1 9 7 6 (UK)
2 x 120 minute episodes
5 x 60 minute episodes
Adapted from Anton Myrer’s best-selling novel, this $2 million, nine-hour miniseries from NBC aired under the network’s Best Sellers umbrella and followed the lives of two US Army officers from 1918 through the Second World War.
Sam Damon (Sam Elliott), a stolid, stalwart hero with his men’s – and his country’s – best interests at heart, and the glory-grabbing Courtney Massengale (Cliff Potts), are totally opposite in character.
When enlisted Nebraska farm boy Sam leaves for France with the American forces, he has already risen to the rank of sergeant. His leadership qualities are tested under actual combat conditions, and he receives a battlefield commission from Major George Caldwell (Glenn Ford).
During this time, he meets Massengale, a West Point graduate who is both ambitious and arrogant.
While visiting wounded members of his unit at a field hospital, Sam meets nurse Tommy Caldwell (Darleen Carr), Major Caldwell’s daughter.
At the close of World War I, Sam decides to remain in the army and soon marries Tommy, despite her open opposition to a military lifestyle. It is not long, however, before Sam realises that life in the peacetime Army presents its own specific problems, such as low pay, bad quarters, and a wife still unhappy with the military way of living.
Drawn to a civilian job by the better pay, he discovers a new set of drawbacks.
Ultimately returning to the Army, he is transferred to the Philippines and later to China for a 17-month tour, placing his marriage in even greater jeopardy. Meanwhile, Court has married socialite Emily Pawlfrey (Amy Irving) and run into his own marital problems.
When Massengale encounters Sam several years later, the two confront each other as Sam steps in to defend an enlisted man accused of striking an officer in a case Massengale is prosecuting.
The inevitable confrontation between (now) General Sam Damon and his ranking general, Courtney Massengale, occurs during the height of the New Guinea campaign in World War II – against a background of military in-fighting between skilled and dedicated officers and headline-seeking “heroes” far behind the lines – in the two-hour concluding episode.
With his only son Donny (Andrew Stevens) in the Air Force in England, his wife blaming him for the boy’s commitment to the military, and his tactical expertise undercut by the “Glory Boys”, Sam drifts into an affair with an Australian nurse (Juliet Mills).
Appearing elsewhere in the series were Kim Hunter, Melanie Griffith, Clu Gulager, Ralph Bellamy, Harriet Nelson, and Forrest Tucker.
Sam Damon
Sam Elliott Tommy Caldwell Damon
Darleen Carr Courtney Massengale
Cliff Potts Emily Pawlfrey Massengale
Amy Irving Major George Caldwell
Glenn Ford Ben Krisler
Robert Hogan Marge Krisler
Lynda Day George Alvin Merrick
Clu Gulager Joe Brand
Kario Salem Donny Damon
Andrew Stevens Ryetower
Kip Niven Jinny Massengale
Melanie Griffith Gen. McKelvey
Andrew Duggan
Video
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When enlisted Nebraska farm boy Sam leaves for France with the American forces, he has already risen to the rank of sergeant. His leadership qualities are tested under actual combat conditions, and he receives a battlefield commission from Major George Caldwell (Glenn Ford).
When Massengale encounters Sam several years later, the two confront each other as Sam steps in to defend an enlisted man accused of striking an officer in a case Massengale is prosecuting.
