12 | UK:PG | USA:Approved (PCA #15866) | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

John Show Ranch, Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

This film was made three years after Sunset Blvd. (1950) and represents the re-teaming of director Billy Wilder and leading actor William Holden who worked together on Sunset Blvd. (1950).

Goofs:

Audio/visual unsynchronized: As the last seconds the film begins to fade out, you see Cookie whistling "When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again", but the audio is not in sync.

Quotes:

Triz' Trzcinski: [after reading letter from home] I believe it. My wife says, "Darling, you won't believe it, but I found the most adorable baby on our doorstep and I've decided to keep it for our very own. Now you won't believe it, but it's got exactly my eyes and nose." Why does she keep saying I won't believe it? I believe it! I believe it.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Express (2008)

Soundtrack:

When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again

"Nobody has ever escaped from Stalag 17. Not alive, anyway."

Director Billy Wilder was certainly no stranger to the horrors of World War Two. He was born in Austria-Hungary {now Poland} in 1906, but moved to Berlin to begin a career in movies. However, following the rise of Adolf Hitler, Wilder – being Jewish – fled for Paris and then the United States. His mother, grandmother and stepfather died at the Auschwitz concentration camp. As such, I think it'd be safe to presume that Wilder housed a considerable hatred towards Nazis, which makes his POW-picture, 'Stalag 17 (1953),' all the more remarkable. Whereas the film might have developed into a bleak, depressing drama, the screenplay by Wilder and Edwin Blum {adapted from a play by Donald Bevan and Edmund Trzcinski} effortlessly blends drama and comedy, clearing the path for other similarly-themed war-time films {David Lean's 'The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)' and John Sturges' 'The Great Escape (1963)'} and even TV series {'Hogan's Heroes (1965-1971)' clearly used Wilder's film as a template – including an identical Sgt. Schulz – despite a failed court case in which producers sued for infringement}.

The year is 1944, in the week before Christmas. Stalag 17, a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp, is situated somewhere along the Danube River, and hundreds of captured Allied sergeants have been imprisoned there. The Americans of Barrack 4 endure a dull, deprived lifestyle, with each day consisting of unwholesome meals, tedious labour and uncomfortable living conditions. Displaying that typical American cleverness and resourcefulness, many of the prisoners have banded together to ensure themselves a few added luxuries – such a makeshift radio to listen to the latest war news – and to build an effective escape tunnel beneath the camp. However, it soon becomes apparent that there is a Nazi spy within their midst. After two escaping prisoners are immediately shot down, and their escape passage is inexplicably discovered, the men turn their suspicions towards J.J. Sefton (William Holden), a selfish and arrogant prisoner with a dog-eat-dog mentality that sees him openly bribing the German guards for luxuries. An unsympathetic character, one who nonetheless exhibits a certain streak of integrity, Sefton decides to uncover the true traitor of Barrack 4.

Though he was reluctant to play such an unlikable character, Holden won the Best Actor Oscar for his powerful performance {via the second-shortest acceptance speech in Academy Awards history – a simple "thank you"}. The other actors in the film also create distinct and likable personalities, and I particularly enjoyed the big, oafish Animal (Robert Strauss) and Shapiro (Harvey Lembeck). Goodness knows what compelled the writers to make Sgt. Schulz (Sig Ruman), a loathsome tyrant in any other film, a jolly and hearty buffoon, but it works absolutely perfectly, his character's incompetence best highlighted in the sequence where he is distracted into playing volleyball, and enjoys the game so much that he hands his loaded weapon to the nearest POW. As Sefton attempts to uncover which fellow prisoner is leaving secret messages for their Nazis captors, Wilder intersperses the drama with an episodic flow of comedic situations, placing particularly emphasis on the means by which prisoners will alleviate their desire for the opposite sex. A hilarious sequence sees the drunken Animal mistaking his dressed-up bunk-mate for the cinema beauty Betty Grable, of whom he has an undying obsession.