Building a Bridge in Wartime

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"Do not speak to me of rules. This is war! This is not a game of cricket!"

Col. Saito (Sessue Hayakawa)

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Not all battles in a war are fought on a battlefield.

Set in World War II, director David Lean's "The Bridge on the River Kwai," which made its American debut on this date in 1957, was about one of the smaller battles that was fought during that war. And while there are legitimate doubts about the historical accuracy of the story, the message was unmistakable.

Alec Guinness took home Best Actor for his performance as the senior British officer at a Japanese prison camp who kept insisting that the Geneva Conventions excused officers from manual labor. The commandant of the camp (Sessue Hayakawa) was under a great deal of pressure. He had to build a bridge across the Kwai River in Burma to expedite the movement of Japanese troops and matériel. What is more, this strategic structure had to be completed by a specific date.

Time was of the essence so the commandant pressed every able–bodied prisoner into service, even the officers. The British officer balked and was punished repeatedly but refused to yield.

Thus the two men were locked in another war — a war of wills.

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For the commandant it was literally a matter of life and death; failure to complete the bridge on time would force him to take his own life in keeping with his moral code. But the British officer absolutely would not compromise.

Meanwhile a Navy officer (William Holden) and two others attempted an escape from the prison camp. The others were killed, but Holden, although injured, managed to get away. As he was recuperating, he learned that he had been assigned to return and destroy the bridge before it was fully functional.

What Holden's character did not know was that Guinness and his men were now working toward the completion of the bridge, not its destruction — and not because of the benefits the Japanese would derive from it but for their own pride and morale.

How it all played out is something no movie lover should miss.

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I heard it said once that there are no "war" movies, only "anti–war" movies, and sometimes I think that is true (although other times I am not so sure). The essence of being anti–war is to expose war's brutality, and the intriguing thing about "The Bridge on the River Kwai" is that it does that — but not in the way you might think.

When one thinks of the brutality of war, one is inclined to think of physical brutality. "The Bridge on the River Kwai" was more about psychological brutality.

It was a classic anti–war movie experience.

Judy Holliday Was No Dummy

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Billie (Judy Holliday): You're just not couth!

Harry (Broderick Crawford): Yeah? Well, I'm as couth as you are!

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Judy Holliday wasn't the movies' first dumb blonde, and she certainly wasn't the last. But she may have been the best.

Let's be clear here, though. Judy Holliday was not dumb. She was said to have had an IQ of 172. That would put her in the ballpark with Albert Einstein, whose IQ is unknown but is estimated to have been between 160 and 190, and just behind Leonardo da Vinci, whose IQ was estimated to be between 180 and 190. That's pretty impressive company.

But she knew how to play dumb. She won the Oscar for Best Actress for playing the dumb blonde in "Born Yesterday," which premiered on this date in 1950. For a comedy, it garnered quite a few Oscar nominations — for Best Picture, Best Director (George Cukor), Best Screenplay, Best Black and White Costume Design — in addition to Holliday's. When she smiled for the camera, her twinkling eyes seemed to be saying, "You know, this is really an act. I'm a lot smarter than I seem."

"Born Yesterday" is a movie I never tire of watching — and what a treat it must have been for audiences 65 years ago to go to the theaters the day after Christmas and see Judy Holliday co–starring with William Holden and Broderick Crawford.

Kind of reminds me of Christmases when I was a child, and my parents would take my brother and me to the movies either on Christmas Day or the day after Christmas.

I don't think we ever went to a theater during the Christmas season and saw a movie that is regarded as a classic today, though, and I know for sure that we never saw a trio as talented as Judy Holliday, Broderick Crawford and William Holden.

Even so, Christmas always seemed to me to be a smart time for a studio to release a movie that seemed destined to be a blockbuster — or that the studio simply wanted to draw bigger audiences — but they didn't really seem to do that much when I was growing up. They do it a lot more now.

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It was an interesting shift for Crawford, who won a Best Actor Oscar for "All the King's Men" the year before. In some ways, though, it was the same character. They were both manipulators; Willie Stark was just better at it than Harry Brock. Maybe the product that Willie Stark was selling (himself) was more highly regarded than what Harry Brock was selling (junk) — although, given the reputation politicians seem to have always had, that seems to be backward, doesn't it?

