homicide: david's diary

Obviously I couldn't let this Homicide episode (S8 E15, 25 May 1971) go by without comment although tbh it's not a topic I am keen to dwell on. The David in question is a nice old man (actually I think he's 58, lol) whose main interest is his exotic plants in a greenhouse. He is killed by phosgene gas in same greenhouse before the opening credits. His diary reveals (unimmediately) that he is not only a sexual deviant - he draws pornographic pictures in it - but also a serial abuser of young women and a blackmailer of them too. 

I do wonder whether this storyline is, like 'The Corrupter' a few episodes prior, an attempt by the Homiciders to branch out beyond the ordinary and take on some gritty topics, in this case I suppose a version of the 'dirty old man' (though tbh David has too many strings to his bow to be a real study of anything - he's an efficient criminal as well as a deviant).  

Obviously you'd have to have a better sense of what was hot in international-tv-currently-watched-in-Australia in 1970/71, as well as films, to know how much Homicide was innovating and how much it was just running to keep up with its competition. Perhaps both. I do note (and you can see it above) the 'authentic case records' stuff, which seeks to suggest that Homicide is just a gauge of what's going on more generally. When I watched an episode called 'In the Dark' (see previous post), in which Susan Scott goes out on a mission to kill men (she only actually kills one, but she does shoot the husband of her 'lady psychiatrist') and starts a very haphazard account called 'Historical Articles' which ostensibly details her reign of terror (I think it ultimately runs to one paragraph in big writing) I was moved to think - wait a minute, could 'authentic case records' include a super-loose adaptation of Valerie Solanas shooting Andy Warhol? I mean they definitely don't say, 'authentic case records of events which happened in and around Melbourne to these kinds of people'. 

By the way speaking of the lady psychiatrist here she is pushing her recovering husband around (in the nicest possible way) on one of the balconies of the Epworth in East Melbourne having just told him that she'd quit lady psychiatry to have children with him instead. One step forward, two steps back and he's not even walking.

So that's David Williams and Beverley Dunn as Mr. and Dr. Turner in 'In the Dark' (S8E13, 11 May 1971). I would also like to say this episode has a fabulous scene where the psychopath Susan shows up somewhere in East Melbourne to shoot her flatmate's new husband while they're having their wedding pictures taken. Hubby yells at flatmate (Patti I think her name is) to jump in the fountain to get out of range of Scott's rifle and Patti says 'but my dress!'. Love that bit. 

To get back to 'David's Diary' for a second just wanted to note that Everett de Roche wrote one of my favourite movies - Long Weekend - by which I mean the original 1978 version with the amazing John Hargreaves and Briony Behets, I know there was a remake thirty years later but I haven't seen that. He also wrote Patrick, a fuckin' amazing film, and Snapshot, which frankly is not that good, ha ha. And an episode of The Saddle Club. He's dead now. 

i mean this is more illegal than a homicide surely

I recall early in my time watching Homicide that it really did look like they would periodically get the Herald to knock out a fake front page for them to advance plot lines - good for them, good for the Herald to be depicted on TV at a time when there was very little Australian-made fiction TV. Well for whatever reason this time around they didn't bother with that but instead bunged a headline 'MAN SHOT' over front page made up of at least a couple of stories - one about industrial action at Melbourne High and another I can't make sense of. 

The base cover used is dated 13 February 1971. Maybe if I ever get desperate for something to do, I'll go and check that but the Herald had a few editions each day and the State Library (for instance) only ever kept one of them, so... 

This is episode S8 E13 of Homicide, 'In the Dark', aired 11 May 1971. 

homicide - the corrupter

This episode of Homicide screened on 23 March 1971 and it's sort of interesting not just because of the only time I've ever seen Vivean Gray playing a character with a modicum of sex appeal (although I suppose the characters she was famous for, Mrs Jessup and Mrs Mangel, did have romance storylines). 

In this case however the romance that her character, Hilda Mercer, is having is confusing, if it's meant to provide some kind of contrast with the main thrust of the story which is the first I've come across on Homicide that deals reasonably sympathetically with homosexuality. 

In the 6 October 1970 episode of Homicide, 'Once a Killer', a fruiterer called Conti eludes the police (specifically, Peter Barnes who's staking out a St Kilda flat) by wearing a flamboyant disguise and walking a big poodle. Barnes says something along the lines of, 'I thought he was just a queer!' So that makes this episode doubly unusual.

Ok, so what happens? A young man called David Whittaker is found dead in his bed. His landlady, Miss Mercer, was out the night before looking after a 'sick friend', but it transpires that in fact she is having an affair with a man whose wife was out of town - put a pin in that, it's not crucial to the story, except that we see a flashback where she confides in Whittaker about the situation and he tells her to seize the day and she asks him something like whether he's ever been in love and he just gives her a meaningful look. 

So to cut a long story short it turns out Whittaker had until recently lived in a country town somewhere and his teacher had in some way seduced him (?) (it's never really spelled out, or it's left to the imagination, but the episode is called 'The Corrupter', right).* Rather confusingly the teacher appears to still work at the school, although his wife has left him and the education department has terminated his employment, so whatever. The teacher has driven to Melbourne, tried to get back with Whittaker (he says they could move to Sydney - which is everyone's default on Homicide for getting away from trouble, except very occasionally it's Queensland) and Whittaker has laughed in his face and gotten killed for it. 

