Hogan's Heroes: Behind the Scenes at Stalag 13!

Hogan's Heroes: Behind the Scenes at Stalag 13!

Hogan's Heroes: Behind the Scenes at Stalag 13!

Hogan's Heroes: Behind the Scenes at Stalag 13!

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Overview

If your fondest TV memories involve the POWs of Stalag 13 cleverly outwitting their captors, Schultz stammering "I know nothing!" and Hochstetter threatening to send everyone to the Russian front, then this is the book for you. This fun and informative book takes you behind the scenes of the classic 1960s sitcom to reveal:

· the story behind the creation, production, and eventual cancellation of the series
· the controversy surrounding the show's unlikely premise
· interviews with many of the show's stars and crew
· biographies of the stars and supporting actors
· a detailed guide to each of the 168 episodes
· a guide to collecting Hogan's memorabilia
· and more...

Hogan's Heroes is more popular now than ever before, especially in Germany, where it has become a surprising cult hit. In this book, most of the show's stars and behind-the-scenes personnel share their memories and reflect on the series' enduring popularity.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781466859579
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date: 03/26/2024
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 314
File size: 4 MB

About the Author

Brenda Scott Royce is a freelance entertainment writer and motion picture reviewer. She is the author of Party of Five: The Unofficial Companion, and has written for Classic TV, Television Chronicles, Television Today, Movie Marketplace, and other periodicals. She resides in Los Angeles, California.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

CREATION

When Hogan's Heroes first aired on September 17, 1965, it marked the beginning of a six-year success story. The cast and crew, some of whom were just getting their feet wet in television, were beginning a long and prosperous association. But the airing of the pilot marked the end of the process for its two creators, Bernie Fein and Al Ruddy. Both men were involved with the show from that day forth financially, and Fein even stayed with the show as associate producer for one year, but the all-important, magical creation process had ended. Hogan's Heroes was out of their hands and into the hands of the producer, actors, directors, and writers — and the public.

Bernard Fein and Albert S. Ruddy, Creators

Before Hogan's Heroes changed their lives, Bernard Fein was an actor who wanted to write and Albert S. Ruddy was an architect who wanted a career change. They met in the early sixties through a mutual friend, film director Brian Hutton (First Deadly Sin, Kelly's Heroes). The two men, both in their early thirties, became fast friends. They decided to team up and try writing for television. Ruddy had no previous experience in TV. Fein, as an actor, had costarred on Phil Silvers' Sergeant Bilko series and guest-starred in such series as The Twilight Zone, 77 Sunset Strip, and The Untouchables. Neither had done any writing. Dauntlessly, the two set out to write a television pilot.

In retrospect, Ruddy realizes that their expectations were unrealistic. In fact, he attributes their success to luck and ignorance. "If someone were to ask me today what their chances of selling a television pilot are I would say you might as well go to Vegas," a more seasoned Ruddy asserts. "Writing a television pilot is like playing the lottery. It's a one-in-a-million shot." But at the time, the two men were full of wide-eyed optimism and ignored the admonitions of skeptical friends.

The result of their collaboration was a sitcom based in a minimum security prison, where the ingenious prisoners coordinated escape activities and had virtual control of the prison, always outsmarting the warden. Despite a genuinely funny script, they could not sell the project. Ruddy reflects, "We couldn't find a sponsor for the series, because no one wanted to sponsor 'a night in the slam.'" American television audiences were not ready to accept inmates as protagonists, and in order for the idea to sell, the characters had to be made more sympathetic.

[Ten years after Hogan's Heroes' debut, a sitcom set in a minimum security prison did make it to the air. On the Rocks starred Mel Stewart and Tom Poston as a hard-nosed corrections officer and his mild-mannered guard (think Klink and Schultz), and concerned a bunch of multiethnic inmates who used every opportunity to one-up their captors. The series debuted in September 1975 and was canceled after one season. Despite the similarities, On the Rocks was not derived from Hogan's Heroes, but was based on a British television series, Porridge.]

