#stalag 17

[misterivy]

[filmkareleri]

Stalag 17 (1953) // Billy Wilder

An ode to efficient film making and a true classic.

[oldshowbiz]

The Washington State Penitentiary production of Stalag 17.

[goingrampant]

As my last post might suggest, I've been watching through Hogan's Heroes. Making the conflict so damn silly is an interesting approach. Of course, Mel Brooks comes to mind. Feels not too far removed from Get Smart comedy, anyway (radio in the coffee pot/phone in the shoe, for instance). Hogan's an interesting kind of all-American hero, feeling a bit like what they were going for in '80s cartoons, in a dynamic with Klink and Schultz kind of like Spongebob Squarepants with Squidward and Mr. Krabs in the sense of unrealistically but charismatically walking all over them. It really feels like a cartoon.

Personally, I prefer Stalag 17 because even though the Nazis are comedically incompetent, they still represent an unlikable threat. I get what Hogan's Heroes is going for with the Nazis as so incompetent that they have to be buddy-buddy with the powerful Americans they supposedly dominate but who secretly run the prison camp, but the whole premise is intrinsically flawed for removing the context of why we should care about them as an enemy at all. Stalag 17, which the show is based on, doesn't take it to that extreme and keeps the Nazis powerful enough to be a clear threat while also depicting the American prisoners humorously subverting them. The black comedy can then be effective with the contrast in place. Like with bees building a honeycomb, they have to build the hard walls around where the sweet honey can be suspended.

In a sense, the conflict between Hogan's Heroes and Stalag 17 is a very specific manifestation of the dialog between The Great Dictator and To Be or Not to Be, where the former is very silly to the extent of risking disrespect to the victims of Nazi oppression and the latter is silly but in contrast to a clearly delineated scary threat. Mel Brooks took inspiration from To Be or Not to Be and eventually made his own version that ultimately restructures its comedy as somewhere between the original and Hogan's Heroes. I see the Jack Benny version as the real gold standard of black comedy that subverts the Nazis while still clearly framing them as a deadly threat.

Eh... but it's still funny when Hogan walks all over Klink, and Schultz pointedly ignores all signs that the prisoners aren't cowed in the least.

[oneinchbarrier]

[sewerfight]

[audreyhepburninblackandwhite]

Audrey Hepburn behind the scenes of Stalag 17 (1953)

[byneddiedingo]

William Holden in Stalag 17 (Billy Wilder, 1953)

Cast: William Holden, Don Taylor, Otto Preminger, Robert Strauss, Harvey Lembeck, Richard Erdman, Peter Graves, Neville Brand, Sig Ruman, Edmund Trczinski,. Screenplay: Billy Wilder, Edwin Blum, based on a play by Donald Bevan and Edmund Trzcinski. Cinematography: Ernest Laszlo. Art direction: Franz Bachelin, Hal Pereira. Film editing: George Tomasini. Music: Franz Waxman.

After their success with Sunset Blvd. (1950), Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett went their separate ways. They had been one of the most successful teams in Hollywood history since 1938, when they began collaborating as screenwriters, and then as a producer (Brackett), director (Wilder), and co-writer team starting with Five Graves to Cairo in 1943. But Wilder decided that he wanted to be a triple-threat: producer, director, and writer. His first effort in this line, Ace in the Hole (1951), was, however, a commercial flop -- now regarded as a classic. So he seems to have decided to go for the sure thing: film versions of plays that had been Broadway hits and therefore had a built-in attraction to audiences. His next three movies, Stalag 17, Sabrina (1954), and The Seven Year Itch (1955), all fell into this category. But what Wilder really needed was a steady writing collaborator, which he didn't find until 1957, when he teamed up with I.A.L. Diamond for the first time on Love in the Afternoon. The collaboration hit pay dirt in 1959 with Some Like It Hot, and won Wilder his triple-threat Oscar with The Apartment (1960). Which is all to suggest that Stalag 17 appeared while Wilder was in a kind of holding pattern in his career. It's not a particularly representative work, given its origins on stage which bring certain expectations from those who saw it there and also from those who want to see a reasonable facsimile of the stage version. The play, set in a German P.O.W. camp in 1944, was written by two former inmates of the titular prison camp, Donald Bevan and Edmund Trczinski. In revising it, Wilder built up the character of the cynical Sgt. Sefton (William Holden), partly to satisfy Holden, who had walked out of the first act of the play on Broadway. Sefton is in many ways a redraft of Holden's Joe Gillis in Sunset Blvd., worldly wise and completely lacking in sentimentality, a character type that Holden would be plugged into for the rest of his career, and it won him the Oscar that he probably should have won for that film. But it's easy to see why Holden wanted the role beefed up, because Stalag 17 is the kind of play and movie that it's easy to get lost in: an ensemble with a large all-male cast, each one eager to make his mark. Harvey Lembeck and Robert Strauss, as the broad comedy Shapiro and "Animal," steal most of the scenes -- Strauss got a supporting actor nomination for the film -- and Otto Preminger as the camp commandant and Sig Ruman as the German Sgt. Schulz carry off many of the rest. The cast even includes one of the playwrights, Edmund Trczinski, as "Triz," the prisoner who gets a letter from his wife, who claims that he "won't believe it," but an infant was left on her doorstep and it looks just like her. Triz's "I believe it," which he obviously doesn't, becomes a motif through the film. Bowdlerized by the Production Code, Stalag 17 hasn't worn well, despite Holden's fine performance, and it's easy to blame it for creating the prison-camp service comedy genre, which reached its nadir in the obvious rip-off Hogan's Heroes, which ran on TV for six seasons, from 1965 to 1971.

