The Allies give Hogan a solo mission: attend a baron's party as Commandant Klink. Burkhalter gets involved when he learns that Klink's name sits at the very top of the guest list.The Allies give Hogan a solo mission: attend a baron's party as Commandant Klink. Burkhalter gets involved when he learns that Klink's name sits at the very top of the guest list.The Allies give Hogan a solo mission: attend a baron's party as Commandant Klink. Burkhalter gets involved when he learns that Klink's name sits at the very top of the guest list.
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- TriviaThe $250,000 would be worth $3,865,122.70 adjusted for inflation to the year 2018.
- GoofsThere is an implication that a crack down the center of Klink's monocle makes it appear as if there is a scar on the face of a person. This is incorrect. As close as the lens of the monocle is to Klink's eye, the crack would appear as a distortion in the person's face, not a visible line.
- Quotes
Col. Wilhelm Klink: Schultz, I will ask the questions!
Sgt. Hans Georg Schultz: Yes, sir.
Col. Wilhelm Klink: Well?
Sgt. Hans Georg Schultz: Well, what?
Col. Wilhelm Klink: Schultz, I said I'll ask the questions.
Sgt. Hans Georg Schultz: Jawohl, Herr Kommandant.
Col. Robert E. Hogan: [entering] You sent for me, Colonel?
Sgt. Hans Georg Schultz: HE will ask the questions.
Col. Robert E. Hogan: I'm not interested in questions. What I want are some answers.
Col. Wilhelm Klink: Answers for what?
Col. Robert E. Hogan: Just a minute. I'll ask the questions.
"Top Coat" does begin with an amusing gag borrowed from "Mission: Impossible" that is not only gratuitous and unnecessary but introduces a similarly contrived mission for Colonel Hogan, who leads the intelligence and sabotage unit operating in secret from Stalag 13, the German prisoner-of-war camp run by Colonel Klink. Distributing mail to the POWs, barracks guard Sergeant Schultz hands Hogan a package from "Aunt Alice" containing a pair of socks, only the wool thread is really a recording that the Heroes are able to listen to on a sewing kit modified to play it back.
We don't know whether the socks self-destructed five seconds after the message ended, but "Aunt Alice," actually Allied intelligence, wants Hogan to masquerade as Klink, who has been invited to a party given by Baron Von Achberg, a national hero who has turned coat against Germany and is willing to sell secrets to the Allies; he will give them to Klink even though they don't even know each other, which will make it easier for Hogan to impersonate Klink.
Let's stop and smell the pretzel logic starting to reek here, shall we? Presumably, Klink is necessary because, as General Burkhalter tells Klink, the Gestapo has a list of Von Achberg's guests expected to attend, and a bogus contact who shows up will attract immediate suspicion. Not that Davenport's spaghetti-code script makes this clear, but why else have Hogan impersonate Klink except to eat up time by intercepting the invitation before it gets to Klink, and then making sure Klink does get it so he can attend the party since the Gestapo knows who Klink is? Scratching your head yet?
The kicker is that, although the Heroes are unable to alert the Baron, he gets wind of the Gestapo lying in wait for him and flies the coop anyway, but not before arranging to have the secrets secreted into Klink's top coat while he's at the party. Once Klink returns to Stalag 13, called back by a bogus call from the Heroes telling him that there is a bogus prison break happening--more hand-waving!--further shenanigans ensue including having Sergeant Carter masquerade as a bogus Gestapo agent who--
--Oh, what's the point? "Top Secret Top Hat" is just bogus, period. But what really ruins it for me is knowing that CARTER, WHO IS NOT MARRIED, IS WEARING A WEDDING RING!
This is so horrific that I had to shout it. Larry Hovis was married but refused to remove his wedding ring even during filming. And someone with an obsession bordering on pathological keeps posting a Goof to remind us every time it appears that CARTER, WHO IS NOT MARRIED, IS WEARING A WEDDING RING.
Klink and Schultz being so incompetent that both would already have been sentenced to life imprisonment in front of a firing squad at the Russian Front? Not a problem. Hearing everyone speaking English, especially Germans speaking only among themselves? I can live with that. But knowing that CARTER, WHO IS NOT MARRIED, IS WEARING A WEDDING RING? Ach du Lieber! That completely destroys my willing suspension of disbelief! Takes me right out of the story. Not that I was into "Top Secret Top Coat" in the first place.
- darryl-tahirali
- Apr 3, 2022