Plot hole: A tunnel is used for escape in the opening scene. Based on the massive effort exhibited in The Great Escape, how did they dig such a tunnel w/o access from the barracks? Where did they deposit the dirt? Effort to dig such a tunnel would require massive time, effort, and wood. All that effort for only 2 guys to escape.
Stalag 17 (1953)
1 plot hole - chronological order
Directed by: Billy Wilder
Starring: William Holden, Otto Preminger, Don Taylor, Peter Graves, Robert Strauss
Continuity mistake: When William Holden is laying on his bunk and first notices the shadow of the hanging electric bulb, he turns around to look at the bulb, but there is no light source beyond the bulb to cause such a shadow.
Duke: What'd you give the Krauts for that egg?
Sefton: Forty-five cigarettes. The price has gone up.
Duke: They wouldn't be the cigarettes you took us for last night?
Sefton: What was I going to do with them? I only smoke cigars.
Trivia: One of the actors in the movie was Edmund Trzcinski. He was actually an American POW in a German Stalag, and wrote a play based on his experiences there. From there, the movie was made, based on the play, and he was actually cast in a role, as himself, re-creating it for the silver screen.
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Answer: The cast would have received copies of the script but with parts of the last scene omitted. They would be given the missing pages during the last days of the shoot, in which time they learn their lines, rehearse, then film the ending. Considering the time involved in filming a movie, actors do not necessarily memorize the entire script beforehand, but do so as each scene is shot. Also, it's questionable as to whether or not any of the cast did not know the ending as the movie was based on the Broadway play.
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