As is so often the case I'm left wondering. Is the Hilda Mercer storyline thrown in to suggest that love comes in many forms, or that we are not to judge (eg Hilda Mercer, who is a real Jessupmangel in most other respects, would be likely to judge gay people normally but here she is caught in a situation she would not approve of for anyone else), or...? Atypically for Homicide - I suppose they were just dipping their toe in the water - there is no moralising elsewhere; Peter Barnes doesn't say anything about anyone being 'just a queer', neither Whittaker (in flashback obvs) or his killer (Kevin Lang) gives a soliloquy about the love that dare not speak its name; the only character who comes close to editorialising is the character of Whittaker's brother, Don, who expresses his hatred for his brother without really saying why, and since the whole thing is so subtle (to me, anyway, lol) it doesn't have a huge amount of impact.  

To further muddy the waters we are really left in the dark about what we are supposed to think about the relationship between David Whittaker and Kevin Lang, and of course in 2022 we would naturally be very down on a teacher-student love affair but in this episode that power imbalance is really not at all discussed. I suppose since homosexuality was illegal anyway in 1971 not to mention highly condemned by most, no-one was really going to split any hairs on pedophilia/age of consent stuff. The Homicide team had enough to contend with, putting together a more or less nonjudgemental storyline about gayness. 

I would be interested to see whether this episode got much attention at the time. Certainly there was no particular press preview stuff about it. The above was about all there was in the Age Green Guide on it.

One more interesting thing: Lex Mitchell plays Don Whittaker. Mitchell was of course one of the original detectives in Homicide when it started seven years before, and he was only in it for the first 24 episodes I believe. I gather he is still alive (he is probably in his early 80s) and oddly, considering he was a founder member, one of the few members of the main cast remaining. 

*Look it's possible that David Whittaker is meant to be 'The Corrupter', after all, the teacher was a married man. But it's just not made clear, at all. To my mind there's no sense in which the show suggests that David brought his appalling fate on himself.

auckland a week ago

Thursday 24/11 was a fieldwork day trying to get photos of a few things around Auckland for a forthcoming book. It was partially successful. Te Atatu, which is a peninsula suburb somewhere in the west, was further away than I remembered and harder to get to than I imagined - same old principles, one you realise where the information is, it's easy but you have to have known where to look first. I had a decent time in Auckland anyway and I am ready to say it: it's not a terrible place. 

Earlier I showed you the view from the hotel room, which is pretty nice. This is the view inside the hotel room. Actually pretty horrible. 

Myers Park

These ridiculous birds saw my verandah door open and wandered in like they owned the place. Perhaps they do.

Life.

Op Shop on a train station platform. I didn't go in, I had a train to catch (and the escalators were out of order so it was urgent). 

This motorway is one of the abominations of the southern hermisphere. 

Skyline

Symonds St Cemetery

The flats adjoining the K Road end of Myers Park

Myers Park again

rabbit rabbit with perry

flook december 1952

Just a reminder that, in the way that Flashez used to run a Batman serial, my periodically purloined Flook series is the North American run of the strip, the only one I have had access to. Strangely....

in September 1952 the Adelaide Advertiser started running Flook but it was the original strip which had begun in the UK in 1949, in blocks of five each in its Saturday section, for a couple of years. Go figure. Anyway, back to normal programming...

 

It will be interesting to see how whoever had the job of tinkering with Flook to make it comprehensible to North Americans will handle this English private school story. The clash of cultures between 'Scram, you little jerk' and 'Gosh, that's a turn-about' is going to pose a problem. Roll on 1953! 

auckland a week ago

Well, I would not be so jejeune as to describe the trip to Auckland as gruelling. All that happened was, we were about an hour late taking off, and so it's now 3:21 Auckland time as I write this and I'm not tired really though I have a headache and feel somewhat ticked off that my room is this massive space with a spectacular view but it's all kind of shoddy and for instance the wardrobe door is sticky on the side and the whole thing just looks like faded 80s grandeur. It's far too big for one person (a huge living area and a reasonably large bedroom, a bathroom etc) and while it does have a wardrobe for instance what it doesn't have is a place to put things like socks. No drawers, is what I'm saying. Also, for a fairly exy hotel, no snacks or bar, not that I ever drink anything from the bar fridge but... just feels weird. Maybe it's a cultural thing. Also, the guy at the desk said 'we checked your card and it was declined,' which it... couldn't have been, but if it was, they didn't email me about that or anything (and when I emailed them a few days ago to say I'd be late coming, they didn't respond). Gripe, whine, it's fine but still it sort of sucks. 

On the plane I watched the first two episodes of the show Hacks which I'd heard about and it had never really appealed to me as a concept, but the minute I started watching it I was like yes. Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder both hit the ground running and have a tremendous 'y'know, we're not so different after all' chemistry which I really enjoy. I will strive to see more of this show, it's great. 

That said: I have the balcony door open, and it's raining really heavily out there, and the temperature's nicely cool, no mosquitoes here. I miss Laura, Nancy'n'Helmi and Perry but otherwise, I feel reasonably OK.