Fury in a Quiet Village

Fury in a Quiet Village is the ninth episode of The Gallant Men. It was written by Stephen Lord and directed by Richard C. Sarafian. It aired on November 30, 1962.

Plot summary
Prepared for a fight, Able Company enters the town of Casale and finds the Germans have pulled out. The town square and surrounding buildings are empty, and the streets are quiet. Not even civilians are seen or heard. A private is injured by a booby-trapped Luger he finds in the debris. D’Angelo notices an unseen person shouted a warning seconds before the detonation. The man, it turns out, is Giacomo Loiacano, Casale’s mayor. He says the townspeople are hiding, worried the presence of the Americans will only draw the Germans back. Capt. Benedict reassures Loiacano and asks for the residents to gather so he can speak with them.

When the surviving villagers show up in the town square, Loiacano translates Benedict’s message: Able has been ordered to hold the village and wants to be thought of as a friendly group. Benedict issues a nightly curfew and dismisses the residents.

One woman, Angela, angrily asks D’Angelo why the Americans had to come. Pete is puzzled. Loiacano takes Benedict, Lt. Kimbro and Conley Wright to the damaged but usable town hall, which last housed the Germans’ headquarters. The trio find uniforms, personal effects and even an important heart medication left behind, which strikes them as rather curious. Their conversation is interrupted by Angela, who bursts into the building and demands to know why Able Company insists on staying. She says the town has no military value and is largely destroyed, and the people are sick of the war. Benedict tries to assure her peace will again come to Casale, but she rejects him as a liar.

That night, Angela sneaks into a building after curfew. She goes into a basement room occupied by a German colonel, a fieldmarschall ill in bed and a military doctor. The fieldmarschall, Kleindorff, is suffering from a heart ailment, and the doctor, Capt. Heffler, advises a week of bedrest.

Benedict and Kimbro are awakened by Pvt. Saunders, who reports Giacomo Loiacano was found murdered. The next morning, Benedict calls another town meeting and demands to know who killed the mayor. Angela says there is a collaborator in the village, and she suspects it was Giacomo. The mayor’s wife vociferously denies the accusation. But when Benedict asks for more information, the woman changes her story and leaves the square in tears.

At the funeral, Benedict notices the townspeople, including Angela, mourning the slain mayor, and that doesn’t square with the collaboration story. That night, the men of Able relax in the town’s tavern. D’Angelo plays a guitar while Sgt. McKenna tosses darts at a poster of Benito Mussolini.

In conversation with Hanson, Lucavich confides something about Casale doesn’t feel right. He can’t put his finger on it. At the same time, Pvt. Lynstrom, on guard duty, sees Angela entering the tobacco shop. He follows her and confronts a plainclothes guard. When he tries to bring the man to Benedict for questioning, the man attacks and kills Lynstrom. Col. Schunesberg is mightily displeased by the whole thing. Shunesberg and the bedridden Kleindorff reveal different approaches for their roles: Kleindorff is softer and factors humanity into his decisions; Schunesberg is colder and an acolyte of Adolf Hitler. Kleindorff, a career German officer, does not think well of Hitler and his views. He bemoans how Hitler, Schunesberg and others of a like mindset transformed the German military and says the world will judge them as failures as men and soldiers.

Hanson and Lucavich go to see Benedict in the town hall. Ernie shares the observation that unnerves him: there are no children in Casale. Before the three can further ruminate on this, McKenna enters and says Pvt. Lynstrom is missing.

The following morning, Benedict calls another town meeting to determine what happened to Lynstrom, where the children are, and what explains the strange happenings in Casale. Angela says the children were sent to a nearby town for safety. Benedict doesn’t buy her explanation and vows to learn the truth. From across the square, Saunders shouts that Lynstrom has been found. The private’s body has been stashed in a hay bale atop a wagon. Benedict, seething, says he will interrogate every person in town.

