The Gallant Men (Pilot)

The Gallant Men is the pilot episode of the series. It was written by Halsted Welles and directed Robert Altman. It aired on October 5, 1962.

Plot summary
In the pre-dawn hours of September 9, 1943, a troop transport ship steams across the Tyrrhenian Sea toward the Italian coastal town of Salerno. The men of the Army’s 36th Infantry Division are tense and quiet. Newspaper columnist Conley Wright prepares to land along with the men so he can document the beach assault.

Wright lands with Capt. Jergens’ Able Company. Wriggling away from the shore, Wright becomes ensnared in coiled barbed wire. He is freed by a buck private named Jake Miller. Jergens is shot and slumps onto the wire, apparently dead.

The narrative jumps ahead to winter 1943 and terrible floods that deluge southern Italy. Wright’s jeep gets mired on a muddy road. His driver, Pvt. Wziecewski, suggests he hitch a ride to San Pietro. Wright is picked up by a troop truck bearing members of Able Company, now under Jergens’ successor, Capt. Jim Benedict. The correspondent is introduced to the regular cast and reunited with Miller. Wright recognizes Miller from Operation Torch, the Allied landing in northern Africa, but can’t quite place him. Wright gets Benedict’s permission to tag along with Able Company, despite Jake’s warning that the battle ahead is expected to be brutal.

The company arrives at San Pietro a few days later. While advancing on the town, Miller helps lead the effort to neutralize a German machine gun nest and a pillbox. When he and Wright take refuge in a bomb crater, Miller is recognized and attacked by another soldier who calls him a murderer. Wright is shocked and his interest in Miller deepens.

When the battle for San Pietro grinds to a crawl, Able Company is forced to dig in. Wright, Pvt. Roger Gibson and PFC Pete D’Angelo play blackjack. D’Angelo wins every hand, claiming Wright’s cash and gold watch as spoils of victory. A short while later, Wright remembers why he knows Jake: He addresses Miller as “Major” and says he was at Casablanca in 1942. Miller does not dispute this; Wright asks who the real Jake Miller is.

The major explains that Miller was a private killed in North Africa. Feeling responsible for the deaths that happened under his watch, the major faked his own disappearance and assumed the dead Miller’s identity. He beseeches Wright not to report what he’s learned. Wright is doubtful “Miller” will have a clear conscience, but agrees not to out him.

A mysterious woman appears on the rocky hillside where Able is dug in. Pvts. Sam Hanson and Ernie Lucavich chase her, but she ends up in D’Angelo’s arms. Pete and the woman, Rosa, have apparently been an item since the company arrived at San Pietro. That night, Pete loses himself in thoughts of Rosa and talks to Wright about her. Benedict arrives and tells Wright the company’s next objective has been decided: they are to take Mount Lungo, a very difficult and risky task.

Benedict tells Wright he has doubts about his own tactical and leadership abilities. He compares himself unfavorably to Miller, a man who seems competent and exhibits little self-doubt. He says he is recommending Miller for a promotion. Wright subtly encourages him not to, but Benedict says Miller has good leadership qualities. Wright suspects Benedict is too unsure of himself to make tough decisions when the time comes.

December 15, 1943: The company moves up the slopes of Mount Lungo in the face of heavy gunfire, artillery and mortars. An explosion tosses Benedict into a crater, and the green captain has a nervous breakdown. As Miller tries to map out a strategy, Benedict clambers up to the crater’s rim screaming about getting out. Miller restrains the captain and firmly tells him the company will wait until dark to move to safer positions.

That night, inside a cave that now serves as a makeshift command post, the captain is embarrassed by his meltdown and wonders if it will harm morale or destroy his credibility with the company. Miller reassures him. Lt. Frank Kimbro and Sgt. John McKenna return from a recon patrol with bad news: the company has been cut off from the rest of the battalion. Wright wonders aloud what they can do. Benedict proposes digging in until reinforcements arrive. He notices Miller looking at him and asks if he has any ideas. Miller demurs, but Benedict presses him.

Miller points out the Germans will divert most of their men and firepower to battles on the lower slopes, leaving the summit of Lungo guarded by a much smaller group. It is possible, Miller says, to take the summit without having the rest of the battalion involved. Benedict says his orders are to hold in place, but Miller says this will lead to disaster and potentially the destruction of the whole company. Kimbro and McKenna dismiss Miller’s idea, but Benedict sees the wisdom of it and decides to defy his orders.

At sunrise December 16, the company successfully slips out of their isolated position, but must still take Lungo’s summit. Kimbro radios for support as Benedict leads a small group toward the German position. The German soldiers open fire with rifles and machine guns, and a firefight ensues. Benedict, demonstrating newfound courage, moves from crater to crater, closer to a key German machine gun emplacement. He leads the surviving men to the summit of Mount Lungo and to victory. But at the same moment, Miller is felled by a bullet.

