This is How Movies Should Be Made

Good start, but then it gets ruined

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

The year of 1967,ushered in a new wave of violence not only on the big screen,but made its way through the media of television as well. In the summer of 1967,two major motion pictures were playing in theaters throughout the country....one was Robert Aldrich's "The Dirty Dozen",and the other was the sixth film in the James Bond 007 series "You Only Live Twice" starring Sean Connery. In the upset that followed, Aldrich's "The Dirty Dozen" overtook the summer's biggest Bond film "You Only Live Twice" as not only the top box office draw at the movies,but became one of the highest grossing films of that year. Along with Arthur Penn's "Bonnie and Clyde"(which didn't come out until later that year),and Norman Jewison's "In The Heat Of The Night"(which was released later on that year) ushered into a new wave of violent cinema. Things will never be the same way again.In the fall of 1967,the television series "Garrison's Gorillas" premiered on ABC. After the Emmy-winning World War II drama "Combat!" ended its successful five-year run,"Garrison's Gorillas" took over in the same time slot as "Combat!" was on Tuesday nights. Produced by the same company that brought you "Combat!"...Selmur Productions in association with the ABC Television Network. "Garrison's Gorillas" was inspired by the 1967 film "The Dirty Dozen" which featured a similar scenario of training Allied prisoners for various military missions during World War II. The leader was Lt. Craig Garrison(Ron Harper),who basically acted just like Lee Marvin's 'Major Reisman'. Garrison was in charge of a band of convicted criminals(all of them were a motley group of commandoes recruited from stateside prisons)that were recruited for a variety of special skills against the Germans in World War II. They had been promised a parole at the end of the war of they worked out. That is,if they lived. The alternative was an immediate return to prison. If they tried to run,they could be executed for desertion. They were given a choice.....Fight for Uncle Sam or face a firing squad.The four were Actor(Cesare'Danova) the handsome con-man;Casino(Rudy Solari)the safe cracker and mechanic;Goniff(Christopher Cary)the Cockney cat burglar;and Chief(Brendan Boone),the native American who handled a switchblade like he was born to it. Each week,the Gorillas would go on various missions as daring as they were with high suspense and breathtaking excitement. "Garrison's Gorillas" was like the "A-Team" of its day,with a dollop of "Mission:Impossible" thrown in for good measure not to mention a hint of another WWII show "The Rat Patrol"(which by the way was on the same network). The slippery group ranged all over Europe in various exploits that took them behind enemy lines. Some of the episodes were very good included the pilot episode "The Big Con". Other excellent episodes included "The Magnificent Forger","Banker's Hours","48 Hours to Doomsday",the two-part episode "War and Crime",and "A Plot To Kill",along with the final episode of the series "Time Bomb". The guest stars ranged from Jack Klugman, Telly Savalas,to Roddy McDowell, Richard Kiley, Malachi Throne, to Jeff Corey and Will Geer and to an lesser extent Gena Rowlands.Airing on ABC-TV,in full color from September 6, 1967 until March 12, 1968. Only 26 episodes were produced. "Garrison's Gorillas" had a strong viewer presence,but the ratings for this show became its downfall and it was gone after one season. The show that replaced it on the ABC-TV schedule for the 1968-1969 was "The Mod Squad"(that was produced by Aaron Spelling and Danny Thomas),that lasted more than five seasons on the network.

Maybe it is a normal TV Programe in the States, but in China, almost everybody know it. It was the second American TV/Movie played in China. Even the famous TV program like prison break, 24 hours could not catch up with it.The character of Actor and Goniff are my best favor. The Chinese dubbing of five person are very good.Although it was played before 20 years, but they still have plenty of fans in China. There is a funny story. In the year of the first play, plenty of insurance cabinet steal cases happened. It was said that the theft were influenced by the TV program.I have bought DVD version, but it is not clear enough. So, does anyone know where can bought the DVD-9 standard disc? Thanks

Garrison's Gorrilas came on when I was 11 and I absolutely fell in love with it. Until GoodLife TV brought it back, all I had were my memories after it was canceled. Granted, it has it's flaws, but the characters were wonderful, the story lines were fun and I was in love with Brendon Boone almost immediately. Granted I lean more toward Ron harper now, those two will always be my favorite characters :) One of the reasons it stayed with me for so long is the fact that I used to watch it with my Grandfather just before he passed away after a long battle with cancer. He would be laying on the couch and I would be sitting on the chair or the floor in the living room, discussing the episodes as we watched them. So it will ALWAYS have a special place in my heart.

I was really wanting to watch this show and was thrilled that I found it through a collector. OK so how did it measure up? First let me say that I like drama in a war setting, All Quiet On The Western Front comes to my mind as a favorite, Hell Is For Heroes as another not that they are in the same league but thats a cross section of my tastes for war movies. For TV shows Combat! is most widely known and what I watched in reruns in the 70's as a pre-teen. For the record I hated Combat! as it was lame, you knew certain characters would live, so whats the point, I realized this as a youth. Garrisons Gorillas (notice they didn't use the term Guerilla) is basically a mix of mostly the Dirty Dozen (Telly Savalez was in the pilot and the redone pilot first episode), mixed with a bit of maybe Mission Impossible. It's extremely light on character development, it's full of action (the cowboys vs Indians action), and it's tedious. It has no redeeming place for a war film lover like myself, it's to the point that it's dare I say it, like Combat! boring. Combat! at least had it's character interaction, this is very devoid of good dialog, "lets go get in the back, you know something? It's gonna be light soon", as examples, it's just really lame action packaged in a WW2 TV show. The whole show is totally implausible and it is not helped that we never see any one higher than the Officer in charged handing out the missions, we just take his word that he got them, it's lazy writing (how about the officer questioning any of this? Some 12 O'Clock High TV show dialog would have worked here very well). How not to write a WW2 or war drama should use Garrisons Gorillas as an example. Definitely targeted for youths and I doubt even they would have liked it after 5 or so episodes.