homicide 'catapult'

I guess it needs to be said: if you're going to cast Leonard Teale as a criminal twice, then as a policeman pretending to be a criminal, then as a policeman, is it wise to then cast someone as a criminal who does not look a million miles different from Leonard Teale, if a bit younger maybe? I'm talking about Kerry Francis, who was an up-and-coming Sydney actor who seemed to get some decent second-tier roles in interesting theatre but apart from the ABC play of Rusty Bugles didn't seem to crack TV too often (he was Judith Arthy's husband, and it looks like they went to the UK together in the late 60s; I can only find evidence of him in radio plays in Britain up until the mid-70s). The woman he's with is Vivienne Lincoln. The man in the middle is Jon Ewing as Dennis Flynn (Ewing was a producer as well as an actor; he took on The Mavis Bramston Show in 1968 and told the SMH it had to be about 'pace, pace, pace'). Kudos to him age 30 being able to pull off a part that is surely meant to be about ten years younger. Part of the schtick here, not very well developed but a kind of commentary on appropriation of 'American culture' is that these people, young people ostensibly, talk in a kind of swing-jive manner and Flynn likes to sing some kind of line from what is supposed to be a popular song. 

Francis as Johnny Parke, John Morgan as Cliff Hogan and Lincoln as Candy Green (great name). The story is drawn out and not in itself all that engaging except for the little details; that Johnny Parke is from a wealthy background for instance, has been denied nothing in his life by his indulgent mother, and is now kind of mad/deluded. 

Vivienne Lincoln had already been in Homicide once this year (1965) as the wife of a man in the fashion industry who faked his death. It's not impossible I suppose that she got her entree into Crawfords by dint of being in the TV play The Hungry Ones alongside Leonard Teale and another Homicide occasional, Fay Kelton. Strangely whatever Lincoln did after Homicide she wasn't on tv much again. She was in a 70-minute play on the BBC called All Out for Kangaroo Valley in 1969. She is thanked in Christine Wallace's 1999 unauthorised biography Germaine Greer: Untamed Shrew though it is not made clear why.

The main element of importance here is that they are outside the Macedon Hotel. And by 'importance' I mean... I don't really know what I mean. 

You don't need to know who Sam Preedy is, it doesn't matter that much, just know that this is his Woodend home and his wife, Selma played by Golda Prince. I just l-o-v-e the name 'Golda'. Whatever happened to Golda Prince (Prince delivers some good, natural sounding lines in here but Selma is not exactly a major character) she seems primarily to have been a Shakespeare actor around Melbourne in the 60s (she was Olivia in Twelfth Night in 1960, a performance described in the Age as 'completely adequate')** though she also had a couple of stints in Consider Your Verdict earlier in the decade. This is the scene where she tells Johnny and Dennis they are having pork chops for dinner and Dennis delights in what he says will be a night of 'pork chops and songs!' 

Dennis obviously has a face to be seen smaller between two other people. Anyway, there is a pretty interesting closing chase sequence, on a very steep prospect where there appears to be major roadworks going on. I am going to guess this is the building of the South-Eastern Freeway somewhere in the Toorak area, I suppose. A steep rocky face going down to a boulevard of sorts - it has to be round there but I can't place it. 

Also, the power lines seem to set it in that part of the world. Maybe south of Burnley on the far side of the river?  (BTW every inch of my being is telling me this is early construction/ vicinity of the Eastern Freeway, but that wasn't happening in 1965-6 as far as I know). 

Here's an early-ish print mention of Kerry Francis when he appeared in a notable play, the first Sydney performances of The Season at Sarsaparilla which had debuted at Adelaide the year before with, I'm imagining, a completely different cast. This is from the Sydney Sun-Herald 12 May 1963 p. 86. 

*Harry Robinson, 'Jon v. John' Sydney Morning Herald 4 September 1968 p. 6

**'Made his debut with seven stitches' Melbourne Age 11 July 1960 p. 3