(067) Mountain Man

An embittered deserter is bribed into leading Saunders' squad across the mountains. They are captured by Germans and left to freeze, but manage a daring escape. Caje skis down the mountain for help and the deserter comes to realize the meaning of duty.

Director Sutton Roley tries to bring high art to this low tale of a man embittered by war. His symbolic opening and closing of the episode (a fragment of ice floats downstream to join civilization) is touching and silly — as silly as this episode's Germans. Their interrogation of Saunders is pathetic. A trio of interrogators surrounds Saunders, taunts him, and don't lay a finger on him. The Germans' throwing the prisoners into an unheated bunker to chill the information out of them seems more appropriate to a "Batman" episode, than a realistic war series.

Producer Gene Levitt, wanting to take advantage of Pierre Jalbert's Olympic-class skiing ability, proudly announced that Pierre was going ski in a Combat! episode set in the mountains. Pierre explained, "Hey, there's no mountains in Normandy, pal." To which Levitt replied, "It's okay, Pierre. This is just TV." Of course, nobody bothered to explain how a Cajun growing up in bayou country learned how to snow ski. Pierre recalls, "The German skiing after me was Bob Beattie, the manager of the American Olympic ski team. He call still be seen as a commentator for ABC."