User Reviews

Robert Duvall made three appearances on Combat! ("The Enemy" - 5 January 1965, "Cry For Help" - 20 December 1966, and "The Partisan" - 14 Mar 1967), they were all good performances, and they were all good shows. Rick Jason as Lt. Hanley, and Robert Duvall as Karl are the quintessential protagonist and antagonist of drama, but one might reasonably argue which character is the protagonist and which is the antagonist. While there are five other characters in the show, they are purely supportive to Jason and Duvall who are the focus of the drama. As the two characters parry back and forth for the upper hand in their struggle to kill or capture the enemy, Duvall chooses to retire from the fight rather than take a chance on harming the civilian nun. As Karl essentially surrenders to Hanley, he tells the Sister, "You will always remember, Sister, that on this day, and on this place, you have deprived my Fatherland of one of it's most resourceful soldiers." Instead of ending the story there, however, the writers have Karl deliver one more line to Hanley which adds a nice flavor to the ending: "But, perhaps not Lieutenant, eh? There is still a little way to go before I reach your POW compound, nein?" Karl smiles at Hanley as they turn and go on their way. The last scene takes place on the arched bridge so familiar on many of the Combat! shows that were filmed on the MGM Backlot #2.

Despite Saunders being the star of Combat, I feel no shame in saying that I tend to enjoy the episodes featuring Rick Jason more than the ones featuring Vic Morrow. As Lieutenant Hanley, Jason is calculating, proficient, and a dangerous opponent. It's not very often we get to see him on the frontlines fighting like an enlisted man, but in this episode, Hanley is forced to work with a German he will never forget. The episode begins with Hanley driving into a seemingly empty French village on a jeep. Three german soldiers are attempting to make a trap involving a helment attached to an explosive device, which will explode when the helmet is picked up. The germans notice Hanley's vehicle and shoot at it, killing the driver. Hanley returns fire with his carbine and kills all the germans except one. The surviving german, Karl (Robert Duvall), is taken prisoner by Hanley, but before being led away, he tries to convice him to pick up his helmet for him, laying on the side of the road. Hanley almost falls for it, but spots the explosive device and shoots it. Karl tells Hanley as a prisoner, it's his job to try and escape whenever he can. Soon, Hanley meets a nun who tells him that this town is intended for old people who want to relax. He also finds out from Karl that the town is infested by german traps and hidden explosives which need to be disarmed or detonated. The nun tells Hanley the elderly will be returning to the village soon, so they don't have much time. For the rest of the episode, Karl leads Hanley to each one of the traps and disarms them, but also tries to sabotage and kill him whenever he gets the chance. One part has Karl lead Hanley to a harmless water fountain with an angel statue. Hanley asks why he brought him so close to it, to which Karl replies the faucet on it has a 10 second delayed fuse. After twisting the faucet, they both run away just as the whole fountain explodes in a fiery spectacle. After disarming a few traps, Karl "accidentally" wounds one of his hands with sharp pliers, and tells Hanley that he's going to have to do the disarming from now on. Hanley follows Karl's instructions and doesn't end up exploding. Soon though, a civilian is killed by a german trap located in a wine bottle. A furious Hanley forces Karl to the nearby train station. Here, Karl tells Hanley that a piece of luggage located on an elevated platform is actually a bomb and needs to be brought down carefully and slowly. As Hanley puts down his gun in order to grab the bag, he hears something from Karl that makes his heart sink. Karl says the bag itself is harmless, but the platform Hanley is stepping on right now is a pressure plate. When he stepped on it, a fuse was armed and will explode if his weight is removed suddenly. As a result, Hanley cannot step off the platform. Feeling he has finally beaten Hanley, Karl smugly reaches for his carbine on the windowsill, but Hanley throws the bag at it, knocking it outside. As Karl tries to run away, he's chased by a french civilian with a rifle. The nun from earlier just so happens to discover Hanley, the latter telling her he can't move because he's standing on a bomb. Hanley gets her to move heavy crates towards him to put on the pressure plate so he can safely step off it without being killed. Hanley eventually catches up with Karl, who confesses the "pressure plate" wasn't even a bomb. Hanley makes Karl put the crates back, and Karl tries to throw one of them right at Hanley. After Hanley shoots him in the arm, they try to leave the village. The nun says the citizens will be returning now, but Karl points out there's one last booby trap on the bridge. He uses a knife to dig out a bomb buried right beneath the surface, and Hanley places him in a POW camp. This is an extremely tense episode. Even though I knew Hanley wasn't going to die since he appears in later ones, this is probably the closest he came to losing his life. Duvall is a force to be reckoned with here. Hanley needs to rely on him because he's the only one who knows where to find the bombs, but Karl tries to kill Hanley at nearly every turn. You're always wondering what he's going to try next, and hope that Hanley will see it coming. The look of pure fear in Hanley's eyes when he's told the thing he's standing on is a bomb is very memorable. Overall, I feel that The Enemy is one of the best installments Combat has seen so far, since it shows how desperate people during wartime will often do anything to gain someone's trust and then kill them when they're able to.