Stalag 17 (Billy Wilder, 1953)

Stalag 17 (Billy Wilder, 1953)
Rating: 8.3

Billy Wilder's film is an interesting mishmash of tension and comedy. A WWII prison camp was a bold location for such a film with so much humor, especially in 1953, less than ten years after the war, and it almost feels like two separate films at times because of the dynamic range of tone shifts from scene to scene. Animal and Harry make up a frequently used for broad humor that I could have done without, however there are a few pretty good gags such as the German's giving each barrack a copy of Mein Kampf and a mini evergreen as a Christmas gift, and the letter from a mother who is convinced that her son is fairing well in the prison camp which she hears has a tennis court which is frozen over in the winter and used as an ice skating rink. The German's are portrayed more as simple minded caricatures speaking in broken English who are easily duped, while the real villain is backstabbing American's ratting out their fellow comrades. Like most Wilder films, Stalag 17 has a pretty direct message. This time around he seems to be disturbed by the rampant Mcarthyism that ran wild during the late 40s through the late 50s. In 1947 Hollywood began blacklisting employees and people were anonymously being accused and interrogated based purely on hearsay in many cases. The film parallels these activities as the main character, Sgt. Sefton, the cynical swindler, played by William Holden who won an Academy Award for this role, is falsely accused of being the rat and Dunbar is sold out to the Germans and sent to be interrogated for his act of sabotage without any evidence. With a running time of just about 2 hours, I felt that the film was a little too long and became redundant towards the end, but still a very solid film.