I watched Stalag 17 last night, a near-masterpiece of a film almost destroyed by the unwatchable and unfunny antics of the characters Animal and Shapiro. In fact, it was really two films in one: one real about the William Holden/Peter Graves characters and one tenth-rate vaudeville act involving Animal and Shapiro. Anyway, the best and most surprising scene was when the soldier who did the outstanding impersonations impersonated Hitler, passionately giving a speech composed of words like “apple streudel” and “gesundheit” (“everything is gesundheit!”). He neatly encapsulated everything that is so searingly repellant about Hitler’s speaking style, even if you cannot understand what he is saying.
My point in posting this was that watching the film illuminated a lyric (“George Burns the blunt William’s Holden”) from GZA’s 2002 song Fame, in which he tells a story (of sorts) using the first names of a wide variety of celebrities followed by using their last names (or close variation of it) as the next word, if the name could be re-interpreted or presented as either a verb or noun – that is, as a verb or noun that could continue the “story.” It’s clever and I listened to it a zillion times in 2002. Anyhow, William Holden is smoking a cigar throughout Stalag 17 from start to finish, which probably explains the line.
Fame, of course, is the third joint in which GZA exhibits similar such wordplay, the first being Labels (1994, using the names of record labels) and the second being Publicity (1999, using magazine titles). I don’t know if he tried it again with another topic, but it seems as if Fame was the crowning achievement of the concept.
