#Gallant man tv#
Looking for more original programming in its 1962-63 TV season, ABC gave the green light to Battle Zone, which was re-titled The Gallant Men.
#Gallant man series#
"They seemed to be in a kind of morass of indecision about it." Orr also predicted that, if Gallant Men were successful, networks would warm to more series set during the war. "It wasn't that the networks were hostile to the idea," Orr told The New York Times in 1962. The reception he found from the three major TV networks was lukewarm at best. The early concept was called Battle Zone. Orr tried as early as 1960 to generate interest in a weekly dramatic series set in World War II. war films such as Force of Arms, Darby's Rangers and A Walk in the Sun.ĭon Tait (teleplay), William L. The series blended original footage with shots from wartime newsreels and stock footage from Warner Bros. Its 26 episodes take place between September 1943 and early spring 1944. Though promotional materials for the series promised a dramatization of the Italian campaign from Salerno to Rome, the series played out nearly in real time. The regular cast would unrealistically dispatch large numbers of German troops while experiencing minimal or no injuries themselves in the Italian campaign, where historically the Allies suffered heavy casualties from determined German resistance that lasted until the end of World War II in Europe. Ernie Lucavich ( Roland La Starza) and Pvt.
The Gallant Men tended to be formulaic in plotting and characterization, with such stereotypes as ladies' man PFC Pete D'Angelo (played by Eddie Fontaine), hard-as-nails Sgt. The show also faced unfavorable comparisons with ABC's other World War II series launched the same year, Combat!. It succumbed to tough competition from the other networks and so-so responses from critics and audiences. Their exploits were narrated by a newspaper correspondent - Conley Wright, played by Robert McQueeney - who accompanied them on their missions. Jim Benedict, played by William Reynolds, who later appeared in the long-running series, The F.B.I. The pilot episode was directed by Robert Altman. The Gallant Men dramatized the experiences of the fictional Able Company within the 36th Infantry Division, Fifth Army, beginning with the division's amphibious landing at Salerno, Italy, on September 9, 1943.
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