person or book cover
Script cover page (Crawford Collection at the AFI Research Collection)
form y separately published work icon The Hydra single work   film/TV   crime  
Issue Details: First known date: 1976... 1976 The Hydra
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'A strange mixture of characters leads Bluey and Department B on the puzzling mystery of tracing "The Hydra". Who or what is The Hydra?

'The young, defenceless sister of a stripper, who is a good friend of Bluey's, is in great danger. Someone or something is lurking in the mire of sleazy night clubs, waiting, watching, ready to pounce.

'Bluey and his team enter the bizarre world of would-be religious fanaticism, blackmail, female impersonators and the lost world of the soup kitchen. The clues have been given by The Hydra - but are they real clues or ones to throw the police off the track?

'Which ever is the case Bluey is working against time to reveal the true identity or identities of the Hydra - a beast with seven heads.'

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


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

'RANDY KNIGHT: Also known as Angela; Randy Knight is a stage name. In her early twenties, Randy is a stripper in a sleazy nightclub in Fitzroy Street. But don't judge the book by its cover. She's a battler, loved by everyone, raising and looking after a handicapped sister. She takes her job very seriously, and her audience of winos and local derelicts never fail to go away a little richer for the experience of seeing her on-stage. She should be blonde. She should be a dancer, and she should behave with a lovable, Marilyn Monroe style innocence.

'FELICITY: Randy's younger (16) sister. She is deaf and dumb. She goes to a special school by day, and is babysat in the evenings while Randy is working. A bewitching, sloe-eyed creature, who seems the essence of childlike purity ... a fawn. She communicates with Randy through a simple sign language, and seems to have great admiration for her big sister. Felicity often seems to behave at the mental age of about eight years, and we are never to know if she is 'backward'. On special occasions, however, we feel that she is way ahead of us. No spoken dialogue.

'GAY GORDO: A very convincing female impersonator who works with Randy at the strip joint. A junkie. A seamstress. Camps it up even when off-stage. Bit of a creep. Personally, I don't like him very much.

'BENNY ALLMAN (Allen Easter): Stand-up comic at same strip joint. Delivers with a vaguely Dave Allen style, but never seems to get many laughs from the audience of pervs. A very short, very fat, very depressing man, who might best be described as the 'beast' in this beauty and the beast story.

'STELLA HEDLEY: Stella manages this same strip joint. The Ethel Merman type. Loud. Showbiz. Gets on well with Bluey. Will bear a resemblance to one description of "The Hydra".

'MRS. McCORMACK: Felicity's babysitter. Ocker. Smokes always. Bluey will say to her "Mrs. McCormack, I wouldn't let you babysit my dog." She also could be "The Hydra".

'HARRY SILVERMAN: Although it defies genetic believability, Silverman is the father of Angela and Felicity. Brain addled with turps, Harry hasn't quite been himself since about five or six years ago when he walked out on his two lovely daughters. He has been a merchant marine, but mainly he's into drinking. Such a bloody mug we should feel sorry for him. He looks a lot like the men who make up Randy's audience.

'JUD: Jud is a man who brings a little sunshine into your life just by walking into the room. He's a Salvo, knows the skid row scene, gets along with Bluey.

'CLERIC: Runs small city chapel. Long hairs, bearded. Could actually be Jesus.

'DRUNK:

'DERELICT EXTRAS: Club audience.'

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

      1976 .
      person or book cover
      Script cover page (Crawford Collection at the AFI Research Collection)
      Extent: 66p.
      (Manuscript) assertion
      Note/s:
      • The script is labelled on the cover page 'Code 11531' and 'Episode No. 30', though it was produced as episode 28. According to a notation in the upper right-hand corner of the cover page, this copy of the script was designated for 'Box File'. Unlike most other Bluey scripts in the collection, this is not an original script: it is a copy printed on yellow paper.
      • There are no annotations on this copy of the script.
      • The file includes a cast list for the episode, access to which is restricted.

      Holdings

      Held at: AFI Research Collection
      Local Id: SC BLU : 28
    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Crawford Productions , 1977 .
      Extent: 47 min. 43 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: 28
Last amended 4 Apr 2013 15:52:08
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