BILLY WILDER: Stalag 17 (1953)

“If I ever run into any of you bums on a street corner, just let's pretend we've never met before.”

CONTENT WARNING: Discussion of war, Nazis, the Holocaust, antisemitism, death, prisoners of war.

We continue our look at Billy Wilder through one of his most under-the-radar films, that somehow straddles the line between slapstick comedy and war drama by adding his own dose of hard-boiled mystery. In fact, this week’s film turns several different genres on its head, though Billy decidedly had great source material to work from. And this cast, a pure ensemble, is helmed by a quite good if shaky William Holden, who we adore. It’s one of those great movies nobody talks about…unless you’re doing a look at the films of Billy Wilder, that is. Stand “at eeeeease” as we continue our Billy Wilder series with 1953’s Stalag 17 this week on Macintosh & Maud Haven’t Seen What?!

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Intro music taken from the Second Movement of Ludwig von Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Hong Kong (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 HK) license. To hear the full performance or get more information, visit the song page at the Internet Archive..

Excerpts taken from the film Stalag 17 are © 1952 Paramount Pictures.

Excerpt taken from the film Sabrina (1954) is © TM & Copyright 2007 by Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.