In this episode, two foreign legion officers agree to settle a "Matter of Honour" with a traditional pistol duel. One the officers fires hastily and misses. The other officer asks if the rules set any time limit for him to return fire. Seem the "Code Duello" doesn't cover that, so he decides to walk off the field of honor and save his shot for some other time. Years later, the two officers meet at a typical "Beau Geste" fort in the desert surrounded by hostile Arabs. The officer who didn't fire still has his loaded dueling pistol with him. As it is unlikely anyone will ever see this episode, I will give away the ending. As the Arabs come over the fortress walls, and massacre is a certainty, the officer pulls out his dueling pistol and fires, killing the other officer. Host Merle Oberon then explains, that, as the entire garrison was killed, no one knows if the officer shot his opponent in a last act of spite, or in a gesture of mercy to save him from the very unpleasant death he would have at the hands of the Arab women. I only saw a few episodes of this series 50 years ago, understood even fewer at age 10, and remember only this one.
Reviews
7 Reviews
Search for a Lost Bomb
20 August 2006
In this episode, an Air Force jet on a training flight is forced to jettison a live bomb into a civilian area. Steve Canyon organizes and leads the search to find the bomb before anything can happen to it. Meanwhile, some young boys find the bomb and start playing spinning the impeller which will arm the bomb and make it extremely dangerous. John Anderson puts in an outstanding performance as the explosives expert who is called in to disarm the bomb once it is found. Probably routine 50's television (I haven't seen this since the original airing), but I never forgot John Anderson after that, and always watched his performances with great interest.
Castaways marooned on an island of fungus
18 August 2006
This is a very faithful rendition of the short story by William Hope Hodgson. James Coburn and Barbara Rush are shipwrecked, and find their way to an island where an unusual fungus has taken over everything. Finally they find a small beach where the fungus cannot grow. Most of the story is the narration of Coburn's character to a passing ship. The mystery is that he refuses rescue, and only asks for some food. Of course the reason for his odd behavior becomes clear at the end. I first heard this story when my mother read it in a collection of short stories edited by Alfred Hitchcock, and titled "Stories They Wouldn't Let Me Put on TV." Oddly enough, we saw this teleplay a few weeks later. I managed to find it again by chance in the early 1960's when it was re-broadcast as a time-filler by a local station. The story always stayed with me, and looking at the credits today (Director Arthur Hiller, writer Stirling Silliphant), it is easy to see why. This was a very well done production, and I would jump at the chance to see it again.
Power struggle in an Army basic training unit
18 August 2006
Hugh O'Brian play a young lieutenant in charge of basic training for a platoon of new Army draftees (back in the days when men were drafted into the Army). One of the new men is played by Martin Milner. The catch is that they are from the same hometown, and O'Brian's father works for Milner's father back home. Milner starts to pressure O'Brian for special treatment in order to ensure that his father is not fired. John Doucette is also well cast as the tough and experienced platoon sergeant, who can't comprehend why his lieutenant is cutting so much slack to the spoiled rich kid. I happened to see the original broadcast of this, and caught a syndicated re-broadcast sometime in the late 60's. This story always stayed with me, so it must have been good.
Corvette K-225
(1943)
Very realistic story of small anti-sub escorts in WWII
5 August 2006
I hadn't seen this movie for many years, and when I watched it again recently I was amazed at the surprising realism for a 1942 era war propaganda movie. Veteran skipper Randolph Scott is forced to put to sea in a new corvette (a very small ship) with almost no other experienced crew members, and virtually no time to train the new crew. The horrid living conditions aboard ship are realistically portrayed: the tiny ship tosses about on the ocean while water cascades over and through every part of the ship. On top of this there are also German U-boats to contend with. Of course all of this was done on sound stages and model sets, but they are amazingly realistic for the period. I am ready to watch it again!
The Last Grenade
(1970)
A lot of talented actors wasted on a really awful movie
22 December 2005
Warning: Spoilers
A truly awful adaptation of the book, "The Ordeal of Major Grigsby." The amazing thing about this film is the huge amount of talent in the cast that simply cannot save the hopeless muddle of implausible story and bad film-making.
The story revolves around two mercenary soldiers, played by veteran Stanley Baker and relative newcomer Alex Cord. In the first scene, set in Africa, Cord changes sides and wipes out Baker's mercenary unit. Baker is later hired by the British Government (yeah, they did this a lot) to go over the border from Hong Kong to deal with a Chinese guerrilla outfit headed by, of course, Alex Cord. On his first excursion into "Injun Territory", Baker is ambushed and captured by Cord, and his entire unit is again massacred. From there things just get worse. Baker escapes so he can have a fling with Honor Blackman, who is married to Richard Attenborough, the local military commander. This part of the movie drags on seemingly forever, but eventually Baker gets back into the bush for the inevitable final showdown with Cord. Rarely is the end of a film so welcome. I haven't seen this movie anywhere for about 30 years. Wonder why.
The story revolves around two mercenary soldiers, played by veteran Stanley Baker and relative newcomer Alex Cord. In the first scene, set in Africa, Cord changes sides and wipes out Baker's mercenary unit. Baker is later hired by the British Government (yeah, they did this a lot) to go over the border from Hong Kong to deal with a Chinese guerrilla outfit headed by, of course, Alex Cord. On his first excursion into "Injun Territory", Baker is ambushed and captured by Cord, and his entire unit is again massacred. From there things just get worse. Baker escapes so he can have a fling with Honor Blackman, who is married to Richard Attenborough, the local military commander. This part of the movie drags on seemingly forever, but eventually Baker gets back into the bush for the inevitable final showdown with Cord. Rarely is the end of a film so welcome. I haven't seen this movie anywhere for about 30 years. Wonder why.
Bailout at 43,000
(1957)
Interesting story of 1950's Flight Experimentation
3 September 2004
I haven't seen this film since 1957, and have been looking for it ever since. As there is no other information posted, I will report from memory (I was 11 years old at last viewing). This is a story about Air Force researchers trying to develop a safe ejection system for the new B-47 bomber. The navigator position required a rather unique ejection out the bottom of the aircraft. Added to this were the new human physiology problems of a man leaving a pressurized aircraft at extremely high altitude.
That's all I can remember. I've long thought it would be an interesting account of the development of new flight technology. John Payne was nearing the end of his film career at this time and about to go into television with "The Restless Gun," so this was probably a fairly low budget movie. The Air Force of course cooperated fully in movies like this in the interest of a larger share of the defense budget, so everything shown in the film is real, no cheesy miniature effects.
That's all I can remember. I've long thought it would be an interesting account of the development of new flight technology. John Payne was nearing the end of his film career at this time and about to go into television with "The Restless Gun," so this was probably a fairly low budget movie. The Air Force of course cooperated fully in movies like this in the interest of a larger share of the defense budget, so everything shown in the film is real, no cheesy miniature effects.
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