“The Myer Helmut group. Anarchists, fanatics, they’ve bombed, killed and maimed at least a hundred people in the last two years. Now they’re here, in Britain – and I want them.”
The one where…
Bodie, on medical leave with a broken hand and a girlfriend, stumbles over the leader of a German terrorist gang while out rowing.
It’s back to the countryside this week for a tense siege thriller (you’ll read that phrase a lot) which puts the focus squarely on hardman Bodie. It is, in fact, almost a Bodie solo episode; there are occasional cuts to Doyle and Cowley searching for him, but for the most part, Lewis Collins carries this one by himself.
And you know what? He’s not half bad. Brian Clemens’ script fleshes out his character rather well, emphasising that he’s far from perfect; he makes mistakes, and it’s heavily hinted that he actually gets off on the violence he inflicts, just using his job as an excuse. As he’s repeatedly reminded by his terrorist captive (in the age-old manner), “we’re not so different, you and I”.
Said terrorists are very clearly meant to be the German Baader Meinhof gang with the serial numbers filed off. Clemens liked to get real world baddies in there, but never be too explicit about their identities – we saw that previously with “the Irish group” who were obviously meant to be the IRA. Baader Meinhof, a militant far left group with extremely violent methods, had been in the news for much of the 70s, though by the time this was broadcast, both its founder members were dead, having committed suicide in prison.
Like the real Baader Meinhofs, the “Myer Helmut group” are led by a man and a woman; and it’s the man, Franz Myer, who Bodie stumbles upon while out rowing with his girlfriend. Aware from a Cowley briefing that Myer was in the country, Bodie (who fortunately took his gun on holiday) immediately arrests him, but the other three members of the gang are coming to meet him.
This leads, in true Professionals style, to some great action sequences. First we get a boat chase on the Thames, then some running through the woods, then a car chase which ultimately leads to the main setting for the episode – a surprisingly large country vicarage, complete with vicar and housekeeper (who must have a hell of a job given the size of the place).
From then on in, it’s a straight siege, with Bodie’s girlfriend Julia, the vicar, and the housekeeper caught in the middle of it. Fortunately, the vicarage has stout internal shutters, so Bodie is able to fortify it pretty easily – this might seem surprisingly convenient, but I didn’t find it too implausible, as my Barcelona apartment has the very same shutters.
The terrorists, led by the extremely fanatical and intense Inge Helmut, could probably still get in fairly easily, but Bodie has the trump card – their leader as a hostage. So it’s a tense standoff, the tension working steadily on all involved. The vicar is offed pretty quickly when he tries to climb out of a window and negotiate – it’s a quick shorthand for how ruthless the terrorists are.
Meanwhile, the civilians inside are shocked at all the violence – after all, this isn’t their job. Bodie’s girlfriend Julia, who we’ve never seen before and after the events of this episode will never see again, is particularly horrified by the actions of the nice man she went on a country date with.
There’s much psychological pressure from Myers, who keeps niggling away at all involved while fanatically justifying his actions as necessary for his “cause”. What exactly that cause is is never specified, keeping it ambiguous as to whether they’re a far left group (like the real Baader Meinhofs) or a far right one.
Of course ultimately they get in, and Julia is faced with the choice of having to live up to her pacifist ideals or blaze away with the gun that Bodie, with his injured hand, is unable to hold. This being the Professionals, she makes the latter choice, and the show once again seems somewhat right wing in its message that high-minded ideals are no match for a big gun.
How dodgy is Cowley this week?
We actually don’t see enough of Cowley for him to do anything dodgy in tis one. He and Doyle are occasionally seen searching for Bodie, who himself gets to be quite dodgy. Along with his brutal treatment of his hostage, he chooses to attract the attention of the passing Cowley by actually shooting at him – that probably won’t go down too well in his annual performance review.
Particularly since we learn that the damage caused to the car is actually coming out of Cowley’s paycheck – he invites Bodie to rectify this by taking him to the pub and buying him enough of his beloved pure malt scotch to account for the money. That’s our Cowley – drunk in charge of the defence of the realm.
The cars
Bodie’s new Ford Capri Ghia is hors de combat this week; the terrorists already know it’s his because he left his radio on the passenger seat. We learn this week that the Capri is just one from CI5’s ‘motor pool’. Interesting that there seems to be nothing from British Leyland left in it.
Instead, Bodie and his crew nick some poor holidaymaker’s brand new Ford Cortina Mk4 2.0 Ghia. This Ford gets a bit of a workout in the ep, but because it was supplied by Ford, it suffers no actual damage.
The terrorists, being German, are driving a 1973 Audi 80LS, the most nondescript German car imaginable. It still screamed, “we’re German” in the 70s though, to a country who mostly bought British, suggesting that the terrorists are not all that good at covering their tracks.
Cowley too has turned to the dark side of the Ford, as his previous BL vehicles (a Rover SD1 and a succession of Princesses) have mysteriously disappeared also. Instead, he’s in a brand new Ford Granada Mk2, Ford’s big executive car of the time. He’d continue to drive various models of this for the rest of the show.