The company enters San Pietro, now wrecked by the battle. In rubble-choked streets, D’Angelo calls out for Rosa but is unable to find her. A camera shot reveals her necklace in the debris. Jake Miller is borne into town on a stretcher strapped to a jeep. Wright takes a small purse from Miller and inside discovers dog tags that reveal the man’s true identity: Maj. Robert C. Clinton. Wright says he will be remembered as a hero at Lungo, but Clinton tells him to give all the credit to Capt. Benedict. He asks Wright for a cigarette, but before the reporter can comply, Clinton dies.

Benedict is saddened to hear of “Miller’s” death, but quickly moves on in his mind and asks Wright if he’s coming along to the company’s next destination. The company moves out of town along a narrow mountain road as Wright thinks about what lies ahead.

G-2 Report

 * Different sources provide different titles for this episode. Some refer to it simply as “Pilot,” others as “The Gallant Men,” and a few call it “Battle Zone.” “Battle Zone” was the series’ working title when Warner Bros. television head William T. Orr was trying to sell the concept the to “Big Three” broadcast networks, ABC, NBC and CBS. The official Warner Archive DVD release refers to this episode as “The Gallant Men (Pilot),” and that is what we go with here.
 * The first regular character we see is D’Angelo, though we don’t know who he is yet. He is softly singing “My Heart Belongs to You,” The Gallant Men theme song written by Sy Miller. The version that plays over the closing credits in subsequent episodes is instrumental. Eddie Fontaine’s vocal version was released as a 45 single in Japan.
 * The Battle of Salerno was complicated by local geography and German firepower. The landings took place the morning of September 9, but the breakout didn’t happen until the 14th. The period between landing and breakout takes only a few minutes in this episode and is largely explained post-facto by Wright’s narration at the top of the first act. So viewers don’t really get a sense of the difficulty the 36th Division faced in trying to make anything more than incremental progress inland and northward.
 * Overall, the whole pilot suffers from a similar flaw. The episode covers four months in real time, skipping over the fall of Naples and other events the 36th Division encountered post-landing.
 * Halsted Welles had a long and prolific career in television scriptwriting. Between 1949 and 1976 he penned episodes for thirty-eight programs, including Alfred Hitchcock Presents, 12 O’Clock High and Night Gallery. His work tended to focus on suspense, action, Westerns and dramas. Welles also wrote the 1957 screenplay 3:10 to Yuma and received credit for its 2007 remake. “The Gallant Men (Pilot)” is Welles’ only contribution to the series.
 * Likewise, the pilot was Robert Altman’s sole credit for The Gallant Men. Altman biographer Patrick McGilligan said the mercurial Altman was offered a contract to stay on as a house director for The Gallant Men but turned it down to go work for ABC’s other new World War II drama, Combat! Altman was a bad fit for the Warner Bros. assembly-line style of producing episodic television. However, Altman’s brashness and zeal for disrespecting authority put him into conflict with Combat! honcho Selig Seligman, and the director found himself booted off that show before its first season ended.
 * The story upon which Welles’ script was built is credited to James Moore. This is his single credit for The Gallant Men, but Moore was a hard-working Warner Bros. regular. He served as a supervising editor on Sugarfoot, 77 Sunset Strip, Cheyenne, Hawaiian Eye, and eleven other other Warner-produced series from 1955 to 1960. An index of the Warner archives date Moore’s story idea to 1957. By the time The Gallant Men went into production in the spring of 1962, Moore had moved from Warner to 20th Century Fox. He also worked on Combat! during its five-season run.
 * Throughout the episode, the cast wears the Texas Division arrowhead patch on their left sleeves. In the series, the men typically wear Fifth Army patches.
 * Capt. Jergens is apparently killed during the beach assault at Salerno in the cold open. But in subsequent episodes, Jergens re-appears as a major serving as Benedict’s commanding officer.
 * Lucavich is seen here wielding an M1 Garand, but in the series he would be a B.A.R. man.
 * In act three, Wright mentions having a girlfriend who was killed in the London blitz bombings. She is again referenced in “Some Tears Fall Dry.”
 * Wright establishes a bit of his own background in conversation with Benedict: He reported in the Pacific theater around the time the Philippines fell (late 1941-early 1942), and moved to the European theater when the North African campaign began (late 1942).
 * In this episode, we meet Pvt. Wziecewski, a supporting character that will appear in eight future episodes. Here seen as Conley Wright's jeep driver, he hooks back up with Able Company at some point after the battle of San Pietro. Curiously, neither the character nor the actor that portrays him are ever identified with on-screen credits.