Stalag 17
Greater than The Great Escape, American prisoner of war tale Stalag 17 is a darkly comic theatre adaptation from director Billy Wilder. Simultaneously fiery and farcical, it’s a fitting final third for Wilder’s 1950s hat trick that also includes Sunset Blvd and Ace in the Hole, each in their own way a cutting, cynical look at American nature.
William Holden may never have been better than he is here as a cocky black marketeer concerned only with himself – and thus prime suspect when it seems someone in his barracks is feeding information to their German captors. Wilder's fellow director Otto Preminger makes for a compelling villain free of comic-book Nazi stereotype, while gravelly voiced Robert Strauss is a riot as a lustful fool with Hollywood pin-ups on the brain. What lingers most is the film’s incisive study of American mob mentality, particularly potent considering its release at the tail end of the Hollywood Communism witch hunts. [Josh Slater-Williams]
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