Stalag 17
Film poster
Directed by	Billy Wilder
Produced by	Billy Wilder
Written by	Donald Bevan (play) Edmund Trzcinski (play) Edwin Blum Billy Wilder
Starring	William Holden Don Taylor Otto Preminger Robert Strauss Peter Graves Neville Brand
Music by	Franz Waxman
Cinematography	Ernest Laszlo, ASC
Editing by	George Tomasini
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)	May 29, 1953 July 1, 1953
Running time	120 min
Language	English
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Stalag 17 is a 1953 war film which tells the story of a group of American G.I.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, Neville Brand, Harvey Lembeck, and Peter Graves. (Strauss and Lembeck both appeared in the original Broadway production.) Image File history File linksMetadata Stalag_17. ... Billy Wilder (June 22, 1906 – March 27, 2002) was an Austrian-born, Jewish-American journalist, screenwriter, film director, and producer whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films. ... William Holden (April 17, 1918 – ca. ... Don Taylor (December 13, 1920 – December 29, 1998 was a movie actor and director best known for his performances in 1950s movies and the 1948 film noir The Naked City. ... Otto Ludwig Preminger (December 5, 1906 – April 23, 1986) was a film director. ... Beefy, bulldog-visaged actor Robert Strauss (1913 - 1975) was the son of a theatrical costume designer. ... Peter Graves (born March 18, 1926[1][2]) is an American film and television actor. ... Neville Brand (August 13, 1920 – April 16, 1992), was an American television and movie actor. ... Franz Waxman (December 24, 1906, Königshütte, Upper Silesia (now Chorzów, Poland) - February 24, 1967, Los Angeles, California), born Franz Wachsmann, was a German-born Jewish-American composer, known for his bravura Carmen Fantasy for violin and orchestra and for his musical scores for films. ... Ernest Laszlo (April 23, 1898–January 6, 1984) was an American cinematographer. ... George Tomasini (born April 20, 1909, died November 22, 1964) was the genius American film editor who often worked with very closely with film director Alfred Hitchcock. ... Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American motion picture production and distribution company, based in Hollywood, California. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom. ... is the 149th day of the year (150th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... The year 1953 in film involved some significant events. ... Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... is the 182nd day of the year (183rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... The year 1953 in film involved some significant events. ... The war film is a film genre concerned with warfare, usually about naval, air or land battles, sometimes focusing instead on prisoners of war, covert operations, military training or other related subjects. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... Geneva Convention definition A prisoner of war (POW) is a soldier, sailor, airman, or marine who is imprisoned by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict. ... Billy Wilder (June 22, 1906 – March 27, 2002) was an Austrian-born, Jewish-American journalist, screenwriter, film director, and producer whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films. ... William Holden (April 17, 1918 – ca. ... Don Taylor (December 13, 1920 – December 29, 1998 was a movie actor and director best known for his performances in 1950s movies and the 1948 film noir The Naked City. ... Otto Ludwig Preminger (December 5, 1906 – April 23, 1986) was a film director. ... Beefy, bulldog-visaged actor Robert Strauss (1913 - 1975) was the son of a theatrical costume designer. ... Neville Brand (August 13, 1920 – April 16, 1992), was an American television and movie actor. ... Late nebbishy Jewish sidekick and comedic actor who began acting in 1951 and ended his career in 1982, a few years before he died. ... Peter Graves (born March 18, 1926[1][2]) is an American film and television actor. ... For other uses of Broadway, see Broadway. ...

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. José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón (January 8, 1909 – January 26, 1992), was an Academy Award-winning Puerto Rican actor and film director, born in the Santurce district of San Juan, Puerto Rico. ... John Ericson (sometimes Erickson) (born Sep 25, 1926) in Düsseldorf, Germany is an actor and film and television star. ...

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). This article is about the Danube River. ... Gil Stratton Jr. ...

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. An escape tunnel is a form of secret passage used as part of an escape from captivity. ... Peter Graves (born March 18, 1926[1][2]) is an American film and television actor. ...

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. William Holden (April 17, 1918 – ca. ...

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, 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, Sergeant Schulz (Sig Ruman), confiscates the radio, another success for the "stoolie", whoever he is. Otto Ludwig Preminger (December 5, 1906 – April 23, 1986) was a film director. ... Sig Ruman (born Siegfried Rumann) (1884-1967) was a German-American actor known for his comic portrayals of pompous villains. ...

Sefton bribes the guards to let him spend the day in the women's barracks in the Russian section of the camp. The other prisoners spot him through Sefton's own 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), whom 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. His considerable property is taken and redistributed to the rest of the prisoners. Sefton decides to investigate and uncover the identity of the spy. Don Taylor (December 13, 1920 – December 29, 1998 was a movie actor and director best known for his performances in 1950s movies and the 1948 film noir The Naked City. ...

