Interesting depiction with a pretty decent performance from Holden and supported by a credible cast.
Stalag 17 (1953)
Runtime: 2 hrs
Synopsis: Billy Wilder's adaptation of the Broadway hit stars William Holden as the cynical Sefton. Set in the eponymous German prison camp during WWII, the director's broad, black comedy focuses on a group of decidedly unheroic prisoners. While they spend most of their time trying to entertain each... Billy Wilder's adaptation of the Broadway hit stars William Holden as the cynical Sefton. Set in the eponymous German prison camp during WWII, the director's broad, black comedy focuses on a group of decidedly unheroic prisoners. While they spend most of their time trying to entertain each other with comedy routines and pin-ups, they also occasionally entertain thoughts of escape. But escape is the last thing on the mind of the hard, calculating Sefton, a wheeler-dealer who's salted away a stash of creature comforts which are the envy of the barracks. When a couple of prisoners are killed while attempting to escape, Sefton collects the money he won by betting against their success, and many believe that it was he who informed the Germans. After a new prisoner, Lt. Dunbar (Don Taylor) talks openly about having bombed a German ammo train, he's immediately subjected to a harsh interrogation by sadistic commandant Oberst von Scherbach (Otto Preminger). Their suspicions confirmed, the prisoners take revenge against Sefton. A film whose depiction of American G.I.s as ordinary, even selfish, people probably seemed seemed edgier in the 1950s than it does now, it remains a durable entertainment, with incisive performances by Holden and Preminger. [More]
Genre: Dramas
Starring: William Holden, Don Taylor, Otto Preminger, Neville Brand, Peter Graves
DVD Info
Release:
Sep 3, 2007
DVD Features:
- Region 1
- Keep Case - Sensormatic
- Full Frame - 1.33
Audio:
- Dolby Digital Mono 1.0 - English
- Dolby Digital Mono 1.0 - French
Additional Release Material:
- Audio Commentary - 1. Richard Erdman - Actor
- 2. Gil Stratton - Actor
- 3. Donald Bevan - Co-Playwright
- Featurettes - 1. "Stalag 17: From Reality to Screen"
- 2. "The Real Heroes Of Stalag XVIIB"
- Text/Photo Galleries
Reviews
A bleak, black comedy in which the laughter can die in the throat.
The resulting letdown is terrific, but along the way there is some of the funniest men-at-loose-ends interplay that Wilder has ever put on film.
One could make an argument that, among 20th century directors, few were more versatile than Billy Wilder.
A lusty comedy-melodrama, loaded with bold, masculine humor and as much of the original's uninhibited earthiness as good taste and the Production Code permit.
As with many of Wilder's films, you tend to forget just how funny it is %u2014 the way the master director cuts tension with incisive wit and barely controlled silliness.
The good greatly outweighs the bad, particularly in the profile of Holden's character, a pragmatic, self-centered cynic whose heroism, when it is finally called upon, appears to come from deep within the barriers he has placed inside of himself.
Grimly hilarious, subversive and defiant, rough around the edges, and more than a little sad.
Unlike previous POW films, Wilder and co-writer Edwin Blum's script, based on the play by Donald Bevan and Edmund Trzcinski, presents the prisoners not as paragons of patriotic virtue but as real, self-interested, bored soldiers trying to survive.
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posted by Jen Yamato October 25, 2007
Newsweek critic David Ansen has courageously revealed the more quietly kept secret of every cinephile: his lifelong,...


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