(068) The Duel

The Germans, caught in an Allied pincer movement, launch an all-out assault on the American lines. Saunders, weary and cut off from his platoon, meets truck driver Mickey Shay, who is delivering fuel to the front. The heavily-laden truck blows a tire as a German tank approaches. Saunders attempts to hold off the tank while Shay repairs the tire.

Review

Saunders goes one-on-one against a tank. Guess who wins? Edward J. Lakso purged himself of bad writing after "Mountain Man"; this episode never strikes a false note. His script does what Combat! does best: takes the mammoth, impersonal scope of the war and breaks it down to a small, personal struggle.

Saunders, the hero-in-spite-of-himself, is back in this episode. He even has that old messianic drive, as he forces a cowardly soldier to find an unsuspected strength within himself. Song star Bobby Rydell made his TV acting debut in this episode, performing well with Morrow.

Most of the story is told in images -- great images. John Peyser provided great aerial shots of Saunders running to the rescue, bounding (and later limping) up and down a hillside, and running between a German tank and a disabled American truck. One stupendous shot sweeps in on Saunders as he reaches the base of the hill and a gust of wind rips open his jacket.

Notes, Oddities, and Bloopers

• Only Combat! episode to use sub-titles under German dialog. The tank in the episode is not a German Tiger, but an American M41 Walker Bulldog with German markings. Saunders would have had more difficulty with a Tiger’s dual machine guns and five-man crew.
• Filmed at Thousand Oaks.
• The action takes place during the battle for the "Falais Pocket." This battle happened prior to the liberation of Paris, but season two episodes indicate that Paris has already been liberated.
• The Falais Pocket was a decisive engagement that took place on a battlefield twenty kilometers wide, involving 1,700,000 men, and 4,000 tanks.

About Filming the Episode

Earl Parker, Vic’s stunt double says: "I was doubling Vic where Vic finally gets up on top of a turret. And the Germans, the bad guys, sense that he was up there and were rotating the turret, trying to shed the tank of Vic, which it finally did, which of course was me."

Cast Credits

Vic Morrow
as Sgt. Saunders

Rick Jason
as Lt. Hanley

Guest Star Bobby Rydell as Mickey Shay

Hans Difflip as German Commander
Tram Tyson as German Driver