Wednesday, February 05, 2025
elspeth ballantyne frenzy
Tuesday, February 04, 2025
joan letch again again again
Another marvellous small role from Joan Letch in Division 4 episode 'Two Pot Screamer' screened 5 March 1973. She plays Doris King. She's just a brilliant actor.
Friday, January 31, 2025
scott st for gazettal
I got the gazettal (whatever the word is)* of the street where I 'grew up' (or at least lived between 1973-1983). It was created in 1939 which is late for East Hawthorn (all the other streets were basically late 19th century I think, some even older) but it seems the land was just vacant for fifty years or more. The house where we lived, 1 Scott St, was apparently not built until 1960, or at least that's the first date for it in the rate book.
That house, I have probably told you previously, is no longer there - it was built 1960, apparently, remodelled extensively in about 1978-9, demolished comprehensively in I think 1988. My parents bought the site for $20 000 in 1973 and I don't know how much they sold it for but I do know that the most recent sale of the land and the building(s?) on it now fetched $2.9 million. The moral of this story is, be born just before or early in the Second World War and be able to buy a house and if you didn't do that it's your own fault!
*I think that is the word, but spellcheck doesn't know it
Monday, January 27, 2025
more more louise homfrey
From the Ryan episode known as 'A Little Something Special' first screened 8 December 1973. This episode is chockers* with stars, from Lex Mitchell as a murderous criminal to Jane Clifton in a one-scene, barely-seen role as a waitress. Oddly this episode was written by William Froug who was an American screenwriter. It is good, but not better than the usual locally-written fare (and has one particularly odd aspect - that Ryan would have an almost instantaneous, James Bondian sexual relationship with one of the people caught up in the intrigue, immediately after her brother is murdered. Said woman is set up in a number of ways prior to her kissing then apparently sexing with Ryan as an innocent, inexperienced, etc - it's altogether weird).
Saturday, January 25, 2025
more louise homfrey
Oh and the amazing Pamela Stephenson, playing a woman with two boyfriends.
...and the ever-incredible John Stanton.
The episode is The Empty Hand, first shown 13 February 1973.
Monday, January 20, 2025
louise homfrey in division 4 episode 'hide and seek' 20 september 1972
God only knows how old Homfrey was by this stage but presumably mid-70s. She had a long career as a radio presenter and was one of those media personalities who had no problem acting but it was probably just a thing you needed to be able to do to keep working in amongst the things you were remarkably good at and notable for. Note the extreme similarity between the second 'still' above and the image below, which you'd have to admit even in 1929 must have been a super-weird publicity shot.
Sunday, January 19, 2025
the ritz
The link Wayne gave to the Aaron Chen guide to the Fisk set made me appreciate that the Lithuanian Club auditorium was almost certainly the Ritz Cinema, briefly I suppose, in the late 1970s. I don't know if this was my first exposure to Errol St North Melbourne, not far from where I currently live, but it was an early exposure. The Ritz was in the vein of the Valhalla which I saw as the original template for these kinds of 'revival houses' or as this article from the Age 'Weekender' section for 11 November 1977 p. 7 calls them, '"alternative" cinemas'. I wonder who the 80-year-old star of Australian silent screen was, and how she could afford a chauffeur-driven Rolls.
Saturday, January 18, 2025
more joan letch (division 4, 'one more war' 30 aug 1972)
Friday, January 17, 2025
eggy at the curtin
I suppose the reason I was thinking about how I used to be in bands was that I was thinking sort of about going to see Eggy at the Curtin this evening, and I did, though I basically just saw the last skerrick of their show and it was too crowded and hot and so on. It was easy to see them from the side of the stage though and wow, that snare. I mean it sounded amazing from where I was standing here. From the back of the room, not that noticeable. Anyway I would like to see them again soon and do it properly.
BTW Lygon St on a Friday night in Summer is fuckin' mental. That thing of like eight boys in their late teens, some of them look 12, some of them look 17 going on 47, at least one has a moustache that looks like it was pencilled on... hilarious. But you know the gelati is amazeballs.
losing it
It's amazing to me now to think that 15 years ago (that's a random time but probably true - let's say 20 to be safe) I was still active in the live music scene* and would have a part of my brain dedicated to whatever songs whatever band I was in had going at the time and we might be offered shows or seek a show and put together a lineup with others and sort out the equipment and playing times and advertising (draw or otherwise create a handbill etc) and it'd be this thing that would happen. Rehearsals on a reasonably regular schedule and no grand plans for anything big in the future (except, also, recording, for record releases - in the golden late 90s when tangible music media was the only way and you'd just have people ready to invest money in your things - amazing to think about that now) but just maintaining that. It is pretty incredible. I feel like that capacity, or tendency or whatever you want to call it, has just broken off and floated away, it absolutely no longer exists.
Of course I have new abilities now which I didn't have then, so I'm not saying it's diminished returns but I hadn't really thought about this until now and now I'm thinking about it I'm like, wow, oh man.
*Not with ambitions or pretensions to being a star or even a local hero but part of the community - it really was a situation of I go and see your band, you go and see mine, 'hey you were great tonight' etc. Supportive. I got very philosophical about the transitional nature of it at some point but really it's just in the realm of any hobby. I have no idea what the 2025 versions of that are, but I know there are undoubtedly many.
Wednesday, January 15, 2025
division 4 'a waste of time' 12 july 1972
Irritatingly we are led to believe (I suppose it isn't outright stated) that the central character in this episode has come from Pentridge. But the 57 doesn't go past Pentridge, it just doesn't. Imagine thinking it did.
Keith Eden, 1917-2003. I always like it when people born early in the 20th century get into the 21st. He is a great character actor, Crawfords had so many! I wonder if this was him... (Age 4 September 2000 p. 11). By the way, Bolte was dead 13 years by this time.
* 'No more second class: no it's economy' Melbourne Age 25 October 1969 p. 3
simon townsend
Tuesday, January 14, 2025
fisk in errol st
This is close to a non-post but I just want to say that Fisk, which is a funny show, was (is?) I guess set in Errol st, or at least, a lot of the external scenes were shot in North Melbourne and the actual Gruber and Fisk windows are visible from the street, though I am uncertain about whether anything is actually filmed in those rooms up there surely there'd be too much noise from the street.
I am a bit too stupid to understand this, as well. This doorway is the only doorway to the first floor:
Or I am nuts. When I went to photograph the doorway above there was some dodgy character hanging around I didn't want to talk to so I took a quick picture then left and maybe I got it wrong, though I think the physio place is in the same position to the doorway in both images.
Please don't think I think it matters.
Friday, January 10, 2025
division 4: 'man's only a battler'
Obscure name for a very excellent episode of D4 from 22 March 1972. My worlds collided in this one where the crooks are chased onto the 'Westgate Bridge Freeway' which at that point is incomplete.
In a way the actual pictures of the empty freeway aren't all that amazingly exciting. You heard it from me (if you hadn't already realised).
But it gets a bit thrilling when John Stanton (who plays a criminal) breaks away and is chased by Gerard Kennedy to what might well be the Aerodrome and therefore the future Westgate Park.
Yeah it is just one more case of I wish I could reach into the screen and turn the camera around a bit but you can't have everything, or really anything.
elspeth ballantyne frenzy
This episode of Division 4 ('Senior Stewart', aired 8 November 1972) explores Meg Stewart finding the job all too much for her, and ...
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As a child, naturally enough, I watched a lot of television and it being the early 1970s when I was a child, I watched a lot of what is no...