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

'The difficulty of keeping a man in Australia until extradition to another country comes through, and in the same breath trying to protect that man's life whilst he remains in Australia, is a battle that Bluey is about to lose.

'Bluey sinks to the lowest depths when he pressurizes a prominent citizen into offering the police a bribe. Or is there some justification for that?

'Exploring the grey area between the legal and illegal in multi-million dollar business places Bluey a little out of his line. And who can you trust if you can't trust the Assistanct [sic] Commissioner for Crime.'

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):

'KENNETH GRANGER Early forties. An ex-Canadian BUT he is tarred with the brush of the British Commonwealth and not an American flavoured accent. An understated upper class, born-to-rule air. Fit. Very definite in his features and movement. Well educated and cultured. And very well off, but not that "new money" air .... and this too is understated. Easily approachable. A most likeable man with the sort of aura that dazzles most people he makes contact with. You're not a stranger long if he decides to charm you. But he's the full political animal. A well concealed cold calculating mind, the cold edge of which will surface on the odd occasions through his witticisms. Cutting. Hard. But he's quickly in control, quick to guard his true feelings ... has a tacticians [sic] flair .... enjoys double guessing his opponents. A determined opportunist who likes to travel first class and is well used to doing so.

'SYLVIA GRANGER Mid-thirties. Jewish but does not look it. Enigmatic. Educated. Disciplined. More well groomed than beautiful. But the same definite line to her features and her movements. Assured but the impression of a vulnerability .... the impression of weakness and strength. But it's only an impression .... A ploy to confuse potential enemies. To underestimate her. She is coldly efficient. And hostile. An elitist who resent people below her standing ... all very cleverly concealed .... and controlled. And it doesn't surface as Granger's inner man does .... until BLUEY unsettles her.

'ADRIAN TUCKER Fifty. The chairman of one of Australia's largest mult-corporations. Impatient. Supercilious. Arrogant. But always aware of his image and he tempers his true nature with the quiet and precise politeness of a figure of his standing. He eats and sleeps big business. And the dollar is more important than anything else in his world.

'SERGEANT JIM MORRISON Late forties. Company squad. An organized man with an organized mind. He likes his job. Doesn't take it too seriously. Enjoys the company of people he suspects might like him. A touch waggish.

'BERT WILKENS Late thirties. A chain smoking, slightly flustered looking A grade journalist who dresses well but always looks untidy .... and suffering the wrath of the grape. A calculating man. Always weighing advantages and disadvantages.

'TUCKER'S RECEPTIONIST Late twenties. Attractive. Well dressed. The super-secretary. Competent. Aggressive. Completely lacking in humour.

'JENNINGS Forty five. Nervous. Thin. Working Class. [sic]

'PRESSMAN #1 A television journalist.

'PRESSMAN #2 Newspaper journalist.

'PRESSMAN #3 Newspaper journalist.

'PRESSMAN #4 Newspaper journalist.

'TWO MAN POLICE LAUNCH CREW.'

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: 62p.
      (Manuscript) assertion
      Note/s:
      • The script is labelled 'Code 11538' and 'Episode No. 34' on the cover page, although it aired as episode 30. Although this is a later copy of the script and not (as with most Bluey scripts) an original, there is still a discrepancy between the labelling of the script and the final production order.
      • The script contains extensive annotations in blue ink, in a single hand, changing, adding to, or deleting dialogue and, in some cases, whole scenes. While this is more extensively annotated than most Bluey scripts, it is more a matter of changing a few words or perhaps a single line, rather than adding whole swathes of dialogue.
      • The Crawford Collection contains three copies of this script, but only one is held in this file: the other two are filed separately.

      Holdings

      Held at: AFI Research Collection
      Local Id: SC BLU : 30
    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Crawford Productions , 1977 .
      Extent: 47 min. 7 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: 30
Last amended 4 Apr 2013 15:39:49
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