The Gallant Men

I watched this show with my father as a small child. He was a BAR man in an infantry squad. I liked Gallant Men much more than Combat as in Combat, you know the core group would never get killed and the music was very predictable. The Gallant Men was like what my pop experienced he said. Brief intense battles followed by lulls where you tried to find something to do without getting killed. The show gave characters more depth and the battles were more realistic than Combat. The men also appeared at times to really be in fear of their life instead of just acting. I recently acquired the entire series on DVD's and it is even better than I remember it.

This was a fun show to watch!! Not has good as Combat or 12 O'Clock High, but quite enjoyable. I thought William Reynolds as Capt. Jim Benedict and Robert McQueeney as Conley Wright were pretty good. Most of the story lines were predictable, but nevertheless fun to watch. Had some really great guest stars( Robert Conrad, Peter Breck, Peter Brown, Guy Stockwell and Van Williams to name a few). This was a Warner Brothers show so I guess that they used most of the T.V actors that were under contract to them and starring in shows of their own as guest stars to help boost the ratings..I also thought that it had the most gut-wrenching theme song that I had ever heard!( I was 8 years old at the time and I damn-near cried every time I heard that song at the end of each episode). The action was enjoyable, but not of the same quality as Combat. This show was canceled after one season. With some better writing, this may have lasted longer.

The cable company here in Indiana just had the channel added and it has now become my favorite. There are old TV shows on there that I hadn't seen in years including. Great television Classics like Kung Fu, The FBI, The Man From U.N.C.L.E, The Green Hornet, Superman, My Favorite Martian, 77 Sunset Strip, Surfside Six, Hawaiian Eye, F Troop, The High Chapparal, Lancer, The Legend of Custer, Jesse James, Daniel Boone, The Rifleman, The Lawman, Bronco, Cheyenne, Sugarfoot, Bourbon Street Beat, The Wild, Wild West, The Courtship of Eddie's Stepfather, S.W.A.T. , The Rookies, Harry O, Welcome Back Kotter, The Incredible Hulk, Chico and The Man and many others. All of these shows Call your cable company and ask for The American Life Network! If you are a classic TV nut and love the feeling of nostalgia that a favorite episode of an old TV show can give you, well, You will just love The American Life Network!

The Gallant Men was Warner Brother's contribution tot he War genre of the early 60's, featuring many of the same contract players who had appeared in their western and detective series. It was a sort of rival of Combat, which premiered on the same network in the same year but which was produced by a different company. I was a kid then and my family started out watching The Gallant Men but began watching Combat when the former was canceled. I liked The Gallant Men very much but spent much of my childhood humming the "Combat March" with my friends, who always instantly recognized it.

I'd have to pick Combat as the better show because it's more consistently good but they shows are by their nature very similar and a good "Gallant Men" is as good as a good Combat. It's just that there are fewer of them. The writing, directing and acting on Combat is more consistently good. The characters are a little stronger overall, as well. Vic Morrow's Sgt. Chip Saunders is one oft he classic TV characters of all time. Rick Jason's Lt. Gil Hanley is almost as good, (but forgotten by many, for some reason). Jack Hogan's Kirby is also memorable. Pierre Jalbert as Caje and Dick Peabody as Littlejohn, (and he's the right size for it), offer strong support. The one thing The Gallant Men has is a sardonic narrator, Robert McQueeney's war correspondent, Conley Wright. William Reynolds is a forceful Captain Benedict. Robert Ridgely is OK as Lt. Kimbro. Eddie Fontaine is good as the wheeler's dealer of the unit, Pvt. DeAngelo, but not as good as Hogan's similar Pvt. Kirby on Combat. Roland LaStarza, a former boxer who once got KO'ed by Rocky Marciano, has some good comic moments as Lucavich, but isn't much of an actor. (In one show, the soldiers talk about what they expected war to be like. Lucavich said he thought they might name a country after him. "A country named Lucavich?!?", says DeAngelo.) Both shows were popular at the time but ABC decided they needed only one war show on it's schedule and Combat was getting the better ratings at the time so The Gallant Men was canceled after only one year. It was very disappointing to me. I had hopes that the two shows would work their way to the end of the war and meet up with each other in Germany. As it was The Gallant Men never made it to the end of the war and the Combat crew fought on for 5 years, which hardly seems fair, considering that the actually length of time from the Normandy invasion to V-E Day was only ten months. No wonder they complained about the war dragging on.

One thing the two shows had in common was the dilemma they faced in each battle. Obviously, a fire fight between a squad of American soldiers who are regulars in a TV show and a squad of German troops who are not is going to be rather one sided. The war could not have been that easy. So, if you see a guy in an American uniform who isn't one of the regulars, kiss him goodbye...

I'm a lifelong fan of war drama TV shows and no matter how many I see "The Gallant Men" remains my favorite. I wasn't alive when it first aired but I later discovered it through reruns and fell in love.

I notice most people brush it off as a knock-off of "Combat!", but it's every bit as good if not better than "Combat!" (and I'm a big fan of that show, too).

Yes, more Germans get killed than Americans, but unlike "Combat!", the numbers are very close. Many, many Americans (guest stars instead of the main characters, but who would want to watch a show where your favorite characters died one by one?) die throughout the series and the episodes have a tragic, haunting feel. 

The show is almost never light-hearted, taking a serious look at war. Battle scenes are present, but the plots focus more upon the men and the people they encounter, from mute orphans to old friends to a new found love in poignant, almost beautiful moments.

Despite the so-called over-used character's personalities, each man is distinctive and easy for the viewer to bond with. Despite the show's short run the actors managed to bring their characters to life flawlessly.

In short, "The Gallant Men" is a sadly overlooked yet superb series that more people should give a chance to before writing it off as another "Combat!". 

And if anyone in Warner Brothers is out there reading this, I'd pay any price for the complete series on DVD, with or without a single extra. It's that good.