cop shop episode 25

You can't tell me this isn't Louise Homfrey, I hope you weren't going to try. She's in one scene of episode 25 of Cop Shop, as 'Mrs Price', but as was so often the case, she is not in the credits (Mrs Price isn't listed as a character either). 

As I said earlier, Cop Shop is Crawfords demonstrating 'everything they've learned about soap opera laid upon everything they already knew about police/crime shows'; I was thinking earlier that perhaps I should take a sample episode or two and try to figure out what proportion is soap, and what proportion is action/crime solving. There'd also be value in figuring out the ratio of outside action to indoors (i.e. sets). Homicide and D4 distinguished heavily between the outdoor and the indoor stuff, and for long periods both shows had two directors per episode, focusing on each. 

CS has also learnt a lot from D4, particularly the upstairs-downstairs nature of a police station, so Riverside police station has the front desk and the uniform with the detectives upstairs and interaction - conflict between them as well as against the outside world of crims and conspiracies. 

Most of the time, it's the detectives and their home lives (JJ and Valerie and Glen, Pamela and Gayle - and for a short time early, Don and Carol McKenna and Kerrie) but also spare a thought by the way for Paula Duncan as Danni Frances, who gets handed around quite a bit early on... I'm only in the early stages though.

This is going to be a long ride. Sorry, you don't have to put up with it if you don't want to. 

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. 

division 4 'a waste of time' 12 july 1972

Keith Eden is Arthur Morrison, recently released from prison and hoping to go straight and/or meet his estranged son. There are lots of extremely interesting elements to this episode, starting with the opening sequence presumably shot from upstairs at Flinders St station. This is the intersection of Elizabeth and Flinders st and the tram terminus which is very drab and sparse compared to the glories of today. 

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. 

The priest who was travelling with him goes to the tram stop in Flinders St which suggests to me that he lives in the eastern suburbs but actually we see his home later and it's in Yarra Central so who knows what he was up to, going places he shouldn't. 

Morrison tries to buy a second class ticket on the train and he's told they don't have those anymore. He was in prison for five years (which means he went in in 1967) and they stopped second class tickets (switched to 'economy') in March 1970.*

He goes to where he used to live, apparently it's Risley St, Richmond - that's not a guess. They're building something there, unclear what it is in the show, but it's clear now, it's a car park. 

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

state coroner

Having run out of Division 4s for the moment, I was naturally attracted to the volume of State Coroner I had on the shelf beckoning to me for some time now. I have always thought, like everyone with sense, that Wendy Hughes was one of the absolute greats so I knew I would enjoy it, on some level, though perhaps not the early-70s-Crawfords level to which I had become used. But I also knew it would be interesting in contrast with that material and that there would then be other things that would fascinate. 

I've only watched two eps so far. The first (a feature-length pilot) was a bit clumsy, but set everything up well enough, then this second one, which dealt largely with the death of a 4-year-old boy, had David Reyne in it which is only interesting I guess because Laura and I were for no strongly identifiable reason talking about him yesterday.* 

One early observation: the Crawfords attitude to death in (loosely-defined) police procedurals. Generally, they have to walk a fine line and this was as true in 1996 as 1966, of death being significant, the most significant thing you can imagine (so the law can't be flippant), but also everyone has to get levelheaded really fast** so you can find out your child has died and you are having tea with the detective (or whoever) in the next scene and you're solemn, but you're not acting like your world has changed immeasurably, aside from one less setting for dinner. 

No doubt I'll have some more fascinating insights or if I don't, you can deduce that I lost interest. 

*Probably related to the fact that I just finished reading Bill McDonough's memoir of Australian Crawl. ** Exceptions - when a death sends someone crazily bent on revenge. Doesn't happen often. 

first thing I'd do if I had a time machine

... I'd go back to mid-October 1971 and r-a-c-e race into the ABA to complain about the appalling (lack of) continuity in this episode of Division 4, where Judy Jack is outside a shop in a completely different outfit to the one she is wearing once in the shop. 

(She is playing Isobel Hughes, who has a scam going with a man variously called Allen Lee, Lee Allen, Allen Scott etc, where in this case she pretends to be an unconnected customer in this shop.)

Now, outside, she's wearing the 'outside clothes' again. 

I guess I could rail against the continuity person, but I suppose also the actor herself should (??? it was probably months later) have remembered what she was wearing between the two elements of the sequence. 

But what is perhaps most important is that, in my opinion, the outside scenes aren't necessary and could have been snipped out without any particular damage to the story. They could have fitted another ad in! 