Of course, the story did take place in Washington, D.C., which was where Harry was trying to buy a congressman.

For that matter, Holden hadn't yet been nominated for an Oscar when he made "Born Yesterday," but he got his first Oscar nomination for his performance in "Sunset Boulevard," which was in theaters only a few months earlier — and probably was still showing in many theaters in that pre–multiscreen cineplex era when movies could and did show at the same theaters for months.

Initially, Harry hired Holden's character to smooth Holliday's rough edges and instruct her in some of the finer points of government and history.

That way she could converse intelligently with Harry's clients. But she learned a lot more than he expected her to learn from Holden.

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In the process, they fell in love.

And Holliday's character showed millions of Americans what being a liberated woman was about — a couple of decades before the phrase became a part of modern American lingo.

Holliday played the role with true panache.

And, really, I would expect no less from someone as smart as she was.

Just a Gigolo ...

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Joe Gillis (William Holden): You're Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big.

Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson): I am big. It's the pictures that got small.

#24 movie quote of all time, American Film Institute

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I'm not an authority on Bill Holden's body of work. I've seen many of his movies, and I know he was one of the best actors of his generation, but I certainly haven't seen all of his movies. And, while I am hesitant to proclaim anything the best that someone ever did unless I have seen or heard or read all the entries for myself, I would probably have no problem declaring his performance in Billy Wilder's "Sunset Boulevard," which premiered on this day in 1950, his best. It's hard for me to see how he could have topped it.

In a story that began at the end, with Holden's lifeless body floating in a swimming pool, and was told in flashback, Holden played a down–on–his–luck screenwriter, trying to scrape together enough cash to square things with his aggressive auto finance company. I'm sure there were equally pressing issues in his life, but that was the one on which he was fixated when the movie began — and it dictated his every move.

It was while trying to evade the guys from the finance company who wanted to collect past–due payments or repossess the vehicle that Holden's character found himself on the estate of Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), a great star from the silent movie era but a has–been since the advent of talkies. He first thought the mansion was deserted, but it wasn't. Swanson's character lived virtually alone in a cavernous mansion, accompanied only by her dedicated — and fiercely protective — servant (Erich von Stroheim).

When I say "cavernous," I mean it. Really. In the viewer's first real glimpse of it, that huge mansion — with its overgrown tennis court and empty swimming pool — always reminds me of Xanadu in "Citizen Kane." A big, mostly empty (of people, that is, not things) coliseum. About the only things missing were the animals Charles Foster Kane had gathered from around the world.

But Norma Desmond matched Citizen Kane when it came to manipulating people. She always got her way — or she got her revenge.

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Holden became something of a kept man. Swanson's character had been working on a script to be used as her comeback vehicle, and she needed a writer to polish it. He accepted the job, not realizing that she intended for him to move in to the mansion. He discovered that the next day, when he woke up in the room she had provided — supposedly for one night — to find his belongings all around him. Max (von Stroheim) had moved them himself, and Norma had settled things with his landlord. Holden resented his sudden dependent status, but he accepted it as the price of doing business.

It was at a New Year's party that he realized that Norma was in love with him, and he bailed. He felt liberated, but later, when he called to ask that his things be forwarded to a new address, Max informed him that Norma had attempted suicide, and he was back in her web.

It seems to me that Swanson was so good in that role not because she was the best actress but because she had lived much of the character's life. The character had been a huge silent film star, and so had Swanson, but a key difference (well, sorta) is that Swanson was quick to embrace talkies, appearing in her first talkie in 1929. But she never really made it in talkies. Swanson made her attempts to fit in to the world of the talkies, but she never really caught on and had made only half a dozen movies in the two decades before she starred in "Sunset Boulevard."

In "Sunset Boulevard," Norma Desmond appeared to have resisted the changing technology — I don't think it was established whether she had ever tried to make a talkie — but she also seemed to have reached the conclusion that she would have to adapt if she wanted her career to have a new life — and she clearly did. It was, after all, her motivation for the script.

But, whether it was stated or not, it was clear to me that Norma hadn't been around the movie culture much after talkies came along. Why was that? I don't know. Maybe her character was one of those people who don't like the sounds of their own voices. Maybe she believed her skill as an actress was only suited for a silent environment. We can only guess.

