BACK-STORY:
“Stalag 17” is considered
one of the great WWII POW films. It is
sometimes mentioned with “Bridge on the River Kwai” and “The Great Escape” as
the triumvirate of top tier POW movies.
It was released in 1953. It was
based on a stage play by two veterans of Stalag 17B in Austria. Director Billy Wilder reworked the play for
the better and got pretty boy William Holden to play the lead even though
Holden was unhappy with the cynicism and selfishness of the Sefton character. Holden walked out on the play when he went to
see it. Wilder refused to soften the
character and Holden went on to win the Oscar for Best Actor. Wilder was nominated, as was Robert Strauss
for Best Supporting Actor. The movie was
shot in California and the mud was real.
Wilder made the interesting decision to shoot the scenes in chronological
order to where supposedly some of the main actors did not know who the stoolie
was until the end (which sounds like bull shit to me). The movie was a smash hit in America and
Europe.
OPENING:
The movie opens with
cynical narration by Cookie (Gil Stratton).
He asks why there aren’t any movies about POWs? (I guess he had not seen “The Wooden Horse” –
1950) This will be the tale of a spy in
a barracks. Two prisoners escape through
a hole under the stove. The tunnel is in
the wash area. Sefton bets they won’t
make it. What a jerk! Machine gun fire proves him right and he wins
some cigarettes. It turns out that
Sefton trades cigarettes with the Germans and has a stash of luxuries that he
trades for more cigarettes. Some of the
cigarettes from the bet buy him an egg that he eats while the other PWs are
feasting on potato soup. Sefton is an
anti-social, self-preservationist. “It’s
everyone for himself – dog eat dog”. He
mentions that attempting escape is foolish.
SUMMARY:
The film bounces between
scenes of barracks life and scenes that develop the stoolie angle. A guard named Schulz (Sig Ruman) rousts them
for roll call. (The makers sued “Hogan’s
Heroes” for obvious reasons.) Although
the character is not a buffoon like in the TV show, he is there for comic
relief. The commandant is a Col. Von
Scherbach (Otto Preminger). He plays him
as a smug Nazi bastard. He is somewhere
in between Von Luger (“The Great Escape”) and Saito (“The Bridge over the River
Kwai”).
The film makes an
effort to depict typical goings-on in a camp.
There is a mouse race (run by Sefton), peeping at Russian women in the
adjoining camp, Christmas caroling, a dance with some of the men role-playing
women, mail call, volley ball, listening to the clandestine radio, etc. Woven into this is the main story line of “who
is the stoolie?” Sefton is the first to
float the idea that someone is informing to the Germans which back-fires on him
because everyone naturally assumes being a “black marketeer” is just a small
leap to “collaborator”. The audience
learns early that the stoolie is passing messages to Schulz using the device of
a loop in a lamp wire.
Two new prisoners
arrive. One, Dunbar (Don Taylor), is a
rich boy who had a past with Sefton.
Sefton holds a grudge against him, but he is a true hero. He tells the barracks of his destruction of a
German munitions train on the way to incarceration. Of course, word of this gets to the
commandant who has him brought in for interrogation. Sefton is blamed for this and beaten up. While bed-ridden he figures out the secret of
the lamp. The barracks hatches a plan to
rescue and hide Dunbar in the water tower.
Someone will have to get him out.
Price (Peter Graves), barracks security, offers to do the job.
CLOSING:
Sefton exposes Price as
the stoolie. He volunteers to get Dunbar
out because he figures it will mean a big payout from the rich guy’s
family. He will need a distraction and
what better than throwing Price into the compound with noise-makers tied to his
legs. As Sefton leaves he tells his
mates “If I ever run into any of you bums on a street corner, let’s just
pretend we’ve never met before.” Then
Wilder backs off a bit in the characterization by having Sefton salute and
smile. Price attracts the attention of
the machine gun towers as Sefton and Dunbar use wire cutters to escape. Graves gets a great death scene. The movie closes with one of the funniest
lines in war movie history. When Shapiro
(Harvey Lembeck) asks what made Sefton turn heroic, Animal (Strauss) responds: “Maybe he just wanted to steal our
wire-cutters. You ever think of that?”
RATINGS:
Acting A+
Action N/A
Accuracy N/A
Realism B-
Plot B-
Overall B
WOULD CHICKS DIG IT? Yes. It is
a deft blend of comedy and suspense. The
movie is definitely PG in violence and language. Females might be disappointed in the measures
Holden took to dehandsome himself. (That
didn’t stop him for entertaining lady friends in his trailer during the
filming.)
ACCURACY:
The movie is fictional so
this category does not apply. The
screenwriters may have incorporated some actual incidents in the plot, but the
main plot points seem unlikely to have occurred in any camp. Not that there weren’t some collaborators,
but I am aware of no incident where the Germans managed to plant one of their
own in a barracks. I also never read
about a PW blowing up a munitions train with a matchbox incendiary.
CRITIQUE:
Although it was not the
first WWII prisoner of war film (sorry, Cookie), “Stalag 17” certainly laid a
strong foundation for the subgenre. It
established some of the template. Most
of the action takes place in the barracks.
There is a lot of interaction between “hale fellows well met”. Comic relief is thrown in. The men try to make the best of their
difficult conditions. Those conditions
(since it’s a German camp) are not intolerable to the point where many men in the audience (and all the
fourteen year old boys) would trade places with them for a week. “Stalag 17” is not typical in its mystery
subplot and the fact that it is not predominately about an escape attempt. I can think of no other POW movie that
includes humor, suspense, mystery, and a dislikable central character.
