An Occasionally Biting but Rousingly Entertaining Black Comedy!

Rating: 9/10 (16 April 2015)

Stalag 17, Billy Wilder's adaptation of the 1951 Broadway hit, is a rowdily entertaining prisoner of war movie, screened as a lusty comedy-melodrama, loaded with gallant, masculine humor and the original's uninhibited earthiness
The film surrounds the inhabitants of one of the myriad prisoner of war camps established by Germany during World War II â€“ Stalag 17. When two American prisoners, attempting to escape from the camp, run into a German ambush led by German commandant, Von Scherbach (Otto Preminger), it becomes clear to the men in the barrack that they have an informer in their midst. Suspicion fastens on master trader Sergeant Sefton (William Holden), a charismatic, slick-talking yet cynical loner who irritates his camp-mates because he brazenly makes swaps and takes odds on who's going to live or die. All the men in the barracks start to suspect him of trading more than cigarettes and silk stockings with the Germans. A second betrayal seems to confirm their suspicions and he is beaten up by the men mercilessly. Of course, we're certain from the beginning that Sefton isn't the guilty party. Our cocky black- marketeer however, refuses to play the patsy and resolves to expose the traitor before embarking on his own bid for freedom.
Set entirely within a WWII German prison camp for American servicemen, this serio-comedy depicts in a raw, edgy, and humorous way their daily existence, defined by cruel ironies, prickling situations, jousting schemes, rivalry feuds and oneupmanship games. Like a lot of Wilder's oeuvre, Stalag 17 is open about the comic side of lust, and that frankness, however slight, still sounds refreshingly adult. Wilder uses a suspense approach with plenty of leavening humorous byplay springing from the confinement of healthy young males. He superbly balances elements of drama, satire and comedy, and captures the claustrophobia of camp life. He also manages to extract a wonderful performance from his cast, including a truly award-winning turn by William Holden as the cocky, self- serving American prisoner and Otto Preminger, who relishes his part as a nasty Nazi.
Stalag 17 has a certain humanity and realism that involves you with the intensity of its settings. Like all of Wilder's works, it is not transparently jaded, preachy or egocentric but an astounding blend of revelatory, entertaining and riveting.