History Film / Stalag17

-->(Upon seeing all the prisoners with Hitler mustaches) [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEi5PAFkiNI "Bah! One Führer is enough!"]]

* MoodWhiplash: The constant tonal shifts between broad comedy and deadly serious drama may put people off.

The film opens with the narrator, Cookie (Gil Stratton), recalling life in Barracks 4 of Stalag 17 -- a Luftwaffe POW compound "somewhere on the Danube" holding 630 sergeants from various U.S. flight crews -- and in particular the attempted December 1944 escape of two prisoners, Manfredi and Johnson, whose capture and death lead the rest of the [=POW=]s to suspect there is a traitor in their midst who tipped off the Germans. The primary suspect is Cookie's friend, the cynical and somewhat antisocial Sefton.

[[quoteright:310:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/stalag_17_1953.jpeg]]
[[caption-width-right:310:[[CoversAlwaysLie Actually, the girl is barely in the movie.]]]]

''Stalag 17'' is a 1953 war movie set in a UsefulNotes/{{World War II}} German POWCamp, directed by Creator/BillyWilder and starring Creator/WilliamHolden, Creator/OttoPreminger, Don Taylor, Robert Strauss, Neville Brand, Harvey Lembeck, Sig Rumann, and Creator/PeterGraves. Adapted from the hit Broadway play of the same name, which in turn was based on the real-life [=POW=] experiences of authors Donald Bevan and Edmund Trzcinski.

* CoverIdentityAnomaly: A CriticalResearchFailure which ultimately does TheMole in. He got the date when the Pearl Harbor attack occurred right, but failed to take into account the time zone.

* DeadpanSnarker: A good chunk of the cast, including Sefton, Shapiro, Animal, and Marco. The whole camp is pretty much a WorldOfSnark, with even von Scherbach and Schulz getting in on the action. This is justified since most of the cast are either prisoners or guards who aren't happy to be where they are but who don't have the option of using physical violence (unless things turn deadly serious.)

[[quoteright:305:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/stalag_17_1953.jpeg]]
[[caption-width-right:305:[[CoversAlwaysLie Actually, the girl is barely in the movie.]]]]

The film opens with the narrator, Cookie (Gil Stratton), recalling life in Barracks 4 of Stalag 17 -- a Luftwaffe POW compound "somewhere on the Danube" -- and in particular the attempted December 1944 escape of two prisoners, Manfredi and Johnson, whose capture and death cause the American [=POW=]s to suspect that a traitor in their midst had tipped off the Germans. The primary suspect is Cookie's friend, the cynical and somewhat antisocial Sefton.

* TheMole: The film's plot in a nutshell. Revealed to be [[spoiler:Price]].
** MoleInCharge: And he's [[spoiler:Security for the whole bunker]], allowing him open access to most any plots or information the men might have.

** Despite all of them being in the Air Force, Price tells Manfredi and Johnson to bury their army clothes in the woods. Also, the ranks we see on the clothing are all Army ranks.

* TheBigGuy: Duke and The Animal.

* BoisterousBruiser: Animal.

** ImYourBiggestFan: When a drunken Animal dances with Harry thinking he's Betty Grable, he tells "her" about how he's seen every movie she ever made -- six times -- and is always so fixated on her that he won't even open his bag of popcorn.

* HeterosexualLifePartners: Shapiro and Animal.

* {{Irony}}: [[spoiler:Price tells everyone that he wants to help Dunbar escape because of the security slipups under his watch. Once outed as the mole, he unwillingly helps Dunbar escape by being used as a decoy.]]

* VerbalTic: Marco the Mailman's "At ease! At ease!"

** The entire Geneva Convention visit is a farce, with the guards ordering the prisoners to say they were being treated well, while putting forth a sham of acceptable conditions.

* BookEnds: A prison break opens and closes the film.

** Von Scherbach's face when he sees they killed Price and not Dunbar.

* GeniusBonus: When Sefton is telling Price that he never played chess and starts trying to remember how the pieces move, he sets up a perfect Fool's Mate. [[spoiler:He later outmaneuvers Price into 'losing the game' and outtinf himself as the spy.]]