homicide march 1966: 'chain reaction'

On Tuesday 15 March 1966 at 7:30 pm in Melbourne you could have watched The Avengers (the 'Cybernauts' episode); The Dick Van Dyke Show ('Remember the Alimony'); Lost in Space ('My Friend, Mr. Nobody') or the latest episode of Homicide, the last I think in the second series, called 'Chain Reaction'. 

Of course you would want to pick the show with not just a Scarr but also a Scurr in it... what are the odds! Anyway Helen Hopgood is once again centre stage, kicking off with a bunch of flirts with McKay (Leonard Teale was 44 at this time, far too old to play the kind of scallywag playboy McKay, however appealing he is; he replaced Lex Mitchell, who was at least ten years younger but probably more, who was more suited to that kind of thing but was more of a clean skin. There's plainly meant to be some chemistry between Helen and 'Mac' but the characters aren't realised enough to make that stick properly). 

In this instance after knocking off work Helen accidentally encounters a runaway, Judy (Julie Costello), who she had just seen in court the day before. Judy is a schoolgirl who is meant to be back in Seymour, and instead she's wandering around Armidale with a friend. Helen arrests her and calls the Toorak police to tell them she is bringing her in. 

My memory of phone boxes back then is you couldn't really fit two people so easily into them but that's not important. So, Judy runs away with her friend down a back lane and Helen pursues them but is hit and knocked out. The Homicide team investigate murders, not missing persons even if they are policewomen they like to have sexy conversations with, however, in this case they are assigned to try and find the missing Helen. 

Judy's mother comes in to be interviewed - one scene if I remember rightly, with Christine Calcutt as Mrs. Power. There was a small feature on her in the Age on 30 July 1960 (p. 7) which described her as 'building up a reputation... for well handled, small character parts.' That's what this is (it also says she was born and raised in China!). 

Helen is taken out bush somewhere (references made later to 'off the Bendigo road' )and dumped, where she wakes up and stumbles around looking kind of new romantic:

Meanwhile the detectives are pursuing a lead i.e. the boarding house run by Mrs Logan, in St Kilda. Pretty great house:

Mrs Logan is played by the aforementioned Hilda Scurr. Scurr was a stage actress (with the Allan Wilkie Shakespearian Company) then on radio in a soap opera called Mary Livingstone, M.D., and much later in the famous Blue Hills. She was not enamoured of television apparently though she did appear in a few Homicides. Though we never really learn why Mrs Logan is ready to do whatever is required for the evil Eric Morton, she is very obliging. This is her preparing to lie to the detectives about how well she knew Julie and how she didn't know Julie's friend Carol (who is in the other room).  Soon afterwards when Carol reveals she saw Morton knock Helen out, Mrs Logan makes it her business to keep Carol in the living room until Morton gets there to deal with her.

Morton is the proprietor of a cafe, called The Yellow Door. We see the detectives drive up to it very briefly and I think someone has daubed the words 'The Yellow Door' on the front window but it's hard to tell. We don't see any chairs or tables or anything but, note cappuccino machine, which is interesting perhaps. And all the product placement. 

Another bit of flirty behaviour from Mac which gets results in this instance (the cafe girl - Patty, played by Jill McKay - reveals Morton lied when he said he didn't know Judy or Carol). Mac by the way orders a cappuccino but then has to go in a hurry so says he'll have it another time. 

I mean they must have had to say to these actresses, 'when he acts this way you have to go all mushy'. Not that he's an unattractive man but he's just too old to be acting the lothario with young women. Anyway doesn't matter. 

Spoiler: Judy is dead, Morton ran her over. Morton tries to take Carol somewhere presumably to finish her off but the detectives get to the boarding house just in time and save her, notwithstanding that Morton throws a pitchfork at them, as the devil might. Carol puts the finger on Mrs Logan and there is an excellent shot...

Of her just standing there, knowing the jig is up, and ready to be led to the car to take her to the police station (along with Carol and Morton - what kind of conversations went on in the vehicle with them all in it together?). 

Julie Costello would be back in Homicide in November the same year in an episode called 'The Hostage'.  She became a bit of a mainstay in Division 4 later in the decade/into the next. She must have been annoyed when Murder One named a character after her in the mid-90s. Or maybe it was homage.

* In August 1967 viewers of Granada television in Merseyside had the pleasure of watching this show. 

(Liverpool Echo 29 August 1967 p. 2). 

I'd love to know what Where Did That Come From? was like. George Melly was writing Flook by this time. I had formed somewhere in the back of my mind that Cyril Fletcher was one of those horrendous Savile-style pedophiles hiding in plain sight for decades but looking at him on wikipedia I see I have wronged him in that regard. But he was a freemason.