The suspect sergeant, an opportunist hated and patronized by the men he exploits, is extraordinarily well played by William Holden. Bidding neither for sympathy nor any particular understanding. Holden's Sefton is no conventional war play hero.

Billy Wilder, one of the most caustic-minded of Hollywood's writer-director-producers, has taken a stage hit by Donald Bevan and Edmund Trzcinski and preserved its essential humor and tragedy with no dulling of its corrosive edges.

One of the year’s better films, a taut, shrewdly observant melodrama several notches above its stage original.

“Stalag 17” provides a thoughtful commentary on human resilience and camaraderie under extremely dire circumstances.