Stalag 17 (1953)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Stalag 17 (1953) – B. Wilder

Billy Wilder’s Stalag 17 really has little resemblance to Hogan’s Heroes, the television show which followed it twelve years later.  Sure, they are both comedies set in POW camps during WWII (and both have a buffoonish Sgt. Schultz) but William Holden’s Sefton is about as far as you can get from Bob Crane’s Hogan.  For one thing, Sefton is not a sympathetic character – he’s more of a misanthropic grifter – and the other men do not look up to him (although he does run the still, organises gambling, and other illicit activities).  In fact, the plot of the movie focuses on the presence of a spy in the barracks, feeding information to the camp Commandant (played campily by Otto Preminger, a director in his own right), and everyone suspects Sefton.  There are a few distinctive characters in the barracks, principally Shapiro (Harvey Lembeck) and Animal (Robert Strauss) who clown around and Joey (Robinson Stone) who has been traumatised into a stupor.  As this suggests, the blend of humour and darkness can create an uneasy tension (wry cynicism is a Wilder trademark), although shenanigans and the team effort to defy the Nazis keeps bleakness at bay.  If you’ve only ever watched the TV series, you really should give the film a look.