User reviews

Stalag 17 is easily the strangest movie I've ever seen. It's a whodunnit, a slapstick comedy, a thriller, and a gritty war movie, all rolled into one. Made by people, Billy Wilder among them, who knew full well about the horrors of Nazi camps, and a mere eight years after the end of the war. And this wild concoction managed to snaffle an Oscar and was later ripped off as a TV series. Wow.

While this has some hallmarks of Billy Wilder's genius, it's simply too wild a mixture. I never knew whether to laugh about the prison guards or to be afraid of them, and ended up doing neither. For the same reason the suspense doesn't work. The humour from the comedic trio Animal, Shapiro and Sgt. Schulz ("Do you speaken ze German?" - "Ya!" - "Then droppen Sie dead!") or Marko The Mailman ("Alright, at ease, at ease!") was a bit too low-brow and grinding for my taste, and eventually got onto my nerves.

Watch out for the evil Nazi camp commander played by Otto Preminger, an Austro-Hungarian Jew like Wilder. I'm sure he had a blast in his role.

While it's probably safe to say that no real POW camp was much like the depicted Stalag 17, the movie wasn't that far off the mark in many aspects. For an Anglo-American or French POW, life at such a camp probably was an ambivalent experience. I guess the jovial rapport between the prisoners and guardsman Schulz, for example, wasn't entirely without precedent. But don't make the mistake of mixing up the relatively sheltered situation at camps for Western POWs with the situation of Russian POWs (who were routinely murdered), the situation in concentration camps inside the Reich or even the large extermination camps in Eastern Europe.

Incidentally, I visited the memorial site of a real Stalag the day after I saw the movie. The contrast couldn't have been bigger. While the depicted Stalag 17 was like a summer camp behind barbed wire set in idyllic California, the camp I visited was an enormous, industrialised affair, with many tens of thousands of prisoners from all around the globe. And the nearby camp of foxy female prisoners was sadly lacking.

The title is erroneous, by the way. A POW camp set inside of the German empire would have been numbered with Roman numerals, i. e. "Stalag XVII".

Anyway, the movie. Like I said, it's a mixed bag, and hasn't aged too well. There are better Billy Wilder movies.

Screen-version of Donald Bevan and Edmund Trzcinski's successful play about POWs in WWII plotting their escape from enemy camp, despite the fact most of them appear to be having a rather jovial time. Comedy-drama from director and co-scenarist Billy Wilder is highly uneven, occasionally crass and dumb, but it does have Oscar winner William Holden as barracks leader J.J. Sefton and he's pretty fabulous here; Otto Preminger also excellent in the showy role of the German commander, and Peter Graves gets one of his best screen-roles as another soldier. Overrated by the critics who, while praising the movie, somehow overlook the picture's bumpy continuity, broad supporting performances and equally broad swipes at distasteful humor. **1/2 from ****

For a movie that is set in a German prisoner of war camp during WWII, I had a hard time believing it's well.... realism.

I realize that the idea of creating a comedy with characters who make fun out of there situation in a POW camp just felt like the wrong start. With this in mind though, the basic plot about a snitch in their base was good and I did like the characters and I realise if anything its just a story and not a true account of German war treatment of allied prisoners. But it was hard to get past.

I did like trying to figure out who the snitch was but other than this and the interesting characters, I thought the movie was ... OK.

6 out of 10..

"Stalag 17" is about 30 minutes of compelling film starring William Holden padded out with about 90 minutes of strained "comedy."

Holden plays an inmate in a German prison camp during WWII who comes under suspicion by his fellow prisoners of being a spy because of his "every man for himself" attitude. For about an hour and a half, scenes of the prisoners being grumpy with him are interspersed with long segments of superfluous antics which make being an inmate of a German POW prison seem about as serious as being away at summer camp. Then, in the film's last half hour, Holden decides to find out who the spy really is, and does so without breaking a sweat.

Holden's entire performance consists of attitude, which is exactly what the character calls for, but it's not the stuff of an Oscar-winning performance, especially because he seems very much like a supporting character. I wasn't timing things with a stopwatch, but it felt like Robert Strauss, who was nominated for Best Supporting Actor as the lunkhead Animal, had more screen time. He's one of the actors included for comic relief, but man does he wear out his welcome early on, as do all of the other actors who are there only to provide what we are supposed to think are hysterical hijinks. The film would feel like an inferior knock off of "MASH" if it hadn't come out first.

Billy Wilder joined Holden and Strauss at the 1953 Oscars as a nominee for Best Director.

