On Sunset Boulevard

by Ed Sikov

  MANFREDI (Michael Moore) (preparing to escape an Austrian prison camp): We stick to the forest west until we hit the Danube.

  JOHNSON (Peter Baldwin): Then we follow the Danube up to Linz. In Linz we have a barge and go all the way to Ulm. Once in Ulm, we lie low until night. Then we take a train to Friedrichshafen.

  MANFREDI: Once in Friedrichshafen we steal a rowboat, get some fishing tackle, and start drifting across the lake. Always south, ’til we hit the other side—Switzerland.

  SEFTON (William Holden): Once in Switzerland just give out with a big yodel, boys, so they’ll know you’re there. It’s a breeze! Just one question: Did you calculate the risk?

  —Stalag 17

  Hollywood filmmaking was always a big crapshoot, with accent on the crap. Before Billy unexpectedly threw snake eyes in May of 1951 with the release of his latest movie, he had stayed on top of the game for too many years. He was getting bored with so much winning, and he needed some extra risk to keep the game fresh. “Talk is that Billy Wilder may also leave Paramount,” Louella Parsons reported in November 1950; “This, however, I have been unable to check.” No one who knew Billy could have been surprised at the rumor. Ace in the Hole had finished shooting but hadn’t yet been released. There was no reason for anyone, least of all Billy, to think it wouldn’t be another hit. For the moment, he was able to call his own shots, and if that meant leaving the studio that nurtured and sustained his talent for fourteen years, so be it. Billy’s loyalties were above all to himself, and given his constitutional distrust of the human race even that allegiance was questionable.

  It was an opportune time to make waves. By the end of 1950, the economic system under which Hollywood had reaped its profits for decades was in full collapse. A year earlier, the government had ordered the studios to deconstruct themselves. Grudgingly, they began to do so. One tends to think of the old Hollywood studios as filmmaking enterprises, but they were really distribution and exhibition companies that supplied themselves with a steady stream of their own product. Paramount, MGM, RKO, Fox, their relationship into a whimsical kind of romance, complete with courtship, cross-dressing, and even a hint of sexual pleasure as Harry turns himself into Betty Grable for Animal’s benefit. Breen forbade it—or tried to. “We are concerned,” he wrote to Luigi Luraschi, “about the scene in which Harry and Stosh dance together. If there is any inference in the finished scene of a flavor of sex perversion, we will not be able to approve it under the Code. We are particularly concerned about the action on page 106 with the particular reference to the following stage directions: ‘A peculiar expression comes over Harry’s face….’”

  Breen continued: “We think the two men should not be snuggling together, nor should Stosh be singing ‘I Love You.’ Also, we suggest omitting the word ‘darling.’”

  It wasn’t just the extended gay joke Breen found troubling. He was upset by everything Stosh/Animal represented: “Unless Stosh’s originally unacceptable characterization as a man obsessed with sex to the point of mania has been completely changed, this whole sequence will be unacceptable no matter how it is shot….” Breen claimed that Luraschi and Wilder agreed to alter Stosh’s character—essentially that of a walking, grunting libido—into something more tolerably middle-American. All was not unsuitable about Stalag 17, however; Breen did approve the use of the lyrics of “O Come All Ye Faithful.”

  Billy may have found some protection in adapting a Broadway play rather than composing his own original story, but that hardly meant that he wouldn’t rewrite the play drastically to suit his own style. Apart from Bevan and Trzcinski’s backbone plot and central character sketches, Wilder retained very little of the play. Hardly any of Bevan and Trzcinski’s dialogue survives; the movie’s dialogue is Billy’s, with help from Edwin Blum. And almost all the best gags are Billy’s as well—the “horse race” Sefton operates, using rats as the nags; the peep show Sefton runs, using a telescope aimed at the Russian women’s bathhouse; Sefton’s own foray into the Russian women’s barracks (“Those dames, they really know how to throw a party! I’ve known some women in my time, but between you and me, there’s nothing like the hot breath of the Cossacks!”). Virtually the only comedy bit Wilder kept from the play is the character—and loony nasal voice—of Marko, the camp mailman and town crier (played by William Pierson both onstage and on-screen). Wilder and Blum also added one important new character: they gave Sefton his only friend—the callow young Cookie (Gil Stratton Jr.), who serves not only as Sefton’s personal factotum but also narrates the film. Cookie idolizes Sefton in precisely the same way Herbie loves Chuck Tatum in Ace in the Hole. He’s not corrupt, like Sefton, but he still gets to enjoy Sefton’s depravity vicariously.

