lonely hearts/ fair cop

Just marvellous to see Joan Letch in an episode of D4 from 23 September 1974 called 'Lonely Hearts', as an actual character with, you know, character, called Lillian White. She's a policewoman, as you see, and she does things, she's not preposterous, she's not a nosy bitch or a bad neighbour, they should have made her a regular. Big mistake. 

The next episode is 'Fair Cop' which gives us the pleasure of seeing Crawfords stalwart Colin McEwan, as a criminal with the fabulous name of Earl Fowler...

...teamed with the solidly incredible Ross Higgins, as a slightly unethical policeman. Of course the two would be working together five years later in Kingswood Country. 

Behind Higgins there is the corner of Church and Bridge St Richmond, close to where the Orange Ice Cream Parlour used to but no longer stands

I'm guessing below is a version of the arcade that once and may still run behind those buildings. I haven't been there for a while. I'll check and get back to you.

And for what it's worth here's Higgins at the north end of Docker St, Richmond. Nothing too special about that, just always like to note when I can actually identify a place. 

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. 

more joan letch (division 4, 'one more war' 30 aug 1972)

Another classic Joan Letch minor supporting character ('Nell')* in Division 4. She gives it her all. She's a total gem. 

A note to self: one of the crims in this ep, who I think has come from Sydney, says 'well I didn't come to visit your cultural centre'. Rare example of a 'you Melbourne people think you're so special' line in a Crawfords show. 

*OK IMDB just calls her 'Nell' but the actual show credits call her Nell Hudson. I wonder where IMDB got its information from. 

division 4 february 1972 - 'the man who dug his own grave'

Truly late 1971-early 1972 was a golden era for Division 4 (maybe it went longer than early 1972, I'll let you know). This episode, 'The Man Who Dug His Own Grave', is - like many Crawford police procedurals - virtually a movie in its own right and like many of the best such shows, the police really play an incidental part in the overall story, which is essentially played out as the story of Sammy Goodall, played by Ken Goodlet. Goodlet is remarkably good, as is Charmian Jacka, who plays a woman he is living with, Maisie.* There's a brilliant piece of dialogue wherein Maisie puts the wind up Sammy by giving him a description of the people in Hell: 'they're too busy burnin - all shrivelled up, all their skin, their nose, their eyes and their hair, all burnin, cryin' out for water, no-body'll give 'em any'. The only thing that this scene lacks is any reason why Sammy might be interested in Hell in the first place; he just asks her if she's religious. But anyway. It's still an amazingly great scene. 

So, spoiler: I can't help but spoil and tell you Sammy dies in the end. But the thing that intrigues me is this: apparently on the way home before he is shot, Sammy has stopped off to buy a copy of Wochen End, a German magazine (title translates as 'Weekend'). It's apparently - from what little I've been able to glean from the internet - a simplistic magazine probably in the vein of That's Life. But there has been absolutely no suggestion in the rest of the episode that Sammy is German, speaks German, or is interested in anything German, and in fact I don't even think we get to see him go to the newsagent and there is no reason on earth he should have a magazine with him, let alone this one. He just dies with a German magazine. Because this episode is almost 52 years old and surely anyone involved with it is no longer with us (or even if they are, surely they would not recall) here we are with a mystery. 

This episode also has another wonderful solitary scene featuring Joan Letch, this time as a character so minor she's only called 'Maisie's Friend'. JL might have lived round the corner from Crawford's which is why they could get her in for things like this but actually I think she worked on the premises a lot of the time in some other capacity - casting director. So why not get her in for a couple of hours of acting. This is a brilliant scene with JL and Charmain Jacka.

At this time JL was 47. Notwithstanding 47 was regarded as a lot older then than we might consider it to be now, if you know what I mean, she could play this kind of character - obviously not a young hottie, but also obviously not an old lady, and she could also play an old lady, as per this episode.

Late in life JL wrote to the newspapers but I don't want to take away from the weirdness of the Wochen End situation by muddying the waters any further, I'll come back to those letters. 

* nb IMDB gives them both the last name Goodall, but the actual credits of the show only gives first names and there's dialogue suggesting they haven't been living together very long.
 

division 4 - the clean skins

This is a good episode (early January 1972), but I don't have a huge amount to say about it (the one following it, 'No Hard Feelings', is a bit of a masterpiece if only for the safebreakers' argy bargy at the beginning... anyway, that's not this). The thing I really wanted to say was yet again, amazing situation of Ian Smith and Anne Charleston cast once again in one episode of a Crawfords' show (IYKYK - they were married for a lifetime in Neighbours). Smith plays a character called 'Smith'.

Also, fabulous single scene from Joan Letch, who never letchs us down.