Exclusive"Stalag 17" (1953): First War Movie

In honor of Stalag 17 from 1953, we're going to sing White Christmas by Irving Berlin. Just as this song is about soldiers longing to be home for the holidays, this movie takes place during Christmastime. I'm dreaming of a white Christmas Just like the ones I used to know Where the treetops glisten and children listen To hear sleigh bells in the snow I'm dreaming of a white Christmas With every Christmas card I write May your days be merry and bright And may all your Christmases be white I just talked to my friend Tyler and he wants to come over for a movie night. Great! I always love introducing friends to classic films. Well... What? I don't know if he's going to like a classic movie. He's pretty fussy when it comes to films. He hates musicals and he doesn't like Mushy Love Stories or Happily Ever After Clambakes. What does this boy like? You know, action, adventure, drama, intrigue, that sort of thing. I'll bet he's never actually seen a classic film. So he just assumes that he doesn't like them because he doesn't know anything about them. That's true. So we have to pick a classic movie that he's sure to like. And I know just the one. Stalag 17. I'm Rebecca Brannan. I'm Tiffany Brannan. Welcome to Real Thoughts on Cinema. People tend to think of classic films as light-hearted fluff where everyone's bursting into song constantly and everyone gets a happy ending. And that's just not true. It really isn't. As a matter of fact, something that not a lot of people know is Louis B. Mayer, who was the head of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer or MGM during the classic era, really loved happy endings. So most of the MGM movies you see from the classic era have happy endings. But a lot of the other studios liked to have more dramatic or tragic endings. So that was not a rule across the board, as a lot of people think. And a very popular genre throughout the history of filmmaking has been war films. Absolutely. Particularly from the 1940s onward, movies made about World War II were incredibly popular because as the greatest military conflict in history, World War II will continue to inspire future generations with its endless supply of source material. And in more recent films, it's still popular. Movies like Saving Private Ryan is considered one of the great films. That's not by any means modern, really, but it's also not classic. It's kind of that middle ground. But no film made now or even the last couple decades can really compare to the movies made during the war or in the years immediately afterward, because all those people had really personally experienced that time. That's right. So future generations, we just can't understand that period like they did and what it was like to go through it. Just like future generations won't know what it was like to live through 2020 in the lockdown. Personal experience is invaluable. And in terms of movies made during the war, combat films are often regarded now as propaganda films because they focused positively on the Allied forces. And now people look back on it like they say it was a bad thing that they were propaganda. But that certainly can't be said of Stalag 17 from 1953. Absolutely not. It's interesting because it talks about an area that's not usually discussed. The two primary categories would be combat, so on the front lines, or the battle of the home front, about the women back home or the men who couldn't go to war. But this one talks about prisoners of war in a German prison camp. That's very unusual. There aren't a lot of films about that. It was based on a very successful Broadway play of the same name, which was actually written by two men who were prisoners of war in a German prison camp. So speaking of firsthand experience, it's so real. And one of those two playwrights has a small role in the film. Oh, really? Yes. He's one of the prisoners whose name is Triss. He doesn't have many lines, but you see him a few times. And he received a letter from his wife talking about how she found the baby on the doorstep who looks a lot like her and you won't believe it. And he keeps saying, I believe it. Of course I believe it. And poor fellow trying to convince himself that he believes it. And that's one of the playwrights. So it's a very real subject matter. And it's fascinating to find out more about this story's journey to the screen. It had a really dramatic story. It's about all these American sergeants in the Army Air Corps who are prisoners in this camp and they're in terrible conditions. But how they find hope and even humor in these difficult times, despite the boredom and the depression that sets in in that area. And it's particularly about really only a few days leading up to Christmas of 1943. It's technically a Christmas movie. And as the narrator tells us at the beginning, it's about when they realized in Stalag 17, that's the name of their house, their guardhouse, because... Stalag is the German word for a prison camp, right? Yes. So there are all the different Stalags. In their unit, that was when they discovered that there was a spy amongst them. So the whole story is finding out who is the spy. Everyone suspects the character who is played by William Holton. The lead character. And because he's not like the other men, he's smart. He's always betting cigarettes. Not that the other guys aren't smart, but he's smart in the sense they used back then of like street smart. Yeah. He's out for himself. He's always trading cigarettes with the other guys and with the German guards. And he seems to always be getting special favors. So they start to think he's getting these favors for giving them information. So they suspect that he's a stool pigeon who sold