The transformation of the setting from American prison to prisoner-of-war camp was exactly what was needed to take the edge off and make the audience side with the prisoners. Conflicting stories have been printed concerning how the change was brought about. A popular version is one that co-creator Bernie Fein was fond of telling. He contended that he was on a plane to New York — he was leaving Los Angeles and giving up his writing career — when he sat next to someone who was reading Von Ryan's Express. As he told the story in the Hollywood Citizen-News in 1965, "I just saw the cover. I had never read the book ... but something clicked. I knew what I had to do — change the locale to a wartime prison camp. You may not believe this, but the only thing I could think of was what if [the plane] should crash before I could rewrite the show."

This story has been repeated in books about television history, but it does not reflect the actual course of events. Bernie's widow, Kay Fein Pattison, explains, "Bernie did tell that story about Von Ryan's Express, but that is all it was — a story. Bernie liked to make history/life a bit more colorful or interesting than it was in reality. He was highly imaginative and entertaining and told amusing stories." A pleasant side effect for the Feins was that they became acquainted with the author of Von Ryan's Express, David Westheimer, as a direct result of the story.

In actuality, a rumor that one of the other networks was using a POW camp setting prompted the change. NBC was putting together Campo 44, a series about Americans held in an Italian prisoner-of-war camp. (Coincidentally, Campo 44 was written by David Westheimer, the author of Von Ryan's Express.) At Campo 44, the Italian captors had very little interest in fighting the war. The kommandant was more interested in tending to his garden than his prisoners, and the second in command was a dimwitted sort, Capitano Barracutti, played by veteran character actor Vito Scotti. Scotti recalled, "Barracutti's feeling was 'Let's have war, but not spill blood. Especially my blood!'"

Scotti, whose most memorable roles include Dr. Balinkoff on Gilligan's Island, Sam Picasso on The Addams Family, and Captain Fomento on The Flying Nun, believed that while the Campo 44 pilot was being filmed, someone got hold of a script and it was quickly converted into Hogan's Heroes. "And so from Campo 44 came Hogan's Heroes. Identical thing. And we were out." Scotti held no grudges, though, and later guest-starred on Hogan's Heroes as the war-hating Major Bonacelli.

Al Ruddy admits that Campo 44 provided the inspiration for Hogan's Heroes' change of locale, but not in such a direct manner as a bootlegged script. "We read in the paper that another network was doing a sitcom set in an Italian prisoner of war camp and we thought perfect. We rewrote our script and set it in a German POW camp in about two days."

Kay Fein Pattison recalls that her husband Bernie overheard in an office at CBS that the network was considering an hour-long drama about a POW camp and that prompted the rewrite. It is likely that CBS was shopping for a project to compete against Campo 44 and was considering an hour-length project. Vito Scotti felt that the controversy that surrounded Hogan's Heroes would not have been a problem with Campo 44, because the Italians were not in favor of the war, whereas Germany and America were direct adversaries in the conflict. Scotti explained, "The Italians were against war, so there was no after-war animosity, whereas the German situation was something people had a difficult time laughing at." Bernard Fox, who played Colonel Crittendon on Hogan's Heroes, would have played a recurring role on Campo 44, had it been picked up as a series. He, too, thinks the Italian setting would have made more sense.

Ironically, the unsold Campo 44 pilot did not make it on the air until September 9, 1967. The similarities between it and Hogan's Heroes were obvious, and Campo 44 was called a cheap rip-off of Hogan's by those who did not know it had actually preceded the CBS hit. Variety called Campo 44 "Gomer Pyle–ish" and blasted NBC for even considering putting it on the air.

Once inspired by hearing about the Campo 44 locale, Fein and Ruddy sprang into action and rewrote their pilot in record time. Though the setting and characters were changed, the basic plot remained the same. In the original, the government plants a spy among the convicts in the prison. Once the spy is accepted by the other prisoners, they show him their covert operations. Instead of making license plates, they are manufacturing cigarette lighters and are providing escaping prisoners with money. When they discover the spy's identity, the prisoners turn the situation around and implicate the spy in an escape attempt. This formula, using different settings and characters, is identical to the structure of the pilot which finally made it on the air in September of 1965. The claim that Ruddy and Fein plagiarized from either Campo 44 or Stalag 17 (as was later charged in a lawsuit) is clearly false.

