Stalag 17 (1953)
Directed by Billy Wilder

Film Review

Amidst all of Billy Wilder's other great cinematic achievements, Stalag 17 is a film that is all too easy to overlook, and yet it is undoubtedly one of his most satisfying films, one that would provide the yardstick against which all subsequent prisoner of war films would be measured.  Based on a successful Broadway play by Donald Bevan and Edmund Trzcinski, the film was ahead of its time, one of the first authentic war films to take a comedic slant.  Stalag 17 not only gives a keen insight into the grim realities of life in a German prisoner of war camp during WWII, it is also a highly entertaining film, peppered with wisecracks and humorous situations that bear Wilder's signature all too clearly.  Some of the jokes have gone on to have a life of their own, most famously the acid quip: Sprechen Sie Deutsche? Then Droppen Sie Dead!

Not only is Stalag 17 extremely well written (we should not forget that Wilder was a superlative screenwriter as well as a talented and remarkably versatile filmmaker), it is superbly cast, and one of the reasons why the film has stood the test of time so well is on account of its colourful ensemble of acting talent.  William Holden gives the performance of his career as the cynical prisoner Sefton who is wrongly accused of being a traitor - the actor initially refused the role because he felt the character was too selfish, but it won him his one and only Academy Award.  Robert Strauss and Harvey Lembeck form a terrific double act, the former (nicknamed Animal) fixated with Betty Grable, the latter ending up doing a blonde drag act out of pity for his deluded friend.  The highly regarded film director Otto Preminger puts in an appearance as the fearsome camp commandant - apparently there were no ructions between him and Wilder on the set, despite Preminger's reputation as a hard taskmaster.

Along with The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and The Great Escape (1965), Stalag 17 deserves to be considered one of the finest prisoner of war films of all time.  It not only inspired the long-running television series Hogan's Heroes (1965-1971), it was also the forerunner to Robert Altman's M*A*S*H (1970), and showed that even in something as deadly serious as war there is still a place for comedy.  After all, in a mad, mad world, humour is just about the only thing that keeps us all sane.

Film Synopsis

Stalag 17 is a German prisoner of war camp located somewhere on the Danube.  In late December 1944, the American airmen housed in barracks four have formed an escape committee but on the night of the escape the two would-be fugitives are shot dead as soon as they cross the perimeter fence.  It is as if the German guards had been forewarned.  Immediately, the prisoners begin to suspect that someone in their midst is in the employ of the camp commandant, ready to betray his comrades in return for privileges.  The most obvious culprit is Sefton, a cynical opportunist who runs a distillery and organises gambling activities, for his own profit.  When another airman is fingered as a saboteur, mistrust turns to open hostility, and Sefton is on the receiving end.  However, Sefton is not the traitor...