Not Wilder's best, but still very good

Rating: 9/10 (29 June 2003)

'Stalag 17' is a movie about a German POW camp with American prisoners in World War II. All of them are sergeants. The movie starts with the death of two of two of them while escaping. They must be betrayed. The movie is a kind of whodunit in that way and the secret stays a secret for a long time, also for us, which is a very good thing. The only thing we do know that it is probably not Sgt. J.J. Sefton (William Holden). Every prisoner in his barrack suspects him because he has nice little deals with the Germans. Then a Lt. James Dunbar (Don Taylor) arrives in the camp. He is accused with bombing an ammunition train and he must escape from the camp before he is taken to Berlin, probably for execution. Of course they have to find the informant first or Dunbar will die anyway.
The movie has some dramatic elements like the deaths of the two who escape in the beginning, but in my opinion the movie shows the camp a little too friendly. It seems that the live there was not so hard, and I guess it must have been terrible. Leaving that the movie is great. There are a lot of funny and exciting moments. The twist near the end is a nice one and the performances are very good, although sometimes it is a little too much. Especially a character named Animal (Robert Strauss) seems to be more like a cartoon figure than a real person. It doesn't make much of a difference. Director Billy Wilder has made another fine classic.