Stalag 17 (1953) Starring William Holden, Peter Graves, Richard Erdman, Harvey Lembeck, Otto Preminger, Don Taylor, Jay Lawrence, Robert Strauss, Neville Brand, Sig Ruman, Michael Moore, Peter Baldwin, Robinson Stone, Robert Shawley, William Pierson, Gil Stratton Jr., Erwin Kalser, Edmund Trzcinski.

Directed by Billy Wilder.

Running time: 120 minutes

Rating: Unrated

A Nazi prison barracks full of U.S. Army Sergeants is the setting for this World War II set comedy-adventure. That is exactly the place where you would think to set a comedic film right? Give the writers points for originality but not necessarily for good taste.

Anyway amongst the oddball and heroic types depicted in the barracks there is a spy for the commandant thwarting their plans to escape. They think that the spy is Sephton (Holden) the smarmy one they don't much like anyway. The film is about misery and the black comedy and occasional valour, which it can inspire in men thrust into a situation they never thought they would have to endure.

The strategic clash of wills that World War II played host to has provided the stuff of some top flight cinematic narratives. Consensus has it that this one is among the very best of those narratives and a is 1950s cinema classic.

I do not include myself in that consensus. I think if you take away a little bit of the production value and William Holden in the lead, you'd have just a bunch of Hogan's Heroes episodes strung together. From that statement you can probably guess which of the two I saw first. Because of that the effect of this film was profoundly diminished for me.

Neville Brand and Richard Erdman are generally more television phenomena than feature film actors. As for Peter Graves I'd rather hire Leslie Nielson or John Forsythe or pretty any other b-movie actor from around the same time for his role and what he does with it or doesn't do with it. After the collapse of the studio system they all ended up on TV.

The comedy is forced and sophmoric and the character played by Harvey Lembeck (Baron Von Zipper from those 1960s beach movies) and his sidekick called "Animal" are over the top and silly.

Jay Lawrence who plays the guy that does all the impressions of famous people is the lesser known brother of Larry Storch (F-Troop). He also does the lesser Cary Grant impression of the two of them as you'll note here.

People that wonder why Cary Grant passed on the role of Sephton saw a different movie than I did and perhaps a different script than he did. But then given how successful it was there must have been quite a few of them.

Learn more about this author, cinemadigest.com.
Click here to send author comments or questions.

---

Add your voice

Know something about Movie reviews: Stalag 17?
We want to hear your view. Write now!