I remembered liking this film very much 40 years ago, but after watching it recently I was startled by how dated it appeared. For me what was most distracting was the juvenile humor of the characters Animal (Robert Strauss) and Harry "Hot Lips" Shapiro (Harvey Lembeck). Not only is the humor juvenile but both of them have much too much screen time. I would imagine it worked much better in the stage play. Holden, Graves, Brand, Preminger, etc., of the supporting cast are excellent as usual. Unfortunately, there is way too much silliness going on in this POW camp for the movie to be taken very seriously. When a German guard gives his rifle to a pow so he can play volleyball it completely loses any claim to realism and should be treated strictly as a comedy.
Review of Stalag 17