Grade: B-

The writers are Billy Wilder, Edwin Blum, and Donald Bevan. You can really see Wilder's hand in this movie.

William Holden does a pretty good job of portraying Sgt. J. J. Sefton, a prisoner in a stalag number 17 during World War II.

Unlike the TV program Hogan's Heroes (1965), this movie is more serious yet it has its amusing moments. There is nothing to make this movie stand out past any other stalag escape films. Of course, it has the standard spy that informs on the escape attempts. It is more of a time passer.

Maybe the play that this film was based on executed better?

If you really want to see a good William holden war movie then do not miss The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) ~ William Holden.

Compared to "The Great Escape" and "Hogan Heroes", this film is much more like the latter. Nearly three-quarters of the film was dominated by horseplay and silliness, and the characters portrayed by Harvey Lembeck and Robert Strauss were like "Abbott and Costello Meet The Fuhrer". Why Strauss was nominated for an Oscar boggles the mind. William Holden was always good in any role, but this performance doesn't compare with his films like "Sunset Boulevard" and "The Bridge On The River Kwai". Holden always claimed that either Burt Lancaster or Montgomery Clift was more deserving, both for their performances in "From Here To Eternity". Holden was correct -- the likelihood is that Lancaster and Clift "split votes", which allowed Holden to win. William Holden was one of the greatest stars in cinema history, and one of my very favorites.

"Stalag 17" is a drama movie which is combined with some historic events about World War II. In this movie we watch a man who is suspected to be a spy because of the death of two American prisoners who died in their try to escape from a German camp.

I had many expectations of this movie and I have to admit that I was not covered from it. The only thing that I really enjoyed was the interpretation of William Holden who played as Sgt. J.J. Sefton (won the Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role) and I believe that this interpretation it's one of the best of him. About the storyline and the plot I do not have to say much, it's simple with no many surprises and I believe that if you have seen some movies with about the same story then you will know what will happen to the movie before happen.

Lastly I have to say that "Stalag 17" is a movie just to spend your time and nothing more but in my opinion the most interesting part in this movie is the interpretation of William Holden and nothing else. Unfortunately If you have many expectations from this movie then I believe that you will also not been covered from it.

It's a World War II prisoner-of-war comedy-drama set in Barracks 4, Stalag 17B, near Krems, Austria, the last week before Christmas 1944. The barracks contained American airmen with Sergeant rank. Hoffy Hoffman (Richard Erdman) is the elected chief, and Frank Price (Peter Graves) is the security officer. Other prominent characters are scrounger J. J. Sefton (William Holden), tough guy Duke Musgrove (Neville Brand), light-hearted Harry Shapiro (Harvey Lembeck), loud and brash Animal Kuzawa (Robert Strauss), Cookie Cook (Gil Stratton), and others. The camp's commandant is Colonel von Scherbach (Otto Preminger), and they regularly interact with affable Sergeant Schulz (Sig Ruman).

After two men die in an escape effort, the men suspect an informer in their midst. They focus on Sefton since he's a loner who trades goods with the Germans and always seems to make money off the other men. Then, Lt. Dunbar (Don Taylor) joins the prisoners. He participated in a significant sabotage event. The informant passes this along to the Germans, deepening the suspicions about Sefton. However, Sefton discovers the real culprit and manages to save himself and Lt. Dunbar.

"Stalag 17," despite the plot, is more comedy than drama. This characteristic makes the film wholly implausible and unconnected with reality. The comedy is often amusing but feels dated in 2024. It is unmistakably the inspiration for the long-running TV series, "Hogan's Heroes," which is even more slapstick with its own Sgt. Schulz. The movie's dramatic aspects were less developed because of the comedy, but maybe that was necessary in recent post-war 1953. It's a period piece that makes less sense today.

Neville Brand and Robert Strauss were the actors who made the strongest impression on me, besides William Holden.

Billy Wilder's adaptation of a popular stage play drafted the blueprint for every subsequent World War II POW drama, and by now it's been seen in so many familiar variations that the original can't help but look a little stale. The searchlights and barbed wire, the Old World Prussian kommandant, and the elaborate escape tunnels are all here, together with the same bunch of gruff GI Joes, always cursing the krauts and moaning over dames. Who would expect a Nazi concentration camp could be such fun? The pendulum shift in tone from boyish humor to stark melodrama probably owes more to its theatrical source than to any sort of cinematic expression, but the spy-in-the-barracks plot is still effective, once the fun and games finally end. But the only member of the cast able to rise above the ranks of cardboard cutouts is William Holden, both in character and performance. As the cynical lone-wolf prisoner who bargains with the Germans for his own comfort (and draws the resentment and suspicion of his barrack mates), he single-handedly makes the film worthwhile after all this time.

