![]() ![]() ![]() In 1950, Margo and Albert's names were both published in 'Red Channels', an anti-Communist pamphlet that sought to expose purported Communist influence within the entertainment industry. As for Eddie, he gets to look perplexed a lot, as if pondering whether to hire a new agent. Eddie Albert's wife, Mexican actress Margo, was well known in Hollywood for her left-wing political leanings, but she was not a member of the Communist Party. Vic manages to keep a straight face during the twisty, basically unplayable scenes and Valli proves what a pro she is to give her all to a mindless episode of some American tv series (she never had a career on U. The story tries to make sense but is utterly nuts in terms of hanging together. More violence as they trek to headquarters with Valli in tow, Eddie claims to have seen it, but Vic doesn't know whether that's true or merely part of his craziness that includes a faulty memory. Getting back to his real mission, Vic has been stymied by a huge German piece of artillery that's been killing Yanks but then disappearing into the mountain, its location hidden. She has such a strong face and presence that it's impossible to believe that she strayed onto this set -it might as well have been Sophia Loren toting her Oscar from "Two Women"! The show then goes off in another direction that strains credibility even more so. Suddenly in this sequence, Alida Valli, that superstar from another era ("The Third Man") pops up as Eddie's wife. Later he and Vic team up to successfully kill some Germans who have them cornered in Eddie's home. Opening reel has him giving poor Vic a hard time, somehow convinced in his craziness that Vic is a German soldier pretending to be American. Instead it's Eddie Albert, who did appear in classic war films like "Attack", and he's gone crazy (the trauma of war) and thinks he's fighting World War I, which he did serve in. Premise immediately reminds one of those very cornball war movies about some Japanese soldier on a remote island that never heard WW II was over and continues solo to fight it. One wonders what loyal fans in 1963 thought when sitting through it, as it's so out of place in this series, long before the term "jumped the shark" was coined. An absurdist episode, one that might have been rejected for broadcast but slipped through. ![]()
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