Stalag 17 (1953)

Calificación de los usuarios:

8.2/10   

Director:

Billy Wilder

Escritores:

Donald Bevan (play) and
Edmund Trzcinski (play) ...

Fecha de Lanzamiento:

10 agosto 1953 (Brazil)

Género:

Comedia | Drama | Guerra

Frase comercial:

Hilarious, heart-tugging! You'll laugh...you'll cry...you'll cheer William Holden in his great Academy Award role! (from reissue print ad)

Plot:

When two escaping American World War II prisoners are killed, the German POW camp barracks black marketeer, J.J. Sefton, is suspected of being an informer.

Plot Keywords:

Spy | Escape | Pow | Barracks | Guard

Premios:

Won Oscar. Another 4 nominations

Comentarios de los usuarios:

the perennial 'feel-good' American POW movie

Reparto

William Holden	...	Sgt. J.J. Sefton
Don Taylor	...	Lt. James Dunbar
Otto Preminger	...	Col. von Scherbach
Robert Strauss	...	Stanislas Kasava
Harvey Lembeck	...	Harry Shapiro
Richard Erdman	...	Sgt. 'Hoffy' Hoffman
Peter Graves	...	Price
Neville Brand	...	Duke
Sig Ruman	...	Sgt. Johann Schulz
Michael Moore	...	Manfredi
Peter Baldwin	...	Johnson
Robinson Stone	...	Joey
Robert Shawley	...	'Blondie' Peterson
William Pierson	...	Marko the Mailman
Gil Stratton	...	Clarence Harvey 'Cookie' Cook (as Gil Stratton Jr.)

También conocida como:

Infierno en la tierra (Venezuela) [es]
Traidor en el infierno (Spain) [es]

Duración:

120 min | Germany:116 min

País:

USA

Idioma:

Inglés | Alemán

Color:

Negro y Blanco

Relación de Aspecto:

1.37 : 1

Sonido:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Clasificación:

West Germany:16 (f) | Australia:G | South Korea:12 (2004) | Finland:K-16 | Norway:12 | UK:PG | USA:Approved (PCA #15866) | Sweden:15

Locaciones de Filmación:

John Show Ranch, Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA

Compañía:

Paramount Pictures

Trivialidades:

William Holden's acceptance speech for Best Actor was the shortest in Academy history. He said only two words: "Thank You."

Errores:

Errores cometidos por los personajes (posiblemente errores deliberados por los cineastas): We learn from the escape plan in the beginning of the movie that the Stalag 17 prison camp is located on the river Danube near Linz, which is on the Austrian and German Border. Later in the movie, when the prisoners are watching the women in the Russian compound, Cookie claims that on a clear day, you could see the Swiss Alps with this telescope. Nobody could see the Swiss Alps with even the best telescope, from this point of view, because the Austrian Alps would definitely be in the way.

Citas:

[Duke wants to know who the German spy is]
Sefton: It's no use, Schulz, you might as well come clean. Why don't you just tell them it's me, because I'm really the illegitimate son of Hitler, and after the Germans win the war, you're going to make me the Gauleiter of Zinzinnati!

Conexiones de Película:

Referenced in "Gilmore Girls: A-Tisket, A-Tasket (#2.13)" (2002)

Banda de Sonido:

When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again

the perennial 'feel-good' American POW movie

Billy Wilder's Stalag 17 relies on folds of comedy and a cynical attitude to elevate a story that seems out of a crime story. Here we have a cast of characters, and the undercurrent is 'who's the rat?' in a bunker as the secrets shuffled around (i.e. that there's a tunnel for escape) and the Germans know right away. There's fun in that, and in being able to 2nd guess who the informant really is- at one point I thought the old adage "it's the quiet ones you got to watch" would come forward- but Wilder is brilliant at transforming this as some solid suspense and dramatic tension while ALSO making a really snappy (sometimes) dark comedy. It's a movie about personality, despite the plot being somewhat important, and with the actors themselves delivering a lot for the characters' sakes.

William Holden is the first given attribute as the star, playing the sort who, for a conventional movie-goer audience, seems easy to peg: too full of himself, sneaky, has the motive to be the informant. But as the layers come into focus, he's more than meets the eye, and Holden (against his better instincts, as he didn't want the role originally) fills it in with his subtle swagger and great sarcastic touch carried over from Sunset Blvd. Then there's Otto Premminger, a big surprise as he is mostly known as a director, as the Commandant, taking up and stealing every scene he's in (only Erich von Stroheim in Grand Illusion beats him out as tour-de-force Commandants). Then there's supporting work from the desperate 'clowns' (Robert Strauss's Betty Grable obsessed Animal and Harvey Lembeck's Shapiro), and the cool Don Talyer in a turn as Dunbar. They're all at their best.

While it almost appears to be more entertaining than it perhaps should- considering, as Cookie's opening narration says, movies about the army have been glamorized and this story is different- it's kind of like the Hollywood 50s answer to something like A Man Escaped. Bresson's film is cold and detached and immediate in dramatic impact, while Stalag 17 wants to be a big hit. There's a lot of humor, some unexpected, some that are meant to be big laughs (i.e. Animal and Shapiro's scheme to get into the Russian prison), and they all connect. It's simply a really entertaining movie that has transcended its period, thanks to Wilder's faith in (and more than likely proponent of) an ironic, witty sensibility to otherwise dark and gloomy cinematic terrain.