Gripping story with well-crafted characters

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

This is an astonishing documentary that will wring your heart while it bends your mind

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

As mentioned by other reviewers, prisoner-of-war movies would seem a natural venue for film noir. Certainly Billy Wilder's cynically moody Stalag 17 (1953) (available on a 10/10 Paramount DVD) qualifies, despite (or possibly because of) its unpleasantly realistic comic relief from Robert Strauss and company. William Holden won and thoroughly deserved the year's Best Actor award for his biting portrait of the amorally self-serving Sefton, while Otto Preminger (in his last on-screen movie role (before concentrating on producing and directing) captures our second-most degree of attention (Holden, of course, is number one) as the camp colonel.Other famous POW movies tend to be more light-hearted as well as intentionally escapist (in both senses of that word).If only for William Holden's performance, "Stalag 17" certainly rates as a must-see movie!

This movie is all about prisoners of war and is comedy movie. If anyone had seen "The Great Escape" then they will find some frames similar to that. There is nothing much to say about the movie you will understand if you watch.Movie is basically all about the war prisoners who wants to escape from German prison camp. But the warden of camp says no one can escape from camp. I will not spoil the movie and will keep short. Comedy is done to keep the viewers interested and some suspense is maintained.I'll give 6 star because movie I found movie lack some seriousness in it and lot comedy is done. Some may find it a good movie. But from where I stand 6 rating is fair enough.

I'm really having some trouble here folks. What was the intent of this film supposed to be? I think it might have been better off over all if the picture went for straight out comedy without the traitor among the soldiers angle. For me, the tone of the picture was all wrong, and considering it was made only eight years after World War II ended, I think it borders on the disrespectful.It all starts right at the beginning of the movie. American prisoners of war all seem to be well fed, a couple of them wear fur lined bomber jackets and even wrist watches are allowed. I had an uncle who was a prisoner of war and his weight dropped to eighty pounds; I don't think he was having the kind of 'fun' these soldiers seemed to be having. A German guard hands off his rifle to a prisoner so he could take a swat at a volleyball? A soldier washes his socks in a pot of potato soup? Russian women prisoners arrive at the camp and except for their attire, look like they might have stepped off the pages of a fashion magazine?It's not only that, but there are huge inconsistencies in the story line as well. After the escape attempt to open the picture, the Germans state that the barrack would spend it's time filling in the escape tunnel. But there was no escape tunnel, the soldiers simply descended through a trap door under the building and crawled their way out. At the finale, Sergeant Sefton (William Holden) and Lieutenant Dunbar (Don Taylor) were making their way out exactly the same way.Not to mention all the jovial camaraderie between the prisoners and Sergeant Schulz (Sig Ruman). All of this seemed so wrong to me that it detracted from the actual reveal of Price (Peter Graves) as the plant in the barrack to communicate with his superiors. That's another thing, who uses the term 'barrack' to describe a barracks? It is a real word by the way, I just looked it up, but the term 'barracks' is more properly used for both singular and plural. Just another thing to agitate me throughout the story.If the film had kept to straight drama like it did for the last half hour or so I wouldn't be going on this rant, but I really couldn't determine what director Wilder was going for here. Apparently I'm in a minority considering the complementary reviews on this board and the film's rating, but I just don't get it. The most creative thing coming out of this picture were the messages passed via a chess piece.

Stalag 17, Billy Wilder's adaptation of the 1951 Broadway hit, is a rowdily entertaining prisoner of war movie, screened as a lusty comedy-melodrama, loaded with gallant, masculine humor and the original's uninhibited earthiness The film surrounds the inhabitants of one of the myriad prisoner of war camps established by Germany during World War II – Stalag 17. When two American prisoners, attempting to escape from the camp, run into a German ambush led by German commandant, Von Scherbach (Otto Preminger), it becomes clear to the men in the barrack that they have an informer in their midst. Suspicion fastens on master trader Sergeant Sefton (William Holden), a charismatic, slick-talking yet cynical loner who irritates his camp-mates because he brazenly makes swaps and takes odds on who's going to live or die. All the men in the barracks start to suspect him of trading more than cigarettes and silk stockings with the Germans. A second betrayal seems to confirm their suspicions and he is beaten up by the men mercilessly. Of course, we're certain from the beginning that Sefton isn't the guilty party. Our cocky black- marketeer however, refuses to play the patsy and resolves to expose the traitor before embarking on his own bid for freedom. Set entirely within a WWII German prison camp for American servicemen, this serio-comedy depicts in a raw, edgy, and humorous way their daily existence, defined by cruel ironies, prickling situations, jousting schemes, rivalry feuds and oneupmanship games. Like a lot of Wilder's oeuvre, Stalag 17 is open about the comic side of lust, and that frankness, however slight, still sounds refreshingly adult. Wilder uses a suspense approach with plenty of leavening humorous byplay springing from the confinement of healthy young males. He superbly balances elements of drama, satire and comedy, and captures the claustrophobia of camp life. He also manages to extract a wonderful performance from his cast, including a truly award-winning turn by William Holden as the cocky, self- serving American prisoner and Otto Preminger, who relishes his part as a nasty Nazi.Stalag 17 has a certain humanity and realism that involves you with the intensity of its settings. Like all of Wilder's works, it is not transparently jaded, preachy or egocentric but an astounding blend of revelatory, entertaining and riveting.