Stalag 17
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- This article is about the film of this title. For the punk band, see Stalag 17 (band).
| Stalag 17 | |
|---|---|
 Film poster |
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| Directed by | Billy Wilder |
| Produced by | Billy Wilder |
| Starring | William Holden Don Taylor Otto Preminger Robert Strauss Peter Graves |
| Music by | Franz Waxman |
| Cinematography | Ernest Laszlo |
| Editing by | George Tomasini |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
| Release date(s) |  May 29, 1953 July 1, 1953 |
| Running time | 120 min |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
Stalag 17 is a 1953 war film which tells the story of a group of American GI's held in a German World War II prisoner of war camp who come to believe one of their number is a traitor. Produced and directed by Billy Wilder, it starred William Holden, Don Taylor, Otto Preminger, Robert Strauss, Harvey Lembeck and Peter Graves. (Strauss and Lembeck both appeared in the Broadway production)
Contents |
[edit] Background
The movie was adapted by Wilder and Edwin Blum from the Broadway play by Donald Bevan and Edmund Trzcinski. (Both Bevan and Trzcinski appear in the film as prisoners.) The play was directed by José Ferrer and was the Broadway debut of John Ericson as Sefton. It began its run in May 1951, continued for 472 performances and was based on the experiences of its authors, both of whom were POWs in Stalag 17B in Austria. The storyline is dramatic, skillfully interspersed with ironic and comedic references to 1940s American wartime culture which serve to develop the characters and realistic setting.
[edit] Reception
The film was well received [1], [2] and is considered, along with The Great Escape and The Bridge on the River Kwai, among the greatest World War II Prisoner of War films.
[edit] Awards and nominations
It won the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role (William Holden) and was nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Robert Strauss) and Best Director.
[edit] Plot synopsis
Stalag 17 begins "about a week before Christmas" in 1944 in a prisoner-of-war camp located somewhere along the Danube River. The story of a Nazi spy in Barracks Four is narrated by Clarence Harvey "Cookie" Cook (Gil Stratton).
Prisoners Manfredi and Johnson try to escape through a tunnel the inmates have dug under the barbed wire. They are immediately shot when they emerge from the other end. The prisoners believe there is a spy in their midst since the Germans obviously knew about the tunnel, but the barracks security officer, Price (Peter Graves), fails to uncover his identity.
Sefton (William Holden) is the main suspect; he barters openly with the German guards for eggs, silk stockings, blankets and other luxuries. He also organizes mouse races and various other profitable enterprises. The other prisoners are suspicious of his fraternization with the enemy, as well as envious of his success. Sefton himself is rather cynical, cold, and impersonal; he bets on whether Manfredi and Johnson will actually escape, then trades the cigarettes he wins to the Germans for an egg the next morning.
The lives of the prisoners are depicted, although in a somewhat sanitized way. They receive mail, eat terrible food, wash in the latrine sinks, and collectively do their best to keep sane and defy the camp's cruel and ruthless commandant, Col. Oberst von Scherbach (Otto Preminger). They use a clandestine radio (shared by all the barracks) to pick up the BBC and the war news. (The antenna is their volleyball net.) Their German guard "supervisor", Sergeant Schulz (Sig Ruman), confiscates the radio, another success for the "stoolie", whoever he is.
Sefton bribes the guards to let him spend a night in the women's barracks in the Russian section of the camp. The other prisoners spot him through Sefton's telescope, and conclude that this is his reward for informing the Germans about the radio. When he returns, he is accused of being a spy. At that moment, von Scherbach pays a visit to the barracks to apprehend new prisoner Lieutenant James Dunbar (Don Taylor), who the Germans correctly suspect of blowing up a German ammunition train while he was being transported to the camp. The men are now convinced that Sefton is the spy and viciously beat him, after which he is ostracized. He is also stripped of his comparatively luxurious lifestyle when the other men decide that his considerable possessions now belong to the rest of the barracks and the camp. Sefton decides to investigate and uncover the identity of the spy himself.