Casale’s priest, Fr. Gefolia, meets with Benedict and reveals Casale's secret: As the Germans pulled out, Kleindorff had a heart attack and could not be moved. He, Schunesberg and Heffler holed up in the cellar of a cigar shop. Schunesberg ordered the town’s children taken hostage in the same basement as collateral to ensure the townspeople’s silence when the Americans arrived. Gefolia says Angela feeds the children every night, and that Lynstrom was murdered because he stumbled upon the situation. He warns Benedict to act carefully, because he believes Schunesberg will kill the children without a second thought.

Outside the town hall, Gefolia tells Angela the Americans now know the secret. The padre thinks he may be able to intervene with Kleindorff to get the children released. He goes off to talk with the fieldmarschall, and Angela runs into the town hall to warn Benedict. Gefolia pleads with Kleindorff to release the children and discloses that the Americans now know the situation. Kleindorff instructs the priest to give him an hour to decide what to do.

On his way back to the town hall, Gefolia is gunned down from behind. Schunesberg shouts from a cellar window that the priest’s death is a warning, and the children’s fate is in Benedict’s hands. Kleindorff objects, but Schunesberg claims he is now in charge and indicates he will kill Kleindorff to get him out of the way.

German soldiers disguised as Italian civilians fan out and take up sniper positions in nearby buildings. Angela tells Benedict there is a back entrance to the cellar. Meanwhile, Schunesberg orders a soldier to bring a young girl out of the basement, potentially to be killed if the Americans don’t back off. Heffler tries to stop the soldier, pointing a gun at him. In the span of seconds, Schunesberg seizes the gun and kills Heffler, Kleindorff grabs another gun and shoots the soldier, and Kleindorff and Schunesberg have a brief physical struggle that culminates in a heart attack for the fieldmarschall.

McKenna makes it into the cellar and finds Schunesberg threatening the children. He attacks the colonel from behind and a fight ensues. After a tense moment of waiting, Wright sees McKenna and the captured Schunesberg emerge from the cigar shop, followed by the town’s children. A joyful reunion is cut short when the German snipers open fire on the town square. Benedict shoots Schunesberg, and the other Able Company men capture or kill the remaining Germans. The wounded and now maniacally-raving Schunesberg is led away.

Benedict arranges for Kleindorff to get medical care; the fieldmarschall wishes Benedict good luck as he is driven away. The camera lands on the children, seated around a fountain in the town square, as Wright notes peace has retuned to Casale.

G-2 Report

 * Though this is his only submission for The Gallant Men, script writer Stephen Lord had a long and productive career writing for television from 1958 to 1993. His credits include Bonanza, Death Valley Days, Banacek, Ironside, Fantasy Island and CHiPs. “Fury in a Quiet Village” was Lord’s 20th script for television, per IMDB.
 * When Saunders enters the tavern, D’Angelo is picking out a modified version of The Gallant Men theme “My Heart Belongs to You.” Pete also performs snippets of the song in the pilot, "Retreat to Concord," “Lesson for a Lover” and “Robertino.”
 * Hanson might have a girl back home. Lucavich notices he’s writing a letter to “Leticia,” though we learn nothing about her and Hanson never speaks of her in the series.
 * Though Benedict keeps people at arm’s length and remains emotionally distant throughout the series, we see in act three that he values and cares about the men under his command. Lynstrom’s disappearance provokes an emotional appeal on the steps of the town hall for answers about what happened to “one of my men.”
 * The brief prayer Conley Wright offers when Fr. Gefolia dies, “to confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life,” is a brief excerpt from the Act of Contrition. The Act is a prayer spoken to express sorrow for sins. It’s unclear whether Wright is speaking the prayer for Gefolia or for Schunesberg, Gefolia’s assassin.
 * The outdoor street set where Able enters the town is also seen in “Retreat to Concord," "Advance and Be Recognized" and “To Hold Up a Mirror.” The ruined town square is seen in “A Taste of Peace” and “The Crucible.” The cemetery set returns in "Next of Kin."