The main strength of
the film is the acting. Holden is great
as possibly the first anti-hero in an American WWII movie, POW or
otherwise. Wilder brings out the best
from an actor reluctant to play against his usual roles. Holden may not have deserved the Oscar (he
personally thought Burt Lancaster should have won for “From Here to Eternity”). In fact, Wilder works wonders with the
cast. It was genius and gutsy to cast
Otto Preminger as the commandant.
Preminger was legendary for treating actors like Von Scherbach treats
the prisoners. So I guess you could say
Preminger was playing himself. Graves is
appropriately hissable as the villain, although it is obvious to everyone
(except the actors supposedly) that he is the bad guy early on. Strauss did not deserve an Oscar nod, but he
and Lembeck do have some humorous moments.
Neville Brand (a WWII veteran) scores as the barracks tough guy. Lefton memorably strikes a match on his
cheek. The only false note is from Jay
Lawrence (Larry Storch’s brother) as Sgt. Bagradian. Bargradian does impressions of people that
could not have been funny in 1953 and certainly are not funny today.
The movie is famous
(and has been criticized) for its broad humor.
I have to admit much of it is silly, but there are some truly funny
lines. Hell, just the way Marko the
Mailman says “At ease, at ease” is LOL.
When Trzcinski (one of the screenwriters,
playing himself) receives a letter from his wife he says “ I believe it. My wife says, ‘Darling,
you won't believe it, but I found the most adorable baby on our doorstep and
I've decided to keep it for our very own. Now you won't believe it, but it's
got exactly my eyes and nose.’ Why does she keep saying I won't believe it? I
believe it! I believe it.” Schulz gets some good ones like
“The barracks should
be schpic, and also schpan!” Even
Preminger gets a moment when he puts on his boots so Von Scherbach can click
his heels during a phone call to a superior.
It’s the kind of movie that leaves you smiling, but guiltily because you
know the real thing was not as funny.
However, American soldiers do tend to maintain their senses of humor
even in tough situations.
The movie is technically
sound. Wilder’s cinematography gives the
movie a dynamism that overcomes the static nature of the barracks. Many of the shots have depth to them. The set is nicely authentic looking. The barracks has nice touches like pin-ups,
laundry hanging, and graffiti carved into the bunks. The score is used sparingly and not to force
a mood on the audience.
CONCLUSION:
“Stalag 17” is an entertaining movie
that holds up fairly well although I doubt my students would be very
impressed. The top-notch acting and the
blending of humor with the seriousness of a prison camp with a stoolie in it
makes it different. Possibly this would
not have worked without Wilder at the helm, but it does work. With that said, it is very overrated at #18
on the list of 100 Greatest War Movies.
I would have it in the top 100, but not in the top 50. It is inconceivable that it could be rated 26
spots higher than “The Great Escape”.
That’s insane.
I read this in a book many years ago. Canadian POWs captured at Dieppe in august of 1942 were forced to do manual labor on farms in Germany. They used the match book fire bomb trick in barns filled with straw. They would throw the bombs in just before leaving so that they were five miles down the road when the fires started and would not be blamed.
ReplyDeleteIt's also very obviously a film based on a play. Like The Rope. Mostly confined to a room. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But it explains some of the 14 year old lack of interest.
ReplyDeleteI might be the target demographic for those second-rate movie star impressions because I smile every time I see those scenes.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing I enjoy in this movie is the funny and sometimes goofy interactions between and among the prisoners. They are captives living in discomfort and privation but they are also young men and they easily fall into the sort of playful exuberance that seems to develop when a bunch of young men hang out together.
I see these kind of scenes in many American war movies, probably to show the camaraderie of the men and create a levity that will make the dramatic scenes all the starker in contract, but it also tracks with accounts of actual servicemen - anecdotes of this kind go back at least as far as the Civil War, and the phenomenon not only continues to this day but is now sometimes recorded in the archives of YouTube.
There are a lot of other great scenes and great characters in the movie. My favorite is probably the scene where Sefton, totally ostracized and distrusted, notices a detail that puts him on the trail of the stoolie.
I like your comment about the humor is used to make the drama starker. I think you may have something there. One reason I love "Platoon" is it has the camaraderie, but it also pits the two groups within the platoon against each other. There's not much humor, though.
ReplyDeleteI thought the impressions done by Jay Laurence were outstanding !
ReplyDeleteI don't disagree. I just felt they were out of place. Like Bob Newhart doing a telephone routine in "Hell is for Heroes".
DeleteD for ‘action’ is way too low. 12 Angry Men has little ‘action’ but is also a classic. In other words, you don’t need ‘action’ to make a good film.
ReplyDeleteThanks for catching that. I meant to put N/A because it is not a movie that would have action.
ReplyDeleteJust some nitpicking here. I realise that, for the purposes of telling a story, accommodations to credulity must be taken. However, in terms of historicity, I'd question if the movie's fictitious stalag for captured Allied airmen would have been operated by the Heer rather than the Luftwaffe. The layout of the stalag is also problematic. It was normal practice for the camp administration to be separated from the prisoner' area by a secure barrier. POWs could not just saunter onto the commandant's verandah to peruse notices or jump police who have attended to remove a prisoner. Generally, the vegetation around a camp was removed to provide guards with a clear line of sight. Moving from a breached fence to the forest would have required running the gauntlet of soldiers in the watchtowers. It is also hard to imagine why the Germans would deploy a valuable asset such as a fit and young American-passing spy to a stalag with no history of successful escapes. I would imagine he would have been better employed in a Dulag Luft where he could collect information from recently captured and perhaps emotionally vulnerable Allied airmen. A few technical errors include the Germans wearing WWI model helmets, some bizarrely embroidered breast eagles, the guards' use of the US 1919 Browning machine gun (although, in one scene, an MG42 can be seen in a guards' tower), the SD officers sent to collect Lt. Dunbar would have been wearing grey service uniforms not black pre-War SS parade uniforms.
ReplyDelete