Is Costner a big fan of this movie? Lt. Dunbar - Dances With Wolves

Good question.

But here's something that was certainly not a coincidence. In 1944 Billy Wilder's brother, W. Lee Wilder (real name, Willie), sold his successful ladies' handbag business in New York and moved to Hollywood, where for sixteen years he produced and often directed bottom-budget films a world away from those of his famous brother.

One of these was the 1954 film The Snow Creature, apparently the first abominable snowman movie. Suffice to say, it was approximately lousy. In the film, an expedition brings back to the U.S. the titular creature (a guy in a parka and bad lighting) after capturing him in Nepal (where all the "Nepalese" speak Japanese). They land in L.A., where while the authorities bicker about whether he's freight or livestock, the snowman escapes from the iced phone booth in which he's been incarcerated and like all escaped abominable snowmen heads for the sewers. There he's tracked and finally gunned down by the pursuing scientist who brought him in and the police officer who's equally dedicated to shooting endangered species. They then drive off laughing, apparently having found the whole thing funny.

Anyway, the police officer in the film is named -- you guessed it -- Lt. Dunbar. Billy Wilder was not happy with his brother's second career choice, and Willie knew it, so this was doubtless his little jab in payback. Well, perhaps a second jab.

No sooner had Stalag 17 wrapped than W. Lee nabbed its villain, Peter Graves, for the lead in his pre-Snow Creature opus, Killers From Space...which, according to Graves, was the credit for which he received the greatest amount of fan mail throughout his life!