  At the same time, Wilder demoralizes his men—and his audience—in ways that Bevan and Trzcinski couldn’t bear to do. In the play, when the guys listen to the shortwave radio they hear optimistic war news: six hundred Allied bombers and B-24S are pounding cities in Austria, and Winston Churchill says the turning point in the war has been reached. The men cheer, heartened by the news. Billy’s prisoners, on the other hand, hear reports of the Allied disaster at Malmédy. For a 1953 audience, this radio broadcast would have been particularly chilling; the men on-screen are necessarily unaware that when the real battle at Malmédy was over, the Nazi SS dealt with its American prisoners by lining them up in a field and murdering them in cold blood. Few adults watching Stalag 17 in the 1950s would have forgotten the Malmédy Massacre.

  Wilder also made a minor but potent change in the character of the shell-shocked soldier—“Horney” in the play, “Joey” in the film. Wilder does indulge in a bit of sentimentality here, but the mawkishness of this soulful mute had a personal foundation for Billy. Bevan and Trzcinski cite as the reason for the GI’s derangement the fact that he was forced to spend six months in solitary confinement after punching a guard. This was too mild for Billy, and too detached from his own experience. Wilder’s Joey loses his mind after seeing those closest to him get slaughtered by the Nazis.

  Finally, Bevan and Trzcinski’s conclusion was entirely unsatisfying for Wilder. Sefton’s final line was just too weak, let alone too nice: “Only in a democracy can a poor guy get his ass shot off with a rich guy,” he says as he leads Lieutenant Dunbar offstage to freedom. Given the bitterness of the kiss-off line Wilder eventually gave to Sefton at the end of the film, it’s striking that he and Blum originally considered ending Stalag 17 with a rousing patriotic montage: a shot of Dunbar with his arm thrown fraternally over Sefton’s shoulder as they make their escape was to be followed by shots of all the other POWs in superimposition, “their spirits marching with them through the forest.”

  This was exhilarating, but not in the right way—not for Wilder. Even though he was making a war picture for the Eisenhower era, his Stalag 17 needed to end on a bracingly sour note, so the POW parade gave way to something more personal. As in the play, Sefton offers to lead Dunbar out of the camp not for patriotic reasons but for the money; Dunbar’s rich mother is certain to pay a handsome reward. But Wilder’s Sefton is hardbitten to the end, a caustic son of a bitch. He tells Animal, who has asked about how to get into the Russian women’s compound (a task Sefton has already achieved), “Tell you what to do—get yourself a hundred cigarettes for the kraut guards. Then get yourself another face.” Sefton’s last, nasty words to his mates became infamous—exemplary of Billy Wilder’s cruel selfishness and cynicism: “Just one more word—if I ever run into you bums on the street corner, just let’s pretend we never met before.” He disappears down the tunnel, pops his head back out and gives a sarcastic little salute, a final screw you, and leaves. Cookie, notably, gets the last line: “Maybe he just wanted to steal our wire cutters. Did you ever think of that?”

  JAZZ COMES TO VIENNA: The conductor Paul Whiteman (with mustache and black hat) with some bandmembers, having just arrived in Vienna in June, 1926. Note the rakish young reporter standing slightly behind Whiteman. [Courtesy of Günther Schifter
]

  ALTER EGO: A poster for Der Teufelsrep orter (The Daredevil Reporter), Billy Wilder’s first film. [Courtesy of the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv, Berlin]

  THE FIRST AUDREY HEPBURN?: Dolly Haas stars in Scampolo, written by Wilder. [Courtesy of the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv, Berlin]

  FATHERLY LOVE: Wilder and his daughter, Victoria, on the set of Five Graves to Cairo. [Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences]

