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

(096) Odyssey

RATING: 4 bayonets

Written by Anthony Wilson
Directed by Alan Crosland, Jr.
Produced by Andy White
First aired 20-Apr-1965
Episode 31 of Season 3

SYNOPSIS:

Saunders, trapped behind enemy lines, tries to pass himself off as a shell-shocked German corporal. In his odyssey back to his own lines, Saunders encounters a suspicious Nazi doctor, an inexperienced GI with writing aspirations, and a compassionate German sergeant who takes Saunders under his protection.

REVIEW:

Vic Morrow performs brilliantly as Saunders in "Odyssey." A beautiful script by Anthony Wilson takes viewers on a gentle ride through the countryside, slowly picking up pace until the story, by the fouth act, is accelerating on a breakneck roller-coaster ride. A true tragedy in the classic sense, "Odyssey" shows the hero who wins a bitter victory, and the warrior with the fatal flaw that leads to his death.

Tino Pollack is excellent as the tanker who dreams of being a writer and Bert Freed is touching as the German sergeant killed by Saunders.

NOTES, ODDITIES, AND BLOOPERS:

German jeep is really American, painted with German markings.
Sasha Hardin, a regular German who was featured in five episodes, plays the evil German lieutenant who suspects Saunders and shoots his own men for cowardice.
Saunders spends episode in a one-size-fits-all German uniform removed from a dead German. But it has no bullet holes or blood. It looks not only tailored for Saunders, but freshly pressed.
Bert Freed (the friendly German sergeant in the episode) was the first actor to play the role of Lt. Columbo, in a 1960 episode of The Chevy Mystery Show, eight years before Peter Falk.
Psychological war paralyses have been called various names: shell-shock (World War I), combat fatigue (World War II), and post-traumatic stress disorder (Vietnam and later).
Read more about ...

CAST:

Vic Morrow as Sgt. Saunders
Rick Jason as Lt. Hanley

Conlan Carter as Doc
Dick Peabody as Littlejohn
Pierre Jalbert as Caje

Special Guests
Bert Freed as Sgt. Weber
and
Teno Pollick as Pfc. Loring

Peter Coe as Orderly
Sasha Hardin as S.S. Lieutenant
Maurice Marsac as French Peasant
Ivan Triesault as Doctor
Paul Werner as German Teenage Soldier
Bing Russel as Gaines
Larry Billman as Reiter
Marika Monti as French Peasant
Robert Donner as 1st American GI
Otto Reichow as German Guard #2
Vince Barbi as German Guard #1
Eric Forst as German Lineman

Fan comments about this episode - add your own comment!

Read More about Shell-Shock and Battle Fatigue....

Reading recommendations
by Combat! fans for Combat! fans

A War of Nerves: Soldiers and Psychiatrists in the Twentieth Century by Ben Shephard

cover-war-of-nerves.jpg (39897 bytes) Book Description
A War of Nerves is a history of military psychiatry in the 20th century — an authoritative, accessible account drawing on a vast range of diaries, interviews, medical papers, and official records, from doctors as well as ordinary soldiers. It reaches back to the moment when the technologies of modern warfare and the disciplines of psychology and medicine first confronted each other on the Western Front, and traces their uneasy relationship through the eras of shell-shock, combat fatigue, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

At once absorbing historical narrative and intellectual detective story, A War of Nerves weaves together the literary, medical, and military lore to give us a fascinating history of war neuroses and their treatment, from the World Wars through Vietnam and up to the Gulf War. In so doing, it answers recurring questions about the effects of war. Why do some men crack and others not? Are the limits of resistance determined by character, heredity, upbringing, ideology, or simple biochemistry?

Military psychiatry has long been shrouded in misconception, and haunted by the competing demands of battle and of recovery. Now, this definitive history illuminates the bumpy efforts to understand the ravages of war on the human mind, and points towards the true lessons to be learned from treating the aftermath of war.

Hardcover: 448 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.56 x 9.52 x 6.46 Publisher: Harvard Univ Press; April 2001
List price $27.95 Check Amazon US Price • Canada Price

See other recommended WWII books:

Recommended World War II books:

Combat! Episodes