After their hasty revision, Bernie Fein and Al Ruddy pitched their new script to the networks. According to a story printed in Canned Laughter: The Best Stories from Radio and Television, the pilot was first pitched to NBC, but the peacock network declined after its executives queried, "If the pilot is this good, how could they sustain it week after week?" At CBS, there was definite interest. A meeting was set up with Mike Levy (of Artists' Agency), Hunt Stromberg (head of CBS West Coast programming), William S. Paley (founder-president of CBS), Mike Dann (vice president of programming for CBS), Al Ruddy, and Bernie Fein. Levy outlined the premise of the series for the assembled VIPs. When the pitch was over, William Paley announced, "I find the idea of doing a comedy set in a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp reprehensible." Al Ruddy recalls of that fateful moment: "Mike Levy's mouth dropped open. Then I proceeded to explain to him [Paley] the premise of the show. I literally acted out a half-hour of the show — the barking dogs, the machine-gun sound effects, the works. It was hilarious! At the end of it, Paley said it was the best presentation he had ever heard."

After closing the deal with CBS and Bing Crosby Productions, Bernie Fein and Al Ruddy chose to follow separate career paths. Each earned over $40,000 for the script, plus "substantial royalties." No longer struggling writers, the two gained a reputation as "bright young men" practically overnight. Ruddy used this leverage to move into producing films. It was based on the success of Hogan's Heroes that he produced The Longest Yard and Little Fauss and Big Halsey. CBS had approached Ruddy with an offer to produce Hogan's, but he turned it down. He asserts, "I wanted to go into films and producing for television just didn't appeal to me." People thought he was insane for turning down a lucrative career as a television producer, but Ruddy stuck with his plan. His decision proved to be a wise one, as he went on to a very successful film producing career. His films include The Godfather (which won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1972), Megaforce, Lassiter, and Cannonball Run and its sequels. His company, Ruddy-Morgan Productions, most recently produced Bad Girls (1994), a western starring Drew Barrymore and Andie MacDowell, and Heaven's Prisoners (1996), a mystery-thriller with Alec Baldwin and Teri Hatcher.

STALAG 13 OR 17?

A popular misconception is that Hogan's Heroes was adapted from the 1953 film Stalag 17. Though there were slight similarities between the two, Stalag 17 was no more a precursor to Hogan's than were Sergeant Bilko or McHale's Navy. The authors of the play on which the film was based were so convinced that Hogan's was plagiarized from their work that they filed a lawsuit against CBS. Playwrights Donald Bevan and Edmund Trzcinski wrote the Broadway play, Stalag 17, which was adapted for the screen by Billy Wilder and Edwin Blum. The film version was a tremendous success, and its star, William Holden, won an Academy Award for his performance.

Stalag 17 concerned the activities of a group of American prisoners-of-war held in a German camp. Unlike the blatant comedy of Hogan's Heroes, Stalag 17 was a serious, stirring drama with comic undertones. Stalag 17's plot centered around the prisoners' discovery that there is a spy among them who has been informing the Germans of escape plans. The story bears a likeness to the initial episode of Hogan's Heroes, which had the men discrediting a German spy who was planted among the prisoners.

Bob Crane said that his character was based on James Garner's role in the 1963 film The Great Escape, which recounted the mass escape of seventy-six Allied prisoners from Stalag Luft III in March 1944.

One striking similarity between Hogan's Heroes and Stalag 17 is that the main guard in both pieces was named Sergeant Schultz. In Bernie Fein and Al Ruddy's script, there was no character named Schultz. Richard M. Powell, who rewrote the pilot, said that he created the Schultz character. "I didn't read or see Stalag 17," he attests. "Sergeant Schultz was a character I invented. I took the name from the Jack Benny film To Be or Not to Be. The Schultz character was important to the sitcom because I felt some sort of go-between was necessary between the prisoners and Klink."

Though Sergeant Schultz proved to be an immensely popular character in the series, naming him "Schultz" may not have been a wise choice. Kay Fein Pattison says, "Bernie and Al did not steal the idea, but the producers changed some things — like naming one of the Germans Schultz — that created similarities."

