#stalag 17

[misterivy]

[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.

[sewerfight]

[oneinchbarrier]

[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)

[sweetfirebird]

Ultimate rare pair Sefton and Dunbar from Stalag 17??

[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)

[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)

[whirlpool-blogs]

Masters of the Air behind-the-scenes

[oneinchbarrier]

[majorhortonisonleaveinlondon]

If you’re wanting to watch Band of Brothers/The Pacific/Masters of the Air in chronological order with BoB 1st Currahee episode split up in the dates on screen I made a list

(Updated: April 12, 2014 7:58pm pst)

July, 10 1942 Easy Company Trains in Camp Tocca (Band of Brothers Ep. 1 Currahee 2001) August 7, 1942, Allied forces land on Guadalcanal (The Pacific Ep. 1 Guadalcanal/Leckie 2010) September 18, 1942, 7th Marines Land on Guadalcanal (The Pacific Ep. 2 Basilone 2010) December 1942 The 1st Marine Division on Guadalcanal is relieved (The Pacific Ep. 3 Melbourne 2010) *June 23, 1943, Easy Company Trains in Camp Mackall N.C. (Band of Brothers Ep. 1 Currahee) * June 25, 1943, 100th Bomb Group flew its first 8th Air Force combat mission (Master of the Air Ep. 1 2024)

July 16, 1943 the 100th Bomb Group bombed U-Boats in Tronbhdim (Masters of the Air Ep.2 2024) August 17, 1943 the 4th Bomb Wing of the 100th Bomb Group bombed Regenberg (Masters of the Air Ep. 3 2024) *September 6, 1943, Easy Company Boards transport ship in Brooklyn Naval Yard (Band of Brothers Ep. 1 Currahee)* September 16, 1943, William Quinn and Charles Bailey leave Belgium (Masters of the Air Ep.4 2024) September 18, 1943 -*East Company trains in Aldbourne, England (Band of Brothers Ep. 1 Currahee)* -John 'Bucky' Egan returns from leave to join the mission to bomb Munster (Master of the Air Ep.5 2024) October 14, 1943, John ‘Bucky’ Egan interrogated at Dulag Lut, Frankfurt Germany (Masters of the Air Ep. 6 2024) December 26, 1943, 1st Marine Division lands on Cape Gloucester (The Pacific Ep. 4 Gloucester/Pavuvu/Banika 2010) March 7, 1944, Stalag Luft III Sagan, Germany, Germans find the concealed radio Bucky was using to learn news of the War (Master of the Air Ep.7 2024) *June 4, 1944, D-Day Invasion postponed (Band of Brothers Ep. 1 Currahee)* *June 5, 1944 Easy Company Boards air transport planes bound for Normandy (Band of Brothers Ep. 1 Currahee)* June 6, 1944, 00:48 & 01:40 First airborne troops begin to land on Normandy (Band of Brothers Ep. 2 Day of Days 2001)

June, 7 1944 Easy Company Takes Carentan (Band of Brothers 3x10 Carentan)

August 12, 1944, The 332nd Fighter Group attack Radar stations in Southern France (Masters of the Air Ep.8 2024)

September 15, 1944 U.S. Marines landed on Peleliu at 08:32, on September 15, 1944 (the Pacific Part Five: Peleliu Landing)

September 16, 1944 Marines take Peleliu airfield (the Pacific Part Six: Airfield)

September, 17 1944 Operation Market Garden -(Band of Brothers 4x10 Replacements)

October 22/23, 1944, 2100 – 0200 Operation Pegasus (Band of Brothers 5x10 Crossroads)

October, 1944 Battle of Peleliu continues (the Pacific Part Seven: Peleliu Hills)

December 16, 1944 Battle of the Bulge (Band of Brothers 6x10 Bastogne)


January, 1945 Battle of Foy (Band of Brothers 7x10 The Breaking Point)


February 14, 1945 David Webb rejoins the 506th in Haguenau (Band of Brothers 8x10 The Last Patrol)

April 5, 1945 506th Finds abandoned Concentration Camp
(Band of Brothers 9x10 Why We Fight 2001)

April 1-June 22, 1945 Battle of Okinawa (The Pacific Part Nine: Okinawa)


May 7, 1945, Germany Surrenders V-E Day - (Master of the Air Ep. 9 2024) - (Band of Brothers 10x10 Points 2001)

August 15 The Empire of Japan surrenders end of the War (The Pacific Part Ten: Home)