Secret Army: The Complete Third Series [Region 2]

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Secret Army: The Complete Third Series [Region 2] Review

I can remember vividly watching 'Secret Army' as a young child when it first aired on the BBC back in the late 1970s. My most vivid memory of it from that time is the very powerful opening credits and music and the sinister SS Commandant of Brussels, Kessler.

Viewing it now as an adult, it takes on a completely different dimension and gives proof to the phrase 'They don't make them like they used to'. A proposal for a TV series today with this much intelligence and attention to detail would just be laughed at, I'm sure.

Set during the Second World War, the basic plot is that Belgians Albert Foiret (Bernard Hepton)and his mistress Monique Duchamps (Angela Richards) run an underground resistance network called 'Lifeline' from their Brussels cafe to get shot-down Allied airmen out of Nazi-occupied Belgium and back to England or to neutral countries such as Switzerland or Spain.

Albert and Monique also have help from other resistance fighters, Natalie (Juliet Hammond-Hill) and Communist resistance fighter, Max (Stephen Yardley) who is rough at the edges and prepared to be more ruthless than the others to resist Nazi oppression.

Hot on their heels are Sturmbannfuhrer Kessler (Clifford Rose), a cold, career Gestapo officer and dedicated Nazi sent especially from Berlin to closedown Lifeline and more moderate, but no less dedicated Luftwaffe officers Major Brandt (Michael Culver) and Major Reinhardt (Terence Hardiman) who are constantly trying to outwit or infiltrate the Lifeline organization.

As a World War II fanatic, for me, this series has many stand out qualities. The scripts, storylines, costumes and acting are all first class. Many of the storylines in the series were based on actual escapes and the man who went to the BBC with the idea for the series, Gerard Glaister, was himself an RAF officer and veteran of 100 missions over occupied Europe. The series was also made with the cooperation of Belgian TV, so many of the street scenes are filmed in Brussels.

It is also exceptionally well researched and comes across as very believable. For example, there is tension between the Gestapo and the Luftwaffe as Kessler thinks the Luftwaffe are too soft and snobbish and the Luftwaffe think the Gestapo are too crude and ruthless. The Lifeline organization is also always one betrayal away from being rounded-up and shot.

It is also intelligently written and poses some real moral questions. For example, if you were in the resistance and suspect a traitor but can't be sure, is it better to kill him and remove the danger or can you spare the time trying to smoke him out, knowing that the longer you delay, the more likely it is that you will be arrested by the Nazis? The series also, unfasionably for the time, painted some Germans in a sympathetic light and not all as evil and sadistic, just as the resistance also had some dubious characters which are portrayed here.

The series gives a very believable account of what life must have been like under Nazi occupation and there is also great tension in many of the episodes as it becomes touch and go whether the members of Lifeline will be caught this time or whether the airmen will manage to escape.

It's clear that this series was made on a low budget and sometimes that shows, but the storylines, scripts and acting more than make up for it. This series was also the inspiration for the popular spoof of it called 'Allo Allo' which ended up running for much longer than the original 'Secret Army' and copied most of the characters in it.

If you're interested in the Second World War, what day to day life was like under Nazi occupation, or just enjoy excellent TV drama from the high water-mark of British television, the 1970s, then buy 'Secret Army', you won't be disappointed.

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