A big hit with critics and the Academy, but only marginal...

Rating: 6/10 (15 October 2007)

Screen-version of Donald Bevan and Edmund Trzcinski's successful play about POWs in WWII plotting their escape from enemy camp, despite the fact most of them appear to be having a rather jovial time. Comedy-drama from director and co-scenarist Billy Wilder is highly uneven, occasionally crass and dumb, but it does have Oscar winner William Holden as barracks leader J.J. Sefton and he's pretty fabulous here; Otto Preminger also excellent in the showy role of the German commander, and Peter Graves gets one of his best screen-roles as another soldier. Overrated by the critics who, while praising the movie, somehow overlook the picture's bumpy continuity, broad supporting performances and equally broad swipes at distasteful humor. **1/2 from ****