On Christmas Day, the men find out that SS men are coming to take Dunbar to Berlin, to be interrogated for his act of sabotage. The entire camp creates a distraction and Dunbar is taken from the SS and hidden. The guards search the camp thoroughly, but can't find him. Later, the men of Barracks Four, excluding Sefton, plan to draw a name from a hat to see who will try to get Dunbar out of the camp, but Price volunteers first. At this point, Sefton reveals that the spy is Price. Sefton shows how messages were passed between Price and Schulz, then asks him, "When was Pearl Harbor?" Price knows the date of course, but Sefton traps him by quickly asking what time he heard the news. Without thinking, he betrays himself by answering 6 p.m. — the correct time of the attack in Germany. After that, Sefton demands to know where the "mailbox" is — then reaches into Price's jacket pocket and extracts a hollowed-out chess piece matching a second hollowed-out chess piece on the game board. Sefton then reveals what he has observed Price do: hide messages for his German contact, Sgt. Schultz, inside one of the hollowed-out chess pieces.
With his fellow POWs convinced of Price's guilt, Sefton decides to take Dunbar out of the camp himself, partially because he likes the odds against escape and for the reward he can expect from Dunbar's rich family. The men give Sefton enough time to get Dunbar out of his hiding place, the water tower above one of the camp latrines. To distract the guards in the gun towers, they throw Price out into the yard with tin cans tied to his legs. The ruse works: Price is killed in a hail of bullets (to the great annoyance of von Scherbach and Schulz) while Dunbar and Sefton cut through the wire and make their escape.
In the final scene, the remaining prisoners in Barracks Four are reminiscing about Sefton; some smiling, some questioning his motives for wanting to escape. The film ends with Cookie lying on his bunk, whistling "When Johnny Comes Marching Home".
[edit] Cast
| Actor | Character |
|---|---|
| William Holden | Sefton |
| Don Taylor | Lieutenant Dunbar |
| Otto Preminger | Von Scherbach |
| Robert Strauss | Stanislas "Animal" Kasava |
| Harvey Lembeck | Harry Shapiro |
| Peter Graves | Price |
| Sig Ruman | Sergeant Schulz |
| Neville Brand | Duke |
| Richard Erdman | Hoffy |
| Michael Moore | Manfredi |
| Peter Baldwin | Johnson |
| Robinson Stone | Joey |
| Robert Shawley | Blondie Peterson |
| William Pierson | Marko |
| Gil Stratton | Clarence Harvey "Cookie" Cook (Narrator) |
| Jay Lawrence | Bagradian |
| Erwin Kalser | Geneva Man |
| Mike Bush | Dancer |
[edit] Trivia
- The site of Stalag XVII-B is in Austria just east of a small village called Gneixendorf, about 3 kilometers north of the town of Krems on the Danube. As of 1997, nothing remains of the physical camp. The runway of a small municipal airport covers part of the camp location and the rest is being used as agricultural land, as it clearly has been for decades. The physical location is not marked in any way on the ground or on published maps but the footings of the barracks can be found upon close examination. [1]
- Both Charlton Heston and Kirk Douglas were considered for the role of Sefton which ultimately went to William Holden. Holden was reluctant to play Sefton as he thought him too cynical and selfish. Wilder refused to make the role more sympathetic and Holden actually refused it but was forced to do it by Paramount. It won him the Best Actor Oscar.
- Holden's acceptance speech for his Academy Award ("Thank You") was the shortest on record, until Alfred Hitchcock's speech upon receiving an honorary Oscar in 1968, in which he simply said "Thanks."
- The film is currently available on VHS and DVD, and a Special Edition DVD was released on March 21, 2006.
- According to IMDB, the singer at the Christmas party is Ross Bagdasarian, the creator of Alvin and the Chipmunks and the voice of their manager, David Seville.
- The film may have been the inspiration for the later television sitcom Hogan's Heroes which featured many of the same themes and characters (such as Sgt. Schultz). The producers of Stalag 17 later sued the producers of Hogan's Heroes for infringement, but lost. Interestingly, Paramount would later gain the DVD rights to Hogan's Heroes.
[edit] Notes
- ^ http://www.google.com/maphp?hl=en&q=&ie=UTF8&om=1&ll=48.442412,15.640411&spn=0.05113,0.10849 Stalag XVII-B - Google Maps
[edit] External links
- Stalag 17 at the Internet Movie Database
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