Movie Description
Stalag 17 is a 1953 war film which tells the story of a group of American airmen held in a German World War II prisoner of war camp, who come to suspect that one of their number is an informant. It was adapted from a Broadway play.
Produced and directed by Billy Wilder, it starred William Holden, Don Taylor, Robert Strauss, Neville Brand, Harvey Lembeck, Peter Graves and Otto Preminger in the role of the camp's commandant. Strauss and Lembeck both appeared in the original Broadway production.
The film was adapted by Wilder and Edwin Blum from the Broadway play by Donald Bevan and Edmund Trzcinski which was based on their experiences as prisoners in Stalag 17B in Austria. (Trzcinski appears in the film as a prisoner.) The play was directed by Jose Ferrer and was the Broadway debut of John Ericson as Sefton. First presented at the Edwin Burke Memorial Theater of The Lambs, a theatrical club, on March 11, 1951 (staged by the authors). It began its Broadway run in May 1951 and continued for 472 performances. The character Sefton was loosely based on Joe Palazzo, a flier in Trzcinski's prisoner-of-war barracks.
The script was rewritten quite a bit by Wilder and Blum and the film was shot in chronological order (not the usual practice as that method is more expensive and time-consuming). In a featurette made later, members of the cast said that they themselves did not know the identity of the informant until the last three days of shooting.
Peter Graves recalled the film was held from release for over a year due to Paramount Pictures not believing anyone would be interested in seeing a film about prisoners of war. The 1953 release of American POWs from the Korean War led Paramount to release it on an exploitation angle.
The film was well received and is considered, along with The Great Escape and The Bridge on the River Kwai (also starring Holden), among the greatest World War II Prisoner of War films.
