Combat! reviews by Jo
Davidsmeyer
Episodes rated from 0 to 4 bayonets
(055) A Silent Cry
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
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