homicide august 1965

 

For better or worse, my second Homicide box arrived today. 

Melbourne Age 5 August 1965 p. 29

This is a clumsy episode, but it starts well, and it's almost kind of meta in a strange way. 

This is Leonard Teale's third episode of Homicide and his first as David MacKay. But we've seen him twice before as different crims and here he is, being a crim. OR IS HE

No apparently he's just utilising the perfectly normal police procedure of pretending to be a crim, getting crims to do criminal work for him, and then I guess the plan is to arrest them for things he encouraged them to do or something. Anyway, it all goes pear shaped for MacKay until someone confesses or something (I don't remember) and he is cleared and welcomed to the team to replace Rex. 

Pretty sure I've seen those pictures on someone else's wall in a previous episode - maybe he stole them lol. 

This is his block of flats, I can't identify them. It's a bit annoying because the name is prominent on the front when he drives out but just not legible. 

Peter Adams, who would become very well known as JJ in Cop Shop in the next decade, plays one of the criminals, Charlie Samson. 

The other is Bruno Zalteck played by Peter Aanensen

Some nice action towards the end when Bruno is captured at some junction, I can't tell where on earth it is, but there does seem to be a lot of traffic around. 

By the way, 'Bon Radio'. This is referred to a couple of times as being in Ashburton. As I mentioned, access to Sands and McDougall directories is limited right now, so I only had access to the newspapers. There were branches of Bon Radio in Chelsea and Cheltenham in the early 70s but I can't find reference to a Bon Radio in Ashburton. But I suppose it must have been, because what advertising advantage was there to Bon Radio in being described as being in Ashburton if it wasn't. 

This ad is from the Age of 23 Jan 1965 p. 75, so I guess within six months of this episode. Note the phone number on the window of the Bon Radio above - it actually looks like 2450950. I can't pretend to know how phone numbers worked in Melbourne in 1965 but they seem to mainly be six digits, not seven. Well (shrugs).

The music in Homicide was, I read somewhere but I don't remember where, ambit film music that Crawfords licensed. It's awful and sometimes borders on the inappropriate, I don't mean it's rude. The sequence above, for instance, has music to it that's more light cocktail romp music than catching a crook in traffic music. They must have been pretty desperate sometimes for the appropriate soundtrack. Makes you appreciate actual composers.