“What kind of gun is that?”
The one where…
Another top international assassin arrives in Britain with an unknown target – and a special gun.
It may seem a bit repetitive for The Professionals to have another plot featuring a top hitman after Ramos in Long Shot only two eps ago – but with the seemingly random order of the original broadcast, this one was actually shown seven weeks before that. Besides, top international hitmen were very much a formula in the show, and we’re seeing that established early on here.
In fact, given the gimmick that makes this different to the prior ep, Long Shot would actually have been a better title for this one – if it hadn’t already been taken. Top Greek hitman Georgi’s ‘special feature’ is that he has a gun capable of shooting someone with absolute precision at a range of two miles.
I must admit, I don’t know that much about guns, but that seems… a trifle implausible. Still, Bodie, once again displaying his military knowledge, points out that an Armalite rifle has a range of 1500 yards, which is more than ¾ of a mile, so there are some pretty long range guns out there. But while there are binoculars with a range of up to 10 miles, I’m pretty sceptical about the telescopic sight Georgi uses being able to pick out a closeup of a target’s face at a two mile range.
Still, nobody ever said The Professionals was plausible, so let’s go with it. And in fact the premise is realised quite nicely, with the sound of the gunshots audible considerably before its bullets hit anything.
Being such a special gun, most of the episode dwells on Georgi’s attempts to calibrate it before taking on the job by shooting random scarecrows and golfers at enormous range. Amusingly, having hit a scarecrow at two miles distance, he then singularly fails to hit an unfortunate witness about ten feet in front of him, which is how CI5 get clued in to the fact that something’s going on. Well, that and the fact that Georgi’s trigger happy client has already shot a traffic cop (with a more normal sawn off shotgun) less than an hour after Georgi arrives in England.
There’s more of the show’s vague attempts to show real world politics without ever being explicit about it here. Georgi is Greek, and by implication, the clueless North London terrorist cell who’ve hired him are Greek rebels. Greece had, at the time, just overthrown a military dictatorship, but was still in some political turmoil; its monarch, King Constantine, was still living in exile in London. It’s therefore quite heavily implied that Georgi’s target, a top dignitary with Greek connections who’ll be in the Royal Box at Wimbledon, is actually Constantine.
However, without having that explicitly spelled out, I must admit that the first person I thought of who could be described that way (“a top dignitary with Greek connections who’ll be in the Royal Box”) was our very own Prince Philip – particularly since said dignitary’s car is first shown driving past Windsor Castle. I was half-expecting stock footage of the irascible Royal to feature in the climax, but of course I shouldn’t have been; British TV was still hugely deferential to the Royal Family in the 70s, and that would probably have been considered Going Too Far.
Still, before we can get to the climax, with some very nicely shot footage of Wimbledon Final Day 1977, Georgi has to go to ground somewhere until it’s time to get going, what with Bodie and Doyle now looking for him and all. So, much of the ep is spent in a cat and mouse chase, as our boys track him down only to discover that he’s just moved on.
Doyle gets to use his police experience again to intimidate a dodgy Greek restaurant owner, by smashing plate after plate on the floor; still, as he explains, it is a Greek custom. Just one more usually found at weddings. The resulting info leads our heroes to a nondescript London terrace, where they tangle with the terrorists’ utterly incompetent youngest member, off out to buy some groceries. While, unfortunately for them, Georgi and the rest of the gang slip out the back.
Thus compromised, they go to the next stage of the plan, which is to occupy a top floor apartment with a big window that’s… ooh, just about two miles from Wimbledon Centre Court. Unfortunately, said apartment is already occupied by perhaps the most stereotypical middle class 70s British family imaginable, so Georgi and the gang take them hostage, before despatching Hilda, the group’s only female member, on another attempt to purchase those elusive groceries.
In yet another indication that Georgi’s clients are not the most professional of terrorists, Hilda encounters a nice young copper who offers to help her with the groceries, and rather gives herself away by running off in terror. Fortunately for Georgi, she’s run over by a passing car and knocked into a coma before she can give any information. Less fortunately, Bodie keeps popping into the hospital until she wakes up, and eventually the boys track Georgi down just as he’s about to make his kill (and has presumably, by now, given up on getting any groceries).
