Movies Are Your Best Escape

Prisoners

 * Colonel Hogan - Bob Crane
 * Corporal Louis LeBeau - Robert Clary
 * Corporal Peter Newkirk - Richard Dawson
 * Sergeant James Kinchloe - Ivan Dixon
 * Sergeant Andrew Carter - Larry Hovis

Camp Personnel

 * Kommandant Wilhelm Klink - Werner Klemperer
 * Sergeant Hans Schultz - John Banner

Semi-Regulars

 * Fräulein Helga - Cynthia Lynn

Guest Stars

 * General von Kaplow - Henry Corden
 * Lieutenant Ritchie - John Crawford
 * Lieutenant Donner - William Christopher

Synopsis
Hogan must discover what the documents are that a visiting general is guarding.

Plot Details
As the episode begins, a staff car enters the camp. After the car has stopped in front of Klink's office, a German officer exits it and heads for Klink's office, after being met at his car by Klink and Schultz. At about the same time, a couple of RAF officers, Lieutenant Ritchie and Lieutenant Donner, from a recently shot down recon plane, exits the rising bed entrance, along with Newkirk. Newkirk introduces them to Hogan, before informing the Colonel that they have already been checked out and are clean. Hogan, as Kinch watches the door, quickly informs the two RAF officers that they'll be sending them back to England as soon as things cool down as the Germans are sure to be looking for them, although the two Flight Lieutenants inform him that they both want to get back to England as soon as possible so that they can watch a future cricket match between their squadron and a Royal Engineers unit. As this is going on, Schultz is leading the rest of the men of Barracks 2 back to their barracks. Kinch sees this and informs Hogan about it, who, alongs with Newkirk, sends the two pilots back into the tunnels.

After the other prisoners are back inside the barracks, Schultz tells them that they are to be confined to the barracks until further notice. After informing them that he knew nothing when asked why they are to stay inside by Hogan, Carter tricks Schultz into revealng to Hogan and the others that General von Kaplow has come to the camp. Hogan then tricks Schultz into informing them that the General is carrying a briefcase and that he is presently seeing Klink inside Klink's office. A disgusted Schultz then leaves. Hogan, as he and the others wonder why von Kaplow has decided to stop at the camp, tells LeBeau to prepare his best recipes, as they plan to use them to get the General to reveal what he is up to.

Inside Klink's office, the General informs Klink that he has come to the camp, mainly for security reasons. Hogan arrives outside and kisses Helga on the cheeks, although she doesn't appear to be in a happy mood. Hogan asks her if she knew anything about why the General is there. He hears from her that she has no idea why he's there, but comments that the General has earlier made a pass at her. After commenting on his good taste, he heads for Klink's main office. Once inside, Klink, after reminding Hogan that he should still be inside his barracks, orders Hogan to leave. Before he does, Hogan informs the General that he is there only to remind Klink that the prisoners has earlier asked him to help them celebrate one of their (American) national holidays, the repeal of Prohibition. After reminding Hogan that he is not suppose to fraternize with the prisoners, he orders him again to leave. But, when Hogan mentions that they are planning to have a gourmet dinner and when he invites the General to join them, von Kaplow tells Hogan that he would accept the dinner invitation, soon joined by Klink, and that they would hold the dinner inside Klink's living quarters, as suggested by Hogan.

Later, during dinner, with Newkirk serving as their waiter, von Kaplow compliments LeBeau's cooking, as does Helga, while Klink comments that they are civilized at the camp. Meanwhile, inside the kitchen, LeBeau is feeding some of the excess food to Schultz, who is enjoying LeBeau's cooking as well. The General soon asks for more wine to be given to Helga. As he's filling up von Kaplow's glass, Newkirk 'accidently' knocks Hogan's wine-filled glass off of the table, breaking it. After apologizing, Newkirk goes under the table to pick up the pieces of broken glass, although in actuality he is proceeding to open up the General's briefcase to find out what is inside it. After opening up the bag, Newkirk retrieves a large envelope, soon hiding it under the cloth that he is carrying. While that is occurring, and after Klink makes some comments about the bad food he had at Stalag 9, the General asks Hogan what he would be doing if he wasn't inside Stalag 13. Hogan replies that he would probably be bombing his headquarters, to the General's amusement. When he then asks Hogan what he would do if he attempts to escape, Klink comments that he would never escape, in spite of von Kaplow's comment that it is Hogan's duty to do so as an officer, followed by Hogan's quip that it would keep him out of trouble.

