Hey, I Know That Guy! Episode #3

 

 

 

Hey! I know that guy!

 

 

Here we go with another installment of the ongoing series.  To refresh your memory, the plan is to discuss an episode of The Twilight Zone and highlight one of the actors or actresses appearing in the episode and talk about their career before and after their role in the episode.  Usually I will be taking a secondary character as my focus, not one of the stars.

As per my wont, that rule is not set in stone.  If you remember, last episode  (Hey I Know That Guy #2)  involved an episode of The Twilight Zone which only had two actors on screen. So, occasionally I will be focusing on someone who has more than a fleeting moment in The Twilight Zone episode.  Such is the case this time.

In the 5th season of the series, The Zone had reverted from what some people consider a bad decision in the 4th season.  The first 3 seasons the episodes had a 30 minute running time, but in the 4th season they tried their hand at an hour long length.  Not that many of those episodes weren't good, but I think it was a bad decision.  Many of those 60 minute episodes could easily have been condensed to a 30 minute running time and not lost any of the impact.

Anyway, in the 5th season, the producers went back to the 30 minute running time, and many of the 5th season episodes are among my favorites.  In particular is The 7th is Made Up of Phantoms.  Of course, one of my abiding interests in the science fiction realm is the concept of time travel.  Thus, in my list of the top ten episodes of the series, at least three of them involve some aspect of that theme. And one of those is this one.

To encapsulate, in the present day a patrol of 3 men are scouting a ridge for the U.S. Army in performing a series of war games.  The crew consists of Sgt, William Connors (Ron Foster), Pvt. Michael McCluskey (Randy Boone) and our focus actor of this post, Warren Oates as Cpl. Richard Langsford.  It seems that the three have stumbled across a genuine Native American teepee.  Which, since both McCluskey and Connors are avid history buffs, they know that's exactly what happened 80 some odd years earlier in the preamble to the event most historians know as The Battle of Little Big Horn.

Langsford it appears is the voice of reason of the three because both Connors and McCluskey are convinced something odd is going on.  Like maybe they crossed some boundary and are really back in the past, just prior to that epic battle.

Their superiors, including a captain, tell them to get their heads in the right place and continue on with the maneuvers of the war games.  Which is what they should do, of course.  But on the second day they find a deserted village of teepees, just like had happened in the earlier history. And, after going up to scout out this deserted village,  McCluskey comes back telling the other two that if it is a mirage, it's a doozy, because he now sports an arrow in his back. And just around the bend they come upon the de facto proof they have crossed into unknown territory when they witness the battle.  And, being gung ho soldiers, they join in the fray.  Note: At no point do we see the battle our present day soldiers see, we only hear it, giving credence that it may or may not be just their imagination... But...

Meanwhile back in the present, the current army finds the deserted tank, but no soldiers, and, as per Twilight Zone gotcha moment, the three present day soldiers names are among those listed as having died in the battle 80 years earlier.

In the course of his career as an actor Warren Oates had some memorable roles. Beginning in 1956 he was a frequent guest star in TV shows, like many actors.  But he also had some notable film roles.  Many of you will remember him as Officer Sam Wood in the movie version of In the Heat of the Night.  He was also memorable as one of The Wild Bunch playing Lyle Gorch in that epic.  He won the role of the title character of John Dillinger in the 1973 film Dillinger (and there's a film just waiting to make it's appearance at the Drive-In). One of my favorite appearances of him is when he was paired with Peter Fonda as a group of people being chased by renegade Satanists in Race with the Devil.

But probably more people will be familiar with him due to what was one of his final roles, that of the put-upon Sgt. Hulka, who had to put up with as well as mold into some kind of reasonable facsimile of soldiers the recruits in Stripes.

In Stripes, Bill Murray and Harold Ramis play a couple of malcontents who join the Army on a whim, figuring it to be a free ride.  Additionally in the platoon are more would-be losers, played with varying degrees of ineptitude by John Candy, Judge Reinhold, John Diehl and Conrad Dunn.

Throughout the boot camp scenes, Sgt. Hulka does his best to instill a semblance of pride in his recruits.  Whether or not he is successful is your call, because at one point he ends up in the infirmary as a result of a mishap on the training course. And Murray and cohorts end up completing their training (if you can call it that) without him. And manage to fool the brass that they are a crack outfit and desrve the plum job of guarding a Winnebago converted to a tank.

Bad idea, as Murray and Ramis end up in Soviet Russia with valuable (and needless to say "secret")  U.S. Army equipment.  Leaving Hulka and the rest of the malcontents to get them (or at least the equipment) back into U.S. control.

Oates is never a caricature, even when he plays what is essentially a caricature.  You watch this movie for Murray and Candy, of course, but Oates as Hulka is a real treat.  And you get the idea that Hulka would just as soon take on the whole Russian Red Army single-handed than to rely on the nitwits he has to help him.

Oates passed away in 1982 after a bout with influenza which may have brought on the actual heart attack that took his life.  Celebrate his legacy  by watching one of the movies mentioned here (or any of his others).

Quiggy