Stalag
17 – Special Collector’s Edition
Picture: B
Sound: B- Extras: B+ Program: A+
Trying to imagine a film like Stalag 17 getting
made today is near impossible. In the
21st century environment of political correctness above all things, a film
about the perils -- and hilarity -- of being an American POW held by the Nazis
during World War II would never get
made.
I guess that makes Billy Wilder's epic, classic black
comedy about a group of airmen in a German POW camp remake-proof. And thank God for that, because Wilder's
film is nearly flawless.
The film centers on Sefton (William Holden, in a role that
won him the Best Actor Oscar), a somewhat disreputable American POW that trades
with his captors for luxurious items -- like eggs -- and takes and places bets
during escape attempts by his fellow prisoners -- usually against the men
making it past the prison fences alive.
Of course, this rubs his campmates the wrong way, especially when they
discover that a rat's in the building tipping the Germans off to escapes, when
there's a radio in the barracks, and other such vital information to the
Americans.
The film concerns itself with the discovery of who the
snitch is, but along the way the drama is broken up by periods of comedic
hijinks, usually created by Harry Shapiro (Harvey Lembeck) and his oafish pal,
Animal (Robert Strauss). These moments
range from trying to infiltrate the female Russian barracks to Harry putting
straw under his hat during a Christmas dance to coax Animal out of a funk
induced by his desire to possess Betty Grable.
But what they have in common is, like M*A*S*H, Stalag 17
becomes a bit episodic in its asides from the main plot. So while the movie may not have directly
inspired Hogan's Heroes, you'd be hard-pressed to watch this film and
not see more than one narrative and stylistic connection between the film and
television show.
What ultimately makes Stalag 17 a classic is
Wilder's ability to blend drama and comedy so seamlessly. This comes as no surprise to film fans; all
of Wilder's great works are examples of brilliant genre bending and
crossing. Wilder's direction and
writing is precise and calculated, keeping you off balance throughout the film
in a way few directors have ever been able to accomplish. The performances, too, from Holden, Lembeck,
and Strauss to Peter Graves in an early role, are all convincing and realistic
thanks, in part, to Wilder's coaxing and adherence to the story he wanted to
tell.
Top to bottom, Stalag 17 is a great film. It perhaps gets unfairly neglected when
considering Wilder's work -- after all, this is the man responsible for Some
Like it Hot, Sunset Blvd., The Apartment, and Sabrina. But it's place on the second-tier of
Wilder's filmography, at least in terms of the public's recognition of Billy
Wilder and his films, shouldn't deter you from picking up Paramount's recent
re-release of the film on DVD.
This new edition is a slight improvement over the previous
digital incarnation of the film in terms of video and sound. Visually, the anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X
1 black-and-white photography looks great with only slight imperfections here
and there. It doesn't boast the same
amazing quality of Paramount's Sunset Blvd. disc, an all-digital
restoration that is still secondary to having the original camera negative, but
it does look beautiful all the same.
And on the audio side, the Dolby Digital 2.0 mix is strong and
textured. It won't blow out your
speakers, but then again this isn't a speaker-destroying war movie. It's a dialogue-heavy character-driven
piece, so the experience of watching the film is in no way deterred by the lack
of a fuller audio mix on the disc.
Extras-wise, there's an interesting complement to be found
here. The "Stalag 17: From
Reality to Screen" featurette runs nearly 30 minutes and features
voices and insights from actors from the film, including two leads, Richard
Erdman and Gil Stratton, as well as Donald Beven, one of the playwrights who
created the play the film is based on and Billy Wilder biographers. It's one of the better, more insightful such
features, and it certainly whets your appetite for the commentary track with
Erdman, Stratton, and Beven.
The other featurette, also running nearly 30 minutes, is
"The Real Heroes of Stalag XVIIB." What's nice about this mini-documentary is that someone realized
that the voices and stories of those American POWs who went through the Nazi
stalags were things worth preserving.
The events and places in Stalag 17 aren't similar to other war
movies in that it's not a film about D-Day or the raising of the flag at Iwo
Jima. Just as in 1953 when there
weren't films about prisoner-of-war camps and the Americans in them and such
stories were falling by the wayside, today those same stories get set aside to
make room for more Pearl Harbor tales.
"The Real Heroes of Stalag XVIIB" sheds some much
needed light on the real-life experience of American POWs in World War II and,
if it were a little longer, this featurette would have made this disc worth
buying on its own.
But, as it is, this disc is worth buying for one reason
alone: Stalag 17 is one fine film.
Whether you're a cineaste or simply a moviegoer, there's a lot to like
in the film. More importantly, it's one that never gets stale. And it deserves a place in your collection.
- Dante A.
Ciampaglia