In Swanson's visit to the studio to meet with her former director, Cecil B. DeMille, the legendary filmmaker offered to show her around because so much had changed since the last time she had been there. He artfully avoided any discussion of Norma's script — which he really didn't want, anyway — and then escorted her to her car. She seemed none the wiser.

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In fact, she embarked on a beauty regimen in anticipation of her big comeback, and Holden began working nights with a pretty script reader on an idea she thought showed promise. In the course of their work together, the two fell in love. Swanson found out about it and, in a series of events that are better seen than explained, wound up shooting Holden three times.

And, as the movie came to its conclusion, the viewers were returned to the present day, with Holden's body floating in the pool and the police filling both the poolside and the house. Norma descended her staircase, believing that the cameras were there to film her comeback. Max — who, the audience learned earlier, was once a film director who discovered the teenage Norma, made her a star, married and then divorced her and became her servant rather than live apart from her — played along with her, giving her directions while she spoke of being ready for her close–up.

The American Film Institute, by the way, chose that line about her close–up as the #7 movie line of all time.

Swanson was good enough to earn an Oscar nomination for Best Actress, but she lost to Judy Holliday.

"Sunset Boulevard" got 11 Oscar nominations in all — including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress — but won only three in more technical categories (Best Story and Screenplay, Best Dramatic or Comedy Score and Best Black and White Art Direction).

Franz Waxman won the Oscar for Best Dramatic or Comedy Score, and the American Film Institute ranked his work on "Sunset Boulevard" 16th among all film scores.

The American Film Institute also ranked "Sunset Boulevard" 16th among all films.

Spencer Tracy's Finest Hour?

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"I would like to say a few words about weddings. I've just been through one. Not my own. My daughter's. Someday in the far future I may be able to remember it with tender indulgence but not now. I always used to think that marriages were a simple affair. Boy meets girl. Fall in love. They get married. Have babies. Eventually the babies grow up and meet other babies. They fall in love. Get married. Have babies. And so on and on and on. Looked at that way, it's not only simple, it's downright monotonous. But I was wrong. I figured without the wedding."

Stanley Banks (Spencer Tracy)

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I like Steve Martin and Diane Keaton, and I thought their remake of "Father of the Bride" in 1991 had some creative and imaginative elements that the original did not have, but, if given a choice, I would rather watch the original version, starring Spencer Tracy, Joan Bennett and Elizabeth Taylor, that made its debut on this date in 1950.

I'm not sure there is a logical reason for this preference. Martin is really a professional funny man. You'd think a professional funny man would be perfect for the male lead in a comedy. Tracy wasn't a professional funny man. He could do comedy, but he could do so many other things, too. That may be what worked in his favor. Being the butt of jokes was so out of character for him. As the father of the bride, he was playing against type.

Anyway, it worked well enough for him to earn an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. It was one of three nominations "Father of the Bride"
received. Three nominations, no wins.

In fact, it worked well enough that I am almost tempted to call it his finest acting achievement. Almost.

It wasn't surprising that he lost, though. Tracy was facing some long odds. He was competing with Jimmy Stewart and Bill Holden — and the winner was José Ferrer. Actors in comedies don't usually win Oscars, anyway. It's pretty rare for them even to be nominated.

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It wasn't rare for Tracy to be nominated for Oscars. He was nominated for Best Actor nine times in his career and won twice. But, even for him, it was rare to be nominated for his roles in comedies. He could do them — pretty well, in fact — but he was quite versatile. He could shine in any genre.

And I suppose labeling this movie a comedy would be a matter of perspective. For any man who has ever been the father of the bride, many of the scenes that were played out on the silver screen must have rung painfully true. Even if they can laugh about it now, those fathers must have found the experience, at some times and at the very least, awkward.

Of course, Tracy was confronted with just about every conceivable pitfall that can plague a father of the bride. Most only have to contend with one or two; Tracy got the whole ball of wax.

"You fathers will understand," Tracy's character told the fathers of the bride in the audience, past and potential. "You have a little girl. She looks up to you. You're her oracle. You're her hero. And then the day comes when she gets her first permanent wave and goes to her first real party, and from that day on, you're in a constant state of panic."

