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1[[quoteright:308:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/stalag_17_1953.jpeg]]
2[[caption-width-right:308:[[CoversAlwaysLie Actually, the girl is barely in the movie.]]]]
3
4->''"There are two people in this barracks who know I didn't do it. Me, and the guy that did do it."''
5-->-- '''Sefton'''
6
7''Stalag 17'' is a 1953 American war {{dramedy}} movie set inside a UsefulNotes/{{World War II}} German POWCamp, directed by Creator/BillyWilder and featuring an EnsembleCast that includes Creator/WilliamHolden, Don Taylor, Creator/OttoPreminger, Robert Strauss, Harvey Lembeck, Creator/RichardErdman, Creator/PeterGraves, Neville Brand, and Sig Ruman. Adapted by Wilder and Edwin Blum from the [[TheFilmOfThePlay hit Broadway play]] of the same title, which was based in turn on the real-life [=POW=] experiences of authors Donald Bevan and Edmund Trzcinski.
8
9The 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 that there's a traitor in their midst who tipped off the Germans. The primary suspect is one J.J. Sefton (Holden), a cynical scrounger who employs Cookie as his lackey and whose caustic attitude and self-centered opportunism rankles the rest of the barracks.
10
11The film is built on a double allegory: the same paranoia that causes the [=POW=]s to target Sefton had 1) enabled the Nazis easily to scapegoat the Jews and 2) prompted Hollywood to institute a [[UsefulNotes/TheHollywoodBlacklist blacklist]] shortly before the film's release scapegoating [[RedScare left-leaning]] scriptwriters, performers, and others.
12
13----
14!!This movie contains examples of:
15
16* AffablyEvil: Colonel von Scherbach makes light-hearted speeches to the prisoners:
17-->All right then, gentlemen, we are all friends again. And with Christmas coming on I have a special treat for you. I'll have you all deloused for the holidays and I'll have a little Christmas tree for every barrack. You will like that.
18** And he says this while the bodies of Manfredi and Johnson lie in the mud in front of him.
19** Sergeant Schulz may claim to be your friend. But he's not.
20* AllGermansAreNazis: Averted with PunchClockVillain Schulz. His reaction to all the prisoners mockingly dressing as Hitler is a muttered "One Führer is enough."
21* AmbiguouslyJewish: Harry Shapiro.
22** Possibly Duke, as he says "Shalom, boys," to Manfredi and Johnson before their escape attempt.
23* AntiHero: Sefton's an obnoxious jerk who seems to enjoy taunting the others with the goodies he gets from his black-market trading. But he's an American at heart.
24* ArtisticLicenseMilitary: Schulz is referred to in dialogue several times as holding the rank of Feldwebel, but the costuming department has given him the uniform of an Unteroffizier, a much lower rank.
25* BavarianFireDrill: How Harry and The Animal nearly get a peek into the Russian Women, until the guard wises up. Who knows, maybe the guard opening the gate was [[StealthPun actually a Bavarian]]...
26* BerserkButton: Duke (understandably) gets really pissed when Sefton [[ItMakesSenseInContext strikes a match off his beard stubble]].
27* BetterTheDevilYouKnow: Invoked by Schulz, who points out that as much as the men of Barracks 4 may dislike him, if they make him look bad by disobeying his orders they could end up with someone who doesn't even try to play nice with them like he does.
28* BigBad: [[spoiler: Price]], TheMole sabotaging the prisoners' clandestine resistance efforts and escape attempts, and using Sefton as a scapegoat.
29%%* TheBigGuy: Duke and The Animal.
30* BlatantLies:
31** After the other prisoners beat Sefton up thinking he was a traitor, Sefton explains the bruises to the Geneva Representative by saying that he was playing pinochle.[[note]]Pinochle is a card game, and is not in fact a "rough game".[[/note]] The representative knows it is a lie, but without Sefton saying anything else he cannot do a thing about it.
32** A POW gets a letter from his wife claiming she just "found" a doorstop baby that happened to look just like her.
33** 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. The only thing of importance mentioned, the status of Lt. Dunbar, is something the camp officials would have eventually told them anyway. Huffy just made sure they get news sooner.
34* BodyguardBetrayal: [[spoiler:Price is the designated security guy who greenlights all of the [=POW=]s' secret projects. And he's the mole.]]
35%%* BoisterousBruiser: Animal.
36* BookEnds: A prison break opens and closes the film. During both, a man with a bundle tied to this ankle is shot at.
