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DVD Release Date
• R1: Dec 14, 1999
• R2: 10 Jun 2002
Budget USD 1,315,000
Running Time
2 hours, 0 minutes
Country USA
Studio Paramount
More info on IMDb.com
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Genre: War, Drama, Comedy, World War II, Prison, Escape, Spy, Black Comedy, Christmas, Suspense
Plot: Billy Wilder's adaptation of the Broadway hit stars William Holden as the cynical Sefton. Set in the eponymous German prison camp during WWII, the director's broad, black comedy focuses on a group of decidedly unheroic prisoners. While they spend most of their time trying to entertain each other with comedy routines and pin-ups, they also occasionally entertain thoughts of escape. But escape is the last thing on the mind of the hard, calculating Sefton, a wheeler-dealer who's salted away a stash of creature comforts which are the envy of the barracks. When a couple of prisoners are killed while attempting to escape, Sefton collects the money he won by betting against their success, and many believe that it was he who informed the Germans. After a new prisoner, Lt. Dunbar (Don Taylor) talks openly about having bombed a German ammo train, he's immediately subjected to a harsh interrogation by sadistic commandant Oberst von Scherbach (Otto Preminger). Their suspicions confirmed, the prisoners take revenge against Sefton. A film whose depiction of American G.I.s as ordinary, even selfish, people probably seemed seemed edgier in the 1950s than it does now, it remains a durable entertainment, with incisive performances by Holden and Preminger.
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| Directed by |
Billy Wilder
Some Like It Hot, Sunset Blvd., Double Indemnity |
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| Cast |
William Holden
The Bridge on the River Kwai, Sunset Blvd., The Wild Bunch |
 | Don Taylor
Father of the Bride, Battleground, The Naked City | | Robert Strauss
The Seven Year Itch, The Man with the Golden Arm, The Bridges at Toko-Ri | Harvey Lembeck
The Unsinkable Molly Brown, Love with the Proper Stranger, Beach Blanket Bingo | | Peter Graves
Airplane!, The Night of the Hunter, House on Haunted Hill | |
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