Stalag 17: Special Collector's Edition

Based on Donald Bevan and Edmund Trzcinski's popular Broadway play, Billy Wilder's 1953 WWII classic stars William Holden in an Oscar-winning performance as Sgt. Sefton, a loner and self-serving opportunist in the titular POW camp whose success in winning bets for cigarettes and other Red Cross parcel goodies from his fellow prisoners (which he can then trade for bonus privileges) builds resentment until Sefton is finally accused of being a spy who is collaborating with the Germans. Also nominated for Best Director (Wilder) and Supporting Actor (Robert Strauss, who plays the lovable Betty Grable-worshipping oaf “Animal”), Stalag 17 is one of the best WWII POW films—along with The Great Escape and The Bridge on the River Kwai—and would later inspire the ‘60s sitcom Hogan's Heroes. Presented in a handsome-looking new special collector's edition, DVD extras here include audio commentary by Bevan and co-stars Richard Erdman and Gil Stratton, as well as “making-of” and historical featurettes (in which we learn that Charlton Heston was the first choice to play Sefton but was tied-up in another project), and a photo gallery. Highly recommended. (R. Pitman)