I am reminded of a time when I worked in magazines and a designer (she put her hand up to it) put the wrong date on one of the crummy mags and it was covered with a sticker saying 'find the deliberate mistake on this cover and win $50' (or something equally pathetic) but anyway there does not seem to have been any outcry or excuses made by Crawfords for this shitty egregious error. 

Oh by the way, great episode. It's one where no-one ends up in jail, it's a rare example of a comedy D4 which is actually well-done (note I didn't say funny). The guest stars are the real magic here. 

What an extraordinarily awful line-up for Channel 9 that night. Well, I guess I liked Nanny and the Professor then so I can't be too judgy. 

more ryan - episode 21, first aired 13 october 1973

 

No huge anything to say here just wanted to celebrate once again the great supporting cast that the Crawfords shows drew together in the 60s and 70s such as the redoubtable Syd Conabere who shows up repeatedly in different shows and is here playing... god, I am not even sure, some man called Jacob Jones who faked his own death to protect his daughter from the 'syndicate' - ? I wasn't paying enough attention but I was pleased to see him. The daughter in question ('Anastasia') was played by Sally Conabere. Some relation? Well, I don't know for certain.* 

SC was born in 1918 so was 55 here. He died in 2008. His wife Betty was in eight Crawfords episodes in the early 70s. 

* Don't write in and complain, of course I do. 

electronically yours, special squad, kuolleet lehdet

This week I listened to the audible version of Martyn Ware's Electronically Yours, Vol. 1. As you know, Ware was the prime mover in the Human League in its first incarnation and then went on to be a central force in Heaven 17. The second Human League album, in particular, is one of my favourite records ever, it's called Travelogue and I agree with Ware's own assessment of it - that it sounded like nothing else when it came out and it still doesn't sound dated. It's a remarkable record. 

I was most interested in the early stuff here - particularly the HL material - though I was also disappointed by a lot of the approach. I couldn't help feeling that Ware really needed an editor, which I'm pretty sure he didn't have (someone to elicit more detail on some things and less blah on others). Ware was there, so he doesn't seem to appreciate what we would want to know. For instance, he goes into great detail about 'Marianne' which is, you know, an ok song, but says completely nothing at all about 'The Black Hit of Space', which is, of course, an amazing work of genius. He barely touches on 'Empire State Human' which is extraordinary, remarkable, and immense (actually, he might not even mention it, I can't remember). The rise of the HL is unbelievably fast and things like the release of their first record is practically an afterthought. I'm pretty sure, too, that he gets important things wrong - like John Lydon's review of 'Being Boiled' in the NME which I'm 1000% sure was two words: 'trendy hippies' but Ware says it was 'fucking hippies', in fact, he says it twice. 

Update 10 July: It also occurred to me how extremely little Ware says about '(We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang' which was a revelation and an amazing statement of intent for Heaven 17 - it was their first single. The bass playing of John Wilson (inc. a hell of a solo) was a remarkable feature of this single and how Ware, Marsh and Gregory came across Wilson is entirely avoided, I am not even sure he's discussed at all. That's all pretty weird, right? It took a lot of gumption to launch H17 the way they did, and a lot was made of Wilson, in particular, at that point. Wilson appears in group photos etc (I'd never seen him before but I gather he's here second from right) and yet, not a mention. 

Of course it could be that I stopped listening/paying attention for a while and/or that I accidentally skipped a bit (I definitely skipped one section about football, so maybe he segued into discussing John Wilson then as well) so who knows?

Ware is a very dedicated socialist, which I approve of, and a football fan, which is a bore. He really likes art and values creativity and adventurousness which I admire. His book is full of the usual crapola about hot women and drinking too much which is a drag but apparently necessary in books like this. Simultaneously to H17 he became an extraordinarily successful record producer though he gives us precisely no information about what a record producer does or is (I suppose I'm fine with that). OK I think I've about said all there is to say about this. By the way it's hard to be sure whether he's providing his own interjections reading this book for audible or whether the interjections are in the original book, I guess I'll never know. 

Meanwhile I've been watching a lot of another Crawfords show made in Melbourne in 1984-5, called Special Squad. It's a peculiar production which apparently sought a certain measure of gritty realism. In one sense it might as well be Homicide '84; it's three men in an elite section of the police force, always in car chases, each episode a neat solving of crime with a lot of the usual moralistic elements (no crim ever gets away). One odd aspect is that the first episode absolutely does not even slightly bother to introduce you to the police characters - you are just thrown in at the deep end. I'm still confused about who these three men are. 