It’s actually quite a tense, nail-biting sequence as Bodie, preparing to jump dramatically through the window, positions himself on the roof above, while Doyle waits for the signal from Cowley to smash through the apartment door. All this is intercut with shots of Georgi pointing the gun and taking a conveniently long time fiddling with it to get the calibration right.
Of course, they manage to burst in with seconds to spare, Doyle blasting the unfortunate Georgi before he can take the shot. Well, did you imagine any other outcome? In actual fact, yes – The Professionals could be quite grim on occasion, and a similar scenario in a later episode sees a target successfully eliminated, leading to a hunt for the killers. But this ep is structured with the manhunt before the assassination attempt, so there wouldn’t have been time for another.
The cars
The boys are back in their newly acquired Triumph Dolomite Sprint, which will be their regular car from now on. As usual, Cowley’s Rover SD1 3500 features heavily too.
The Jaguar XJ6 that Georgi drives over from Europe is a series 1 (manufactured from 1968 to 1974) – so it’s rather odd that it has an S suffix on the number plate, indicating it to be from 1977 and therefore brand new. That’s probably because we have to see CI5 completely dismantling it for forensic purposes, and a new one would have been too expensive.
Georgi then spends the rest of the ep driving a 1977 white Range Rover (despite being seen in it by the witness he couldn’t shoot), which he stupidly leaves parked outside the apartment block with a Greek newspaper inside for Doyle to find.
1970s clothes
Bodie’s back in his brown double-breasted blazer this week, while Doyle alternates between his usual plaid bomber jacket and a rather nice dark blue leather number lined with blue denim.
Later in the ep, Bodie switches to a nice pink shirt with an eye-straining tweed jacket (lapels suitably enormous), while Doyle switches colours with a fetching light green denim jacket.
Apparently one shade of green isn’t enough for him though, as later in the episode he combines the jacket with differently shaded green flares and shirt, giving him the look of a man cosplaying Mr Toad. While Bodie, ever the fashionista, inevitably switches to his beloved leather with a belted brown safari jacket, over one of his huge collection of rollneck sweaters.
Georgi and Costa, being tough Greek men, are incapable of buttoning up all but the lowest buttons of their shirts, leaving their hairy chests and big medallions on prominent display.
1970s references
Georgi arrives in the UK on a cross channel hovercraft from the company Seaspeed. Hovercraft were a very popular means of crossing the English Channel in the 1970s, looking so futuristic and all. They actually continued until roughly the end of the 20th century, before being replaced by the more efficient but old fashioned ships in common use today.
The hostage situation gives us a glimpse into the typical middle class British family of the 70s, and the décor of their apartment. Which is, predictably, mostly different shades of brown.
Hilda’s trip to buy groceries gives us a nice look at a 1977 supermarket; which, apart from the archaic tills, doesn’t look too different from a modern one.
Doyle, having slept in the CI5 office all night, is seen shaving with an incredibly noisy 1977 electric shaver, while tantalisingly displaying his hairy chest to Cowley’s secretary (and indeed Cowley).
If you want to see what Wimbledon looked like in 1977, there’s lots of nicely filmed establishing shots – apparently it was some kind of anniversary.
Hey, it’s that guy from that thing!
Most of the actors playing the Greeks are not Greek at all.
Georgi is played by British actor and theatrical producer Michael Latimer, with a vague Greek accent.
Glamorous Hilda, who can’t stop flirting with the less than responsive Georgi (“the only thing that matters to me is the job”), is played by 70s hottie Diane Keen. Keen, later to be better known for a series of Nescafe ads in the 1980s, was at this time best known for appearing in ITV sitcom The Cuckoo Waltz – where her co-star was none other than Lewis Collins.
Just starting out on his acting career, that’s a very young Jonathan Hyde playing Tommy, the hopeless young terrorist who gets nicked by Bodie and Doyle while going out for groceries. Hyde, a busy character actor, has since starred (usually as villains) in the likes of Spooks and The Strain, but he’ll probably be best remembered for his slimy turn as cowardly White Star line owner Bruce Ismay in James Cameron’s Titanic.