If "Father of the Bride" was an accurate reflection of a, more or less, typical wedding in 1950, then I suppose it must have been a lucrative business for anyone who contributed anything to a typical wedding — flowers, wedding cakes, bridal gowns, bridesmaids' dresses, groomsmen's attire — and there are lots of rituals that go into a traditional wedding.

By modern standards, though, this certainly wouldn't be a middle–class wedding. Only an upper–class family could afford all the trimmings, and it may not have been that typical after all. It was mostly done at the insistence of the mother of the bride, played by Joan Bennett, who wanted the kind of wedding she and Tracy didn't have. Tracy had to foot the bill for the lavish proceedings plus he had to meet the groom's parents, have a man–to–man conversation with the groom, host the engagement party — as well as put out any other fires he encountered along the way.

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And, of course, then — as now — the father of the bride was really only a supporting player in a wedding. Just like the groom. They were there to perform certain functions, but a wedding is really about the bride — and, by extension, the bride's mother.

Tracy and the audience had to be certain that it would all be worth it when the big day arrived. But when the big day actually did arrive, Tracy barely got to see his daughter and appeared to have missed his chance when things began to wind down and he realized the couple had left on their honeymoon.

But just before they were to board their train, Liz Taylor called her parents — and it really was all worth it for the father of the bride.

Now Martin and Keaton did a reasonably good job in the remake, but Tracy and Bennett gave it all a very human touch that elevated this version far above the remake.

The Task of Living

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"It seems to me, once in your life, before you die, you ought to see a country where they don't speak any English, and they don't even want to."

Mrs. Gibbs (Fay Bainter)

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Martha Scott was a good actress, one who has not been given enough credit — perhaps because, in a career that spanned seven decades, from the stage to the big screen to the TV screen, she was only nominated for a Best Actress Oscar once.

That was for her performance in "Our Town," which premiered on this day in 1940. She lost — but, to be fair, she had some stiff competition. She was up against Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Joan Fontaine and the winner, Ginger Rogers.

"Our Town" also received nominations for Best Picture, Best Sound Recording, Best Score, Best Original Score and Best Black and White Art Direction. It deserved all six nominations — and lost all six awards.

To more sophisticated 21st–century eyes and ears, "Our Town" probably seems hopelessly corny, but to me it seems pretty representative of small–town America well into the 20th century. There were things about the story that reminded me of the then–small town in Arkansas where I grew up. It was set in the first decade of the 20th century in New Hampshire, right next door to Vermont, which my family visited when I was a child because my parents had friends there, and that small New Hampshire town easily could have been the small Vermont town in which my parents' friends lived.

It was the kind of place where milk and newspapers were home–delivered on a daily basis, and nobody felt the need to lock the doors before going to bed at night. Changes did come to the fictional town — Grover's Corners — as they did in my hometown but at a glacial pace. The most important changes were the ordinary, everyday things that were happening in the lives of the town's residents — births, deaths, weddings, going to school, going to work, falling in love, falling out of love. You know, life.

Because that really is what is going on — life, whether it is in the big city or the small town. People are living their lives, doing the best they can under sometimes difficult circumstances. Sometimes the challenges seem to be too great and the rewards too few, and that seems to draw people together. It's all part of life, be it in New York City or Grover's Corners, at the turn of the 20th century or the turn of the 21st.

Scott played Emily, the young bride of George (William Holden), and it is about this couple that the story revolved, from their first meeting to their tenuous courtship to their wedding day — to the day when Emily died in childbirth, and George and the family took her to the town cemetery for her burial. Grief, of course, is a part of life, too, and Emily's death was devastating for George.

The movie was based on a play in which Scott played Emily so she was reprising a role she knew well. The movie retained many of the tactics of the stage play — for example, the presence of the narrator (called the Stage Manager) who, along with the audience, observed the events, the joys and the sorrows of Grover's Corners.

When Emily died in the stage play, the theater audience observed her conversation with her mother–in–law, who had died some time before, as the mourners trickled away from the cemetery. The scene was effectively re–created in the movie.

