PHOTO OF THE DAY: STALAG 17

William Holden, Peter Graves. STALAG 17

He’s on to you.”

 

Robert Strauss,  Harvey Lembeck, William Holden, Neville Brand, Richard Erdman,  Peter Graves.

They’re onto you.”

 

That’s how you did it. Loop in the cord means a message for collection.

 

The Mailbox. A chess piece, a hollow black queen.

 

 

Robert Strauss, as ‘Animal’, practically steals the movie. So funny. Strauss was Oscar nominated for Best Supporting Actor.

 

Edmund Trzcinski

The original Broadway play was written by two ex-POW’s, Edmund Trzcinski and Donald Bevan.

For the film Billy Wilder created a small role for Trzcinski as the prisoner who gets a letter from his wife telling him that she found a baby on  her doorstep who looks just like her. He keeps saying, “I believe it.”

 

William Holden, Richard Beedle.

In an uncredited role as one of the prisoners was Richard Beedle, the younger brother of William Holden.

 

Possible casting.

 

William Holden

William Holden wins the Best Actor Oscar in 1954. His competition included Burt Lancaster and Montgomery Clift  for “From Here to Eternity” , Marlon Brando for “Julius  Casear” and Richard Burton for “The Robe”.

 

 

 

Peter Graves, Jay Lawrence, Harvey Lembeck, Neville Brand,  Don Taylor, William Holden, Robert Strauss,  Richard Erdman, Michael Moore.

 

In the original Broadway production of Stalag 17, directed by Jose Ferrer, the part of Sefton (William Holden in the film) was played by John Ericson.

John Ericson.

 

Gloria Swanson  visits the cast.

 

6 Oscars? I’m trying to figure out what they are for.

Best Director, The Lost Weekend,  Sunset  Boulevard, The Apartment.

Best screenplay, Sunset Boulevard, The Apartment.

Irving Thalberg Award.

Total -6.

 

Robert Strauss, William Holden, Harvey Lembeck.

 

 

 

 

 

4 responses »

  1. Vienna, a really good collection of photographs of a really good Classic Movie. I think the photo of William Holden and his younger brother Richard is a nice touch. I first saw STALAG 17(1953) on the NBC SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES in 1965. William Holden may have thought that he didn’t deserve the Academy Award, but I think he deserved it.

    What a cast, and I still get a kick out of the casting of Otto Preminger and Sig Ruman.

  2. It was interesting to find that William Holden’s brother was in the movie. Not sure I agree about the Oscar. Preminger always good in his few acting roles.

  3. Vienna, I know William Holden himself thought that either Burt Lancaster or Montgomery Clift deserved the award more than he did for their performances in FROM HERE TO ETERNITY(1953). Holden was nominated three times for an Academy Award for performances in SUNSET BOULEVARD(1950), STALAG 17(1953), and NETWORK(1976). Of the three I would pick his performance as Joe Gillis in SUNSET BOULEVARD over his performance as Sergeant Sefton in STALAG 17. Also, I think he deserved at least a nomination for his role as Hal Carter in PICNIC(1956).

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s