37* CelebCrush: Animal's obsession with Creator/BettyGrable; he's got pinups of her all around his bunk, and even drinks himself drunk when he finds out she married an orchestra leader. We also have:
38* ChekhovsGun: The ping-pong balls they get from the Red Cross truck end up being used by the sergeants to creat a smoke screen so they can rescue Dunbar from the Gestapo.
39* ChromosomeCasting: Save for the barely-glimpsed female Russian prisoners, all the characters are male. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] by it being set in a [=POW=] camp, during an era when most all military personnel were male.
40* ClearMyName: All of Sefton's wheeling and dealings with the Germans comes back to bite him, as it makes him the perfect guy for the mole to put all the blame on. Oddly enough he doesn't really complain or care about it and even uses the animosity in his favor while he works out who the ''real'' mole is...ironically saving the Stalag in the process.
41* CoverIdentityAnomaly: A mistake which ultimately does TheMole in.
42-->'''Sefton:''' When was Pearl Harbor, [[spoiler:Price]], or don't you know that?
43-->'''[[spoiler:Price]]:''' December 7th, '41.
44-->'''Sefton:''' What time?
45-->'''[[spoiler:Price]]:''' Six o'clock. I was having dinner.
46-->'''Sefton:''' Six o'clock in Berlin. They were having lunch in Cleveland.
47* CrappyHolidays: The prisoners do their best to make Christmas enjoyable, but they're still stuck in a miserable POW camp with no end to the war in sight.
48* CrazyEnoughToWork: Shapiro and Animal come up with a plan to get access to the Russian women's camp: pretend to be on a detail to paint a line in the road. Amazingly enough, the guards at the gate fall for it, opening the gate and waving them through. It isn't until they are outside the women's shower that a guard realizes what's going on and sends them running back to the barracks.
49* CutHimselfShaving: The wonderful excuse Sefton gives to explain his injuries from his bunkmates beating him is to say, "Nobody beat me. We were playing pinochle. It's a rough game."
50* DeadpanSnarker: A good chunk of the cast, including Sefton, Shapiro, Animal, and Marco. Really, 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 don't have the option of using physical violence (unless things turn deadly serious.)
51* DeathByIrony: Once the identity of the mole is revealed once and for all, Sefton uses him to act as a diversion so he and Dunbar can escape. The [=POW=]s tie tin cans to the mole and throw him out of the barracks in the loudest manner possible, thus drawing the attention of every guard, watchdog, and machine gun tower in the camp, which proves [[KarmicDeath to be very lethal.]]
52* DefiantStoneThrow: Defiant Ocarina Throw. During the Colonel's AffablyEvil instance above, Animal throws Joey's ocarina in the puddle to dirty the Colonel's precious boots.
53* DoorstopBaby: A POW gets a letter from his girlfriend saying she found one that [[BlatantLies just happens to have her eyes and nose]].
54* {{Dramedy}}. It fits, but see MoodWhiplash, below.
55* DumbStruck [=/=] TheSpeechless: Joey, as he's suffering from severe combat fatigue (or, as it's more commonly known today, post-traumatic stress disorder).
56* DuringTheWar: It takes place in 1944 near the Danube River in Germany.
57* EveryManHasHisPrice: When offered silk stockings and 400 cigarettes in exchange for the identity of the spy in the barracks, Schultz can been seen seriously considering the offer for a few seconds before rejecting it.
58* EveryoneHasStandards: Many of the people in the camp are short-tempered and/or {{jerkass}}es, but all of them are shocked when they hear Manfredi and Johnson being executed.
59* EvilIsBigger: [[spoiler: 6' 3" Price is taller than everyone else in the camp]]
60* EvilIsPetty: After getting muddy water splashed on his boots, Col. von Scherbach cancels the miniature Christmas trees he was going to put in each barracks and orders that the delousing showers be done with ice water.
61* FailedASpotCheck: No one in the bunker noticed the light over the chessboard changing lengths from being tied up to hanging free, and so missed that this was how the spy was contacting the Germans.
62** Due to the lights being turned off (ironically because of the fake air raid they staged), Schulz and the mole don't notice that Sefton is still in the barracks, hiding behind a blanket.
63* FakeAmerican: In-universe example. [[spoiler:Price]] is actually a German who lived for many years in the United States and thus speaks fluent English and can fake an American accent. This makes him very effective as an infiltrator.
64* FirstPersonPeripheralNarrator: Cookie acts as narrator, though he is not the main character.
65* ForeignCussWord: Cookie uses the word "schweinhund" to describe Schulz; schweinhund (literally "pigdog") is the German equivalent of calling someone a bastard.
66* {{Foreshadowing}}: In the scene where Sefton is lying back in his bunk while the other [=POWs=] are gathered around ready to pounce on him and beat the tar out of him -- note which one of them gives the signal to start the beating. It's TheMole.