The vicar’s car that the terrorists steal for the big assault on the vicarage is a double-headlighted Ford Cortina Mk3 GXL, like the one that Gene Hunt drove in Life on Mars. Presumably not from Ford themselves, as it’s an obsolete model that is, once again, cheap enough to ruin by driving it into the front door of a building – nice stunt, by the way. Judging from the later shots with it visible in the background, it survived crashing into a house relatively unscathed, suggesting that the house can’t have been too substantial.
1970s clothes
Although Bodie is once again back in his beloved leather (the jacket with the huge pocket zips), it seems that he wears different materials when he’s on holiday. Specifically, a tight cardigan with enormous lapels in that most 70s of colours, brown. Given the plot of the episode, for once he doesn’t get to change his clothes several times an episode.
His girlfriend Julia looks pretty smart in a well-cut tweed jacket and sweater, with a fashionable red oversized flat cap to top it off. Considering all that happens in the ep, the outfit survives oddly undamaged, though she loses the hat somewhere.
Nasty terrorist Franz Myers is going full European with a stylish black leather blazer that actually wouldn’t look too out of place today.
1970s references
Interesting to see all that detailed footage of Heathrow Airport Terminal Three – that’s the check-in terminal for Air Canada where you can die waiting.
Security was obviously pretty lax then, as two people are able to kill another with a hypodermic needle, steal his briefcase and then basically just walk away without getting caught.
Even more evilly than that, terrorist leader Myer is first shown actually smoking a cigarette inside Terminal Three. You know he’s a wrong’un from the start.
Hey, it’s that guy from that thing!
Bodie’s disposable girlfriend Julia is played by the impressively-coiffed Gabrielle Drake. A fixture of glamorous roles in the 70s, from shows like UFO and The Brothers, Drake was also the sister of cult musician Nick Drake, whose work she tirelessly promoted even after his death.
Acting her socks off as fanatical terrorist Inge is Madlena Nedeva, a hardworking character actor on stage and screen, whose name suggests a Russian origin – but she pulls off being a German pretty impressively.
Super-intense terrorist leader Franz Myers is played by Clive Arindell, a hardworking character actor who rarely gets roles with names more specific than ‘newspaper proprietor’ (The Crown). He puts his heart into this one, suggesting that he could have done better with a little more luck.
Allan Surtees is the ill-fated Vicar Edward Turnbull. Always cast as minor authority figures, such as policemen, councillors and colonels, Surtees can’t have found this role much of a stretch.
His longsuffering housekeeper Sara is played by Hildegarde Neil. Neil, who’s 84 now, has been married to Brian Blessed since 1978, suggesting that she might have hearing problems.
That’s a very early appearance from a young David Bradley as terrorist number 2, er, 3, maybe, Kristo. Bradley, who found fame later in life, is probably best known for playing a succession of sour-faced, bad-tempered old men such as Argus Filch in the Harry Potter films, Walder Frey in Game of Thrones, and William Hartnell in Doctor Who.
And if you look closely, you’ll see the second appearance in the show of legendary non-speaking actor/ascended extra Pat Gorman, hanging around in the briefing room, then later off with the CI5 team at the scene where the cars are found. Gorman was last seen as the unfortunate golfer a few weeks ago in Killer With a Long Arm, and knowing him, this won’t be the last time we see him.
Nice bit of dialogue
Cowley to Doyle, perhaps revealing more than he realised: “You never told me about you and Bodie.”
Bodie, to the baffled-looking vicar: “I take it you believe in free speech? I wanna use your phone.”
Myer, mockingly: “’May I have a drink, Vicar? So polite, vicar’. Let’s all have a little tea party! You English are all the same.”
Myer, explaining who he is: “We are a political force!”
Bodie: “Forget the ‘political’ vicar, just concentrate on the ‘force’.”
Julia, disgusted by Bodie’s behaviour: “You live by violence. Just like him.”
Bodie: “Yeah, well you fight fire with fire in this job!”
Casual Sexism
Bodie is actually fairly gentlemanly to his girlfriend initially, up until the moment where he punches her in the face.
OK I’ll grant you, it’s at a tense moment in the siege where she’s questioning Bodie’s leadership, and we’re seeing he’s a pretty flawed guy. Still, it’s a bit of a shock for a modern viewer to see that in unflinching detail.
Possibly worse is that, a few minutes later, she’s back on the team and following Bodie’s instructions like nothing had happened. You could look at it as pragmatism – they’re still in a tense siege, and he’s the one who knows how to use a gun – or you could see it as a reaffirmation that such behaviour from a man to a woman was considered perfectly normal in 1977.
Close Quarters is a hugely enjoyable, tense siege thriller, like if Die Hard was set in an old vicarage in the English countryside, and Bruce Willis was Lewis Collins. It’s fun to have an episode focused entirely on Bodie, the team’s resident hardman and fan of all things leather. Especially in a plot that doesn’t have something to do with his past in Africa.
Writer and showrunner Brian Clemens’ script is actually quite daring in presenting him as a deeply flawed man who really isn’t too different from his terrorist hostage, prepared to do whatever it takes (even punching his girlfriend) to succeed in his ideology which in his case is the advancement of CI5’s agenda to keep the status quo.
There’s some great stunts and action too, courtesy of director William Brayne, which are peppered throughout the emotional pressure cooker of the vicarage interior. Genuinely a good episode.
Simon’s Incoherent Blog 