The authors of Stalag 17 filed a lawsuit in January 1967 against CBS and Bing Crosby Productions. They charged that in 1963, they submitted a one-hour script to CBS which was based on their play and the network turned it down. Bevan and Trzcinski claimed that rather than buy their series, CBS sought out two unknown writers to write the same thing, thereby costing the network less money.

Hogan's co-creator Albert S. Ruddy calls the charge "ridiculous." The playwrights asked for an injunction against the broadcast of the series until the case was settled, but were denied. The case did not go to trial until after the series ended its original run. Producer Ed Feldman, creators Al Ruddy and Bernie Fein, and writer Richard M. Powell were subpoenaed as witnesses. Mary Feldman recalls, "They kept asking Ed if he had read Stalag 17 and he said he had not. Then they asked him where he got the word 'stalag.' But of course 'stalag' was a well-known term."

Ruddy shares his memories of the lawsuit. "The trial was about one year after the show. I was in New York working on The Godfather and I had to go downtown to appear as one of the witnesses. The suit was against CBS, but we were involved because they claimed we were in collusion with CBS to cheat them. The outcome of the trial was unbelievable. The jury actually decided in favor of the Stalag 17 authors. What happened next was a rare occurrence — the judge reversed the jury's decision. It was called a bench reversal. When a judge issues a 'bench reversal' he's saying that the jury did not do their job, that there was not sufficient evidence to justify their decision. The judge in this case thought it was ludicrous. And once a judge issues a bench reversal there is no turning it around, and there was never any appeal."

Unlike Ruddy, Bernie Fein wanted to remain with Hogan's Heroes after the sale of the pilot. He signed on as associate producer of the series. He worked closely on the day-to-day production for the first season, but his option was not renewed by Bing Crosby Productions the following season. Executive producer Ed Feldman often did not agree with Fein's suggestions and the two were not a compatible production team. "Feldman did not care for Bernie, although I don't know what caused the tension between them," recalls Kay Fein Pattison.

Following his stint as associate producer, Fein continued pursuing his writing career. He optioned The Prince on Center Street, a pilot he co-wrote with Ed Adamson, and a project called Bellingham Group for Twentieth Century Fox TV. His subsequent projects did not match the success of Hogan's Heroes. Bernie Fein passed away in September 1980 after an extended illness.

Although the Ruddy-Fein writing team did not collaborate on any projects after Hogan's, they had written a few things prior to that script that garnered some interest from producers. A sitcom with a western setting, Mingo was about the "fastest mouth in the West." Screen Gems was interested in it, but they had trouble casting the pilot. "We needed someone who looked like John Wayne, but could be funny. We just couldn't cast it and it didn't go anywhere," Ruddy recalls.

Though they never worked together professionally after Hogan's, Fein and Ruddy remained great friends. "There was never a fracture in the relationship," Ruddy says warmly. "We had a marvelous time writing the pilot. It was the turning point in both our lives."

(Continues…)



Excerpted from "Hogan's Heroes"
by .
Copyright © 1998 Brenda Scott Royce.
Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Table of Contents

Title Page,
Copyright Notice,
Dedication,
Acknowledgments,
Foreword by Werner Klemperer,
Introduction,
Creation,
Casting,
Production,
Dissent Among the Ranks,
The Pen Is Mightier Than the Swagger Stick: The Writers,
Lights, Camera, Action: The Directors,
Heil Nielsen: The Ratings,
Promotion Commotion,
Auf Wiedersehen, Hogan: The Cancellation,
But Will It Play in Potsdam?,
The Cast,
Bob Crane,
Werner Klemperer,
John Banner,
Robert Clary,
Richard Dawson,
Ivan Dixon,
Larry Hovis,
Kenneth Washington,
Leon Askin,
Howard Caine,
Cynthia Lynn,
Sigrid Valdis,
Bernard Fox,
Kathleen Freeman,
Nita Talbot,
Episode Guide,
First Season,
Second Season,
Third Season,
Fourth Season,
Fifth Season,
Sixth Season,
Alphabetical List of Episodes,
Trivia Quiz,
Bibliography,
Index,
Copyright,

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