Newkirk then gets up from under the table, and while promising to get the rest of the glass, goes into the kitchen. After finishing the meal, the General suggest that they all go into the living room. To give his men enough time to photograph the envelope's contents and to keep the General from finding out that his briefcase has been picked, he suggests that Klink entertains them with some music from his violin, which is seconded by Helga. Although reluctantly at first, Klink gets up and plays on his violin, which sounds awful to the General, Hogan, Helga, and the assigned guard, as well as Schultz, LeBeau and Newkirk, who all hears it from inside the kitchen. LeBeau and Newkirk then suggests to Schultz that it might be a good idea if he went out into the living room and listen to Klink play, which might result in some added time during his next furlough. Schultz agrees and soon leaves the kitchen. Once Schultz is gone, Newkirk begins to remove the contents from the envelope, which LeBeau then photographs.

As soon as Klink is finished playing, much to the others' relief, Hogan claps his hand in false appreciation, and to help his men get even more time to copy whatever they might have found inside the briefcase, asks Klink for a request. When Klink asks for any requests, Hogan asks him if he knew My Melancholy Baby. Not knowing the song, Klink asks Hogan if the song is by Mozart. Hogan's reply is a grateful no. At this point, as Klink plays another solo, Schultz goes back into the kitchen, and Newkirk comes out and then goes under the table, pretending to pick up the last of the broken glass while actually placing the envelope back into the briefcase. Not too long after that, the dinner breaks up.

Later, as an unknowing von Kaplow heads for Berlin, Hogan has the film developed inside a darkroom inside one of the tunnels. Hogan is soon looking over the developed film, along with his men. As he looks at the negatives, he quickly realizes that the documents they have copied are actually the order of battle and battle plans for the 4th Army Group. He decides that they need to get this information quickly to London, and after rejecting Newkirk's original idea of sending the film out with the two pilots since the Germans are still looking for them, Hogan comes up with an idea of his own that would have the pilots leaving the camp with the film, but in disguise. Hogan then tells his men that the plan would be to make the Germans believe that they are actually losing, since at the moment they believe that they are winning everywhere, and to do that, they would need to first attack them at their weakest link, Schultz.

The next day, Hogan's men start their operation. As Schultz enters the barracks, he hears Colonel Hogan giving the others a lecture on how to speak Russian. Caught off-guard by this, he asks Hogan what is going on. Hogan informs him that they figure that the Russians would probably beat the Western Allies to Stalag 13, and that they are preparing for the occassion. This bothers Schultz, especially as the Germans are suppose to be winning on all fronts, so that when Hogan goes back to the lecture, telling his men how to say Yes and No in Russian, Schultz has joined them. Later, Schultz, with Hogan looking on, is watching Kinch write out a letter that is to tell the Russians that Schultz has treated them nicely. After taking the finished letter, Schultz leaves, so that he can get it signed by the prisoners. Schultz soon informs Klink about the information that Hogan has told him earlier, as well as asks Schultz to give him the letter that he has in his possession. Klink then confiscates the letter while telling Schltz that by having it, he could be considered a traitor. Schultz is then dismissed by Klink, after suggesting that he could get a similiar letter from the prisoners for him.

Later, the camp hears a voice, actually Kinch, coming over the camp's PA system, claiming to be from Radio Berlin and informing them that there is to be an important annoucement that night over the radio from the Führer. Inside his office, Klink is talking with Hogan, who informs him that he wants to organize a camp orchestra for the prisoners, with him to be their violinist. During their conversation, Klink turns on the radio, and the pair then hears Hitler, actually Newkirk, giving his speech, in which he announces that Berlin and Hamburg are in shambles, and that negotiations are in the works between Germany and the Allies, but that everyone needs to "Keep smiling." Afterwards, Hogan tells a shocked Klink about the possiblities that Stalag 13 would fall to American soldiers arriving in Sherman tanks. Klink then agrees to play in the prisoners' orchestra, before he hears Hogan's comment, "You don't have to worry about going to the Russian Front. The Russian Front is coming here." This freightens Klink as Hogan leaves his office.

The prisoners, inside Barracks 2, soon have the two pilots out of the tunnels and dressed up as a couple of German officers, members of a camera crew who are to document life at the prison camp for military archives, before leaving in a borrowed staff car, since their own has previously broken down. Inside the camera that they are suppose to be using to film the camp is actually the microfilm of the documents photographed earlier from von Kaplow's briefcase. When Ritchie asks what would happen if they are captured and someone tries to look inside the camera, Hogan informs them that it is set to explode if anyone tries to open the canister incorrectly.