  THE GLAMOUR AND MAGIC OF SCREEN-WRITING: Brackett and Wilder huddle over a typewriter in the mid-1940S. [Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences]

  THE TEAM: Charles Brackett, Wilder, and Doane Harrison on the set of Five Graves to Cairo. [Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences]

  THOU SHALT NOT STEAL: Wilder directs Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray on the set of Double Indemnity, as uniformed guards make sure nobody pinches anything during wartime rationing. [Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences]

  THROUGH THE VIEWFINDER: Wilder sets up a shot on the set of The Lost Weekend. [Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences]

  “NATCH!”: Doris Dowling as Gloria in The Lost Weekend. [Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences]

  HOMECOMING, 1945: Wilder, wearing the uniform issued to civilian employees of the Army, in Berlin.

  SCRIPT CONFERENCE: Wilder and Brackett try to have a private conversation on the set of The Emperor Waltz as Bing Crosby waits for his call. [Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences]

  DID THEY OR DIDN’T THEY?: Wilder and Hedy Lamarr in the late 1940s. [Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences]

  FOREIGN AFFAIRS: Wilder plants one on Marlene Dietrich’s cheek on the set of A Foreign Affair. [Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences]

  MODEL HOME: Billy and Audrey Wilder take a look at a scale model of the house Charles Eames designed for them in 1949-1950; Eames himself took the picture. [Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Eames Office © 1989, 1998 www.eamesoffice.com]

  MAKEOVER: Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) gets a beauty treatment in Sunset Boulevard. [Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences]

  TO YOUR HEALTH: William Holden offers Wilder a cigarette, circa Sunset Boulevard. [Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences]

  POSTMORTEM CELEBRATION: Gloria Swanson accompanies Billy and Audrey Wilder to a Sunset Boulevard party. [Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences]

  MORE OFF THE TOP: Kirk Douglas tries his hand at bartering on the set of Ace in the Hole, using his director as his guinea pig. [Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences]

  IF YOU WANT TO MAKE AN OMELETTE: Wilder and Audrey Hepburn on the Parisian cooking school set of Sabrina. [Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences]

  COOLING OFF: Wilder and Marilyn Monroe enjoy themselves on location in New York City during the filming of The Seven Year Itch.

  A HOLLYWOOD MOMENT: Wilder and Monroe make nice for the benefit of the gossip columnist Sidney Skolsky on the set of The Seven Year Itch. [Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences]

  FLYING HIGH: Maurice Chevalier visits Wilder and Jimmy Stewart on the set of The Spirit of St. Louis. [Courtesy of Photofest]

  FINAL TOUCH: Marilyn Monroe and Wilder adjust Tony Curtis’s makeup on the set of Some Like It Hot. [Courtesy of Photofest]

  THE BUSINESS WORLD: Jack Lemmon works out some comedy bits, much to his director’s amusement, on the set of The Apartment. [Courtesy of Photofest]

  AN ARMLOAD: Backstage after the ceremony, Wilder balances the three Oscars he won for The Apartment, accompanied by his fellow winner Elizabeth Taylor. [© Copyright Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences]

  COQUETTE: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, and Irma’s dog receive some technical instructions from their director on the set of Irma la Douce. [Courtesy of Photofest]

  TAKING THE CAKE: Wilder’s birthday party on the set of Kiss Me, Stupid: (l. to r.) Cliff Osmond, Ray Walston, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, Felicia Farr, Wilder, Kim Novak, and Dean Martin. [Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences]

  HOW TO DO IT: Wilder shows Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau the precise way to kick Judi West on the set of The Fortune Cookie. [Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences]

  OLD FRIENDS: Walter Matthau listens to Wilder on the set of The Front Page. [Courtesy of Photofest]

  ANOTHER ALTER EGO: Wilder directs Robert Stephens on the set of The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. [Courtesy of Photofest]

  THE GLAMOUR AND MAGIC OF DIRECTING: Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond take a break from filming The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. [Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences]

  A FUNEREAL MOOD: Wilder wheels Hildegarde Knef through the set of Fedora, with Hans Jaray (left) and Jose Ferrer (right). [Courtesy of Photofest]

  TRIBUTE: Billy Wilder accepts the 1987 Irving G. Thalberg Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. [© Copyright Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences]

  Edwin Blum, like Norman Krasna, must have seen quite a bit of Billy Wilder in the character of Sefton. Blum reported later that during the writing of Stalag 17 he found himself being treated by Billy as “little more than his butler.” Blum was philosophical: “I know he is a man that the more he likes you, the more sarcastic he gets, but I couldn’t take it.” Asked whether the writing of a smash hit with a verbal firecracker was worth it in the end, Blum was blunt. No, Blum said, it wasn’t. The reason: “I just couldn’t take his insults.”

