Stalag 17

Cookie:
I don't know about you, but it always makes me sore when I see those war pictures... all about flying leathernecks and submarine patrols and frogmen and guerillas in the Philippines. What gets me is that there never w-was a movie about POWs - about prisoners of war. Now, my name is Clarence Harvey Cook: they call me Cookie. I was shot down over Magdeborg, Germany, back in '43; that's why I stammer a little once in a while, 'specially when I get excited. I spent two and a half years in Stalag 17. "Stalag" is the German word for prison camp, and number 17 was somewhere on the Danube. There were about 40,000 POWs there, if you bothered to count the Russians, and the Poles, and the Czechs. In our compound there were about 630 of us, all American airmen: radio operators, gunners, and engineers. All sergeants. Now you put 630 sergeants together and, oh mother, you've got yourself a situation. There was more fireworks shooting off around that joint... take for instance the story about the spy we had in our barracks...

Duke:
Come on, Trader Horn, let's hear it. What'd you give the krauts for that egg?

Sefton:
45 cigarettes. Price has gone up.

Duke:
They wouldn't be the cigarettes you took us for last night?

Sefton:
What was I gonna do with them? I only smoke cigars.

Duke:
Niiice guy. The krauts shoot Manfredi and Johnson last night, and today he's out trading with them.

Sefton:
Look. This may be my last hot breakfast on account of they're going to take that stove out of here, so would you let me eat it in peace?

Animal:
Now ain't that too bad? Tomorrow you'll have to suffer raw eggs.

Shapiro:
Oh, he don't have to worry. He can always trade the krauts for a six-burner gas range. Maybe a deep freeze, too.

Sefton:
What's the beef, boys? So I'm trading. Everybody here is trading. So maybe I trade a little sharper. That make me a collaborator?

Duke:
A lot sharper, Sefton. I'd like to have some of that loot you got in those footlockers.

Sefton:
Oh you would, would you? Listen, stupe. The first week I was in this joint, somebody stole my Red Cross package, my blanket, and my left shoe. Well, since then I've wised up. This ain't no Salvation Army - this is everybody for himself, dog eat dog.

Hoffy:
They ought to be under the barbed wire soon.

Shapiro:
Looks good outside.

Animal:
I hope they hit the Danube before dawn.

Price:
They've got a good chance. The longest night of the year.

Duke:
I'll bet they make it to Friedrichshaven.

Animal:
I bet they make it all the way to Switzerland.

Sefton:
And I bet they don't get out of the forest.

Duke:
Now what kind of crack is that?

Sefton:
No crack. Two packs of cigarettes say they don't get out of the forest.

Hoffy:
That's enough, Sefton. Crawl back in your sack.

Shapiro:
He'd make book on his own mother getting hit by a truck.

Sefton:
Anybody call?

Duke:
Hold it, Sefton. I said hold it. So we heard some shots. So who says they didn't get away?

Sefton:
Anybody here want to double their bet?

Price:
Are you questioning me?

Sefton:
Getting acquainted. I'd like to make one friend in this barracks.

Price:
Well, don't bother, Sefton. I don't like you, I never did, and I never will.

Sefton:
A lot of people say that, and the first thing you know it, they get married, and live happily ever after.

Sefton:
There are two people in this barracks who know I didn't do it. Me and the guy that did do it.

Sefton:
What is this anyway, a kangaroo court? Why don't you get a rope and do it right?

Duke:
You make my mouth water.

Sefton:
You're all wire-happy, boys. You've been in this camp too long. You put two and two together and it comes out four - only it ain't four.

Hoffy:
What's it add up to you, Sefton?

Sefton:
It adds up that you got yourselves the wrong guy. Because, I'm telling you, the krauts wouldn't plant two stoolies in one barracks. And whatever you do to me, you're gonna have to do all over again when you find the right guy.

Animal:
What do all those broads say?

Shapiro:
What do they always say?

Animal:
Lemme read one.

Shapiro:
It's not good for you, Animal.

Animal:
Hey, this is with a typewriter... it's from a finance company.

Shapiro:
So it's from the finance company. So, it's better than no letter at all. So they want the third payment on the Plymouth.

Shapiro:
So they want the fourth... the fifth... the sixth... the seventh... So they want the Plymouth.

Animal:
Sugar Lips Shapiro. Amazing, ain't it?

Animal:
Hey... do Grable.