67** There are other little subtleties as well that hint as to who TheMole is:
68*** [[spoiler:During the opening scene, everyone that the spotlight touches recoils from the light except the spy.]]
69*** [[spoiler: During the initial bet of how far Manfredi and Johnson will make, when Sefton bets they don't make it out of the forest, everybody just glances at him, but notice who snaps his head towards him? TheMole.]]
70*** [[spoiler: Also notice that he's also the one who asks Sefton, "How come you were so sure Manfredi and Johnson wouldn't make it out of the forest last night?"]]
71*** [[spoiler: ''And,'' he's also the one who half-jokingly asks Schulz the following morning, "You guys have some machine gun practice last night?"]]
72*** [[spoiler: ''And,'' when Marco says the barracks is jinxed and lucky to be getting the radio, he says, "Don't worry, we'll take care of it."]]
73*** [[spoiler: When Dunbar is taken away by von Sherbach, much to Bagradian's surprise, he's also the one whose quick to offer, "You two must have shot your mouths off all the way from Frankfurt to here!"]]
74*** [[spoiler:When they come up with the plan to rescue Dunbar, the mole is the only one who's afraid of the [=SS=].]]
75*** Joey stares vacantly as they beat the wrong suspect, but smiles when they catch the real one.
76** When telling the story about the train, Dunbar says offhandedly, "We're all Americans here, aren't we?" They aren't!
77* FreudianExcuse: Schulz is convinced that [[TheSilentBob Joey]] is "fooling us with that crazy business", though in Joey's defense, Hoffy retorts with, "Oh yeah, how would YOU like to see the guts of nine pals splattered all over YOUR plane?"
78* FunnyBackgroundEvent: When von Scherbach is making the phone call to Berlin to tell them that he has the saboteur, the guard behind him comes to attention for the duration of the call.
79%% * Getting Crap Past The Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.
80* GargleBlaster: Sefton sets up a still and makes a potent alcohol using potato peels and a few threads for flavor. When Shapiro complains about it, Sefton points out the low quality of the ingredients and says his only guarantee is that your won't go blind from drinking it.
81* GratuitousGerman: In their mock Nazi rally, Bagradian is simply yelling every German word he knows (the script simply says HarpoDoesSomethingFunny).
82-->'''Bagradian:''' Czechoslovakia und Poland -- kaput! Und der Fräulein mit der Glockenspiel und der Bustenhalter -- verboten! Und der Apfelstrudel mit der Liederkranz -- Gesundheit! Everything is Gesundheit, kaput und verboten!
83* HairTriggerTemper: Animal and Duke.
84* HaveAGayOldTime: "…and we'll all feel gay, when Johnny comes marching home!"
85* HeroicBSOD: Joey maintains [[ThousandYardStare one]] throughout the film. Except when TheMole is caught and about to be killed. He smiles then. He also looks shocked and a bit happy when he gets a new ocarina.
86* HeterosexualLifePartners: Shapiro and Animal are almost always next to each other, always scheming something to see the Russian female prisoners, always betting together, and act like a married couple.
87* HilarityEnsues: Pretty much any scene involving the dynamic duo of Shapiro and Animal.
88* IAmSpartacus: At one point Animal splashes mud on von Scherbach's boots. Not seeing who did it, von Scherbach demands that the guilty party step forward or all would suffer, which Animal does...followed by the rest of the [=POW=]s.
89* 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.
90* TheInfiltration: One of the prisoners is actually a German spy who has been inserted into the POW barracks to glean intelligence.
91* {{Irony}}:
92** [[spoiler:Price tells everyone that he wants to help Dunbar escape because of the security slip-ups under his watch. Once outed as the mole, he unwillingly helps Dunbar escape by being used as a decoy.]]
93** Once revealed, the spy attempts to get to the commandant's office. He avoids being shot by the towers, but is killed by a guard emerging from the office.
94* {{Jerkass}}: Sgt. J.J. Sefton. With the exceptions of Cookie and Joey, he sees everyone in the compound as simply an opportunity to get resources to trade for goods. This comes to bite him in the ass in the beginning of the story; when he barters with the German guards using the cigarettes he won from a bet involving a botched escape attempt, he is suspected of being an agent planted by the Germans. He eventually becomes a JerkWithAHeartOfGold when he decides to help save Dunbar and gives what's left of his stash to Cookie. Sefton defends this view because his first week in a prison camp netted him lost clothes, and bruises when he tried to do something about it. Being out for himself did him better...