Against the advice of her mother–in–law and the others in the cemetery, Emily chose to go back and re–live a random day in her life. When it was over, she delivered a memorable tribute to the world of the living: "Goodbye, goodbye, world. Goodbye, Grover's Corners ... Mama and Papa. Goodbye to clocks ticking and Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new–ironed dresses and hot baths ... and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you."

"Our Town" was remade for TV in 1977 with Glynnis O'Connor playing Scott's part — passably but not exceptionally.

Martha Scott did it better.

Grace Kelly's Greatest Performance

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Bernie (William Holden): Does your wife really want you to play this part?

Frank (Bing Crosby): Yeah, she's all for it.

Bernie: I was just wondering. The day I met her, she seemed a little difficult about terms and rather domineering, I thought.

Frank: She wasn't always like that.

Bernie: Oh I know, I know. They all start out as Juliets and wind up as Lady Macbeths.

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For a woman as beautiful as Grace Kelly was, it seems ironic that she won her only Oscar for portraying a rather plain woman.

It proves how versatile she was as an actress — and how much the world lost when she gave up her acting career to marry and raise a family.

It wasn't so much that her character was a plain woman. You could see in her face traces of the once–beautiful young girl her character had been. After all, you could only do so much to Kelly's natural beauty, and Kelly herself was only 25 when "The Country Girl" premiered on this day in 1954. Making her look truly plain would have been an Oscar–worthy makeup achievement — if makeup had been honored by the Oscars at that time.

Maybe her character wasn't so much older than Kelly. Maybe it was just that she had grown bitter from her life's experiences. She struggled to keep her marriage to an alcoholic actor (Bing Crosby) afloat while he was trying to resurrect his career.

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But he was weak.

And William Holden, as a young director and fan of Crosby's, intervened. At first, he was convinced that Kelly's character was the problem. But he came to realize that Kelly had been the one keeping Crosby going.

No, Grace Kelly was much more than a pretty face. In "The Country Girl," she proved she could act, too.

That really shouldn't have surprised anyone. Even though her prior roles emphasized her youth and beauty, her performances were good, too. They were just overlooked. It was often forgotten that she had been nominated for Best Supporting Actress the year before, but she wasn't nominated for her work in Alfred Hitchcock's movies — and she appeared in three of them — nor was she nominated for her work in "High Noon."

It came as a huge surprise to a lot of people when Kelly won Best Actress. The smart money said Judy Garland would win for "A Star Is Born," Garland's cinematic comeback. So certain, in fact, was NBC (the network that carried the Oscars in the 1950s) that a camera crew was dispatched to Garland's hospital room to broadcast her reaction when she won. Garland had just given birth to her son.

But Kelly won, and the camera crew had to silently pack up and slip out of the hospital. I've heard that many of them had left Garland's room before Kelly made it to the stage to accept her award.

Some people will still tell you that Garland deserved the award, but let me tell you this. I have seen both movies, and I am convinced that Kelly really deserved the Oscar that year. If Garland had beaten Kelly, that would have been a P.R. triumph, a case where the Oscar voters were bullied into voting for a particular nominee, not a case of the best actress being recognized for her performance.

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I am sure that sort of thing happens from time to time. Thankfully, it did not happen 60 years ago. "The Country Girl" probably was Kelly's greatest performance in a career that, while short, was loaded with great performances.

Kelly wasn't the only one nominated for an Oscar. The movie was nominated for Best Picture, George Seaton was nominated for Best Director, Bing Crosby was nominated for Best Actor, Seaton was nominated for Best Story and Screenplay, and the art and set crews were nominated for Best Art Direction. But, other than Seaton (who won for Best Story and Screenplay), Kelly was the only one who won.

Redefining the Western Genre

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"What I like and what I need are two different things."

Deke (Robert Ryan)

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The premiere of "The Wild Bunch" 45 years ago today was an important milestone in the movie western.

Gunfights have always been part of a movie western, but, in the early days, there were also parts of westerns that dealt with other things, too. Sometimes they addressed subjects that made viewers think. Sometimes they were partly love stories. Even "High Noon" dealt with nonviolent issues while Gary Cooper went looking for backup in the approaching shootout.

"The Wild Bunch" had other issues, too, but they were intimately related to the violence of the Old West. By and large, before "The Wild Bunch," Hollywood had idealized the Old West, but "The Wild Bunch" portrayed the Old West as the violent place the history books tell us it really was.

