cop shop episode 42

IMDB doesn't say anything about Bud Tingwell being in these eps of Cop Shop (41 & 42, I think) but it has the most unusual storyline about Tingwell's character Keith York, a high-up in the police, who's being blackmailed by crooks who have tapes of his psychiatric sessions wherein he somehow does or does not confess (?) to being homosexual, or actually I think just having urges in that direction which he has not and most definitely will never act on. There is a most peculiar sequence in which, for no obvious reason, he and his wife (played by Cecily Polson) have spectacular sex and then talk about it (the sex). The situation is not solved, which is to say he presumably continues to be gay, though the blackmail materials are recovered. But the Yorks seem very happy. 

I don't really know what was going on here. It was like a script written by AI where AI was told that gayness was a dose of nits. 

SMH 'Monday Guide' 22 May 1978 p. 5

big bad john - division 4 7 feb 1973

Cast-wise this is a complete classic D4 with the only D4 episode to feature Bud Tingwell and also Jackie Weaver in one of only two D4 episodes she did (she did 9 Homicides). They are father and daughter. It's a George Miller (the other George Miller) joint, or at least the external scenes are (John Jacob did the interiors).

Tingwell plays a character called 'John Smith' which is a truly terrible name for a character and really doesn't cause enough comment in the program (aside from, 'that John Smith'). The show kicks off with stock footage of Sydney Harbour because John Smith is from Sydney but if the show was an attempt to ingratiate Sydney viewers with the Crawfords Melbourne world it's very othering. Smith is a hotheaded boor who has a particular problem with hippies but in this case he's grinding the right axe because his daughter Val is mixed up with filthy scum in the form of a weasel named Hank (David Cameron).

There's some really good art in this episode, from little touches like the above to framing Cameron through the hole in a gate. 

There's also an amazing penultimate action-chase scene in Luna Park

 in which, like all the best Australian drama, the ending is not Hank being shot and falling from the top of the ghost train. Instead (SPOILER) it's Hank being caught, arrested and ready to come quietly, then being pushed off by Smith. 

By the way also this...

is 59 Glenhuntly Road Elwood. Another great example of Crawfords product placement where a business is so keen on exposure the fact that they will be depicted as happily not bothering with proper references for prospective tenants as long as they get a big enough deposit up front, is barely a consideration. 

homicide ep 12 s 5, 'surprising what people can do' (and a bit of 'a nameless grave')

This is a very fine, tight, well-scripted, documentarily fascinating episode of Homicide first screened on 8 April 1975. Thrillingly it stars Hilda Scurr who I've discussed here before, as well as Peter Corbett. You don't need to know the various bits and pieces of the story, but here are some of the locations. 

Corbett's character is called Kenneth Cook. This is him (yes, he's just been shot in the arm, don't worry he's ok) in the car park of Coles New World. I am assuming this is the Coles in Swanston St (I may be wrong).  

Age 29 December 1972 p. 8. Presumably this is Coles' nice new (or at least nice newish and recalibrated for Coles) supermarket car park. It has other shops in it, which I can't quite imagine. 

I'm not sure where this is, I think I might be able to find it out. I also don't know who owned the car with the registration number KSN 968, sorry. 

This is Kenneth Cook standing in the car park of his block of flats, which today is known as Perry Palms (124 Perry St). He's looking towards 200 Hoddle St, which was at that time the HQ of Patterson Press. To the right of the picture is the huge Hoddle St Housing Commission complex, but the choice was made to omit this. 

2 and 4 Egan St Richmond, the Hilda Scurr character Frances Brown lives here. 

Egan st looking east. 

Hilda Scurr was brilliant. 

Bizarrely in the episode 'A Nameless Grave' (which aired two weeks later on 22 April) the Ds are in Egan St again - this time trying to visit Sheila Florence's character. 

Just above Dennis Grosvenor's head you can see 2 Egan St. I suppose they were all set up in Egan St so why not fit in a bit of extra filming. 

the end of inspector fox

Sorry to break it to you but Inspector Fox died, on 17 July 1973 in episode S10E22. There is a slightly bizarre account of the episode on IMDB where the writer uses the actors' names instead of the characters ('It is the last couple of days on the Homicide squad for Detective Leonard Teale. He has been promoted to Inspector and transferred to lead a new unit...'). Anyway there's a weirdo around modelling himself on Lee Harvey Oswald who wants to kill David Mackay but instead he shoots Colin Fox and there you have it.* Alwyn Kurts went on to host Beauty and the Beast and his departure was the end of that particular show, until it was rebooted umpteen times. 

Melbourne Age 12 July 1973 p. 35

Inspector Fox's replacement is Reg Lawson, played by Bud Tingwell. 

Sydney Sun-Herald 8 July 1973 p. 81

Whole new set of opening credits - whereas the first colour shows with Kurts/Teale had an opener that was modelled very closely on the original (Ds in a car, all get out together) now the opener is very tech-heavy with a lot of communications imagery featuring people who I'm pretty sure are not and never will be in the show itself, mainly D24 -  the communications hub of the force. This episode also features the debut of John Stanton.

Melbourne Age Green Guide Section 20 July 1973 p.3

* That Kurts and Teale left at the same time was used by Crawfords/Channel 7, I'm sure, to surprise viewers - the show is full of suggestions that Mackay was going to be killed, but of course at the last minute it's Fox. They used the same trick when they wrote Bronson out of the show - that time Mackay got shot early, and Bronson late in the episode.