division 4 the grasshoppers

This is a truly classic episode called 'The Grasshoppers' (aired 9 April 1973). It is topped and tailed with these two river flats derros played by Michael Duffield and Jack Perry. Yeah, there's kind of circus music over the top of their scenes which isn't really what we wanted but it's a brilliant device and their scenes are nuanced otherwise. 

So much happens in this episode it's remarkable - all I really want to talk to you about is some of the locations - like Fishermans Bend and the wasteland around it, where the Westgate Bridge is under construction. 

There's a scene where Ross Thompson is chased through a scrapyard and I felt that this shot through a pipe was in part a James Bond-style reference but I might be wrong. 

Anyway, Ross Thompson. He appeared twice in D4 before this, in 1970 and '72, as Sergeant George Bell, a kind of endearingly clumsy novice policeman, and he made enough of an impact on me as a character that when I saw him here I assumed it was George Bell again and he was undercover. But no, this is Thompson playing someone else, an ordinary (and reasonably benign) crook. 

I wondered when two fingers became 'up yours'. I always think of that scene at the beginning of Don's Party where John Hargreaves does 'thumbs up' as an 'up yours'. I guess both gestures, meaning the same thing, were used at the same time but no-one was doing the thumb by the mid-70s, and the reverse v became the main thing. 

This is the house where the bad guys are mingling with some alternative types. In fact, the house is called The Alternative. It's right on what I think must be South Melbourne beach. 

One of the fabulous characters is a mute artist called Peach Tree, played of course by Bruce Spence. He's silent because he was shot in the - um - the trachea? During the (Vietnam) war. Here's him writing his name down for the police:

I could be wrong (how often do I say this?!) but I think this is a ship from Lorimer Street - until the bridge was finished these big ships could get further up the Yarra. 

I'd love to know what Peach Tree wrote in this letter Marg Stewart is reading but I can't see it well enough. I have to say that while I really enjoy the Peach Tree element, I don't think it's really pertinent to the overall story (drug deals, etc). 

And this is the beautiful final scene of the two itinerants of the riverbank wandering off. 

So nicely done.