out his comrades who were trying to make an escape. But as more and more evidence starts to mount against him, and he's being suspected, he realizes he has to discover who the true spy is before his other men completely ostracize him. And he doesn't care about their friendship or anything, but he just realizes it's starting to get unbearable for him. And that's really all he cares about. This was made by Paramount Studios, and it was directed by Billy Wilder. That might be a familiar name. He's a very famous director. Because he continued long past the golden era of the 40s and 50s and lived a long time well into the 60s, 70s, 80s. He's kind of known as one of the sort of groundbreaking directors who kind of broke down the morals of the time. But he's also a master of blending drama and comedy, especially in his earlier films. You really see that because this is a very intense film, but there are a lot of funny moments in it. And of course, the star is William Holden. He's the biggest name in this, I would say. He truly is. Many of the other cast members were reprising their roles from Broadway, especially the supporting cast. Now, Otto Preminger is in this, and he was also a director. Is that right? Very famous director. Another role-breaker. He's a lot like Billy Wilder. They were very similar. And he plays the Commandant, so the evil German. And he said, there are only two things that make me yell at my actors as a director. If they don't know their lines, or if they're late to the set. And so he told Billy Wilder, if I ever forget my lines, I will give you a jar of caviar. And before long, Billy Wilder had dozens of jars of caviar. So he forgot his lines a lot, apparently. But he really captures that spirit of that German officer because he himself was from Europe, as was Billy Wilder. Although, he was actually Jewish, right? As was Billy Wilder. It's kind of ironic. So they bring that hatred for Nazis. And one thing that's interesting about the production of this was that some Paramount executive didn't want to offend Germany too much. Well, isn't it true that West Germany was a big... West Germany was a big market. Audience for them, a big market for American films. You know, the Berlin Wall and all those things. This is well after World War II. Yeah, 1953. It had been a while. Things had settled down. But they were concerned, during the making of the film, that West Germany would be very offended by these Germans being the enemy. So they said, why don't we change it to a Polish guards at this camp? Because we don't care if we offend Poland, apparently. Yeah. Mainly because we think of the Germans as the main enemy, not the Poles. So Billy Wilder was so offended by this that he demanded a letter of apology because both his mother and stepfather were killed at Auschwitz. So he had firsthand of people being killed in concentration camps. He said, why should we be nice to the Nazis now? Just to make money. Yeah. So he thought, we're trying to have a realistic representation of what happened. And I would say it's not a cruel or unfair depiction of the Germans. I think you see the humanity of the Germans. Yes. You see that, like, Schulz, the prison guard, is actually really kind of a goofy guy. He's kind of a pal to them. You see that there are human beings, too, who are following a set of beliefs, just as Americans are following a set of beliefs. And from what I want to say, even more so in recent years, all the information that has come out about German concentration camps and so forth, honestly, they're being really nice to them in this movie. Because it's not a concentration camp. Right. They're prisoners of war. I mean, it could have been a lot worse. You know, the conditions are bad, but it's not, like, really... And supposedly, it's very realistic. This is what they experienced. And they had to slog around in the mud during filming of this. I was fascinated to learn that they filmed this in sequence, which was rare for those days. Right. But that means... That was to get the energy with the men to really be right as the tension builds. The tension is building. And I also understand that only the actor playing the spy knew who was the spy. Most of the other performers didn't know who the spy was as they were filming it. So did they not let them read the whole script? Billy Wilder was kind of notorious for doing that. And he was also one of the writers. And he was a stickler for people saying his lines right because he was a writer. He wanted to do it right. So no ad-libbing. Yes. Since he was a writer first. But that drama and that tension just builds so much. And while there are also funny moments, you've got the fellow animal who is just girl crazy. And he hasn't seen a woman in months. Except there are the Russian prisoners. Female Russian prisoners. They can see across the way. So they're all trying to get a look at them and call over to them. But he's in love with Betty Grable, one of the top pinup girls of the day. Speaking of the casting, it's interesting kind of the journey of that too. Because that lead character, Sefton, William Holden was not the original choice for that. At first, when they were first writing the script, they were thinking of Charlton Heston. Oh, yes. But as the character took shape, they just started to think it wasn't right for him. So then they offered the role to Kirk Douglas. He turned it down because he didn't think it was a sympathetic enough character. And later on, he said that was one of the biggest mistakes he made his entire career, turning down this part. So they went to William Holden and they asked him to go see the stage play. And he hated it. He walked out before the first act was over, I think. But then they talked him into