Pure Entertainment From the Silver Screen Master

Rating: 8/10 (25 July 2007)

Stalag 17, though only a good ol' American testosterone-driven entertainment, is a great piece of direction on the part of the true master it bears at the helm, Billy Wilder. Wilder flaunts the atmosphere of a screwball comedy, and fires off a lot of gags you would probably only find in one. Simultaneously, he builds very stern suspense with inherent tension and subtle mechanisms set by a few characters.
The film's plot screens a lot of very tense things that get us all worked up. It's about a character that deals with false accusations by an entire POW camp full of men that while they're in prison at least have each other. This character does not. He's excluded, beaten, and can only think about that one character who is smugly getting away with all that he's being accused of. And then again, in the undercurrent, there's this interesting crop of quirky characters that populate the stalag. There's a big, scruffy lug named Animal who looks like an American Danny Trejo and could break a few chains apart at once, but he's got an insufferable crush on Betty Grable, and when the news is heard that Grable is married, Animal falls apart. He's got a smaller friend with a higher voice who gets caught up in mishaps with him, like a mixture of Abbott and Costello and George and Lenny from Of Mice and Men. Then there's a guy who shows up at the camp who can do impressions of any actor, and does throughout the film.
Stalag 17 is a great American counterpart to Grand Illusion, perhaps. The only difference is that Stalag 17 all but ignores the war and closes in completely on the characters themselves, using the period in time as an incidental part of the plot. It's pure entertainment, and beautifully done by a master of such.