William Holden is always in the shadows in 'Stalag 17', he's always behind the characters or off to the side of the camera. You see, despite Holden's character Sgt. J.J. Sefton being the film's main character, he is only seen through the eyes of his fellow POWs, rarely ever alone. When they start to think he's the spy so do we. Oh, sure, we know he isn't the rat (movies don't do things like that), but since the story is told by all of the POWs who think Sefton is the rat, we start to think like them too. That is the mastery of Billy Wilder's 'Stalag 17', it takes the film's most interesting character and sets him apart from the rest for most of the film, letting us learn about him as the characters do.

The story focuses on a group of POWs living in the American section of Stalag 17, supposedly the 's best POW camp. Among them are barracks chief Hoffy (Richard Erdman), Price (Peter Graves), Shapiro (Harvey Lembeck) and Animal Casava (Robert Strauss). They all have their own special job when their fellow prisoners try to escape, Price, for instance, is 'security'. The film starts when two prisoners try to escape the barracks. Everyone inside is enthused, thinking the two will make it very far, except Sefton, who bets precious cigarettes that they wont make it past the outer forest. When he turns out to be right the POWs start thinking there's a rat and that rat is Sefton. And as the first hour passes we think so too, it's only logical, Sefton has any luxuries because of his deals with the s.

The POWs start to bully Sefton, and once they beat him to a pulp he decides to discover who the real rat is (at this point, of course, we know he is ). His investigation isn't handled with dialogue though, we get this by seeing his facial expressions and his lurking in the shadows of the barracks.

So, what starts as a light, 'gung-ho' type war movie (there's lots of comedy in the first hour) turns into a dark, sort of gritty thriller with a twist that left me with my mouth open. I wont reveal it, but I'll just say that Sefton smartly solves the mystery and redeems himself to the rest of the barracks (I didn't spoil anything, come on, it's expected).

As I said, there's lots of comedy in the first hour and some in the second, mostly from Strauss and Lembeck's characters. Some of the comedy is key in showing how these characters cope with their nearly hopeless situation, handled well by Wilder and the actors (Strauss' performance even gained him an Oscar nomination) but some of it just seems tacked on and out of place, like when a drunken Strauss thinks that Lembeck is a hell.

But that is a small qualm, and the rest of the film is excellent. The direction and writing are great in showing us a war film, a mystery, a thriller and a dark comedy all at once. I'd have to say I like the acting the most though, Holden (who won a leading Oscar for his work in this) is suave and charming, as well as mischievous and cynical, he creates a real 'cool' character without trying too. And the rest of the cast - Graves, Otto Preminger - are admirable as well. The POWs aren't clichés or caricatures, they're all their own separate people.

'Stalag 17' is great as a war movie, a mystery, a thriller and a dark comedy. It's a classic film, for all who appreciate good cinema, 8.5/10.

It's the end of 1944. Sgt. J.J. Sefton (William Holden) is a cynic and an opportunist who bets against fellow prisoners escaping. They're American POWs in Stalag 17. The prison commandant Oberst von Scherbach (Otto Preminger) seems to have an informer in Barrack 4. Sgt. Frank Price (Peter Graves) is the prisoners' security chief. Animal (Robert Strauss) is the barrack's loud wild man. Duke (Neville Brand) is the hothead. For some, the obvious leak is Sefton who trades with the guards. After some more setbacks, the men beat up Sefton. Sefton figures that he needs to find the real leak.

I don't really like the broad comedy coming from Animal and Harry. They just take the seriousness out of darker POW story. The two different tones keep stepping on each other. I really don't like the broad comedy. The secret informer is quite compelling although I would have made Dunbar fake the sabotage story. That would have worked even better especially considering Sefton talking about how his mother buying his way out of trouble.

Shades of Martin and Lewis, Abbott and Costello, and all the other comics who made service comedies in the WWII and postwar years. You'd almost expect Dean and Jerry to show up in Stalag 17. In fact, Robert Strauss, who frequently showed up as the loud but stupid sergeant in some of the service comedies, appears in Stalag 17 as Animal. He was Jerry's bete noire in "Jumping Jacks" and "Sailor Beware."

