Stalag 17

Stalag 17 begins on "the longest night of the year" in December 1944 in a Luftwaffe prisoner-of-war camp somewhere along the Danube River. The story is narrated by Clarence Harvey "Cookie" Cook. The camp holds Poles, Czechs, Russian women and, in the American compound, 640 sergeants from bomber crews, gunners, radiomen, and flight engineers.

Two Americans, Manfredi and Johnson, try to escape through a tunnel, but are shot by waiting guards when they emerge outside the barbed wire fence. The other prisoners conclude that one of their own must have told the Germans. Suspicion falls on J. J. Sefton, an enterprising cynic who barters openly with the German guards for eggs, silk stockings, blankets and other luxuries. He also organizes rat races and various other profitable ventures, using Cookie as his sidekick. Sefton tells the men it is foolish to try to escape.

The lives of the prisoners are depicted: they receive mail, eat terrible food, wash in the latrine sinks, and collectively do their best to keep sane and defy the camp's commandant, Oberst [Colonel] von Scherbach. They use a clandestine radio, smuggled from barracks to barracks, to pick up the BBC and the war news. One German guard, Feldwebel [Staff Sergeant] Schulz, confiscates the radio in another success for the "stoolie."

"Animal" Kuzawa is infatuated with movie star Betty Grable, and becomes depressed when he learns she has married bandleader Harry James. Harry "Sugar Lips" Shapiro gets seven letters at mail call and makes Animal think they are from women. When Kuzawa sees a finance company letterhead, Harry admits they repossessed his Plymouth.

Sefton bribes the guards to let him spend the day in the Russian women's barracks. The other prisoners conclude that this is his reward for having informed the Germans about the radio. When he returns, he is accused of being a spy.

On that same day, von Scherbach takes Lieutenant James Dunbar, a temporary inmate, away. Dunbar admitted to the other prisoners that he had blown up a passing German ammunition train while he was being transported to the camp. Sefton resents Dunbar for coming from a wealthy Boston family and accuses him of having used his family's fortune to make it through Officer Candidate School while Sefton washed out. The men are convinced that Sefton betrayed Dunbar, so they beat him up and ostracize him. Sefton then decides to uncover the identity of the real spy. During a fake air raid, he remains unnoticed in the evacuated barracks and overhears the barracks security chief, Frank Price, talking with Schulz in German and divulging the means by which Dunbar destroyed the train (a matchbook with a lit cigarette tucked into the edge to create a time delay). Sefton considers what to do. If he exposes Price, the Germans will simply remove him and plant him in another camp. Killing him could expose the entire barracks to retaliatory execution.

On Christmas Day, the men find out that SS men are coming to take Dunbar to Berlin for his sabotage. They create a diversion, free Dunbar, and hide him in the Water Tower. Nobody but Hoffy, the compound chief, knows where he is. The Germans, despite extensive efforts, are unable to find Dunbar. After von Scherbach threatens to raze the camp if necessary, the men decide one of them must get Dunbar out. Price volunteers, but then Sefton accuses him of being a spy. Sefton asks him, "When was Pearl Harbor?" Price knows the date, but Sefton quickly asks what time he heard the news. Without thinking, Price answers 6:00 p.m. and that he was eating dinner — the correct time in Berlin, but not in Cleveland, his claimed hometown. Sefton then reaches into Price's jacket pocket and extracts the "mailbox" used to exchange messages with the Germans, a hollowed-out black chess queen.

Sefton decides to take Dunbar out himself because he likes the odds and the expected reward from Dunbar's family. The men give Sefton enough time to get Dunbar out of the water tower above one of the latrines, then throw Price out into the yard with tin cans tied to his legs. The ruse works: Price is killed in a hail of bullets, creating a diversion that allows Sefton and Dunbar to cut through the barbed wire and escape. A pleased Cookie whistles "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" as things go back to normal in the barracks.

Stalag 17 was a commercial success. Produced on a budget of $1,661,530, it earned $3.3 million in US theatrical rentals[5] and $10 million in worldwide markets. The film was well received and is considered, along with The Great Escape and The Bridge on the River Kwai (also starring Holden), among the best World War II Prisoner of War films. Bosley Crowther praised the film, calling it "cracker jack movie entertainment".[6] More recently, film critic James Berardinelli stated that "among the 20th century directors, few were more versatile than Billy Wilder".[7] The film currently has a 97% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 37 reviews, and the site's consensus stating: "Stalag 17 survives the jump from stage to screen with flying colors, thanks to Billy Wilder's typically sterling direction and a darkly funny script."[8]

• The television series Hogan's Heroes (1965 to 1971) is based on a similar Stalag.
• "Stalag 17" is a 1973 reggae riddim, composed by Ansell Collins and named after the film.
• The episode "Did You See The Sunrise?" (1982), of the television series Magnum, P.I., opens with Stalag 17 playing on the TV, as the main character, Thomas Magnum, is watching and remembering his childhood, and the enjoyment he had with the movie, only to grow up and experience his own wartime imprisonment.
• An uncredited William Holden reprised the character of a cigar-chewing POW in the 1979 war movie Escape to Athena. Since he is seen only briefly, it can be presumed that "Sefton" made another successful escape while no one was looking.

• Stalag 17 at IMDb
• Stalag 17 at AllMovie
• Stalag 17 at the Internet Broadway Database
• Stalag 17 at the TCM Movie Database
• Stalag 17 at the American Film Institute Catalog
• Stalag 17 at Rotten Tomatoes