Monthly Archives: October 2015

Stalag 17
Directed by Billy Wilder
Written by Billy Wilder and Edwin Blum from a play by Donald Bevin and Edmund Trzcinski
1953/USA
Paramount Pictures
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

Sgt. Schulz: How do you expect to win the war with an army of clowns?
Lt. James Skylar Dunbar: We sort of hope you’d laugh yourselves to death.

Billy Wilder wise-cracks his way through life in a POW camp.

The action takes place at about the time of the Battle of the Bulge in a camp housing US sergeants.  The men make their lives bearable through joking and various improvised games.  Sgt, J. J. Sefton (William Holden) is the organizer of many of these activities.  As the story begins, two of the men make an escape attempt.  Sefton takes bets from one and all that the men will not make it.  They are killed and Sefton wins his bet.  The men become convinced that one of their number is an informer.  Attention focuses on Sefton, who is thoroughly cynical and always seems to have the best of everything.

One day, a couple of new POWs who are officers arrive.  One of them boasts that he blew up a train depot in Frankfurt even after he was captured.  Soon the officer is being questioned by camp commandant Col. Scherbach.  The men are more and more convinced that Sefton is the rat.  I think I will leave it at that.  With Sig Ruman as a prison guard and Robert Strauss, Harvey Lembeck, Don Taylor and Peter Graves as prisoners.

The last time I watched this movie the Oscar-nominated performance of Robert Strauss as “Animal” irritated the hell out of me.  This time it didn’t bother me at all.  Holden is always Holden.  I find him appealing and enjoyed his performance.  It was fun to see Preminger as a Nazi.  Worth a watch.

William Holden won the Academy Award for Best Actor.  The film was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor (Strauss) and Best Director.

Re-release trailer

Affair in Trinidad
Directed by Vincent Sherman
Written by Oscar Saul and James Dunn; story by Virginia Van Upp and Berne Giler
1952/USA
Columbia Pictures Corporation/The Beckworth Corporation
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Dominique: It is the prerogative of a faithful and loyal servant to be impertinent.[/box]

The story, a mash-up of Gilda and Notorious, falls rather flat.  Not so Rita Hayworth’s dancing.

Neal Emory’s body is found in Port of Spain harbor with a bullet in the head.  At first, it is thought that the unsuccessful painter may have committed suicide.  The police and American consul call on Neal’s widow, Chris (Hayworth).  She has no idea why he might have committed suicide but reveals that the couple had been married in name only for about a year.  A witness and an autopsy reveal that the corpse was shot after Neal was strangled.

The police suspect the murder may have had something to do with the wealthy Max Fabian (Alexander Scourby), who is well-known to the police.  The police threaten that they will attribute Neal’s “suicide” to Fabian’s attraction to Chris if she does not cooperate by getting next to Fabian and reporting back.  She is not to reveal what she is doing to anyone.  For some reason, this intimidates Chris into cooperating.

In the meantime, Neal had written to his brother Steve (Glenn Ford) telling him that he had a job for him in Trinidad.  Steve shows up and starts a parallel investigation of his brother’s death.  He also ends up staying in Chris’s house.  Naturally, they begin a stormy love affair. Chris must play up to Fabian, however, causing ever more violent storms.  With Juanita Moore, as Chris’s wise, mystical Trinidadian housekeeper.

The plot is shot through with holes and its resolution is rushed and unsatisfactory.  I wasn’t expecting much from this movie and was pleasantly surprised that Ford and Hayworth retained their Gilda chemistry.

Clip – Rita Hayworth doing “Trinidad Lady”