form y separately published work icon End of the Line single work   film/TV   crime  
Issue Details: First known date: 1976... 1976 End of the Line
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Fear! Terror, stark and real - and it's always there! There when you lie sleepless at two in the morning. There when day finally breaks. There when you try to force down lunch. There when you are alone at sunset, waiting. Fear! The legitimate fear that the man you love could die - ripped apart by a felon's bullet. And he could die today!

'Jo, Detective Gary Dawson's girlfriend, lives with such a horror. She loves Gary. She wants him. To be a complete person, she needs him. But Bluey wants him as a cop ... and cops die - ripped apart by felons' bullets. Bluey and Jo are on a collision course - and something's got to give.

'If Jo could only find some reason to hate him! Anything! Something she could use to break the bond ... any excuse to get out from under this fear ...

'And then Gary arrives home late ... he's been drinking ... there's lipstick. Is this the chance she has been waiting for? Is this what she really wants?

'Bluey is the only one she can turn to for help. But what help will he be? He wants Gary to remain a cop. And if Bluey wants something he does not fight fair.

'Maybe if she gave Gary just one more chance ... if she overlooked this one lapse ... perhaps Gary's explanation was true - maybe there was nothing in it ...

'And as she worries, Gary cannot help her. He is being held by criminals. He is facing that felon's bullet.'

Source: Synopsis held in the Crawford Collection in the AFI Research Collection (RMIT).


The script held in the Crawford Collection in the AFI Research Collection contains the following character notes (excluding regular characters):

'GREG HOLT: 18-19 Apprentice mechanic for an interstate trucking company. Working class background with a giant sized chip on his shoulder -- though he probably couldn't say why.

'SHARON HOLT: Late teens, early twenties. Greg's older sister. Works as a radio operator with the trucking company.

'GEORGIE DANIELS: Early twenties. The only law worth worrying about as far as Georgie's concerned is the law of the jungle.

'JACK MACMILLAN: Fifties. Owner/Manager of Ajax Hauliers. Good boss and a nice bloke into the bargain.

'ARTHUR FERRIS: Fifties. Homicide Inspector. Old acquaintance of Bluey's and Monica's.

'LENNIE: Late teens. Member of the gang. Completely dominated by Georgie.

'SEMI DRIVER (JIMMY): Killed in teaser. (SHOULD BE ABLE TO DRIVE ARTICULATED VEHICLE.)

'EXTRAS: Bar 3

'CAB DRIVER: (Actual)

'POLICE CAR DRIVER:

'V.O. # 1 - BERNIE: V.O. Only

'V.O. # 2 - HARRY: V.O. Only.'

Notes

  • This entry has been compiled from archival research in the Crawford Collection (AFI Research Collection), undertaken by Dr Catriona Mills under the auspices of the 2012 AFI Research Collection (AFIRC) Research Fellowship.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Crawford Productions , 1976 .
      Extent: 46 min. 8 secs (according to the script)p.
      Series: form y separately published work icon Bluey Robert Caswell , Vince Moran , Everett de Roche , James Wulf Simmonds , Tom Hegarty , Gwenda Marsh , Colin Eggleston , David Stevens , Peter A. Kinloch , Keith Thompson , Gregory Scott , Peter Schreck , Denise Morgan , Monte Miller , Ian Jones , John Drew , David William Boutland , Jock Blair , Melbourne : Crawford Productions Seven Network , 1976 Z1815063 1976 series - publisher film/TV crime detective

      According to Moran, in his Guide to Australian Television Series, Bluey (and its Sydney-based rival, King's Men) 'constituted an attempt to revive the police genre after the cancellations of Homicide, Division 4 and Matlock Police'.

      Don Storey, in his Classic Australian Television, summarises the program as follows:

      Bluey is a maverick cop who breaks every stereotype image. He drinks, smokes and eats to excess, and therefore is rather large, but it is his unusual investigative methods that set him apart. He has bent or broken every rule in the book at some stage, to the point where no-one else wants to work with him. But he gets results, and is therefore too valuable to lose, so the powers-that-be banish him to the basement of Russell Street Police Headquarters where he is set up in his own department, a strategem that keeps him out of the way of other cops.

      Moran adds that 'Grills, Diedrich and Nicholson turned in solid performances in the series and the different episodes were generally well paced, providing engaging and satisfying entertainment.'

      The program sold well overseas, especially in the United Kingdom. But though it rated well domestically, it was not the success that the Seven Network had hoped for, and was cancelled after 39 episodes.

      Bluey had an unexpected revival in the early 1990s when selections from the video footage (over-dubbed with a new vocal track) were presented during the second series of the ABC comedy The Late Show as the fictional police procedural Bargearse. (The Late Show had given ABC gold-rush drama Rush the same treatment in series one.)

             Number in series: 11
      1976 .
      person or book cover
      Script cover page (Crawford Collection at the AFI Research Collection)
      Extent: 57p.
      (Manuscript) assertion
      Note/s:
      • The script is labelled 'Code 11504' and 'Episode No. Twelve' on the cover page, although it was produced as episode 11.
      • This is an original script, typed on thin white paper and amended throughout in liquid paper. In some rare instances, amendments have been made by placing white stickers over the text to be changed: this seems to have been for reasons of speed, because the white-sticker alterations are no more extensive than the liquid-paper ones, and some of the liquid-paper alterations in the latter half of the script show blurred type over liquid paper that had not dried sufficiently.
      • Amendments appear to be relatively minor adjustments (see, for example, page 1, where 'EPISODE TITLE' has been adjusted to 'EPISODE TITLE AND WRITERS' CREDIT') and copy-editing level changes.
      • The character notes and pages 1 to 7 inclusive have been typed on a different machine from the rest of the script.

      Holdings

      Held at: AFI Research Collection
      Local Id: SC BLU : 11
      Note:
      AFI Research Collection record
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Last amended 4 Apr 2013 15:42:08
Graeme Arthur
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