95** Harry Shapiro has his moments, given his fondness for [[BlackHumor cruel jokes]]. He asks Animal what he wants for breakfast, offering a wide variety of delectable breakfast foods, when of course they are just getting cold potato peel soup, like every other morning.
96* KnightInSourArmor: Sefton is caustic, cynical, and self-dealing, but in the end he gets Dunbar out alive and rids the camp of one Nazi mole.
97* LargeHam:
98** Von Scherbach. The colonel goes through great effort to put on his shiny boots ''just to make a phone call'' (so he can click the heels together, ach so...).
99** Animal is also one of the [[IncrediblyLamePun largest]] members of the prisoners.
100** As is Bagradian, with his various celebrity impressions and so forth.
101* {{Leitmotif}}: The melody of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" is a recurring part through the movie.
102* MilitaryMoonshiner: Sefton runs a still among his various other moneymaking enterprises.
103* TheMole: The film's plot in a nutshell. Revealed to be [[spoiler:Sgt. Price]].
104** MoleInCharge: And he's [[spoiler:Security officer for the whole barracks]], allowing him open access to most any plots or information the men might have.
105* MoodWhiplash: The constant tonal shifts between broad comedy and deadly serious drama may put some viewers off.
106* MoreHeroThanThou: When the men were going to pull a man's dogtag out to select someone to save Dunbar, Price grabs it and claims this. He claims he wants to volunteer to atone for his lousy job as Security. Sefton picks now to do the big reveal.
107** Played for laughs when Harry volunteers immediately before Price, then clarifies that he's only volunteering to draw the dogtag.
108* NobodysThatDumb: When the [=POWs=] start putting their plan into action to subdue the Gestapo and get Dunbar to safety, they begin pressing out into the compound in a hurry, to which Marco the mailman tells them to take it easy. "Remember, just because the Krauts are dumb, that doesn't mean they're stupid."
109* NotWhatItLooksLike: Sefton tries bribing Schulz into telling him who the spy is by offering him nylons and a whopping ''400'' cigarettes. Schultz rejects the offer just as the other denizens of the barracks walk in and interpret this as Sefton trying to trade for favors again. Sefton doesn't bother trying to defend himself, as the others have already made up their minds about him.
110** Really, most of Sefton's trades fall into this, as he tends to get a good deal right when someone has died or something has been confiscated from the barracks. He tries to convince the barracks that correlation isn't causation, but with suspicions and tempers flaring he is unsuccessful.
111* ObfuscatingStupidity: Schulz. He acts as though he's trying for an over-the-top Wacky Nazi trying to be pseudo-friends with the Americans. Actually, it's an effective cover so they don't realize he's running a spy inside the American barracks.
112* OhCrap: The moment TheMole realizes that Sefton has proven to rest of the [=POW=]s that he's the double agent.
113** Manfredi and Johnson crawl out of their escape hole to see [[spoiler: a German machine gun crew waiting for them]].
114** When the guards announce lights out and Sefton is faced with an angry mob of men, in the dark, who all think he's the rat. They proceed to beat the shit out of him.
115** Harry gets a mild (and comedic) one when he realizes The Animal actually thinks he's Betty Grable while they're dancing.
116** Von Scherbach, when he sees they killed the mole and not Dunbar. And then Schulz, when Von Scherbach turns and shoots a DeathGlare at him.
117* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Duke, Blondie, and Animal are only refered to as such throughout the movie. Their real names are only mentioned during mail call: Musgrove, Peterson, and Stanilaus Kuzawa, respectively.
118* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: Von Scherbach is careful to avoid getting his boots muddy the entire movie, until he thinks that Dunbar has been killed. Then, he gleefully steps in the mud to examine the body.
119* POWCamp: The whole film is set in one.
120* ProfessionalWrestling: Schulz mentions to the prisoners that he did this in America before the war and plans to do so again when the war is over.
121* PunchClockVillain: Schulz.
122-->''(upon seeing all the prisoners with Hitler mustaches)'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEi5PAFkiNI "Bah! One Führer is enough!"]]
123* TheReveal / BluffingTheMurderer: When Sefton tricks [[spoiler:Price]] into revealing when and where he heard about [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII Pearl Harbor]]. "6:00. I was eating dinner," [[spoiler:Price]] answers. Sefton points out that he'd only be able to do that if he lived in Central Europe, and not Cleveland like he said.
124** Well, that and [[spoiler:Price]] was stupid enough to keep the hollowed-out chess piece in his breast pocket.
125* RightUnderTheirNoses: Harry and Animal attempt to sneak into the Russian women's compound by painting a white line on the ground and past the guard post. [[TheGuardsMustBeCrazy It works... for about 30 seconds.]]