The pair soon appears inside the camp, telling Colonel Klink why they have been sent there. At this point, Hogan tells Klink that this would be a good opportunity for him to show how well the Germans got along with the prisoners, so that he wouldn't have to worry about the Americans doing something bad to him. Klink think its a good idea as well, but he soon has the crew filming different parts of the camp, much to Hogan and the two Flight Lieutenants' dismay. At this point, von Kaplow returns to the camp in his staff car. Von Kaplow exits his staff car, soon telling Klink about being in Berlin and that he has come back to camp to see Helga and hopefully enjoy another good meal. Klink asks him about the rumors that he has lately been hearing. The General dismiss them as being just that, rumors, and that they are winning everywhere and that any negotiations with the Allies is probably just a trial balloon being done to fool Hitler's enemies. Upon hearing this, Klink thanks the General, before he sees him heads to his office with Helga, and then confronts the two officers, intending to confiscate the camera and destroy the film inside it, while also telling them to leave the camp. Hogan then intervenes, saying that they are probably Gestapo agents, sent there to ruin his record. As he says that, Hogan takes the film from Donner and proceeds to dunk it inside a water barrel twice to make it look like the film inside it is now no longer useable. With that, the two disguised RAF officers then leave the camp inside a borrowed staff car, soon headed for London. Klink then informs Hogan that he would not be joining his men's orchestra, but that he would be willing to play for them on the loudspeaker. Hogan suggests that he do it after von Kaplow leaves to avoid a massive prisoner escape while the General is at the camp.

The final scene of the episode shows Sergeant Schultz inside Klink's office, as Klink asks him where his violin is. Schultz tells him he has no idea where it could be, while secretly hoping it is gone. As Klink tells him to search everywhere inside the camp for it, Colonel Hogan enters, with Klink's violin. A now happy Klink then leaves the room, planning to lock it up for safe keeping while Schultz starts to chastise Hogan for bringing it back. Hogan then shows Schultz the violin's just removed strings, while commenting that Klink would have to blow into it to play it now, much to Schultz's amusement.

Story Notes

 * This is the twelfth produced episode of the series, but the eighth one to be shown on television.
 * This is the first time we see Klink's living quarters - furniture and set design of his living/dining room which are not used again.
 * Klink's kitchen is also shown - again, a set design that is changed later on in the show.
 * There is a bulletin board outside Klink's office.
 * In this episode, Klink is shown playing the violin. While Klink is a lousy player, his portrayer, the late Werner Klemperer, was in real life a very good violinist.
 * This episode is the first time that Sergeant Schultz uses the phrase, "Jolly Jokers," in response to a joke that the prisoners make at his expense.
 * This is also the first episode where Schultz mentions that he's married.
 * This is the first episode in which we see Newkirk vocally impersonate Hitler - in this instance, for a radio broadcast.
 * Two historical musical figures, Mozart and violinist Heifetz, are mentioned.
 * Two American popular songs are mentioned: My Melancholy Baby and Stars and Stripes Forever.

Background Trivia

 * The actor portraying the General, Henry Corden, appears often in Hogan's Heroes, usually as a German officer, though in one episode he played a Russian.
 * William Christopher is better known as Father Mulcahy of M*A*S*H and AfterMASH.
 * The 4th Panzer Army is an actual Army Group.

Timeline Notes and Speculations

 * This episode starts on December 5, 1943. Hogan claims that the day, December 5, is celebrated as a holiday in the United States - repeal of Prohibition.
 * General von Kaplow's command, the 4th Panzer Army, had in real life just finished actions against the Red Army along the Teterev River in November 1943. The plans that the heroes are trying to get from von Kaplow might have related to a future offensive.

Quotes
As Colonel Klink is playing his violin inside his dining room for both Colonel Hogan and General von Kaplow, Newkirk, LeBeau, and Schultz can hear it from within the kitchen:


 * LeBeau: What's that noise?
 * Schultz: Somebody is strangling a cat.

Hogan is asking Carter what some of the other prisoners are making:


 * Hogan: Carter, what are the boys in the metal shop working on?
 * Carter: Reversible tie pins. On one side it says 'Heil Hitler.' On the other, 'I was in Switzerland during the war.'

As Hogan talk to his men about what they're going to do:


 * Hogan: We're selling an idea. So we've got to attack them at their weakest point.
 * Others: Schultz!
 * Hogan: Who else?

Inside his office, Klink and Hogan hears what they believe is a speech by Adolf Hitler, which is actually being read by Newkirk from inside the tunnel under Barracks 2:


 * Newkirk (as Hitler): It is possible that you have heard rumors that Berlin is in ruins, Hamburg is in shambles and so on. I order you not to believe these things, even if they are true!

Towards the end of the episode, as Klink talks with Hogan:


 * Klink: Col. Hogan, I have decided not to play in your prisoners' orchestra. I may, however, do a solo over the loudspeaker system.
 * Hogan: Well, if I were you, I'd wait until the general leaves, sir.
 * Klink: Why?
 * Hogan: I mean, how would it look, a mass escape while he's here?