Black comedy and suspenseful action inside a German POW camp during
World War II--a setting that was later borrowed for the TV sitcom Hogan's
Heroes. The great director Billy Wilder adapted the hit stage play, applying
his own wicked sense of humor to the apparently bleak subject matter.
William Holden plays an antisocial grouse amid a gang of wisecracking
though indomitable American prisoners. Because of his bitter cynicism,
Holden is suspected by the others of being an informer to the Germans, an
accusation he must deal with in his own crafty way. Holden, who had
delivered a brilliant performance for Wilder in Sunset Boulevard, won the 1953
Best Actor Oscar for Stalag 17. Very much his equal, however, is Otto
Preminger, an accomplished director himself, who plays the strict, sneering
camp commandant.