homicide: 'a girl who liked beads'

This episode of Homicide, called 'A Girl Who Liked Beads' but - get this! - advertised in the papers when it screened on 25 October 1966 as 'The Girl Who Liked Beads', was a bit too grim for me and I didn't enjoy much of it, but I was intrigued to know what this shopping arcade was:

It ends in a department store or supermarket. It's not identified and weirdly I kind of semi-remember it, though the memory might be false. 

Bead shop where a girl who liked beads is likely to go (and steal a big bagful of them in a very 'cry for help' kind of way. OK, time for the opening credits:

IMDB suggests this is the last Homicide to feature policewoman Helen Hopgood as played by Derani Scarr. There is a half-arsed attempt to suggest that Bill's girlfriend Tink is jealous or somehow disconcerted by Helen (who she describes as 'glamorous'). 

Poor Di Chamberlain has to get through the line 'I'm known as Tink', whereas surely anyone known as Tink would know not to let an S get before their name in a sentence. This is her second-last appearance in the program, so I look forward to seeing whether her departure is written into the show in the way Helen Hopgood's appears not to be - presumably Helen will just never be mentioned again - I certainly hope there is no dramatic ending for Tink. Mind you the way that people seem to respond to the death of loved ones in Homicide I'll be the only one upset. 

Lynette Curren is Karen, the girl who liked beads in question. As mentioned her story is grim and while she doesn't actually get murdered, her mother does. This is her with her boyfriend, Phil, who is determined to get her out of this situation as they both feel something is wrong. Phil is played by 'John Chatteris', I am putting his name in inverted commas because I wonder if it's a spelling error given that it doesn't seem to be a last name and this name has never been applied to someone who ever acted on screen, or anywhere, again, though he's not at all bad at it. Maybe he just didn't enjoy it. Lynette Curran was 21 in 1966 and had already had some screen roles and went on to many more, most recently the Marvel movie Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021). 

The weakest parts of Homicide are often the little things. Bill has just announced he's got two days off, but when Helen has an inkling that all is not well domestically for Karen (who she just arrested for shoplifting beads), suddenly the Homicide team swing into action. Mac has to pick up Bill from hanging around with Tink and take him off to investigate Helen's hunch, in Springvale. So there are only three people investigating all murders - including random suspicions that something's not right - in Melbourne?  

I'm not going in deep on this storyline because I just find it depressing, particularly because of the second weak element in the story - that Karen's mother has been murdered by her stepfather but this happened so early in the story (and off-screen, but incidentally the whole story takes place over two days) that no-one seems to think Karen is likely to be bothered by it and she's fine now. Anyway, there are a few scenes in the pet shop which the stepfather is landlord to. The proprietor of the pet shop is played by Betty Randall, yet another Melbourne actor with decades of experience in live theatre, radio and television, here in the bittiest of bit parts. The pet shop thing is a whole extra bit of strangeness because this is the most we see of it:

There are, for instance, no animals though we hear a lot of sounds of them. There is no external establishing shot either. Although Karen and her family live in Springvale, the closest we get to seeing the road where the pet shop is, is here: 

The above is 150 High Street East Malvern, and the business was called Eddie Thomas Speed Shop. 

Above is that building today - you can see the arched window and the window above it correspond. This (below) is the building on the opposite corner of the side street, and yes, it has suffered particular indignities since 1966 as you will see:

I mean wtf am I right? 

So then there's the usual chase down a lane, 

A dramatic capture of the stepfather (great performance by Peter Aanensen by the way) who was in all things absolutely no good...

And a celebratory beer with Helen Hopgood

Who we will never see in Homicide again.

'Shit happens'