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 freed and hidden. The guards search the camp thoroughly, but cannot find him. Later, the men of Barracks Four, excluding Sefton and Joey (who suffers from shellshock), 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 had stayed behind in the barracks during a fake "air raid" and eavesdropped on Price speaking with Schulz). 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, Price betrays himself by answering 6 p.m. — the correct time of the attack in Germany. After that, Sefton reaches into Price's jacket pocket and extracts the "mailbox" used to exchange messages with the Germans, a hollowed-out chess piece. SS redirects here. ... This article is about the actual attack. ...

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 and 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, then 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 barbed wire and make their escape. Geneva Convention definition A prisoner of war (POW) is a soldier, sailor, airman, or marine who is imprisoned by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict. ...

Cast

William Holden (April 17, 1918 – ca. ... Don Taylor (December 13, 1920 – December 29, 1998 was a movie actor and director best known for his performances in 1950s movies and the 1948 film noir The Naked City. ... Otto Ludwig Preminger (December 5, 1906 – April 23, 1986) was a film director. ... Beefy, bulldog-visaged actor Robert Strauss (1913 - 1975) was the son of a theatrical costume designer. ... Late nebbishy Jewish sidekick and comedic actor who began acting in 1951 and ended his career in 1982, a few years before he died. ... Peter Graves (born March 18, 1926[1][2]) is an American film and television actor. ... Sig Ruman (born Siegfried Rumann) (1884-1967) was a German-American actor known for his comic portrayals of pompous villains. ... Neville Brand (August 13, 1920 – April 16, 1992), was an American television and movie actor. ... Richard Erdman (born Richard Erdmann June 1, 1925 in Enid, Oklahoma) is an American film and television actor and director. ... Gil Stratton Jr. ...

Casting

Both Charlton Heston and Kirk Douglas were considered for the role of Sefton. Holden was reluctant to play Sefton as he thought the character was 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. Charlton Heston (born October 4, 1924) is an US-american film actor, known for playing larger-than-life heroic roles such as Moses in The Ten Commandments, Colonel George Taylor in Planet of the Apes, and Judah Ben-Hur in Ben-Hur. ... Kirk Douglas (born Issur Danielovitch[1] on December 9, 1916) is an iconic Academy Award-winning American actor and film producer known for his cleft chin, his gravelly voice and his recurring roles as the kinds of characters Douglas himself once described as sons of bitches. He is also father...

Location

The prison camp set was built on the John Show Ranch in southwestern Woodland Hills, California.

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. The Bridge on the River Kwai is an Academy Award-winning 1957 World War II war film based on the novel Le Pont de la Rivière Kwaï by French writer Pierre Boulle. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... Geneva Convention definition A prisoner of war (POW) is a soldier, sailor, airman, or marine who is imprisoned by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict. ...

Awards and nominations

Holden won the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. His acceptance speech was the shortest on record ("Thank you"), until Alfred Hitchcock said "Thanks" upon receiving an honorary Oscar in 1968. Holden's speech was not planned to be brief; by the time he received his Oscar, the show was running long - back then the TV broadcast had a strict cutoff time - which forced Holden's quick remarks. Frustrated, Holden paid for a personal ad in the Hollywood trades to thank everyone he wanted to on Oscar night. Academy Award The Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, are the most prominent and most watched film awards ceremony in the world. ... Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. ... Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock KBE (August 13, 1899 â€“ April 29, 1980) was an iconic and highly influential British-born film director and producer who pioneered many techniques in the suspense and thriller genres. ...

In addition, Wilder was nominated for the Best Director Oscar, and Strauss for Best Supporting Actor.[3] The Academy Award for Directing is one of the awards given to people working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; the awards are voted on by other people within the industry. ... The Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor is one of the awards given to male actors working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; nominations are made by Academy members who are actors and actresses. ...

Availability

The film is currently available on VHS and DVD. A Special Edition DVD was released on March 21, 2006. Bottom view of VHS cassette with magnetic tape exposed Top view of VHS cassette with front casing removed The Video Home System, better known by its abbreviation VHS, is a recording and playing standard. ... DVD (also known as Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc - see Etymology) is a popular optical disc storage media format. ... is the 80th day of the year (81st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

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, virtually 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]

• 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 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.

• The opening of Wes Anderson's short film 2007 Hotel Chevalier, features the protagonist Jack casually watching the film in his hotel room.

Krems an der Donau is a city of Austria, in the federal state of Lower Austria, at the end of Wachau valley. ... For the band, see 1997 (band). ... Farming, ploughing rice paddy, in food, feed, fiber and other desired products by cultivation of certain plants and the raising of domesticated animals (livestock). ... The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) [1] is an online database of information about actors, movies, television shows, television stars and video games. ... Ross Bagdasarian (January 27, 1919 – January 16, 1972) was an American pianist, songwriter, actor, and record producer of Armenian ethnic descent, born in Fresno, California. ... This article is about the musical group. ... Hogan’s Heroes was a satirical American television situation comedy that ran from September 17, 1965, to July 4, 1971, on the CBS network for 168 episodes. ... Hotel Chevalier is a 2007 short film by director Wes Anderson. ...

Notes

1. ^ 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

External links

• Stalag 17 at the Internet Movie Database
• Review by Ed Howard at Only The Cinema

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