reading the script. And I think he basically, he was a contract buyer. They basically just told him to do it. So was Kirk Douglas not a contract buyer then? I mean, how come he got to turn it down? I don't think he was. Because William Holden had been around longer. And because of that, William Holden just kept trying to get Billy Wilder to soften it up a little bit. He was like, could I just be a little nicer? This character is completely unsympathetic. Everybody's going to hate me. And Billy Wilder said, no, you have to stay. You're going to ruin the integrity of the character if you do that, you know? And he was right, obviously. It's supposed to be. Even the audience is starting to think, maybe he did do it. He's just not a nice person. And you realize he's a fellow who's out for himself. But he's not hurting the other men. He's not true. He's not going to hurt the other guys. He doesn't want to hurt anyone. He just wants to make his life as comfortable as possible. And in some ways, he seems to think he's a little superior to the other fellows. He thinks he's a little smarter. And he thinks, if I have to be here, why not make it as comfortable as possible for myself? There is a moment right at the very end. And he's, not to spoil it for you. There's a moment when he still seems like he's just tough as nails. But then he kind of gives them a little smile and a salute right at the end. That was William Holden's idea. And Billy Wilder said, all right, you can do that. Just to lighten him up a little. And despite all his misgivings, he won an Academy Award for Best Actor for that performance. But he always felt that it was just to make up for the fact that he didn't win for Sunset Boulevard in 1950, another Billy Wilder film. I believe his wife thought that, too. A lot of people thought that. It was kind of a consolation prize. He didn't seem to think he deserved it for this film, which I can't understand. Because I think he gives a really good performance in this film. And he gave the shortest acceptance speech to that date. Thank you. There you go. That's all you need to say. Wasn't it because they were running low on time? It was because that was the first time the Oscars were televised and they were running low on time. And then he was beat by somebody who just said, thanks, right? I forget who it was. It was Alfred Hitchcock when he got an honorary lifetime award. And then for later a part when an actor was playing a mute character, he just nodded and smiled to say thank you. So he's been beat a couple of times. But at the time, it was both because they were running low on time. And he was kind of being rebellious because they were... He didn't like all the restraints. You only have a few minutes because we're televising it. So he said, all right, I'll just say thank you. And then he rented space in the newspaper the next day to properly thank everyone. Oh, that's nice. And he wasn't the only one who was honored by the Academy Awards. The film was also recognized for Best Director for Billy Wilder and Best Supporting Actor for Robert Strauss, who plays Animal, the really kind of comical character. I say he's the biggest comic relief. Yes. And he's friends with another guy named Shapiro, who's like his best buddy, who makes a few references to the fact that he's Jewish, which is something you don't see too often in old movies. Yeah. But it highlights a bit even how that situation would be there in that prison camp. And so when you say they were recognized, did they win or were they just nominated? They were nominated. Okay. So the only win was for William Holden. That's right. But interestingly, this film wasn't going to be released in 53. It was made earlier. Oh, really? It was... Production happened in early 52. They easily could have released it in 52. But the reason... They just felt like it wouldn't be well received. So Paramount held it back. But then because of this Prisoner of War story that came out in Korea with the Korean War, all of a sudden Paramount said, Hey, this is news. And they released the film and it was very successful. That's really smart. So I think this is really a man's picture, something that a man of any age could enjoy. I remember when we announced it, we said there are no female characters. That's not strictly true. You see the Russians. There are no credited female characters. There are no speaking female characters. Characters. They're extras, really. Basically extras, yeah. They're just there because, you know, they're men and, you know, they get to see these women. But they're not... They're not... We don't really know anything about them. Really, the biggest female character is Biddy Grable, who isn't even in the movie, but they talk about her a lot. There are pictures of her. There are pictures of her everywhere. And speaking of extras, another way they got a lot of authenticity in this film was there were a few extras or bit part players who were played by men who were also prisoners of war. And they acted as sort of uncredited, unofficial technical advisors saying how things were, what the conditions were. That's probably why there's such great realism. That and the filming it in sequence. You can feel that it's very real. There isn't a lot of background music. That adds to it as well. It's pretty stark. They use When Johnny Comes Marching Home, that old Civil War song, as sort of recurring theme music to represent that American spirit that someday these men hope they're going to live to go home. Someday the war will be over. And this is pretty early in the war. The Battle of the Bulge is happening around this time. They're all like, oh, maybe the war is almost over. And Sefton is just laughing at the other guys. And he seems so callous