Senior POW officer Colonel Robert Hogan and Stalag 13 commandant Colonel Wilhelm Klink form an unlikely yet plausible pairing in "The Safecracker Suite" when Klink's old friend Major Hans Kronman (Anthony Eustrel) pays him a visit--and is promptly arrested by the Gestapo as part of a conspiracy to assassinate Adolf Hitler. And when Kronman slips Hogan the key to a hotel safe-deposit box before being led away, it not only prompts Hogan to enlist the Heroes to investigate, it prompts him to convince Klink into helping them. After all, the Gestapo now has reason to suspect Klink--and who knows what incriminating material Kronman might have tucked away in the box?
Writer Laurence Marks always took a thoughtful, measured approach to his stories, keeping the capers modest and credible while never forgetting that, despite the overarching Keystone Kops portrayal of the Germans in the series, they remained a formidable foe. Thus, Werner Klemperer underplays Klink's usual foppishness in his interactions with Bob Crane while Corporal Peter Newkirk, the safecracking expert among the Heroes, admits that the safe containing the safe-deposit boxes at the hotel trumps his abilities, necessitating the services of British safecracking expert Alfie Burke (Walter Burke), who parachutes in to help.
By now, Crane and Klemperer, who is the unsung star of "Hogan's Heroes" (Klemperer had a much more impressive acting resume than Crane), had begun to mesh as adversaries, and Marks's smart dialog fuels their interactions, lending believability to their initially dubious cooperation. Burke's is little more than a boutique part--even his character admits he'll only be needed for twelve minutes overall and could have actually phoned in his instructions--and the impromptu singing number done by Robert Clary, Richard Dawson, and Larry Hovis simply fills time in a thin story, but with director Howard Morris's distinctive shot framing underscoring Marks's solid script, "The Safecracker Suite" is a steal at twice the price.
