When Corporal Newkirk, on a reconnaissance mission outside Stalag 13 on which he also happens to reconnoiter and romance a local fraulein (Margareta Sullivan), is returning to the prisoner of war camp at the start of "Tanks for the Memory," he discovers Sergeant Schultz resting while on patrol outside the wire--right at the hidden entrance to the tunnel back into camp. Still in his black commando gear, Newkirk engages Schultz in conversation that coaxes Schultz to move away from the tunnel entrance, enabling Newkirk to sneak back into camp.
What is eyebrow-raising about the scene isn't that German guard Schultz discovered prisoner of war Newkirk not only outside the camp but clearly dressed as a commando--that's standard farce for "Hogan's Heroes," which assumes that bungling Germans such as Schultz and camp commandant Colonel Klink are completely clueless about the prisoners' shenanigans or else deny their existence. Rather, the eyebrow shoots up because it occurs in a story credited to Laurence Marks, the one series writer who consistently treated the premise of an Allied intelligence and sabotage unit operating covertly from inside a German prisoner-of-war camp as more than just a springboard for Sixties sitcom silliness.
More typical of Marks is what Newkirk saw--apart from the pretty blonde girl--while having a look round (as they'd say back in his native England) outside camp: a German remote-controlled mini-tank. And when, in another standard "Hogan's Heroes" contrivance, the Germans testing the tank, after its performance seems to have been affected by an Allied bombing raid, decide to continue their testing at Stalag 13, under the premise that the Allies wouldn't knowingly bomb their own men interned in a POW camp, of course unit leader Colonel Hogan becomes determined to examine this new German weapon (with its basis in fact, as the Germans did use single-mission unmanned ground vehicles, nicknamed Goliaths, that delivered high explosives against the Allies in combat) and report his findings back to headquarters in London.
From there, "Tanks for the Memory" proceeds more or less with Marks's usual narrative tidiness even if some of the humor is more overly broad than his typical wit. Indeed, this enjoyable distraction delivers its comical payload with practiced efficiency, helped along by Gene Reynolds's lean, effective direction, as a generic "Hogan's Heroes" shaggy dog anyone could have written. Even Laurence Marks.
What is eyebrow-raising about the scene isn't that German guard Schultz discovered prisoner of war Newkirk not only outside the camp but clearly dressed as a commando--that's standard farce for "Hogan's Heroes," which assumes that bungling Germans such as Schultz and camp commandant Colonel Klink are completely clueless about the prisoners' shenanigans or else deny their existence. Rather, the eyebrow shoots up because it occurs in a story credited to Laurence Marks, the one series writer who consistently treated the premise of an Allied intelligence and sabotage unit operating covertly from inside a German prisoner-of-war camp as more than just a springboard for Sixties sitcom silliness.
More typical of Marks is what Newkirk saw--apart from the pretty blonde girl--while having a look round (as they'd say back in his native England) outside camp: a German remote-controlled mini-tank. And when, in another standard "Hogan's Heroes" contrivance, the Germans testing the tank, after its performance seems to have been affected by an Allied bombing raid, decide to continue their testing at Stalag 13, under the premise that the Allies wouldn't knowingly bomb their own men interned in a POW camp, of course unit leader Colonel Hogan becomes determined to examine this new German weapon (with its basis in fact, as the Germans did use single-mission unmanned ground vehicles, nicknamed Goliaths, that delivered high explosives against the Allies in combat) and report his findings back to headquarters in London.
From there, "Tanks for the Memory" proceeds more or less with Marks's usual narrative tidiness even if some of the humor is more overly broad than his typical wit. Indeed, this enjoyable distraction delivers its comical payload with practiced efficiency, helped along by Gene Reynolds's lean, effective direction, as a generic "Hogan's Heroes" shaggy dog anyone could have written. Even Laurence Marks.
