One of Wilder's finest

Rating: Null/10 (3 February 2003)

Super sharp cynical comedy-drama in the way that only Wilder ever seemed able to produce. William Holden gives his best ever performance as the archetypal Wilder hero - a cynical front masking a strange integrity. Far better than the bloated and pretentious Kwai. Matched in POW films only by La Grande Illusion and The Great Escape. Curious coincidence - in both this and La Grande Illusion the commandants are played by famous film directors - surely a sort of homage by Wilder who had of course already cast Von Stroheim in Sunset Boulevard.