as he's making bets about men not surviving. But he's really just being realistic. Yeah. He's really just being a realist. Sometimes being a realist seems like you're being very pessimistic. But life's tough, especially during a war. It's interesting to look at this film as a Billy Wilder film, as you mentioned, because he was known for breaking down the production code in the late 50s. Right. Commonly known as the Hays Code. The Production Code Administration had the job of enforcing the Motion Picture Production Code and making films decent for all ages. And after Joseph Breen retired from that job in 1954, the quality of films really started to change. Definitely. I think this is a little bit comparable to a movie made in 1955 called Mr. Roberts. Yes, a John Ford film. Because just the element, honestly, of them seeing the girls over there and the men, there's something very similar in Mr. Roberts. But it's not handled nearly as well. It's quite inappropriate, honestly. But this one goes just far enough. It's like, you know, they haven't seen women in a couple of years, other than them from a distance. And Billy Wilder is often given so much credit with movies like Some Like It Hot and The Apartment, as he did it. He destroyed the production code. Good for him. But I think seeing his earlier work, like this film and many others, shows that it really had nothing to do with him. Because he was always using controversial material. Yeah. And it was really the change in the guard. The fact that Joseph Breen was replaced by Jeffrey Sherlock, who didn't mind the kind of content that Wilder had been trying to use since day one. If you try not to be, you know, affected by any kind of prejudices that you might have against the code or morals or anything like that, if you just look at it purely from an artistic standpoint, it's just undeniable that his films made under Mr. Breen's tenure are better. They just are. He used so much more artistry. He kept his humor under control. Like I said, a perfect balance of drama and comedy. The balance is gone. He really moved away from drama. Like The Apartment is one of his last real dramas. He just started doing nothing but kind of lewd comedy. I do have to say that The Apartment is well made artistically. It's more like his earlier films. Yeah, it has more depth to it. So you can still see his talent. But yeah, he got really into just kind of going off the wall. And then that's what you really see when you study the code, all those directors, especially, I want to say, the more controversial ones. You really saw how brilliant they were when they had to keep it under control. Sometimes not being limited, but being kind of kept on a track, you have more potential. Much needed guidance. You have to use more creativity. And this play was, you know, it's about a bunch of soldiers. And some original reviews of the film notated that there were some definite changes. They changed the bodiness of the play to lustiness. It's more like just rousing fellows. And there are some very clever double meanings. If you were speaking some German and using words for like, yeah, if you really think about it, you know what they're discussing. But a couple of years later, you would have just plain said it. And to use that cleverness is, it's really intelligent. And that is sort of the code. Yeah, people don't usually understand about it. It's not about that. There's nothing. It's that you're just subtly implying things. It's left up to the imagination. It's like clothes used to be something up to the imagination. Speaking of which, since there really aren't female characters in this, my dress is just representing how women dressed in the 1940s around the time that this film is set. It's a simple black dress with a belt with the leg of mutton sleeves and some fake light jewelry, which is the modern replication of Bakelite, which was a really popular in the 40s and 50s. It was like a molded plastic. And I have the red with the hearts because I'm representing what all the men were fighting for, the girl back home and the little black hat to represent the military theme, which came into fashion even for civilians during the war years. I certainly don't look like I'm dressed to discuss a war film, but since Betty Grable and her pin-up pictures play such an important part of the plot, I have replicated a very popular style in the 40s, which was a play suit. So shorts with a somewhat fitted top, oftentimes with a coat. And since you're usually out in the sun by the swimming pool or on the beach, I have a large sun hat with plenty of fancy jewelry, like she's wearing in the picture that Anna will love so much. I would recommend this film to anyone who likes war films or who likes drama and intrigue, who enjoys grittier films. Because I have to say, this is one of the grittier classic films you're going to find. And it's so intriguing. It's timeless. It explains plenty about what's happening. So you don't have to know a lot about World War II to get what's going on. That's a good point, because there's a narrator. One of the characters, Cookie, he's kind of Sefton's sidekick, honestly. And he's a little, I think, a little bit shell-shocked. He's a little bit of a stutter sometimes from his accident, his crash. And he's actually the narrator. So he kind of fills you in on anything that would be unclear otherwise. Yes. It's really a brilliant storytelling tactic. And it just gives you such insight into what the war was like for those men. And seeing the letters that they're getting and the letters that they're sending. The story inspired the popular TV series in the 60s, Hogan's Heroes. That's right. I forgot about that. As a matter of fact, it inspired it so much that there