Bagradian:
Now see here, Scarlett... I'm crazy about you and always have been. I gave you kisses for breakfast, kisses for lunch, and kisses for supper... and now I find that you're eating out.

Animal:
Not Gable - GRABLE.

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

Lt. James Skylar Dunbar:
We sort of hope you'd laugh yourselves to death.

Shapiro:
I'm tellin' ya, Animal, these Nazis just ain't kosher.

Sefton:
Give that man a cupie doll.

Sefton:
When was Pearl Harbor, Price, or don't you know that?

Price:
December 7th, '41.

Sefton:
What time?

Price:
6:00. I was having dinner.

Sefton:
6:00 in Berlin.

Sefton:
They were having lunch in Cleveland. Am I boring you boys?

Hoffy:
Go on.

Sefton:
He's a Nazi, Price is. For all I know his name is Preissinger or Preishoffer. Oh, sure, he lived in Cleveland. But when the war broke out, he came back to the Fatherland like a good little Bundist. He spoke our lingo, so they sent him to spy school and fixed him up with phony dog tags.

Sefton:
The Germans know where Dunbar is.

Hoffy:
How do they know?

Sefton:
You told them, Hoffy.

Hoffy:
Who did?

Sefton:
You did.

Hoffy:
Are you off your rocker?

Sefton:
Uh huh. But fell right on my head.

Marko the Mailman:
Remember, just because the krauts are dumb doesn't mean that they're stupid.

Sefton:
If I ever run into any of you bums on a street corner, just let's pretend we've never met before.

Sgt. Schulz:
We will grab some shovels and we will undig that tunnel which you digged.

Animal:
Shulz, why don't we just plug up the tunnel with the Commandant in one end, and you in the other?

Oberst Von Scherbach:
All right then, gentlemen, we are all friends again. And with Christmas coming on I have a special treat for you. I'll have you all deloused for the holidays and I'll have a little Christmas tree for every barrack. You will like that.

Shapiro:
Hey Schultz, sprechen Sie Deutsches?

Shapiro:
Then droppen Sie dead!

Sefton:
It's no use, Schulz, you might as well come clean. Why don't you just tell them it's me, because I'm really the illegitimate son of Hitler, and after the Germans win the war, you're going to make me the Gauleiter of Zinzinnati!

Sefton:
Okay, Herr Preisshoffer, let's have the mailbox.

Price:
The what?

Sefton:
The one you took out of the corner of your bunk and put in this pocket!

Sefton:
Let me show you how they did it. They did it by mail.

Harry Shapiro:
Mail?

Sefton:
That's right. Little love notes between our Security officer and Von Scherbach, with Schulz the mailman.

Sefton:
Here's the flag. They used to put a loop in the chord. (Does so) Did you ever notice? And here's the mailbox. Hollow black queens. (Pops the two queens open) Cute, huh? They delivered the mail or picked it up whenever we were out of the barracks, like for appell. And when there was a special delivery, they'd pull a phony air raid to get us out of here, like last night for instance. There wasn't a plane in the sky. Or was there, Price?

Sefton:
I told you boys I'm no escape artist. For the first time, I like the odds, because now I got me a decoy.

Hoffy:
What's the decoy?

Sefton:
Price. When I go, I want you to give me five minutes - exactly five minutes - to get Dunbar out of that water tank. And then you throw Price out onto the compound, nice and loud. He'll draw every light from every goon tower. It's our only chance to cut through. Well, what do you say, barracks chief?

Bagradian:
He's right, Hoffy. It's either Price or Dunbar.

Animal:
He killed Johnson and Manfredi, didn't he?

Hoffy:
It's all yours.

Hoffy:
What's the matter with you, Security? You were always so calm. Especially when you let Manfredi and Johnson go out there.

Animal:
Where'd it come from?

Sefton:
From a chicken, bug-wit.

Marko the Mailman:
Are the doors covered?

Hoffy:
Yeah, they're covered.

Marko the Mailman:
Okay, Steve, give them the radio.

Marko the Mailman:
You can keep it for two days.

Hoffy:
Two days? We're supposed to have it for a week.

Hoffy:
You're lucky to get it at all! The boys are afraid the Jerries will find it in here. This barracks is jinxed!

oh my, to me one of the funniest lines in the movie was at the end when Shipiro asked the open question "why'd you think he did it?" referring to Shirpiro going out on the escape with Dunbar, and after a moments pause Animal says "maybe he just wanted to steal our pliers".

Well, least wise, that was a pretty funny way to end the movie for me.