"Stalag 17" + Tired

Sorry I missed ya again last night, but I had no movie to review. No one seems to be reading this blog lately anyway, and I am trying not to lose interest in writing it, but lately the hit counter reads zero a lot of the time. I used to always write for Elizabeth, but she has disappeared from social media. Going back to the Myspace days, and even further back to my original blog on Delphi way back in the early 2000s, I always had readers and sometimes a lot of them, even though I never received a single comment or acknowledgement on anything I've ever written. It's kinda weird being me, because the people who know me may have read my blogs over the years, but none of them will admit it because I talk about weird stuff like 1989, and that is a subject that they will read about, but just can't bring themselves to talk about.

I was always willing to write anyway, as long as I saw some hits on the page view counter. Now that Elizabeth is gone, the views have trickled down to nothing. I will try to keep writing anyway, even though I am aware that my reviews of old movies may not be the most exciting things to read. :)

I did watch a movie tonight : "Stalag 17" (1953), the classic prisoner of war story directed by the great Billy Wilder. This is another film that "you would think I'd have seen", but I hadn't until tonight. Those of us who grew up with 1960s television comedies might know that it was the inspiration for the popular series "Hogan's Heroes", a show that I was a middling fan of as a kid. Because it was a sitcom, "Hogan's Heroes" felt incongruous to me, since my Dad had steeped me in theatrical release WW2 films, which might have had the typical Brooklyn Wisecracking Character making jokes between battle scenes, but which in general were long on combat and short on comic relief. In the movies, war was generally not funny. So I watched "Hogan's Heroes" as a six year old, and thought it was okay, but I didn't love it the way I loved a truly funny show like "Gilligan's Island", because I guess I didn't get the mix of humor and war. Or maybe in retrospect the show just wasn't that well done.

"Stalag 17", however, is a classic of the first order. Ironically, for the first hour it features almost non-stop humor and wisecracking, by most of the characters in the prison bunker, all American sergeants who have been grouped together by rank. In addition to directing, Wilder also co-wrote the script. So great was his talent as a screenwriter that it surpassed even his expertise as a director, all of which means that in this case, his comedic take on life in a German prison camp is not going to be the story in total, but only a lead-in to a much more serious and deadly plot.

William Holden won a Best Actor Oscar for his role as a big shot in the sergeants dormitory. He has a cache of goods ranging from radios to cigarettes and booze, all of which he has traded for with his captors, including a "Sgt. Schultz" who became a character on "Hogan's Heroes".

But there is a spy in the dorm. Two men try to escape and are killed. It is obvious they were set up and the Germans were tipped off. Holden is suspected of being the spy and has to hold off his accusers, led by fellow prisoner Neville Brand, who is ready to cut his throat.

You can see what a great screenwriter and director Billy Wilder was in the way he gradually bleeds the humor out of the situation while slowly blending in and building the deadly serious aspect of a conspirator : one prisoner who is selling out escape information on his fellow American soldiers in order to receive easy treatment from his German captors.

Suddenly the laughs drain away and the movie becomes as real as any of the WW2 dramas we are familiar with that do not have a comedic element.

I can tell you no more, and I must admit that I am dog tired these past few nights, so I hope that this review and those from the last week or so have made some measure of sense.

To sum up, "Stalag 17", even though it starts out with a light hearted comedic theme (which doubtlessly influenced "MASH" as well), moves through that facade - which is only gallows humor anyway - to the deeper issue of the prisoners' immediate situation, which is life or death.

Will they rise up to find the spy in their midst? Will they continue to blame William Holden for their troubles, and is he indeed the traitor who has gotten his fellow soldiers killed? ////

One of the great endings in War Movie History will tell the tale.

My job takes everything I've got nowdays. I don't get out on hikes very often and concerts are a rare thing, but I am giving it all I've got, and i am maintaining my focus on getting to the truth of 1989, which in the long run will have been the greatest effort I have put forth in my life. Those who have kept the truth hidden have cost me enormously in terms of life energy I have spent, and in the amount of psychological difficulty I have experienced.

But in the long run, I will be successful. The truth will be told one day, and the folks who have kept silent will not be able to hide behind that veneer any longer.

See you in the morning.   xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)