Four Star Playhouse (TV Series) The Firing Squad (1955) User Reviews

Just okay....

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 20 March 2016]

This episode of "Four Star Playhouse" was only okay and didn't really grab my interest. The acting is okay (though why it was about Australian troops when the actors were all Americans and Brits, I have no idea) but the script left me cold.

The show begins in 1943 in North Africa. Apparently, a deserter has been sentenced to death and this is an unpopular order that no one wants to carry out. The dubious task goes to Captain Adams (David Niven)...a man already in trouble to freezing up during combat. He's offered the job...and told his previous misconduct will be ignored if he carries out the order to execute Private Jones. What's going to happen?

The problem for me is that I might have made Jones' plight a bit more vague...in a situation where his guilt would have been more questionable (such as the executions in Stanley Kubrick's brilliant "Paths of Glory"). Mildly entertaining and nothing more.

Interesting take on something that could never happen...

[dross-89171 · 5/10 · 20 May 2024]

Lets start with the problems.

No member of the Australian Forces was executed in WW1 or 2 for military crimes (e.g. Desertion). It was politically impossible. You should read the communications by Haig in WW1 pleading for the right to shoot members of the AIF.

The Australian Infantry Divisions were withdrawn from the Middle East, the last (9th Division) leaving in January 1943 to return to Australia to fight the Japanese.

Australians did not wear the slouch hat very much - it was "battle bowlers" (Brodie Helmet).

And right at the end David Niven and escort do "left about turns" (as a real (former) British Army Officer Lt Col Niven would know the correct drill! Perhaps a sign of protest ?

The "slouch hats" are Indian Army pattern (as worn by 14th Army) as shown by the wide chin strap and large buckle. The "bash" is also incorrect for Australian senses.

It shows Hollywood cannot get it right and that the whole action is badly translated from its Canadian origins (Execution by Colin McDougall - set in Sicily!)

The acting though is OK with Niven being Niven rather than being an Australian.

The power of understatement

[lor_ · 7 January 2024]

Director Robert Florey is a master of suspense, like Hitch and Robert Siodmak with many films to prove it. For "The Firing Squad" segment of Four Star Playhouse, he's presented with the challenge of pumping life into a situation, like staging a duel, that provides little room for creativity. The best movie in this genre is unquestionably Nagisa Oshima's "Death by Hanging", using experimental cinema to produce the definitive movie outburst attacking capital punishment.

Casting David Niven as the man on the spot makes this miniature episode work: he's a foul up Australian captain already in the doghouse for cowardice, no longer (in 1943 stationed in North Africa) permitted to lead men in battle. John Dehner, very good in a stiff-upper-lip role, assigns the execution duty of a Private charged with desertion and murder to Niven, offering David a carrot in that he'll quash the negative report on his cowardice before Niven goes home to Australia.

The episode includes a religious component, with Hugh Beaumont (future Mr. Cleaver of "Leave It to Beaver") cast as the padre with the squad, surprisingly stern in his dealings with Niven.

Frederick Brady's script avoids sentimentality and features a solid twist, well-directed by Florey. There's food for thought here, with a relevancy undiminished 70 years later.