What else does it have? A lot of interesting actors. Red Symons as a terrorist (I'm not even sure he has a speaking role, but it's him) and Frankie J. Holden as an undercover cop, for instance. Norman Coburn is a corrupt cop in another episode (see below). The storylines are, on the whole, not magnificent* and if it wasn't for the intriguing mid-80s technology (phones and computers in cars!) the above mentioned actors and the locations I wouldn't really be bothering, I suspect. Oh, but every episode does end with someone making a lame joke** and the frame freezing, which is pretty amazing to see in the wild. 

Last night my mother and I went to see Kuolleet Lehdet, a low-key Finnish film which surprised me no end by including Maustetytöt in one scene. 

Oddly enough I knew they were in a film because I saw this poster a few weeks ago on the Maustetytöt fan club facebook group but I didn't realise that this was the same film I had already bought tickets to. Just 'cause I'm dumb. 

They don't have lines or anything just a crucial moment in the action, where they convince one of the main characters to stop drinking by dint of their extremely depressing song. It's pretty cool. 

Overall the film is probably worth it. I am still thinking about it. 

* to be fair, I haven't been paying 100% attention

** or just a pointed comment. 

homicide s5 e43 'the peace man'

So people at Crawfords were clearly having a laugh with the Foxes. This is Henry Fox, another Fox character on three out of four successive episodes of Homicide (all from late 1968). He's played by Luigi Villani. This episode is set in Dandenong, which is not really a rural area. Bizarrely he claims his girlfriend's name is Betty Fox, and that they started going out together because their names were both Fox, and that when they got married they'd both be Foxes and their children would be... (he then trails off) but the whole thing makes no sense obviously because if he married her the family's name would all be Fox anyway so... huh? 

Jeff (here credited as Jeffrey) Kevin as Michael Bolton, a conscientious objector, being followed by some bodgies (who beat him up). Five years later Kevin was playing Arnold Feather in Number 96. He told the Sydney Morning Herald in early 1973 that: ‘In the Crawford productions I was usually type-cast. I always seemed to be the misunderstood youth who looked as though he did it… but did not.’* 

This episode was written by John Dingwall, who would go on to write the incredible 1975 film Sunday Too Far Away. 

*‘Who’s that behind that sharp, hurtful Arnold?’ SMH 19 February 1973 p. 14

phil freedman

Melbourne Age 'Green Guide' 17 May 1979 p. 9

So I was wondering about the Homicide scriptwriters and did a search on Phil Freedman, there was a great article about him in the Green Guide in May '79 by John Teerds. Teerds was, oddly from our perspective now perhaps, more interested in Freedman's earlier work as a radio scriptwriter but Freedman's preference for TV busts out. Freedman was 64 when the article was written so I guess he was born in 1915 and now he's around 107. He started work in 1933 doing short stories for various magazines eg New Idea and I gather from another article that he had a short story in a collection in the late, um, I think 1930s. Interesting tidbit - Freedman lived in Walhalla in the late 1940s but who knows why! That was when Maurice West of all people persuaded him to write for radio. 

The direct quotes about Homicide are the most interesting to me though. He says of the show, 'We had a lot of criticism. It was a lack of slickness that was criticised by some. It might have been phrased differently but that's what it was - a lack of polish.

'People complained about the Australian accent and critics were unkind.

'I felt there was a lack of sympathy to the effort because we were teaching ourselves. There was very little encouragement.

'But the public loved it. They were obviously hungry for Australian stuff and they loved seeing things like the trams.

'Oddly enough, when it was shown to the people Metro Goldwyn Mayer they liked it too.

'They liked the sort of homespun look about it.' 

I must say I am still getting a huge amount out of watching these shows, not only historically in terms of the built environment, or social attitudes, or seeing actors who later became huge or were just very interesting and unusual actors, but also because often the stories are pretty good - at very least, tightly scripted and economically and imaginatively executed, and at best, compelling drama. I was watching one today I think called 'The Black Book' though now I come to think of it I can't imagine why it would be called that, with Sonia Borg and Leonard Teale on a pier at Black Rock and it was very early Polanski, and I was thinking, well we really missed out in many ways from this talent not having the opportunity to thrive in great film drama etc, at least a lot of it didn't have that opportunity, that didn't come until the 70s. But then many of these people were obviously often very versatile and apparently in constant theatre, radio, television work - it was surely a pretty satisfying life for many of them. 

The other great thing about Crawfords in the 60s (and beyond?) was their willingness to take on non-Anglo actors - they did this a lot - and people like Sonia Borg who was at least a triple threat if not more, acting and working as a scriptwriter and I think a kind of commissioning editor for the show. I see she later wrote the script for Storm Boy. 

I could ramble on. Obviously.