Combat - Escape to Nowhere - recap and review

Combat!

Season 1 Episode 7: "Escape to Nowhere"

Once upon a time there was a lieutenant. Something very bad happened. We don’t know what the very bad thing was. We only see that he is in a village littered with dead American soldiers. The lieutenant is face down in front of a cart; he has had a very bad day. 

He raises his head and calls for the captain; the lieutenant is our friend Hanley. There is no movement or sound from the body of the captain. Instead, a wolf pack lopes in to town, as wolf packs do. Hanley is very frightened; he puts his head back down; he plays dead (but is he grateful? And will he survive? He seems to have more than just a “Touch of Grey” (but I think that’s just dirt in his hair). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOaXTg3nAuY (one of the few Dead songs that I recognize)).

It doesn’t look like Hanley will get by. The wolves begin looting the bodies. One of the wolves brings Hanley around with a well-placed fang.

Cut to the opening credits

Hanley is our only regular in this episode written by Malvin Wald, and directed by Robert Altman. Our guests include Albert Paulsen playing the part of General Von Strelitz, Joyce Vanderveen as Maria, and Sasha Harden as Colonel Kliest.

We next see Hanley being lightly grilled (with a hint of smoke, cigarette smoke that is) by a big bad wolf. Hanley responds with his name, rank, and serial number. The wolf wants to know whether the road to grandma's house goes through Falaise, or Argentan. (Falaise is 25 to 30 miles south of Caen. Argentan is about 20 miles south of Falaise—based on a quick look at a map. They are still in Normandy).

Hanley’s placement in the shot at the large desk, trapped between the German officer’s hat and a rocket-ship-like decanter of brandy is interesting. Perhaps it is an interesting bit of foreshadowing. (I usually write these as I watch; I watched this one before I started writing, capturing a shot here and there). Anyway, the light barbeque continues until General Von Strelitz enters the room, and wolf jumps to his feet as fast as his little legs will carry him (like he has been stabbed in the behind with a red hot poker). Von Strelitz soon gets called away to the phone.

He doesn’t seem happy about the call. After the call, Von Strelitz, like the woodcutter, takes Hanley away from the wolf.

Our little lost lieutenant finds himself, all Little Red Riding Hoodishly, traveling through a forest. He’s in the general’s car. The general instructs the driver to pull away from the main route. When they stop, Von Strelitz has the driver hand give him a map. The driver seems reluctant to provide the map. We soon learn the reason; the map is extremely dangerous. When the general opens it, a large hole erupts in the map (the Falaise Gap, I believe).

This rift in the wood pulp-based representational continuum proves fatal to the driver. The general, using the time-honored and highly persuasive technique of the Luger behind the ear (Hanley’s ear, not the general’s), convinces Hanley to take the driver’s place. We next see a body roll into water. The view moves to a pair of black boots, and rises to reveal Hanley doing his best Wehrmacht cosplay.

Hanley becomes the general’s new driver. We can bet he won’t be handing the general any maps. Night has fallen (but it took no damage as a result, and will eventually get back up), and Hanley and his handler are approaching a fancy French estate. Hanley reminds the general that if he is caught in the German uniform, he’ll be shot. The general reminds him that he could’ve been shot in his own uniform. Hanley doesn’t have a good response to that.

Von Strelitz introduces Hanley into a glorified officer’s club within the chateau (perhaps it's a club for glorified officers). Maria comes down the stairs singing (in a scene rather similar to the entrance of the character Harmony Rivers in my exciting novel, Justice in Season). She obviously has some kind of relationship with Von Strelitz.

Here we see her failing in an attempt to perform the Vulcan salute as part of her song.

We also get to meet Colonel Kliest (who wins the coveted “Best Hair” award).

Things look dicey for Hanley when Von Strelitz sends him with a note for Maria. As he walks up the stairs, he bumps into a German officer at a table on the landing. Maria, rather than Von Strelitz, rescues him by calming the officer and sitting him back down.

Best Hair, who had been sitting at Von Strelitz’ table is called away to a phone call. When he returns, Von Strelitz and Hanley are gone. We rediscover these two as they drive up to a cemetery and church.

