Top notch WWII film. A must see.

Rating: 10/10 (7 November 2003)

Some viewers criticize Stalag 17 for technical inaccuracies and conflicts between comedy and drama in the story. I strongly disagree. I think the film is perfect.
I saw Stalag 17 in 1954 at age seven, with my late uncle. He was shot down over Germany in 1944 and spent 14 months in Stalag Luft I (Barth, Germany). He said the film was an accurate depiction of "kriegie" life.
When I was a teenager he and I discussed the film and both agreed it was excellent. Yes, there was much suffering and death in POW camps. But he said there was humor as well. In fact, it was the only way he maintained his sanity. His POW Log (a hard cover diary type book with blank pages for writing and drawing, donated to POWs by the International Red Cross) contained many tales of POW hi-jinks and other funny stories, so I think that aspect of the movie was on target.
American and British POWs viewed escape as both a serious endeavor and a "game" to outwit the Germans. The Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio has a display devoted to Luftwaffe POW camps and displays one German poster from 1944-45 that declared "Escape activity is no longer considered a game and POWs attempting to escape will be shot", so it appears that, at least up to the last year of the war, both sides saw escape activity as a test of will and competition. It also reduced boredom, on both sides.
Viewing this film, one should remember the Luftwaffe considered allied airmen to be brothers of sorts and gave them better treatment than other POWs received. And they certainly treated military prisoners much better than civilians in concentration camps. On the other hand, the Japanese were extremely brutal to all prisoners. An excellent film about Japanese POW Camps is 1965's adaptation of James Clavelle's book "King Rat", with George Segal, who also plays a character like Sefton. Clavelle also co-wrote the screenplay for The Great Escape.
Stalag 17 is well paced and the characters fully developed. William Holden is perfect as Sefton. I think he was probably the first film anti-hero; a role he played throughout his acting career (Bridge on the River Kwai; The Bridges at Toko-Ri). Sefton wasn't a collaborator. He just "traded sharper than other guys". And of course he ran lucrative floating games of chance and a black market operation.
Neville Brand shines as a tough POW who hates Sefton and leads a group who give him a 'blanket party' one night. Shapiro and 'Animal' are classic clowns and foul ups who continuously provide hilarious comedy relief. Otto Preminger is nothing short of superb as the arrogant Prussian who was transferred from the cavalry to be a POW camp warden. His daily diatribes to the "sergeants" are priceless. Schultz is exactly what we expect, a mindless boob. Clearly, the TV series Hogan's Heroes' Sergeant Schultz was based on him. By the way, my uncle and I both thought Hogan's Heroes was absolute trash and an insult to all POWs.
POSSIBLE SPOILER: The best surprise in the entire movie is the discovery of the "stool pigeon". We never expect Peter Grave's character, Sgt. Price, to be the English speaking German masquerading as an American in order to rat out the POWs' escape plans. It is poetic justice that after Sefton is beaten up because the guys in his hut think he's the stoolie, he is the one who catches Price. 'Pricehoffer' (Graves) is gunned down by his "own soldaten", when he is tied up and noisily thrown out into the yard as a decoy the night Sefton and Lt. Dunbar escape.
In the end, Sefton does the right thing and clearly redeems himself. He uses an inner courage we didn't think he had to help LT Dunbar escape before he's turned over to the Gestapo as a saboteur. But then Sefton does do it for a reward from Dunbar's rich family, so he's still playing the angles up to the end.
This is one of the best films about WW II. Holden clearly deserved his best actor Oscar.