8 Terrifying Villains You Didn't Realise Were Played By Great Directors

6. Otto Preminger - Stalag 17

"Nobody has ever escaped Stalag 17, not alive anyway", says Colonel von Scherbach at the beginning of Stalag 17, casually pointing to a pair of corpses. As a Nazi, Colonel von Scherbach is clearly evil by association anyway, but as a mean old POW camp commandant who spits in the general direction of the Geneva Convention, von Scherbach is particularly dastardly. Rather than hire one of the stock evil-looking German actors Hollywood had floating around in the 1950s, Stalag 17's director Billy Wilder decided to turn to one of his filmmaking associates. Von Scherbach is played to boo-worthy effect by Otto Preminger, director behind such films as The Man With The Golden Arm and Anatomy Of A Murder, and occasional actor whenever Hollywood came calling for a thick Deutsch accent. Though Preminger would arguably go on to greater heights by playing Mr. Freeze in the 1960s Batman TV show, his turn as Colonel von Scherbach is rendered unsettling by just how jovial Preminger is in the role. When he smiles, it's hard not to forgive him for all the atrocities he's committed.