the last of the australians

As I write to you I have watched 11 episodes of The Last of the Australians, and am on to my 12th. In between watching the show I am reading of Alan Seymour's 1967 novel of his play The One Day of the Year on which The Last of the Australians is ostensibly, ostensibly mind you, based. To be honest I'm not 100% sure how this worked i.e. was Terry Stapleton - who played the character of Hughie in the original play when it opened in 1958 - actually inspired by these characters to adapt them into a sitcom (albeit with different names - Hughie became Gary and Alf* became Ted)? Or was this some kind of sleight of hand whereby he and Crawfords could say that the Last of the Australians was no way an imitation of Till Death Us Do Part (1968+) because it was based on something from 1958?

It's an interesting show to watch but not always enjoyable. Or even often enjoyable. It does have all the classic Crawfords people in it, not just Keith Eden and Maurie Fields and Terry Norris but also Noni Hazlehurst, Jacki Weaver and Vanessa Leigh. Of the main cast, of course Alwyn Kurts, who no-one had ever imagined could possibly be a comic actor, and Rosie Sturgess who was famous for her time with Graham Kennedy in particular so she had form as a comedian. Richard Hibberd was Gary in the first season, Stephen Thomas in the second (Hibberd quit the biz to join the Hare Krishnas). 

Anyway, I'm plouging on because this is my job now. I'll let you know if anything nice happens. 

*Clearly they couldn't have kept the name Alf for the father character because of Alf Garnett. I suppose 'Hughie' became 'Gary' just in the general update to the 1970s. 

louise homfray in alvin purple

I forced Laura to watch Alvin Purple last night, because I believe it to be an unpleasant but necessary component of being an Australian. What a surprise to see Louise Homfray in it, though in fact it is filled to the brim with people who have Crawfords heritage (some of whom, like Jacki Weaver, went on to arguably bigger things, and others of whom essentially didn't: not sure where Elli Maclure fits in to those reductive categories). Louise Homfray is uncredited, though she does have one line, which at least is not about how she runs a boarding house or how the neighbours can't keep it down after 10 o'clock, though clearly this character could have said either of those things. 

Alvin Purple hasn't aged well, but with AP the question of whether it could have aged well or badly was never really the point. It's oddly sophisticated in places you weren't expecting, and ridiculously pat everywhere else. Alvin himself is a slightly more nuanced character than you might remember but that could just be lazy writing/conceptualisation, rather than anything else. There are some special features on the DVD, a documentary (of sorts) by Brian Trenchard-Smith apparently from the time (at least, it has worn-out-video lines through it) including, strangely, some deleted scenes. Also, some interviews from ten years ago or was it longer, when the DVD was released. It is here I think where Tim Burstall passively aggressively complains about Penne Hackforth-Jones refusing to do nude scenes and dismisses her character as a girl who did a psychiatry course at university. Yes, but, that's how anyone gets to be a psychiatrist. I'm not sure what other qualifications he thinks are needed, though clearly he was hoping willingness to be nude is one of them. 

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. 

did everything i set out to do

Essentially, I wrote 2500 words today, on two different projects - a book chapter and a conference paper - though 'wrote' is possibly the wrong word - 'assembled' might be better. I added in these words and made them make sense in the right order, more or less. I hope that's good enough. By the way, the day's not over yet so who knows. I watched an episode of Homicide called 'Love is a Silver Chain' which has this great shot of a woodyard entrance - with Briquette ads/signs:

This is yet another Jacki Weaver episode. This time around she plays a fairly dippy marijuana addict called Peta. 

As you can see she is not happy to see the police. 

So there are scenes here where the murderer (that's not a spoiler, he does the murder before the opening credits) plays with his band in a club called I think the Love-In or something like that. 

I am sorry to report that the band, not sure if we're told their name, play so quietly in the club it's difficult to tell for a while that they are actually meant to be playing. And perhaps they're miming. It's really not clear. 

That's George Mallaby there I think on the left about to quiz Peta about her... I can't remember. I wasn't terribly engaged with this whole thing, to be frank with you. 

Then I watched another one where a girl gets murdered in the first two minutes and I'm just like... nah. So I put in the codes to persuade my newish tv that I actually do have a Stan account, an iView account and an SBS catch up or whatever it's called account, and still none of them had anything to watch. THERE IS NOTHING. Oh, wait, there's Phoenix.