Doyle’s Greek informant, restaurateur/pimp Tarkos (“she was lying, she slipped and fell down!”) is another of the 70s ubiquitous hardmen, Alan Tilvern.
And yes, the unfortunate golfer struck down in his prime for target practice is none other than the legendary Pat Gorman. Gorman was sort of halfway between an elevated extra and a character actor; he could always be called on to lurk menacingly in a scene without any lines. Incredibly prolific, he appeared in more TV shows (and movies) than you can count, in the most minor of roles – he played more than 80 tiny roles in Doctor Who alone.
Another incredibly prolific character actor, Antony Carrick, can be seen here as CI5’s expert crime scene boffin Mervin. Carrick appeared in small roles in just about every British TV show in the 70s and 80s, though he may be best known as Jim Hacker’s press secretary Bill Pritchard in Yes, Prime Minister.
The Pretty Girl (yes, that’s how she’s identified in the credits) encountered by Bodie in the rooftop apartment is well-known dancer and actress Suzanne Danielle, who started off in the West End before transitioning to TV, and may be best known to Doctor Who fans as one of the disco robots called Movellans in Destiny of the Daleks.
Nice bit of dialogue
Doyle, having intuited from a cigarette end that their quarry is Greek: “What do you know about Greeks, Bodie?”
Bodie, displaying his usual cultural sensitivity: “Well, the fellas all dance together and the cops shave their heads.”
Doyle, on learning Georgi’s true identity as an “Armenian-Greek-Irishman”: “Irish Greek?”
Bodie: “Well, perhaps his granny had a bicycle.”
Hilda, seductively trying to sway Georgi from his “no sex before a job” rule: “Well, you must have made some mistakes.”
Georgi: “Yes. One.”
Hilda, fluttering her eyelashes: “Was she prettier than me? More desirable?”
Georgi, dashing all her hopes: “’She’ was a boy. It was a long hot summer.”
Cowley, whose operational instructions sometimes seem like a Carry On style double entendre: “Bodie, I want a double entry on my signal.”
(The Minister is on the phone to Cowley)
Minister: “By the way, you don’t happen to know who won the Men’s Singles, do you?”
Cowley: “Yes, sir. We did.”
Casual Sexism
Bodie heavily hints that he’s sleeping with Cowley’s secretary Betty (Bridget Brice) at one point: “For an ex-copper, you’re pretty low at observation, Doyle.” They should give Betty a bit more respect; her constant searching through files and computers makes her the only real detective in the whole of CI5, and she’s instrumental in identifying Georgi. And she still finds time to bring the boys coffee.
To make his daring lunge from the rooftop to the apartment Georgi’s holed up in, Bodie is required to invade the rooftop penthouse occupied by a very scantily clad young lady (well, it looks like a hot day), who seems quite taken with his Action Man persona. By the second time he sees her, they already have a date scheduled.
However, that whole sequence does beg the question of why Georgi didn’t choose to shoot from the rooftop apartment instead of a lower one, particularly since he’d only have had to worry about one hostage.
In a humorous epilogue, Cowley initially seems outraged that Bodie and Doyle, experimenting with the gun’s powerful sight in his office, are actually peeping on an underwear clad lady. Until: “I should put you on a reprimand! ’33-22-36’, what kind of description’s that? She’s more like 5 foot 7, 130 pounds, heavily freckled – and a natural blonde!” Fnarr fnarr.
This ep has an early attempt at portraying a non-typical British culture, and its portrayal of the London Greek community isn’t too insensitive; though it might have been nice for some of them not to be portrayed as criminals, or to have had any of them played by actual Greek actors. And while it may be a stereotypical idea of Greek men, it’s a bit surprising to have a tough guy like Georgi admit to sleeping with boys on a mainstream TV show.
It’s a more sedate one after the action-heavy Where the Jungle Ends, mostly functioning as a procedural while our heroes try to track down Georgi and his frankly inept terrorist employers. Still, the super gun gimmick gives it a bit of an edge, and it’s entertaining enough.
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