Hogan's Heroes - The Complete Series
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Actor: Bob Crane, John Banner, Richard Dawson, Robert Clary, Werner KlempererBrand: PARAMOUNT HOME VIDEO
Cinematographer: Robert C. Moreno
Editor: Ken Zemke
Editor: Thomas Neff
Writer: Albert S. Ruddy
Writer: Bernard Fein
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Box set, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 4281 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-06-05
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Paramount
DVD Reviews of Hogan's Heroes - The Complete Series
DVD Review: archetype of classic tv
Summary: 4 Stars
Hogan's Heroes is not the best television comedy ever made. But it may very well be the most under-rated. For nearly forty-five years, it has been either pooh-poohed as nothing more than juvenile farce, or it castigated as insensitive and insulting to the victims of Nazi crimes against humanity. But, reruns of this show have been on tv as long as I am old enough to remember, and I even have seen the program on German tv networks when I was in Europe. With staying power like that, there must be more to the show than the critics see.
And there is. First, Hogan's Heroes is one of a handful of contemporaneous sit-coms that debuted in the 1965 television season that became staples in American pop-culture. The 1965 season was something of a vintage year, as it seems to have launched more than its fair share of the most succesfully syndicated series in tv history -- the sit-coms Hogan's Heroes, I Dream of Jeannie, Get Smart, Green Acres and to a lesser degree, Gidget and F-Troop all debuted in 1965 and went on to have long, long careers on afternoon syndication throughout the 70's and 80's and well into the 90's. Anyone who grew up in America during the 1970's and 80's can probably remember at least occasionally watching these programs on local television stations in the after-school hours -- along with 1964's Gilligan's Island and Bewitched, and earlier 60's sitcoms like Andy Griffith and McHales Navy. These programs have become part of the national consciousness of a generation through their on-air omnipresence in syndication.
And the best of the "Class of '65", and indeed the best sitcom of the entire late-60's, was Hogan's Heroes.
Heavily indebted to earlier movies like Stalag 17 and The Great Escape, and even a little to Von Ryan's Express, Hogan's Heroes came out in an era when nostalgic programs saluting the war years were all over network television -- Combat, Twelve O'Clock High and The Rat Patrol come immediately to mind as contemporary WWII programs. Hogan's Heroes combined the already popular "Service Comedy" genre to the mid-60's James Bond inspired "spy craze", and then set it in a German POW camp in 1943-44.
Hogan's Heroes has more forms of humor to offer beyond farce. The character Hogan himself has very witty lines, and uses dark gallows humor in the face of danger. There is very little in the way of slapstick, much of the humor comes at the expense of Colonel Klink and his self-serving pomposity and incredible incompetence, but there are very few pratfalls or other "pie-in-the-face" type of humor. It is largely a verbal comedy, or a comedy based on personalities and personal foibles.
Every major German character - Klink, Schultz, Burkhalter and Hochstetter, were played by Jewish actors - three of whom escaped from Nazi Europe in the 1930's.
The "Heroes", are a likable group of colleagues: Carter, the pyrotechnical genius but otherwise with the naive mentality of an 11 year old boy; Newkirk, the cockney con-man and safecracker; LeBeau, the diminutive French ladies man; and Kinchloe, the steady and and reliable African American radio operator who is also Hogan's right hand man, and for the most part, the program's straight man. They make a good team, and there is a real sense of comeraderie among them.
The show combined comedy with action. When Hogan and his men are actually on a mission, the humor is largely absent, except for the occasional one-liner. Even with 168 episodes, the capers seldom seem repetitive, and usually they manage to build up some suspense. You know Hogan is going to come out on top, the fun is, seeing how he snatches victory from the jaws of defeat time after time. There are no firefights, noone dies on screen - but there is cloak and dagger suspense, like an episode of Mission:Impossible with a laugh track.
The Hogan character is a pleasure to watch, and Bob Crane was extremely talented in playing both the level headed, calm in a crisis, well respected leader of men that Hogan actually is, and the naive, childlike inccocent facade that Hogan puts on when conning Klink and the other German officers.
The best dynamic in the show, however, is the relationship between German Guard SGT Schultz, and the POW's, especially Hogan. The POW's obviously like Schultz, and he likes them, and the whole message get across that all men could be friends if it weren't for the war.
There was also a subtle message at the height of the Civil Rights era that black Americans can be a key member of a social group, too. Very little is made of Kinchloe's race, he is just naturally and fully accepted by the others without comment on it.
Of course there are huge historical inaccuracies -- there would never have been a POW camp where a Colonel would be housed with sergeants and corporals. There were separate camps for officers, separate campls for NCO's and separate camps for the rank and file. While it was common for a POW camp to house prisoners from different allied nations, the different nationals were always housed together - one section of the camp for American, one for UK and Commonwealth prisoner's, etc, etc. But if you can accept the basic premise of the Nazi's being too stupid to catch on to Hogan's team, you can overlook the historical gaffes too.
Just good, clean entertainment, so suspend your belief (as all good entertainment requires) and enjoy.
Description of Hogan's Heroes - The Complete Series
The inmates of a German World War II Prisoners of War camp conduct espionage and sabotage campaign right under the noses of their warders. While the enemy is often gullible, easily fooled or downright incompetent ? the real strength of Hogan?s men are the elaborate ruses and sometimes dangerous lengths they will go to complete their mission. This Boxset includes Seasons 1 - 6.Bestsellers in DVD
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