The film tells the story of Zack Duncan (Everett) and a team of seasoned commandos sent into enemy territory in South America with a mission to recover the black box from a crashed Air Force cargo plane. He was trained at the Actors Studio under Lee Strasberg and knew James Dean in early television. Dillman rose to sudden fame with his appearance in Richard Fleisher's film Compulsion (1959) with Dean Stockwell and Orson Welles, and continued in movies throughout his career in such films as The Way We Were, The Iceman Cometh, The Enforcer, Sudden Impact, Crack in the Mirror, Escape From the Planet of the Apes, Francis of Assisi, Piranha, The Swarm, etc. A great success in television, Dillman appeared in a remarkable number of shows and made for TV movies in a variety of genres, including, Mission Impossible, The Man from U.
Columbo, Wagon Train, Ironside, Dynasty, The Wild Wild West, Thriller, Wonder Woman, Cannon, Barnaby Jones, and many others.