Along with the "spaghetti Westerns" that were popular at that time, "The Wild Bunch" redefined the western genre. If anything, the westerns that have followed have been increasingly violent.

Must have made it hard for the parents of the last half century to instill certain values in their children.

When we are young, we are told that might does not make right. It is a principle that is reinforced continually in stories and movies.

In "The Wild Bunch," it was understood that laws might exist, but, at its heart, the West was a lawless place, and it belonged to the new, not the old.

The story took place in 1913. The world was changing, and the "Wild Bunch," an aging gang of outlaws, knew their time was coming to an end. The frontier was making its transition to modern civilization.

I liked what film critic Roger Ebert wrote:

"In an early scene," he wrote, "the bunch rides into town past a crowd of children who are gathered with excitement around their game. They have trapped some scorpions and are watching them being tortured by ants. The eyes of Pike (William Holden), leader of the bunch, briefly meet the eyes of one of the children. Later in the film, a member of the bunch ... is captured by Mexican rebels and dragged around the town square behind one of the first automobiles anyone there has seen. Children run after the car, laughing. Near the end of the film, Pike is shot by a little boy who gets his hands on a gun.

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"The message here is not subtle, but then Sam Peckinpah was not a subtle director, preferring bold images to small points. It is that the mantel of violence is passing from the old professionals like Pike and his bunch, who operate according to a code, into the hands of a new generation that learns to kill more impersonally, as a game or with machines."

William Holden played the leader of the gang, but he wasn't the first choice. Lee Marvin accepted the role but had to pull out to make "Paint Your Wagon." Before casting Holden in the role, Peckinpah considered such heavyweights as Burt Lancaster, James Stewart, Charlton Heston, Gregory Peck, Sterling Hayden, Richard Boone and Robert Mitchum.

Not to say that Holden wasn't a heavyweight, but the others had more heft for the role, I think.

Anyway, Holden and his gang (Ernest Borgnine, Ben Johnson, Edmond O'Brien, Warren Oates, Jaime Sanchez) wanted one last, big score before retiring; at first, they selected, as their target, a railroad office, but they were disappointed. They thought they would get a stash of silver for their trouble. Instead, they got a bag of steel washers. To add insult to injury, they were ambushed by Holden's ex–partner (Robert Ryan) but managed to escape to Mexico.

That was just the beginning of a long tale of double crosses and lawless maneuvers. The closest thing to a love story in "The Wild Bunch" was when Sanchez saw an ex–lover in the arms of a Mexican general and shot her on the spot.

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"The Wild Bunch" was a bloody movie, but the violence didn't seem gratuitous. Still, there is no denying it was violent. It both started and ended with perhaps the bloodiest conflicts that had been seen on the big screen to that time — and, mind you, this was at a time when movies like "Bonnie and Clyde" had been showing up in theaters.

It seemed like an honest representation of a time and a place where the sword was mightier than anything else around.

A Different Kind of War Story

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Sgt. Schulz (Sig Ruman): How do you expect to win the war with an army of clowns?

Lt. Dunbar (Don Taylor): We sort of hope you'd laugh yourselves to death.

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I don't remember how old I was when I first saw "Stalag 17," the Billy Wilder war comedy/drama that premiered 60 years ago today.

What I do remember is that — for awhile — I thought "Stalag 17" was the inspiration for Hogan's Heroes, a sitcom that was popular when I was little. Both, after all, were set in POW camps during World War II, and both had German sergeants named Schultz.

(Also, the camp in Hogan's Heroes had a name that was reminiscent of the movie — Stalag 13.)

But the Schultz in Hogan's Heroes was a buffoon whereas the Schulz (note the absence of the t) in "Stalag 17" was a by–the–book German soldier.

And, in nearly every respect, the plot and tone of each was different from the other — significantly so.

Consequently, I'm not nearly as inclined to see a solid link between the movie and the TV show

Hogan's Heroes was played strictly for laughs, usually at the expense of the incompetent Germans. That was probably easier to do with two decades separating the end of the war and the debut of the TV show. By that time, it was easier to joke about the Germans and the war.

