Classics that count

Stalag 17 --

Special Collector’s Edition

(Paramount, $20)

BILLY WILDER transformed William Holden from a dependable, albeit lightweight leading man into a superb dramatic actor when he cast him in his landmark 1950 Hollywood tale, “Sunset Boulevard.”

That film brought Holden his first best actor Oscar nomination, for his devastating turn as a struggling screenwriter who hooks up with a faded -- and insane -- former silent-film star (Gloria Swanson) eager to make her comeback.

Three years later, Wilder cast him in the darkly funny World War II POW comedy “Stalag 17,” which was based on the Broadway play by Edmund Trzcinski and Donald Bevan.

This time, Holden won the Oscar as the cynical, chip-on-his-shoulder Sgt. J.J. Sefton, who hustles and bribes his way to better food and treatment by his German captors.

One week before Christmas in 1944, two men from his barracks attempt to escape under the cover of night. Sefton bets his fellow prisoners two packs of cigarettes that the men won’t make it to freedom. When they are shot outside the barbed wire fence, the prisoners believe the callous Sefton is an informant. After his barracks mates beat him up, Sefton decides to uncover the betrayer in their midst.

The supporting cast is uniformly first-rate, especially Robert Strauss, who was Oscar nominated for his endearing performance as the Betty Grable-obsessed Sgt. “Animal” Kasava; Harvey Lembeck as his best buddy, Sgt. Harry Shapiro; Otto Preminger as the coolly vicious commandant; Sig Ruman as the guard; Gil Stratton as Cookie -- who also serves as the film’s narrator -- Don Taylor, Richard Erdman and a young Peter Graves.

“Stalag 17” was shot in sequence with Wilder and co-writer Edwin Blum often giving the actors their script pages the day of the filming -- thus most of the actors were surprised to find out which character was the informant.

Wilder’s first choice for Sefton was Charlton Heston, who, according to the documentary on the DVD, was too busy with other projects do to the film. But according to the AFI Catalog notes on the film, while Wilder and Blum were revising the script, they realized Heston wasn’t right for the acerbic role.

Holden wasn’t an easy sell on the part. He had hated watching the Broadway production of “Stalag 17” so much that he walked out after the first act. And even after he signed on, he tried in vain to have Wilder make Sefton more likable.

Extras: A solid featurette “Stalag 17: From Reality to Screen,” a touching mini-documentary on survivors of the actual POW camp, and nostalgic commentary with the film’s co-stars Stratton and Erdman and playwright Bevan.

*

Commanding performances

The Ten Commandments -- 50th Anniversary Collection

(Paramount, $25)

THIS 50th anniversary edition of Cecil B. DeMille’s religious epic starring Charlton Heston in one of his signature roles as Moses and Yul Brynner as Rameses II also features DeMille’s original 1923 version of “The Ten Commandments.”

The extras on the 1956 version feature a six-part retrospective documentary and fact-laden commentary from Katherine Orrison, author of “Written in Stone: Making Cecil B. DeMille’s Epic: The Ten Commandments.” Orrison offers such tidbits as the fact that viewers can see the safety pin on baby Moses’ diaper in one scene and that William Holden was one of the early choices for Rameses.

However, these are the same extras created for the special-edition DVD of the film that came out a few years ago and is out of print.

The ambitious, entertaining 1923 original features two stories -- a prologue that chronicles Moses leading the Jews out of Egypt and a modern-day tale about two vastly different brothers who love the same woman.

The special effects in the prologue sequence are quite effective and inventive for the time -- two blocks of blue gelatin were placed side by side and heated until their melting created the parting of the Red Sea. The footage of the melting blocks was then projected in reverse.

Extras: A clip of a hand-tinted color version of the prologue and juicy commentary with Orrison.

-- Susan King