Hogan's Heroes (TV Series) Reverend Kommandant Klink (1967) User Reviews

Hochstetter has some of his finest scenes in this episode.

[kfo9494 · 9/10 · 25 September 2014]

The German have just shot down a Free French pilot flying out of a secret British airbase. In no time Lieutenant Claude Boucher is in Klink's office being interviewed by Major Hochstetter of the Gestapo. The main information wanted is the exact whereabouts of the airbase.

Hochstetter used some tactics in order to get the information by saying that Boucher fiancée, Suzanne, is cheating on him with the Germans that have occupied Paris. This put a strain on Boucher and he just might spill the beans in order to see Suzanne again.

But Hogan has a plan of getting the female into camp. With the help of Klink and Hochstetter, Hogan and his men just might cause Boucher not to worry about his sweetheart that he plans to marry.

Another entertaining episode that was fun to watch. There are some good scenes in this show as the camp puts on a play with a wedding scene that is very comical. And with Hochstetter (Howard Caine) running around the camp you know there is going to be some interesting dialog. Good watch.

Shotgun Wedding Is Not So Gruesome

[darryl-tahirali · 5/10 · 30 March 2022]

Having the King of Farce Richard Powell help fan-fiction fabricators Art Baer and Ben Joelson script their slight but marginally engaging story sounds like a marriage made in the circle of hell reserved for ridiculous sitcom ideas, but the shotgun wedding they perform for "Reverend Kommandant Klink" is not so gruesome after all.

Of course, it does require Colonel Klink, commandant of the prisoner-of-war camp Stalag 13, to regress to his obsequious-fool persona and hapless schmuck Schultz, his Sergeant of the Guard, to turn his blind but bulging eyes from the shenanigans that Hogan's Heroes, the intelligence and sabotage unit led by Colonel Hogan that operates covertly from Stalag 13, brazenly carry out in front of him, such as Corporal LeBeau escaping camp and heading to Paris, where he will--but we're getting ahead of ourselves.

When Free French fighter pilot Claude Boucher (Felice Orlandi) is shot down near camp, he is held in solitary between interrogations by Klink and Gestapo Major Hochstetter (Howard Caine), with Hochstetter suggesting that his fiancée, an actress in German-occupied Paris, might be cooperating rather more intimately with the Germans than Boucher would want to contemplate. Hogan, eavesdropping via the Heroes' bug in Klink's office, realizes that Boucher could crack and divulge the location of his secret fighter base in England if Hochstetter keeps pushing that infidelity and collaboration button, so he dispatches LeBeau, masquerading as an SS soldier, to the French capital, locate Boucher's fiancée Suzanne Martine (Susan Albert), and bring her back to Stalag 13 so they can be married by . . . Klink.

Let's pause, because even for farcical fan fiction there is a lot of baloney we need to swallow over and above the cringeworthy incompetence of Klink and Schultz. One thick slab is diminutive LeBeau as an SS soldier, one of the Aryan Supermen. Not so much. Another big slice is Boucher's marrying Suzanne to ensure her fidelity so he won't crack under interrogation. Let's be honest: Adultery has been going on for so long there's a Biblical Commandment against it.

And then there's the whole idea of how Klink is going to marry them, which--but how that actually occurs makes "Reverend Kommandant Klink" worth watching, particularly with some smart pacing and framing by director Gene Reynolds. Not that it's any more credulous than what we've got so far, but it's a neat, even touching, moment.

Moreover, what redeems this tall tale is Caine, who, in his second outing as the Gestapo major, has sunk his teeth into the part. In his early scenes with Orlandi, he glides effortlessly around him as if he's Karl-Otto Alberty cast in an A-list war picture. Unfortunately, that fades by the second half as Hogan rides in to stage-manage the contrivances despite Hochstetter's repeated demands to know "who iss ziss man?" but Caine whets the appetite to see more of this dangerously competent German character. That's not a ridiculous sitcom idea at all.