Stalag 17
1953
***½
Director: Billy Wilder
Cast: William Holden, Don Taylor, Otto Preminger, Robert Strauss, Harvey Lembeck, Peter Graves, Sig Ruman
This black comedy about American prisoners of war in Germany who suspect that one of them is a traitor is more of a prison film than a war film; it entertains but doesn't really have anything to say. It's adapted from the play by Donald Bevan and Edmund Trzcinski, and is set mostly inside the barracks. William Holden plays a cynical prisoner who runs the black market on the camp, and he won a deserved Academy Award for his performance.
