The following script is an episode of Homicide that was seemingly never produced and certainly never aired. The title bears no resemblance to any of the extant episodes of Homicide, and it is not included in Don Storey's list of Homicide episodes (although Peter Schreck's unaired episode 'Covet Thy Neighbour', which was pulled from the schedule by the network's request, is included in Storey's list).
The script held in the Crawford Collection in the AFI Research Collection contains the following character notes (excluding regular characters):
'PETER OSCAR COUTURE: 33 years old. Attractive in a weak sort of way. Sexually impotent. Through the years he's built up a strong hatred for women. Brought on by having found out that his mother was a Nude Model, and dancer as a young woman. That to him made her a whore. Over the years his mind becomes warped. He begins to kill. He reads about Lawson heading the investigations. Feels it would be fun to play Cat and Mouse with the Police. But he soon tires of this and wants to be caught. That's the only way he'll stop killing. Loves wearing womens' underwear.
'SERGEANT FRED THOMSON: 45 years old. Homely looking man. The type of Policeman you'd expect to find working in a small town. Friendly, knows and does his job well. Married with two sons.
'SUSAN LESLEY CROMER: 32 years old. Also known as 'Claudine' Manager of a Massage Parlour [sic]. Married with one child. She's a high class Pro. Who leans towards blackmail. Very attractive. Good figure.
'YOUNG WOMAN 20. Quite pretty. Good figure. Loves to swim naked in the sea. Even in winter.
'POLICE CONSTABLES: 4. In Uniform. 3 in Civvies.'
Homicide
( dir. Bruce Ross-Smith
et. al. )agent
Melbourne
:
Crawford Productions
,
1964-1975
Z1813076
1964
series - publisher
film/TV
crime
detective
Running for twelve years and a total of 510 episodes, Homicide was a seminal Australian police-procedural program, set in the homicide squad of the Victoria Police. According to Don Storey in his Classic Australian Television, it represented a turning point for Australian television, prompting the development of local productions over the purchase of relatively inexpensive American dramas. Indeed, Storey quotes Hector Crawford as saying that his production company intended three outcomes from Homicide: demonstrating that it was possible to make a high-quality local drama series, counteracting criticism of local performers, and showing that Australian audiences would watch Australian-made dramas.
As Moran notes in his Guide to Australian TV Series, the program adopted a narrative structure focusing on crime, detection, and capture, rather than on character studies of the lead detectives. The early episodes were produced by a small crew (Storey notes that the crew was frequently limited to four people: cameraman, grip, director, and assistant director), requiring some degree of ingenuity to achieve a polished result (including, in some cases, the actors performing their own stunts). However, the program received extensive support from the Victoria Police (who recognised, in its positive portrayal of police officers, a valuable public-relations exercise) and, as its popularity grew, from the public.
The program's cast changed extensively over its twelve years on the air, though it remained focused on a small group of male detectives, with the inclusion of irregular characters such as Policewoman Helen Hopgood (played by Derani Scarr), written on an as-required basis to reflect the involvement of women in the police force. In Moran's words, 'The other star of Homicide was the location film work. These ordinary, everyday familiar urban locations were what gave the series a gritty realism and familiarised audiences with the shock of recognition at seeing themselves and their milieus on air'.