was a court case where the writers of the play sued them because they said that they just plain ripped off the story. Because that's about them being in it. And it didn't get proper credit, right? Well, yeah, because they didn't say that it was an adaptation. But shortly before that, there was talk. And they actually were working on a TV series at CBS based on this film. And then they didn't follow through with it. And then they come out with this series. It's like, oh, you just stole our idea. And later things on IMDb, for instance, say, oh, it's not really the same. It's pretty similar. There are a lot of similarities. It's more comical. But there's even the character of this German officer named Schultz. I don't know why they call him Schultz. And Schultz, that's the same name of the fellow. That's a little obvious. A little obvious there. But it just shows how popular this idea is. And if you enjoy any kind of war film, I think you'd really enjoy Stalag 17. And it's really just an interesting look at this period of time. And a great introduction for those who think that they don't like classic movies. Whether that's your friend, your relative, or yourself. Watch this film and become a believer that you can enjoy classic movies. And that they're not all one thing. If you think you can define classic movies in a couple of words, you don't know classic movies. Because they're so different. Yeah, they're just like modern films. It's not more so. Yes, there's such a broad spectrum. And so many different genres. So there should be something for everyone to like. And that's sort of the whole point of the code. That's right. And this movie is easy to find. You can either buy or rent it on many streaming services like Amazon Prime, among others. And it's on sale now at Amazon Prime. It's reduced like $4.99 to buy. As well as it is now available for free on Tubi, the streaming service. And you can always find it on DVD on Amazon or on Walmart or Barnes & Noble. It's never been easier to find classic films. So all you have to do is go out and look. And instead of watching the latest Netflix series, enjoy this classic film and be transported to that world of another time and place. A very popular genre now is costume pieces, especially Regency era and everyone loves things like Downton Abbey and Bridgerton. So join us next week as we talk about a classic film adapted from one of the most famous and beloved Regency novels. Thank you for watching. Goodbye. I just talked to my friend Tyler and he wants to come over for a movie night. That's great. I always love to introduce friends to classic films. Well... What? I don't know. He's pretty stubborn when it comes to movies. He doesn't like... He hates musicals. And he doesn't like mushy love stories or happily ever after clambakes. What does this boy like? You know, action, adventure, drama, that kind of thing. I'll bet he's never actually seen a classic film. So he just assumes he doesn't like them because he doesn't know anything about them. So we have to pick a classic movie that he's sure to like. And I know just the one. Stalag 17. I'm Rebecca Brannan. And I'm Tiffany Brannan. Welcome to Real Thoughts on Cinema. I just talked to my friend Tyler and he wants to come over for a movie night. Great. I always love to introduce friends to classic films. Well... What? I don't know. He's pretty stubborn when it comes to movies. He hates musicals. And he doesn't like mushy love stories or happily ever after clambakes. What does this boy like? You know, action, drama, intrigue, adventure, that sort of thing. I'll bet he's never actually seen a classic film. So he just assumes he doesn't like them because he doesn't understand anything about them. That's true. So we have to pick a classic movie that he's sure to like. And I know just the one. Stalag 17. I'm Rebecca Brannan. And I'm Tiffany Brannan. Welcome to Real Thoughts on Cinema. People tend to think that old movies are just one song after next with people bursting into dances and everybody gets a happy ending. That's just not true. It really isn't. As a matter of fact, not a lot of people know this, but Louis B. Mayer, who was the head of MGM or Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer during the classic era, was one of the only people who really insisted on happy endings most of the time. So a lot of MGM movies have happy endings because of that. And it's led people to think that was a rule across the board. But that was really just his personal preference. A lot of the other studios liked having really dramatic endings. And throughout every era of filmmaking, you'll find every different genre. And one of the most popular genres was war films, particularly about modern warfare. If it was in the 30s, it was often about World War I, the most recent war, which they called the Great War at the time. But then from the 40s onward, World War II has been one of the most popular topics because with the two fronts, it was such a huge military conflict that they're never going to run out of stories that can be told about it. It's still very popular. I mean, movies like Saving Private Ryan. I know that's not by any means a new film, but it's not a classic either. And that's considered a really great film. But nothing can really capture it like the movies made either during the time when the war was going on or shortly afterwards in the 50s. Because all those people lived through it. They had experienced it. That's right. So they understood it in a way that we nowadays couldn't possibly. Just like people in future generations won't know what it was like to live through 2020 and the lockdowns and things. So there's something about that personal experience. Yes. It just is very different.