[cinemaquiles]

Você sabia? O fim inacreditável de um famoso astro de Hollywood!

[courseyoulovemeyoudontknowme]

Best William Holden movies and performances:

1. Sunset Boulevard - Billy Wilder (1950)

2. The Bridge on the River Kwai - David Lean (1957)

3. Network - Sidney Lumet (1976)

4. Stalag 17 - Billy Wilder (1953)

5. The Wild Bunch - Sam Peckinpah (1969)

6. Sabrina - Billy Wilder (1954)

7. Born Yesterday - George Cukor (1950)

[rye-views]

Stalag 17 (1953) dir. Billy Wilder. 7.7/10

I would not recommend this movie to my friends. I would not rewatch this movie.

I enjoyed the little details to escape in the beginning like the bucket. I like that they dance with each other. I found this to be an enjoyable movie. I like the camaraderie here.

[davros42]

Now Playing - Stalag 17 (1953)

[gunitnekoh]

My family has a movie that we all just love and is just full of quotes we repeat all the time: Stalag 17

(Mostly we quote Harry and Animal, the two jokesters)

We can watch it any time but It’s become a tradition to watch it at Christmas (it’s a Christmas movie the same way Die Hard is a Christmas movie. It’s not a feel good movie but it does takes place during Christmas)

When one of us it talking about someone the other doesn’t know we jokingly say “nah you wouldn’t know’em … unless you had your house robbed”

We’ll say “gut morgen, sargents!” In the worse German accident.

If we throw something and hit someone. “Give that man a Kewpie Dollllll!”

When we finally understand something some is trying to tell us or give a demonstration “Ach sooooooo”

If someone gets a lot of something/items or a lot of mail “Shapiro. Shapiro. Shapiro. …”

“And just what’s makes YOU so popular?”

And so many other quotes

“It takes a gimmick, Animal.”

“Hey, look at me I’m your baby!”

“Sugarlip Shapiro” (fanning ourselves)

“We’re gonna plant it, Animal. We gonna grow a chicken for Christmas.”

“Raus!” “Rawr rawr!” “Down, boy”

“‘Vise Crackers’”. Where’d he learn his English, in a pretzel factory?”

(Growling) “Schnicklefritz! You made me bet on Epwapose!” “I clocked him this morning!”

“You always pour from the LEFT.”

(In a haughty voice) “tea is being served on the veranda.”

And the list goes on

Tell me about a joke that you and your family absolutely lose your shit over that other people would not get.

Tell me about the very unique way you pick on each other.

Or tell me about a pop culture reference your family will never let die and you’ve never heard any other family use it.

*chin on hands* I just love hearing these stories. (I’m obsessed with little loser microcultures like families and very niche fandoms) So lay it on me.

[lieutenantselnia]

Random appreciation post for TV shows about special task forces that are also oddly endearing (found) families, they just have a very special place in my heart❤️

Hogan's Heroes (1965-1971)

The Penguins of Madagascar (2008-2015)

Star Wars: The Bad Batch (2021-2024)

[oneinchbarrier]

[whirlpool-blogs]

Masters of the Air behind-the-scenes