William Holden

Stalag 17

by user
February 7, 2023February 3, 2023

Stalag 17 (1953) starring William Holden, Otto Preminger

[Opening narration]

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 Magdeburg, 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…

by user
September 6, 2022August 20, 2022

Love Is a Many Splendored Thing (1955) starring William Holden, Jennifer Jones

Love is a Many Splendored Thing. Newsman Mark Elliott is an American war correspondent in Hong Kong, separated from his wife. During the closing days of the Chinese Civil War, he meets and pursues a beautiful Eurasian doctor, the widow of a Nationalist general. But when they begin to fall in love, their friends and her Chinese family pressure them to stop the cross-cultural relationship

by user
March 18, 2017January 10, 2022

Born Yesterday (1950) starring Judy Holliday, William Holden, Broderick Crawford

Synopsis of Born Yesterday

Broderick Crawford wants his girlfriend Judy Holliday to be cultured. He hires William Holden to teach her in a hilarious Garson Kanin comedy set in Washington, D.C. Priceless Judy repeated Broadway triumph and won an Oscar(r) for playing the quintessential dumb blonde.

by user
April 25, 2016February 7, 2023

Miss Grant Takes Richmond (1949) starring Lucille Ball, William Holden, James Gleason

Miss Grant Takes Richmond begins at a secretarial school. The grave-looking Charles Lane is overseeing his class, including Ellen Grant, played by the lovely Lucille Ball. Most of the class is performing well, but not Lucille Ball’s character. She demonstrates this to the audience in a battle with an old-style typewriter — and losing. It’s a quiet slapstick routine, and sets her character for the audience. Effectively, she’s playing her Lucy Ricardo character from I Love Lucy (before she met Ricky). Hard working, diligent, intelligent, but accident prone — and cooking up a scheme to “help” other people.

At home that evening, she’s practicing her typing, in hopes of graduating from secretarial school the next day. She’s living with her aunt and uncle — the uncle is a Judge, and someone highly respected in the community. Likewise, her boyfriend is assistant District Attorney.

by user
July 2, 2015January 19, 2023

Sabrina (1954) starring Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn, William Holden, directed by Billy Wilder

Synopsis of Sabrina

Bogie and Holden are the mega-rich Larrabee brothers of Long Island. Bogie’s all work, Holden’s all playboy. But then the daughter of the family’s chauffeur returns from Paris. Sabrina is all grown up, and Holden’s character falls in love. Now the stage is set for some family fireworks as the brothers fall under the spell of Hepburn’s delightful charms.