126* RunningGag: Sefton using Duke's stubble to light his matches.
127* {{Sacrificial Lamb}}s: Manfredi and Johnson die in the first few minutes of the movie.
128* TheScrounger: Sefton, although unlike many examples he's in it entirely for himself.
129* SelectiveObliviousness: One of the [=POW=]s gets a letter from home from his wife, who writes to tell him about this beautiful baby just left on her doorstep. The guy ''wants'' to totally buy his wife's story, while the other [=POW=] he's reading the letter to just [[BreakingTheFourthWall stares at the camera]] with an "I can't believe he's buying this" expression.
130-->''(reading)'' "...and you'll ''never'' believe this, but she has just my eyes and my nose!" Why does she keep saying I'll never believe it? I believe it. I ''believe'' it! ''(less assuredly, after a {{beat}})'' I believe it...
131** Gets a CallBack later in the film, as the same guy is shown knitting a pair of baby socks, then pausing to utter another "I believe it!" to nobody in particular.
132* ShellShockedVeteran: Joey. He saw the guts of his squad mates hit his plane. He only appears happy when playing, getting a new ocarina, and watching as [[spoiler:Price]] is caught and about to be killed.
133* ShoutOut:
134** Animal's CelebCrush on Creator/BettyGrable.
135** Bagradian does impressions of Creator/ClarkGable, Creator/RonaldColman, Creator/JamesCagney, and Creator/CaryGrant.
136* SillyRabbitIdealismIsForKids: Sefton in a nutshell.
137-->My first week here I lost my blanket, a carton of cigarettes, and my left shoe. Since then I've wised up.
138* SmartPeoplePlayChess: The chessboard on the barracks table which is used as a secret mailbox for [[spoiler:Price]] and Schulz.
139** Played with by Sefton. He says he doesn't play chess, but is the one who outsmarts the spy. He even demonstrates a Fool's Mate while claiming he doesn't understand the game.
140* SpellMyNameWithAThe: Animal goes back and forth between being referred to as "Animal" and "The Animal".
141* StealthInsult: Schulz is victimized by several of these.
142* SycophanticServant: Cookie is a mild one to Sefton, although less so when he thinks Sefton might really be the mole.
143* TakeThat: In his OpeningNarration, Cookie expresses his distaste for "those war pictures--all about ''flying leathernecks'' and ''submarine patrols'' and ''frogmen'' and ''guerillas in the Philippines''." Yes, those are all actual titles of other war movies.
144* ThoseTwoGuys: Shapiro and Animal, natch.
145* ThoseWackyNazis: In variety.
146* TookALevelInDumbass: Animal does this very briefly, after hacking on Sefton's moonshine, and pulling his cap down over his eyes; after Sefton remarks, "All the house guarantees is you don't go blind", Animal starts freaking out because he thinks he's gone blind. Even Harry remarks, "Blind? How stupid can you get, Animal?" before pulling his cap back over his head.
147* VerbalTic: Marco the Mailman's "At ease! At ease!" in a high-pitched voice, with Animal echoing it back in a deep bass.
148** Cookie has an occasional [[SpeechImpediment stutter]].
149* VillainousBreakdown: Price has one when everyone turns on him once he is revealed to be a Nazi.
150* WaxingLyrical: Von Sherbach comments on the nasty weather, and says he wishes they could have a white Christmas, "[[Music/IrvingBerlin just like the ones you used to know]]".
151* WeNeedADistraction: In the climax, Sefton comes up with the idea of using [[spoiler:Price]] as this so he can get to Dunbar safely and they can escape the POW camp.
152* WhamLine: In-universe. See TheReveal above.
153* WhamShot: At the Christmas party, [[spoiler:Price]] wanders away from the group. At first it looks like he just wants to be alone (either thinking of home or pondering the security troubles in the barracks), but then he glances at the light bulb...
154* WhyAreYouLookingAtMeLikeThat: A rare case of this being PlayedForDrama: when Von Scherbach takes Dunbar out of the barracks, Hoffy and the others yell at Bagradian and claim he must have let it slip about the "time bomb" Dunbar used to take out the supply train, to which Bagradian snaps that he didn't tell anyone until they got to the barracks. On that, everyone turns and looks at Sefton.
155-->'''Sefton:''' What's everyone looking at me for?
156* YouCanSayThatAgain:
157-->'''Harry:''' I tell ya, Animal, those Nazis ain't kosher.\
158'''Animal:''' You can say that again.\
159'''Harry:''' I tell ya, Animal, those Nazis ain't--\
160'''Animal:''' ''(angrily)'' I said you could say it again; that doesn't mean you have to repeat it!
161

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