Can we talk about this in relation to this film? Anyone have anything to offer on that subject?
I've read that this film is Billy Wilder's comment on that era of Hollywood. Filmmakers couldn't comment directly but this was one of the films from the 50's that tackled it indirectly....
An interesting idea. But I've never heard such an interpretation before, and Wilder's biographer says nothing along those lines. I think Wilder was just adapting a story he liked and could rework to his satisfaction. Billy was a liberal opposed to the blacklist, but if it hadn't existed I doubt he would have done Stalag 17 any differently.
Sometimes people read their own views into things that the filmmakers had never intended, like those who say 50s sci-fi movies were really about Americans fighting the Commies. No, they weren't: they were sci-fi films, good stories on their own, period. I think that's almost certainly the case with Stalag 17: it's just a POW tale, nothing more. But I suspect that if some people took it as a subliminal criticism of the Hollywood blacklist and HUAC's witch hunts, Wilder wouldn't have minded much.
Note that the film was based on the play of the same name by Donald Bevan and Edmund Trzcinski. I can't find any resources that tell me what their intent might have been, but both men were former POWs. In an actual Stalag 17.
shareActually I have held a belief for a long time that the real meaning of the film was a statement about America's obsession with conformity in the 50s. Sefton is suspected as the snitch on no evidence at all except that he is different. Price is the "popular" guy, recognizable in every High School in America as the nominal hero. So no one questions him but are suspicious of the guy who is different. Its hard for anybody that didn't grow up in the 50s to understand the pressures to conform. The whole beatnik thing was about non conformity and its remarkable how little they had to do to be considered freaks. When the media looks back on the decade they pay attention to the non conformists but at the time they were nearly invisible. I can remember a man with a beard who wasn't either a rabbi or orthodox priest gathering a crowd on the street, and this was in New York City. Mildly non conformist people like Henry Morgan were considered almost forbidden. It is conformity/non conformity and not capitalism/communism that was the big controversy of the day.
shareInteresting. Could be. I
If you want to see a great movie about WWII veterans coming home check "The Best Years of Our Lives". There is a scene where a veteran is working for bank that refuses to give loans to people because they don't have any collateral. The veteran, considerably intoxicated, gets up at a bank party and gives a great speech which is definitely a thorn in the side for the big capitalists:
Al Stephenson: I want to tell you all that the reason for my success as a Sergeant is due primarily to my previous training in the Cornbelt Loan and Trust Company. The knowledge I acquired in the good ol' bank I applied to my problems in the infantry. For instance, one day in Okinawa, a Major comes up to me and he says, "Stephenson, you see that hill?" "Yes sir, I see it." "All right," he said. "You and your platoon will attack said hill and take it." So I said to the Major, "but that operation involves considerable risk. We haven't sufficient collateral." "I'm aware of that," said the Major, "but the fact remains that there's the hill and you are the guys who are going to take it." So I said to him, "I'm sorry, Major... no collateral, no hill." So we didn't take the hill and we lost the war. I think that little story has considerable significance, but I've forgotten what it is. And now in conclusion, I'd like to tell you a humorous anecdote. I know several humorous anecdotes, but I can't think of any way to clean them up, so I'll only say this much. I love the Cornbelt Loan and Trust Company. There are some who say that the old bank is suffering from hardening of the arteries and of the heart. I refuse to listen to such radical talk. I say that our bank is alive, it's generous, it's human, and we're going to have such a line of customers seeking and GETTING small loans that people will think we're gambling with the depositors' money. And we will be. We will be gambling on the future of this country. I thank you.
Life is for lovers, and lovers are for life.
Yes, but curiously the goal of the three returning vets in Best Years was conformity: each wanted nothing more than to return to civilian life and slip happily into an undistinguished existence of middle-class conformity. Yet for each this proved not entirely possible.
Curiously also, it's the wealthiest man, the one with no money worries, the banker Al Stephenson (Fredric March), who has the most radical ideas of any of the trio. Many of his views are almost socialistic in comparison with the others', much less with his reactionary boss -- what they called in those days a Neanderthal.
Back on topic, the Communist issue (including the blacklist) doesn't appear in any form in Stalag 17. If anything, Sefton's unbridled capitalism is the film's driving narrative: even at the end he's planning on collecting a healthy reward from Sefton's mother for getting her son home.
"No, they weren't; they were sci-fi films, good stories on their own, period".
I wouldn't necessarily go for blanket statements like that - certainly, there are 'some' 50s sci-fi numbers that look so obviously allegorical (for instance, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, Not Of This World, I Married A Monster From Outer Space) that it seems inconceivable this dimension of their creation never occurred to their respective authors - even though this allegory may have more likely to do with a rampant, soulless consumerism and obsession with surfaces than with a Commie takeover (nevertheless, according to the more paranoid element, Commies 'were' infiltrating allover the place in 1950's America - and the cheapo sci-fi niche cranked out an endless array of films about various invasions. Must have been in the air). I agree though that looking for allegories or parables of this sort in Stalag 17 is pretty much a waste of time.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan