Some Tears Fall Dry

Some Tears Fall Dry is the eighth episode of The Gallant Men. It was written by Don Tait and directed by Charles R. Rondeau. It aired on November 23, 1962.

Plot summary
A briefing for Maj. Jergens is interrupted by the buzz of an airplane. Jergens wonders what the reconnaissance plane is doing in off-limits airspace, but the plane is shot down by German artillery fire before Jergens and Capt. Benedict can find out what’s going on.

Aboard the plane is war correspondent Kathlene Palmer and her pilot, Lt. Joe Thompson. An Able Company patrol recovers them, but Thompson is wounded. A jeep bearing Conley Wright, Capt. Benedict and Pvt. Gibson arrives at the aid station, where Conley recognizes his colleague Palmer. She says she asked for the flight so she could get aerial photos and understand the context of the battle.

Benedict tells her the Americans are readying a strategy that would push all the way up an important corridor. The Germans already anticipate the move, but Benedict tells Palmer the details should be kept secret. He asks for Palmer’s film. She protests but hands over a single roll of film. She turns down a ride back to the command post. The camera reveals Palmer held onto a second film roll.

Back at the C.P., Pete D’Angelo primps and poses for Palmer’s camera. Lt. Kimbro provides basic biographical data about the Able crew as Palmer photographs them and jokes around. Wright comes over and the two argue over their contrasting styles. Wright chastises Palmer for her photo flight, saying she’s interested only in notoriety. She retorts with a swipe at Conley’s softer pro-Army columns, contrasted against her “hard news” style. He finishes by berating her for being a woman who’s good at her job.

Benedict, disturbed by Wright’s tantrum, orders the reporter back to Naples for R&R. He hitches a ride on an army ambulance that’s taking Palmer and Thompson back to the city. The next morning, Palmer has a friend call Wright’s hotel and ask the correspondent to join her for dinner. When he arrives for a pre-dinner reception, Wright is angered to see his mystery date is the woman he disrespects. Palmer blames Wright’s churlishness on the fact that his girlfriend was killed during the London blitz bombings. She urges him to confront this long-standing, unaddressed angst.

Palmer cajoles Wright into joining her on a balcony for a drink. She laments the stresses she encounters in her job. She tells Wright she’s not sure what she wants from life, and that her choices have left her lonely. Wright appears to warm up to Palmer a little, and she goes a little goopy. She suggests the two steal away to a café and pretend to be a couple. Wright agrees.

On their way, Palmer and Wright stop at the military hospital to check in on Lt. Thompson. They learn he died unexpectedly, shocking and saddening Palmer. Wright again hardens and blames Palmer for the pilot’s death. Palmer leaves the hospital to grieve. She sits on a stairway outside the building and Wright joins her. When she pulls a handkerchief out of her purse, Wright notices a roll of film, but he leaves it alone and asks her to continue their date. As they walk along the street, they hear the voices of children coming from an abandoned building. They discover two orphans, and though Wright gives them money to purchase food, the siblings are fascinated by Palmer, who reminds them of their mother. The two reporters end up at a pizzeria, but before they can order, air raid sirens blare and artillery fire is heard. Palmer remembers the orphans and runs out into the street to find them. Wright, dodging debris, follows.

He finds Kathlene trying to reach the children, but the staircase to the cellar is blocked by debris. Palmer wriggles down and lifts the children to Wright. He is able to lift a beam just enough to allow her back up onto the main floor. Palmer goes back for the purse containing her aerial film and a debris collapse traps her. Both correspondents know she is seriously injured. She says she shouldn’t have taken the photos, and Wright says she should never have become a war journalist. Palmer dies just as two MPs arrive to help.

Wright arrives back at the front in time for the beginning of the Allied push up the valley. He asks a private with the artillery unit for two shells and a piece of chalk. On one shell he writes Thompson’s name. On the other he chalks “Kathlene.” As the first rounds are fired, Benedict shouts “There she goes!”

Wright whispers, “There she goes.”

G-2 Report

 * Don Tait was a longtime screenwriter for film and television. He is perhaps best known for his work with Walt Disney Studios in the 1970s, penning scripts mostly for mediocre comedies, such as The Shaggy D.A., Herbie Goes Bananas, and Unidentified Flying Oddball. Prior to his Disney decade, Tait turned out nearly fifty scripts for episodic television, mostly Warner Bros. series such as 77 Sunset Strip, Mister Roberts and The Virginian. For The Gallant Men, Tait wrote this episode and “The Crucible.” He also wrote five episodes of Combat!
 * In the cold open we see Conley Wright typing his latest dispatch, but when the shot cuts to the typewriter, the column doesn’t match Wright’s narration.
 * In act two, Wright insults Palmer for taking a photo of the injured Lt. Thompson. But that portion of the scene happened long before Wright, Benedict and Gibson arrived in their jeep. So how did he know she did that?
 * This is the first of two episodes in which Pete D’Angelo makes a joke about Gibson being gay (the other is “Tommy”). He tells Wright the guys took a vote for which correspondent – Palmer or Wright – they would rather share a foxhole with. Wright secured only one vote, D’Angelo says: Gibson’s. The crack comes out of nowhere, and it’s not clear from this episode or “Tommy” whether D’Angelo truly suspects Gibson is gay, or whether he was employing casual homophobia for humorous and/or insulting purpose.
 * If what we learn in this episode is applicable to Conley Wright as a person, he is an amazingly sexist man. Even Benedict, who is not kind to women, thinks Wright goes too far when he dresses down Palmer in act two. He doesn’t let up when Palmer is dying, either, taking the opportunity to tell her the war is “no place for a woman.” Perhaps it’s an intentional message of the script, because when Wright argues that the professionally-oriented Palmer is somehow defective as a woman, he looks incredibly foolish.
 * On the other hand, Tait’s script also falls into a common Gallant Men trap. Palmer appears to hold some kind of torch for the insulting Wright and secretly pines for a less demanding, more stereotypically feminine life. A little thaw in the freeze between them and she goes weak-kneed and asks Wright on a date.
 * Interestingly, the plot of this episode bears resemblance to two Combat! episodes: Season two’s “Anatomy of a Patrol,” in which American and German squads race to recover the pilot of a downed plane, and season one’s “No Hallelujahs for Glory,” about a boastful female war photographer.
 * The image of Mount Vesuvius and Naples’ harbor behind Wright and Palmer in act three is an enlarged still from the stock footage shown in a few Gallant Men episodes as an establishing shot of the city. The balcony set is probably the same one used in “Lesson for a Lover,” and the double doors may have also been seen in “Next of Kin.” The pizzeria where Wright and Palmer dine is a re-dressed version of the set seen in “Retreat to Concord” and "And Cain Cried Out." It is also used as Maria Carducci's apartment in "Lesson for a Lover." The pizzeria basement is seen in several episodes, notably “A Place to Die.”