RATING: 1 bayonet
Written by Edward J. Lakso
Directed by Bernard McEveety
First aired 18-Feb-1964
Episode 23 of Season 2
SYNOPSIS:
A sergeant specialist with an attitude is once again attached to Saunders outfit. Radio technician Sergeant Perkins is a pacifist/philosopher who finds Saunders, and all soldiers, incomprehensible. Saunders must take Perkins behind the lines to deliver radios to the French underground. When Perkins stops at a French farmhouse to repair the master station, the Germans take a fix on their location and surround the house.
REVIEW:
Once again Saunders is saddled with a mission he doesn't want, troops that should be resting instead of marching, and a brilliant but obnoxious Sergeant with unique technical expertise. Lee Marvin did it better earlier in this same season in
"A Bridge At Chalons." And Jack Lord will do it marginally better later in "The Linesman." In this incarnation of the well-explored plot, the epiphany of Richard Anderson's obnoxious sergeant comes in the guise of a young boy who shares his interest in radios and Shakespeare. Perkins (played by Richard Anderson, later of "The Six Million Dollar Man") turns around his life when he meets a French boy just like him, but one willing to fight.This one-bayonetter has a pedantic script, lackluster direction, and another cute French kid. This is a some-things-are-worth-fighting-for story that does not convince.
NOTES, ODDITIES, AND BLOOPERS:
·
The Germans' radio direction finder vehicle is an American ambulance.·
The episode was originally titled "The Formula." I'm not sure "A Silent Cry" is an improvement.·
Footage is re-used from "Hill 256" and the well-trodden wooden footbridge makes an appearance.CAST:
Vic Morrow as Sgt. Saunders
Rick Jason as Lt. Hanley
Jack Hogan as Kirby
Pierre Jalbert as Caje
Jacques Roux as Fontaine
Lili Valenty as Renee LeClair
Titus Moede as Marks
Guy deVestel Andre LeClair
Ed Deemer as German Lieutenant
Ed Gilbert as German Captain
and
Robert Crawford, Jr. as Jaques
and
Richard Anderson as Sergeant Perkins