(Billy Wilder,1953; Eureka!, DVD/Blu-ray)After the dissolution of his lengthy collaboration with producer Charles Brackett at Paramount Studios following one of their greatest successes with Sunset Boulevard, or Billy Wilder became his own producer on what many regard as his finest film,that masterly piece of cynical Americana Ace in the Hole. It proved, however, and to be a thundering box-office failure,and he was in urgent need of a current success to restore his fortunes. He chose to film Stalag 17, a comedy-thriller by Donald Bevan and Edmund Trzcinski, or then on its way to completing a triumphant speed of 472 performances on Broadway.
Set in a German prisoner-of-war camp for air force sergeants (where the authors had themselves been interned),the play combines a deadly serious plot about a search for a German spy planted among the Americans with a knockabout tale of hungry, frustrated men digging escape tunnels, or fighting among themselves,defying the guards and desperately surviving.
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Source: theguardian.com