A Quiet Honeymoon

A Quiet Honeymoon
Production Details
Written by	Jeremy Lloyd & Paul Adam
Director	Mike Stephens
Transmission Details
Airdate	5 January 1991
Continuity
Previous	Rising To The Occasion
Next	An Almighty Bang

Plot

Edith and monsieur Alfonse are building a secret compartment in the spare bedroom on top of the café. Edith and René will hide in there if the Germans find out they are hiding the British airmen. When they have finished and come downstairs, Michelle bursts into the café, gasping that madame Fanny and monsiuer LeClerc, floating along in their bed under the barrage balloon, have been shot down over Abbeville. As they say a prayer for them, the newly-wed couple arrives - on a motorbike. They have stolen it and driven through German roadblocks and other obstacles to get home. Therefore, Germans are approaching to café and both Michelle and monsieur Alfonse flee through the back passage in the kitchen. Four German soldiers enter the café and arrest René, Edith, Fanny and Ernest.

The four of them are brought into the Germans headquarters, where colonel Von Strohm, lieutenant Gruber, captain Bertorelli and private Helga Geerhart are waiting. Helga reads the charges against Fanny and Ernest: "Assaulting a German officer, stealing a motorbike, failing to stop at a roadblock and flying a bed attached to a balloon in a military airspace." As madame Fanny keeps insulting the Germans in answer to these accusations, the colonel sentences her and Ernest to 30 days in prison. As Edith and Gruber pleads for them, he reduces the sentence, but still sends them to the local police station and sends René and Edith away.

Herr Flick is sitting in his headquarters embroidering, when Helga arrives. He tells her, that he suspects Fanny's and Ernest's flying of the bed to be connected with the two British airmen. In order to be able to interrogate them, he has instructed Von Smallhausen to disguise himself as a common criminal, commit a crime, be caught and be locked up in the same cell as the old couple. Helga suggests he go into the colonel's office and steal the petty cash in there, in order to be captured.

General Von Flockenstuffen comes into the German headquarters (the colonel's office) and announces that since general Von Klinkerhoffen is having a nervous breakdown, he is taking charge, until he has recovered. One of his first priorities is to have the office redecorated with new paintings and a new carpet. Before he and Gruber leaves to visit Von Klinkerhoffen, he also demands that the colonel release the old couple in prison at dawn the next day - it will make them too unpopular to jail people for flying a bed.

General Von Klinkerhoffen, sitting in a hospital bed with a straitjacket on, is given soup to eat and a straw to eat it through. However, when the nurse has gone, he gets on his knees in the bed, manages to get near a telephone standing on a small table next to the bed, gets the receiver off and tries to contact somebody to get him out of hospital. As he is doing so, Gruber and Von Flockenstuffen arrive, without Von Klinkerhoffen noticing them. However, they do not see the telephone at all - only the bowl of fruit standing next to it. They therefore think he is talking to the fruit and leave, convinced he is still mad.

René and Yvette are in the kitchen cooking a fish soup, when Michelle turns up. She tells René of her new plan for getting the airmen back to England: A small aircraft will be sent from England to pick them up and it will be guided by her girls' bicycle lamps, however, they do not have enough batteries for them at the moment. When she has left and René and Yvette have a quick cuddle, Edith walks in on them. After she has once more fallen for René's explanation and Yvette has gone, she tells René that she intends to break Fanny and Ernest out of jail and smuggle them to Spain. When René does not want to be in on the plan, she ruins his fish soup by pouring too much salt in it.

Von Smallhausen comes into the anteroom and tells Helga that he has come to commit the crime. She lets him into the colonel's office and gives him one minute before she will catch him red handed. However, the next moment, captain Bertorelli comes into the ante room, trying to court her. When he hears noises from the office, he investigates it and catches Von Smallhausen. Helga says the must call the police, but Bertorelli does not think it necessary. Instead, he lets Von Smallhausen go and thus, the plan to get him into prison fails.

At night, René knocks at Yvette's door and shows her a note from Edith, saying that she and Mimi have gone to rescue Fanny and Ernest. The next moment, they hear footsteps coming up the stairs and it turns out to be Edith and Mimi, dressed as German soldiers, along with Fanny and Ernest. They all go into the spare bedroom, where Fanny and Ernest get into bed and turn one of the bedknobs. The bed is then folded into the wall and they are well hidden. The next moment, Edith and Mimi are also forced to hide, in the cupboard, since lieutenant Gruber is approaching and they are both dressed as German soldiers. He comes to tell René, that the old couple have been pardoned and are being released. When he hears noises from the wall, René says they come from the restless spirit of his dead brother. Gruber then becomes rather nervous and leaves hastily. When Edith and Mimi have come out of the cupboard it turns out, that the bedknob has fallen off and thus cannot be turned to fold the bed back out.

Trivia

• This episode marks the first appearance of Robin Parkinson as Ernest LeClerc.
• This episode marks the first appearance of Roger Kitter as captain Bertorelli.
• Beginning with this episode René has a scar on his forehead. Actor Gorden Kaye was involved in a horrific car accident during the Burns' Day storm on January 25th 1990. A plank of wood was blown through his car window, and Kaye required emergency brain surgery. Until his death on January 23rd 2017, Kaye maintained he had no memory of the accident.