Stalag 17 (1953)
A cynical serviceman in a World War II POW camp has to prove he’s not an informer. Cast: William Holden, Don Taylor, Otto Preminger. Dir: Billy Wilder. BW-120 mins, TV-PG, CC. 10:00 PM EST. TCM
I love POW movies… probably because my Grandpa spent 11 months in a German POW camp and rarely talked about it. He thought Hogan’s Heroes was high-larious. What manner of man was this? Anyway… Holden is fine here (did he invent cynical and morally compromised?) as is Otto Preminger. Informing is serious business in most areas of life. It’s deadly serious here — even the suspicion of it.
Earlier in the day is George Washington Slept Here — a very underrated (read “hilarious”) comedy with Jack Benny and Ann Sheridan. One of the mysteries of the ages is “Why didn’t Jack Benny do more films?” On right before for the 9 millionth time is Ninotchka and the bachelor and the Bobby Soxer with Myrna Loy, Cary Grant and Shirley Temple.
After Stalag 17 is Network, Tender Mercies with Robert Duvall and in the deep middle of the night is Trading Places… which raises the other age-old question… “Will TCM show Jamie Lee Curtis’ boobs?”
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Watched Ninotchka last night on DVD and was laughing when thinking about the Hollywood movies today with their blind-love of Socialists/Communists.
>>“Will TCM show Jamie Lee Curtis’ boobs?”>>
They’re real. They’re spectacular (at least at that point they were). Let’s hope so.
TCM will respect the boobs.
George Washington Slept here is a good Benny movie. I wish TCM would show the Jack Benny movie, Love Thy Neighbor (1940), again. I did a theme in a TCM programming challenge years ago, of radio shows turned into movies, and they chose to show most of my picks from that line up, including this. In the movie, Benny teamed up with Fred Allen whom he had an on air “feud” with, with each of them cracking insults about the other on their radio shows. They continued the feud onscreen here and a lot of the insults seem ad-libbed, and hilarious. They were together in another movie, It’s in the Bag (1945) that was more Fred Allen but Benny had a great cameo.
It’s In The Bag is a hilarious, and extremely odd, movie. It doesn’t get much weirder than some of the stuff that goes on in that flick. And it’s all funny.
I love the Benny/Allen feud. Allen was a far, far quicker wit than Benny, But Benny always could retort with a comment about Allen’s latest cancelled program.
And Jack also gets credit for the topper de luxe topper of them all, when, after Fred had just zinged him but good, Jack paused, and said, “Hmph. You wouldn’t have said that if my writers were here!”
George Washington Slept Here is indeed a funny movie. I like it also because it centers on the *other* geddoutatown location for New Yorkers disinclined to head for Connecticut, namely, Bucks County PA.
I’ve heard enough old time radio MP3s of Benny’s show to have an appreciation of the ‘feud’ with Fred Allen. Jack Benny is better remembered today than Allen so perhaps he won the feud?
I recall hearing the theory that Jack Benny didn’t make it as a movie star because he was a radio star. The theory was that because audiences could hear him for free why should they pay to see him? I don’t know if that’s true but whatever the reason I too wish he had made more movies.
My favorite Jack Benny movie is “The Horn Blows at Midnight”.
TCW – I suspect Benny’s long career on Television is the determining factor in his being better remembered than Allen.
I think what did Allen is was he didn’t translate as well to the screen. His humor was very verbal and cerebral, harsh for its time. That, and dying in 1956. If he had lived longer, he might have found a project to suit his writing and performing talents.
One of my favorite of Benny’s shows was the one where they do the parody of The Whistler … The Fiddler.
http://ia331310.us.archive.org/3/items/JackBenny19451947/JB_461020_The_Fiddler_Whistler_Parody.mp3
“I said your money or your life!”…”I’M THINKING ABOUT IT!”
George Washington Slept Here is awesome….
Its funny speaking of classics. The movie Holiday Inn made me start thinking when we lived in Carlisle. The old Molly Pitcher Hotel in downtown Carlisle was for sale or rent and I wondered if it could have been renovated and turned into something like what Bing Crosby’s character envisioned.
Stalag 17 has something for everybody: Nazis, Bill Holden, great direction by Billy Wilder and so on…One of our friend’s father spent time in a Russian POW camp, Floyd. He was a tough guy who had a great sense of humor. He said one of the things they did to pass the time was to set their flatulence on fire.
The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer is a great romantic comedy with my favorite leading man of all time, Cary Grant. Myrna Loy has good chemistry with him as does Shirley Temple.
And yes, I’m certain TCM will show Jamie Lee’s tatas. Will someone please report back and tell us?
Stalag 17 is Never Not Good, a movie which can be watched at any time in any mood and still please. Give Peter Graves credit for stellar performance — all performances stellar, straight down through the supporting cast. Given the constrained set (majority of scenes shot in the one P.O.W. cabin) this is a visually superb movie.
No discussion of Jack Benny films should omit To Be or Not to Be — absolutely OUT-effing-standing. Benny, Lombard, Lubitsch, Robert Stack, Felix Bressart, Lionel Atwill & Sig Ruman take on Hitler; imagine if H-wood did the same to Ahmadinejad and The Mullahs.
No mention of Poltergeist, Floyd? Mr. Craig T. Nelson and no mention? Fortunately, I’ve been paying attention to the TCM schedule.