Not quite eight years had passed since the end of the war when "Stalag 17" was showing on America's movie screens. The memory of Hitler and his regime was still fresh — still raw — in 1953.

There was more drama in "Stalag 17" — reflecting, perhaps, the respect that still existed for a Germany that had thrust the globe into two world wars in the 20th century. But, by the 1960s, that respect seems to have dissolved into ridicule — we beat the Germans twice in this century seems to have been the attitude by that time. Hogan and his co–prisoners were capable of doing anything they wanted to do; even if Schultz found out about something, he could be bribed into keeping his mouth shut.

The prisoners stayed there entirely by choice. It was presented as a patriotic thing, really. They could have escaped easily at any time, but they could influence the outcome of the war where they were.

Sometimes they used that to their advantage, setting up the Germans to discover some alleged breakout, giving the inept Nazi commandant and his easily influenced sergeant a chance to boast that no one had ever escaped from their prison camp.

But mostly they used it for the benefit of the Allied effort.

Sgt. Schulz, on the other hand, was a no–nonsense soldier, and the prisoners he ruled definitely were not there by choice.

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Sure, there were slapstick moments, but I wouldn't call "Stalag 17" a slapstick movie — whereas Hogan's Heroes was often a slapstick sitcom.

Mostly, I guess, the comedy of "Stalag 17" came in the form of one–liners and sight gags — but there was a generous portion of drama in it as well.

William Holden, who had so many fine performances in his career, may have given his best in "Stalag 17" as the prisoner who was suspected by his bunkmates of being the informant responsible for the Germans' advance knowledge of many things, like the escape attempt of two young Americans who were gunned down outside the camp and the presence in the barracks of a radio that was used to monitor developments in the war.

(In fact, Holden won his only Best Actor Oscar for his performance in "Stalag 17." I suppose it is a matter of personal opinion whether that performance was better than the ones he gave in "Sunset Boulevard" and "Network," the other movies for which he was nominated for Best Actor, but that is the one that was honored, and the quality of his competition for the award — Richard Burton, Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando and Burt Lancaster — is beyond dispute.)

Suspicion of Holden's character finally led the other prisoners to beat him up — one finds it hard to imagine the prisoners in "Hogan's Heroes" beating up Col. Hogan (or even feeling compelled to do so).

The prisoners in Hogan's Heroes had a quiet confidence that they were far superior to their captors. The prisoners in "Stalag 17" were much less secure and much more vulnerable. Their situation was real, and I guess I always assumed that their humor was more of a coping mechanism.

Anyway, when the prisoners learned what the audience had known for awhile — that the apparently All–American boy (Peter Graves) was the informant — they set him up permanently.

I guess that is an example of what I so often heard when I was a boy in Arkansas — "What goes around comes around."

Holden's Best

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I was chatting with an old friend on Facebook yesterday, and she had to log off to prepare dinner. I mentioned to her that Turner Classic Movies would be showing the classic film, "Sunset Boulevard," in just a few minutes.

"Wow!" she replied. "William Holden at his best."

Maybe she was right.

"Sunset Boulevard" was clearly a turning point in his career. Until that movie, most of Holden's film roles were light, even frivolous. But legendary director Billy Wilder cast him as the screenwriter who becomes Gloria Swanson's kept man. And things were different for him from that point on.

I guess it is a matter of opinion whether one thinks "Sunset Boulevard" really was Holden at his best. It certainly is one of his best films. But I have to give Turner Classic Movies credit for showing several of his best films during TCM's annual "31 Days of Oscar" salute to Oscar–nominated films.

This month, TCM has shown "Stalag 17," "Network," "The Bridge on the River Kwai," "Executive Suite" and "Sunset Boulevard." I think that's all of Holden's movies that are planned during this year's salute — and I guess I could quibble and insist that TCM also should have shown "Sabrina," "The Country Girl," "The Wild Bunch," possibly others.

But I imagine it can be a daunting task to plan what will be shown during the "31 Days of Oscar" — not to mention the fact that there are all sorts of legal hoops through which broadcasters must jump. So even if you think a film should be included, who knows what kinds of issues may prevent it from being shown?

When you think of all the other great films and all the other great stars who absolutely, positively must be included in the "31 Days of Oscar," be grateful you got five Holden films in the deal.