Combat! reviews by Jo Davidsmeyer * Episodes rated from 0 to 4 bayonets 

RATING:

1.5 bayonets

Written by Ed Adamson
Directed by John Peyser
First aired 29-Dec-1964
Episode 15 of Season 3

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SYNOPSIS:

Littlejohn receives a birthday cake from his mother, with the explicit instruction to not open until the 21st. He carries it on a dangerous patrol into enemy territory. On the mission, also, is Cantrell, a man waiting for orders to go home. Littlejohn's adherence to his mother's request brings the squad into harm's way and Cantrell to doubt he'll live to see home.

REVIEW:

Littlejohn receives a cake on the 20th, with instructions not to open it until the 21st (which 21st? It doesn't say). The audience endures a day of this cake causing complications for Littlejohn and for an obnoxious translator forced to go along with the squad and the cake.

The script makes Littlejohn come off as a slow-witted bumpkin C something that he is not in most episodes. This story could not quite decide if it was truly a comedy. There's a bit too much bloodshed, angst, and abandonment of wounded soldiers to really make it amusing. The episode originally aired Christmas week, just before the new year.

NOTES, ODDITIES, AND BLOOPERS:

• Filmed at Korbel winery.
• This episode is first time Dick Peabody is credited on his own title card, but still listed after Hogan and Jalbert.
• First on-screen credit for wardrobe man Beau Vanden Ecker
• On the walk back, the squad stops and Saunders looks through binoculars. He says that nothing is there, but people are moving in the shot.

CAST:

Vic Morrow as Sgt. Saunders
Rick Jason as Lt. Hanley (does not appear)