Stalag 17

By Billy Wilder

Stalag 17 (1953), the riveting drama of a German prisoner-of-war camp, was adapted from the Broadway play directed by José Ferrer in 1951. Billy Wilder developed the play and made the film version more interesting in every way. Edwin Blum, a veteran screenwriter and friend of Wilder's, collaborated on the screenplay but found working with Wilder an agonizing experience.

Wilder's mordant humor and misanthropy percolate throughout this bitter story of egoism, class conflict, and betrayal. As in a well-constructed murder mystery, the incriminating evidence points to the wrong man. Jeffrey Meyers's introduction enriches the reading of Stalag 17 by including comparisons with the Broadway production and the reasons for Wilder's changes.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1999.
Stalag 17 (1953), the riveting drama of a German prisoner-of-war camp, was adapted from the Broadway play directed by José Ferrer in 1951. Billy Wilder developed the play and made the film version more interesting in every way. Edwin Blum, a vetera

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Release date: Jul 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9780520922853

Billy Wilder

Billy Wilder was born in 1906 near Cracow in Polish Galicia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His first career was journalism, but he soon moved into the German film industry as a scriptwriter. When Hitler came to power, Wilder fled to Paris and came to Hollywood in 1934. His fifty-year career there—as both director and cowriter—was one of astonishing versatility and genius, encompassing films about war, murder, alcoholism, Hollywood, sensational journalism, prison camps, criminal trials, love stories, and romance as comedy. Billy Wilder has been nominated for twenty-one Academy Awards and has won six Oscars. He lives in Los Angeles. Jeffrey Meyers, a renowned biographer, has written many books and articles on modern American, English, and European literature. He lives in Berkeley.

Book preview

STALAG 17

STALAG 17

BILLY WILDER

STALAG 17

BILLY WILDER

screenplay by BILLY WILDER EDWIN BLUM

with an introduction by JEFFREY MEYERS

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

BERKELEY / LOS ANGELES / LONDON

University of California Press

Berkeley and Los Angeles, California

University of California Press, Ltd.

London, England

Published by permission of Billy Wilder, © 1999 by the Regents of the University of California.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wilder, Billy, 1906-

Stalag 17 / Billy Wilder; with an introduction by Jeffrey Meyers.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 0-520-21857-4 (pbk.: alk. paper)

1. Stalag 17 (Motion picture). 11. Title.

PN1997.S6574 1999

791.43’72— dcz1 98-33437

CIP Manufactured in the United States of America 987654321

The paper used in this publication is both acid-free and totally chlorine-free (TCF). It meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

INTRODUCTION TO

STALAG 17

JEFFREY MEYERS

I

LIKE VLADIMIR NABOKOV, another brilliant exile and outsider, the cosmopolitan and urbane Billy Wilder had a highly idiosyncratic view of the radically different culture he encountered in America. His screenplays, like Nabokov’s novels, have a fresh idiom and coruscating style. In a fifty-year career Wilder has shown astonishing versatility— and real genius—as both coauthor and director (beginning in 1943) of films about war, murder, alcoholism, Hollywood, sensational journalism, prison camps, trials and aviation, as well as of dazzling romantic comedies like Some Like It Hot and bittersweet love stories like The Apartment. His last film was Buddy Buddy (1981). He was also able to inspire great

Reviews for Stalag 17

[comfypants · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A film starring William Holden (Paramount, 1953).POWs suspect there's an informant among them.B (Good).I remember liking this better the last time I watched it, maybe because I had lower expectations. It's a good movie. But it's too patriotic. And it feels too much like a play.(Mar. 2023)