Combat! - Selected episodes

S.I.W (John Cassavetes). Season 3. Cassavetes plays a new replacement who arrives amid rumors he's a coward. When he's shot with his own M-1, everyone suspects its S.I.W, but is it? This a well written and acted episode by everyone involved, especially Cassavetes. Portraying his character in an ambiguous manner he keeps us guessing till the very end. The only minus: the Germans act even more silly than usual, Rating ***1/2

Hills are For Heroes. Season 4. A two part episode, widely considered the best episode of Combat. Hanley must secure, at any cost, a strategic road guarded by two bunkers. Directed by Murrow, its an action and tension packed episode and probably the most "Movie-like" TV episode of the series. The only negative: the Germans use American machine guns. Rating ****

Bridge at Chalons (Lee Marvin). Season 2. Marvin plays a hard-nosed caustic demolition expert that must be guided to the bridge by the Squad. Predictably, Marvin and Saunders clash but end up respecting each other. Marvin is very good, but doesn't have that much dialogue, and the story isn't anything special. Normally, the special effects/set design on "Combat" are pretty good but the "Bridge at Chalons" looks like a cheap wooden pontoon - which it is. Rating: Marvin gets ****, the Story a ** - Overall ***

The First Day (Buck Taylor) Season 4. Well-written and directed story about the squad breaking in 4 new teenage replacements, a high school football star, a farm boy, a wise-guy, and the boy next door. Even though a couple of guest stars were in their mid-twenties, they come off as teenagers. Note: In reality there was nothing unusual about teenage infantry soldiers (The median age of Marines Killed in WW II was 22), but this is TV. Rating ***

Masquerade. (James Coburn) Season 2. Coburn shines as a German infiltrator, posing as an American, who insists his important German prisoner be taken to Battalion HQ. After a while, Saunders gets suspicious and a game of cat and mouse ensues. Very good and full of nice subtle touches. Rating ****

The Long Way Home. (Richard Basehart) Season 2. Saunders and others are captured by a sadistic SS Colonel and must undergo brutal interrogations or find a way to escape. Basehart was always good at playing Germans and he's excellent in this one. Sadly, the story is too silly. Low-level GI's like Saunders never knew enough for the Germans to spend much time on - let alone keep them in makeshift Prison camps with Colonels in command. And the Germans would have simply shot prisoners who assaulted guards and tried to escape. Rating **1/2

The Enemy. Season 4. Robert Duvall stars as a German expert in booby traps and mines. Captured and forced by Hanley to disarm his own booby-traps, Duvall tries to trick Hanley in order to escape. The one episode I remember from years ago -the plot twists and ending are good - but were better the first viewing. Duvall is convincing as a German. Rating ***