  David Denby has written of Stalag 17 that Wilder’s interest lies in “proving the essential rightness of the realist who sees through everything. The movie is more of a self-portrait than anything else Wilder made.” Wilder buffs may argue the point, but Denby’s basic contention is right on the mark. “What’s the beef, boys?” Sefton declares early in the film when he explains his close commercial relationship with the Nazis. “So I’m trading. Everybody here is trading. So maybe I trade a little sharper. That make me a collaborator?” He goes on: “You can be the heroes—the guys with fruit salad on your chests. Me? I’m staying put. I’m going to make myself as comfortable as I can. And if it takes a little trading with the enemy to get me some food or a better mattress? That’s okay by Sefton,” at which point he strikes his match on Duke’s sleeve, just for the sake of dramatics.

  In the action-sequence escape, Wilder films Johnson and Manfredi as they crawl under the pilings of the barracks, steal across the dark courtyard avoiding searchlights, run into the latrine, and enter the escape tunnel, all to the ominous sound of a drumroll. Ernest Laszlo’s grimy cinematography exacerbates the mood’s tension; this is heroism on a decidedly dirty and hard-headed scale. The two escapees crawl through the tunnel, firing up a cigarette lighter in order to see. Wilder cuts back to the barracks. “They’ve got a good chance—the longest night of the year,” says Price (Peter Graves). “I bet they make it to Friedrichshafen,” says Duke. “I bet they make it all the way to Switzerland!” says Animal.

  “And I bet they don’t get out of the forest,” says Sefton. He isn’t speaking figuratively: Billy’s hero wagers the others two packs of cigarettes that his own compatriots will be shot to death. “He’d make book on his own mother getting hit by a truck,” Shapiro remarks. Wilder cuts back to Manfredi and Johnson, who emerge from the tunnel and crawl forward, straight into a line of machine gunners. The camera is too far away to distinguish one from the other, but it scarcely matters. One dies quickly in a burst of gunfire, and Billy makes the other watch his buddy take the hit and fall dead next to him. He reaches out reflexively and touches the body, then uses it as a shield. Wilder cuts to the machine gunners letting another round flare, then back to the American soldier, who takes the gunfire in the back as he tries to crawl away. He’s hit, goes rigid, slumps, and dies.

  Wi
lder cuts back to Sefton, who looks disturbed by the sounds he has just heard, but not enough to make him hesitate before piling his winnings into a box and taking them back to his side of the room and locking them safely away in his treasure chest.

  Extracting comedy from this material might have been difficult, but not for Billy Wilder. Stalag 17 is as funny as it is depressing. In fact, Wilder’s characters are ennobled by their sense of humor under pressure. When Animal spies the Russian women, he blurts, “Get a load o’ that blonde, she’s built like a brick Kremlin!” Harry Shapiro tells Sergeant Schultz (Sig Ruman), “Sprechen sie Deutsch? Then droppen sie dead!” The fact that the movie’s comedy is often fairly low makes no difference; if anything, its lowliness only makes it more refreshing. (“I’m tellin’ ya, Animal, these Nazis ain’t kosher!” says Harry. “Yeah, you can say that again,” Animal replies. “I’m tellin’ ya, Animal, these Nazis ain’t kosher!” says Harry.) These guys tell jokes to survive, and it doesn’t matter if nobody else finds them funny. “Look at them, Lieutenant—everybody is a clown!” Schultz declares. “How do you expect to win the war mit an army of clowns?” “We sorta hope you laugh yourselves to death,” says Harry. For Wilder, comedy is one of the only saving graces of a world that would otherwise be intolerable.