Strauss's simple-minded humor is kind of fun in those other movies but not what you would expect in a picture by the sophisticated Billy Wilder. You can laugh at the first depiction of Animal's unrequited love for Betty Grable, but not at the tenth. Similarly, the sequence of men dancing with other men to romantic music is funny at first, then gets boring and even a bit disconcerting after the sequence is prolonged and the men give no further evidence that this is at least partly being done in fun. There is much other laying on too thick of humorous material that is usually seen as kid stuff.

In the midst of this, we have a drama, played out by capable actors, including William Holden in a fine performance. Sig Ruman does his "comical German" schtik as in so many other films, and this is a humor very different from the Robert Strauss brand. Even higher on the scale of sophistication is Otto Preminger's riff on the Erich von Stroheim role in Grand Illusion.

Two movies in one, then. Much of the goings on, particularly the humorous parts, seem improbable, yet the movie was based on a play by former POWs. So go figure. It's hard to imagine that being in a German prison camp would give rise to big laughs. Maybe you had to be there.

On the other hand, maybe World War II has been reduced to raw material for the likes of "Hogan's Heroes."

I wanted to shout "The Battle of the Bulge is almost over. Next Christmas - HOME!".

Yes, this film is bit of a caricature. The hammy guy doing the mail delivery, the gags on the Germans (I love the "Many Adolfs" gag); Animal (Richard Strauss) slobbering over real-life WWII pinup photos of Betty Grable; the fake-jolly cutesy German guard (Sig Rumann); and the typical nasty Nazi (Otto Preminger) - all wisecrack their way thru this cold dreary December...You can see where Hogan's Heroes came from.

Septin (William Holden) is the POW shyster who runs his various businesses making money off his suspicious co-prisoners.

He has made so much off his fellow prisoners that he can even bribe the guards to let him go in and hook up with some Russian female prisoner in the next camp. This rather unbelievable event is part of the first part of the movie. Think 1960's Hogan's Heroes TV series! What's the crisis? A Traitor - a German soldier disguised as a fellow POW is in their midst.

Septin is their top suspect. Here, the movie gets serious (mostly).

The German spy (disguised as fellow POW)finds out how the new prisoner blew up a trainload of ammo. How will the POWs get the new prisoner away from the Nazis before the Gestapo gets the POW saboteur? How can they silence the German spy without getting shot by the Germans in reprisals??? It's not as good as THE GREAT ESCAPE, but is still worth watching.

Here, the parts are more than the whole. Various scenes will stick with you. Watch to see!

There are plenty of highlights in this film. The first highlight is the strong acting. Each character seems larger than life and going a bit mad due to being cooped up for too long. These emotions all come to a head when they suspect Sefton of being the informant, and all hell breaks loose. The second highlight is the way it shows the camp life, as all the men form a strong community and we can totally believe all of their camaraderie, especially when they engage in daring activities or simple mouse races. The third highlight is the comedic moments that make camp life seem more absurd than harsh.

However, these are let down by the divided nature of the film. Is it a drama or comedy? The comedic moments are too many and it's hard to take the stakes seriously. The importance of escaping the camp or finding the informant don't seem very pertinent when the worst fault of the camp seems to just be boredom. Since the main conflict of the film becomes muted as a result, I can't give it as many stars as I want to.

This film is set inside a German prison camp and we focus on 'Stalag 17´ that is full of American airmen and is led by warden Richard Erdman (Hoffy). He is a bit of an underwhelming leader (he doesn´t have the necessary presence) but that is a casting fault. Alongside him as his number two is Peter Graves (Security) who is responsible for prison breakouts and general security issues. The camp prisoners go about their daily routines but there is a spy amongst them. Can the spy be exposed before the next escape attempt?

The film is ok if you like this genre but be warned that there is way too much comedy. I mean really stupid comedy. I would have preferred a serious war film about a spy in the midst of a camp.

William Holden (Sefton) is the main character and he is quite unpleasant in that he goes about his business in a really stupid manner. He deserves to be beaten up by his colleagues for the manner in which he carries himself whilst amongst friends and colleagues. Oh, guess what! Ha ha. Deserved!

The film is a little long and the comedy is sometimes completely out-of-place belonging in a cartoon or a slapstick comedy short, eg, flicking paint over the face of a German guard with no consequence, a German guard joining in a game of volleyball as if it is the most fun thing he has ever seen, etc. The list goes on. Every German is played so as to get the fullest comedic possibilities from the scene. Is this a comedy or a serious film? And who is that guy who keeps doing impressions!! What is that doing in the film?

Time for a game of chess. Remember that the Queen is a very useful piece.