William Holden wears an unidentified watch

William Holden plays Sergeant J.J. Sefton in Stalag 17, a cynical American POW in a German prison camp who runs a black market operation while his fellow prisoners suspect him of being a Nazi informer. Billy Wilder directed this 1953 film, which mixes comedy with genuine tension as the men try to figure out who keeps betraying their escape plans. Holden won the Oscar for playing Sefton as openly selfish and unsentimental, a man who trades with the guards and bets against his own barracks' escape attempts. The other prisoners hate him for it, but Sefton understands something they do not: the real informer is still among them, and everyone is looking in the wrong direction. Wilder based the film on a stage play by two actual POWs, and the barracks feel cramped and hostile in a way that makes the paranoia convincing. His watch has not been identified.