gripping P.O.W. tale

Rating: 7/10 (13 October 2001)

What impresses the most about Stalag 17 is how it holds up after nearly 50 years & countless P.O.W. movies - mostly inferior - trailing behind it. Billy Wilder's account of the antics of the enlisted men of Barracks 4 is gripping & engrossing, due mainly to the Oscar-winning performance by William Holden as the headstrong shyster of the bunch who finds himself accused by his fellow soldiers of leaking info to the Nazis. Holden gives a tour-de-force performance & the rest of the cast lends able support.
Some parts of Stalag 17 disappoint - the method in which the mystery of the snitch unfolds doesn't meet the worthy standards of the rest of the plot. The Germans, especially Otto Preminger as the Commandant, come off as cartoonishly evil, and the Abbott & Costello-like antics of Robert Strauss & Harvey Lembeck become tiresome midway thru the film.
Still, though not the greatest P.O.W. film I've ever seen (The Great Escape, for one, is better), Stalag 17 is a worthy predecessor. 7 out of 10.