Inside, in a bedroom with a leaky roof, the general reveals that Best Hair is an SS man, and that the driver Von Strelitz killed, was one of his agents. The general plans to use Hanley to escape to the allied lines; Von Strelitz participated in a close-but-no-cigar assassination attempt on Hitler. But he can’t leave Maria behind; they will meet at the train station. The rain begins. The lone candle in the room sputters under the drips from the leaky roof…and Maria is his daughter.

In the morning, they leave, or attempt to. As they leave the building in pouring rain, they’re intercepted by Madame Dubois’ fourth grade class for heavily armed orphans.

The kids are highly disgruntled about the deaths of their parents. Fortunately for Little Red Hanleyhood and General Woodcutter, a clergyman arrives to stop the children. “Stop” is not quite accurate. He reminds the kids of the Ten Commandments, specifically the prohibition against killing. He takes a rifle from one kid and throws it away. Another kid has a crisis of faith, or at least decides that he has a markedly different interpretation on the previously mentioned prescription; he aims and fires as the cleric steps between him and general. Not having had time that morning to prepare any clerical spells against high velocity minerals, cleric responds by assuming a kneeling, bleeding, and praying position.

He soon follows with the “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’” a mound of dirt, and dying position. Most of the kids run away. Hanley and Strelitz leave. As they pull away in the general’s car, the camera moves to an elevated position to show a couple of the kids and the dying cleric in the rain through the fork of a blackened tree.

In the sunshine, the two adventurers wash up, and find time to discuss death, the children, and the priest: Everyone does the dying thing; it’s just a question of how. When the general asks if Hanley believes in God, he responds, “The children did.” What a certain child believes will turn out to be important for the general.

Cut to a train station at night. They board the train. Maria finds them. Von Strelitz tells her about his escape plan, and his involvement in the failed assassination attempt. He wants to "Begin Again" elsewhere, bidding her to "Come Sail Away." She doesn’t take it well; she instead goes all "Cold as Ice," treating him like he's just a "Dirty White Boy." At the next stop, where Best Hair and his men are waiting, she leaves the train and tells them where her father is. Hanley clues Von Strelitz into the fact that the sauerkraut is about to hit the fan. When Best Hair and his man get to the cabin in the train, they have gone.

After some stealthy maneuvering among the trains, Hanley eliminates Best Hair’s first man. He takes out another with a nifty reverse defenestration move among the train yard buildings. They make their way back to Best Hair’s car where Hanley punches the express passage ticket to the next world for the guard there. Von Strelitz calls to Maria. He's like "Don't Be Cruel," but she is all, "We Are Never, Ever Getting Back Together." As Hanley and the general drive away, Best Hair conjures a series of magic missiles from his Luger toward the car. Von Strelitz, definitely not singing "Hit Me with Your Best Shot," takes a bullet to the torso. 

Hanley eventually stops to bind the general’s wound. General Von Strelitz suddenly changes into the wolf in grandma’s clothing; he wants Hanley to drive him back to the German lines. Von Strelitz again places his Luger to the back of Hanley’s head, reminding him that it is all the better to shoot him with. 

Hanley channels Boston and decides it’s “More Than a Feeling;” he takes the “Don’t Look Back” attitude, refusing the general’s kind request. Von Strelitz squeezes the trigger, but not enough to make the pistol fire. He relents, opting to go with the Eagles’ “Take It Easy” and to lighten up while he still can. Hanley, humming "Free Bird," drives to the allied lines, finally stopping in front of a vehicle loaded with British soldiers.

Both Hanley and Von Strelitz made their escape, although the general’s destination remains in question, that shot from Best Hair having drained his life away during the drive.

There was only a little French in this episode, but I liked it. It seemed a lot like a cold war defection movie trimmed down from two hours to 45 minutes. There was some interesting commentary about war, and what it does to the people who aren’t soldiers. It’s worth trying to imagine the constant stress of Hanley’s position in pretending to be the general’s aide, all while not speaking German.

There were some things about it that remind me a little bit of the “Missing in Action” episode. Both had women who were willing to sacrifice everything for their cause. Crazy eyes’ cause was her new boyfriend; Maria’s cause was her loyalty to the Fuhrer and to the war. Both of them ended up contributing to the deaths of people for whom they had cared.

Once more I found the C’s that seem to be Altman’s favorites: candles, clergy, and churches. He ended with the dead guest in the final shot.