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

'The Assistant Commissioner treats Bluey to a movie ... but it's no comedy. It is news footage, a series of quick shots show a beautiful girl, a left-wing rebel in the new state of Ketua. Shots of James Conder, a mercenary, and adviser to the Government, who captures and interrogates the girl. Shots of her tortured body found an hour later. And now this hired killer, Conder, is here, somewhere in Melbourne!

'It is most probably [sic] Conder is on the run and the last thing Foreign Affairs, Immigration, ASIO, and State authorities want is Conder to be executed in reprisal while he is in Australia.

'Bluey, as usual, gets the dirty job. He has to find Conder and keep him alive long enough to get him out of the country.

'When two further illegal visitors, Henri and Jules, appear hot on the trail of Conder, Bluey realises he is running out of time fast. He calls on his undercover man, Truscott, but even with Truscott's help Bluey cannot prevent Henri and Jules getting the upper hand in the race to Conder.

'Gary, Bluey's assistant, has a far more personal and urgent reason to find this "wild goose" (as mercenaries are known), for Gary's girlfriend, Jo, is missing and it's possible the disappearance is somehow connected with the chase.

'Bluey finds himself fighting a foreign Government, a multi-national and other forces he can't even identify. The odds look just too great - even for Bluey and Department B.'

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):

'JAMES CONDER: 30's, English-born, tall, formidable, charismatic. He's been a mercenary for fifteen years and is now the storm-centre of an international outcry over atrocities in a Melanesian civil war. Outwardly, he enjoys the role.

'HENRI: 30's, French colonial, deeply tanned, soldier-like. A lot of charm, but underneath it all, a fairly cold fish.

'JULES: Very much the same mould as Henri. Drives.

'SKATEBOARD KID: About 15, lanky, long-haired, smart as paint and a regular skateboard wiz.

'SOUTH MELBOURNE SGT: A solid, competent policeman.

'NEWSMAN: American, professional, incisive, unemotional.

'ANDREE DELONGES: An attractive 20-year-old French colonial guerilla. We see her only briefly, never hear her speak, but her presence dominates the story.

'TWO DRINKERS: A couple of the local lads who can handle themselves in a fight -- usually.

'POLICE CONSTABLE #1: Young, straight, competent. Clobbered by Conder.

'1ST BARMAN: Normal country barman.

'2ND BARMAN: " " ".

'3RD BARMAN: " " ".

'IDENTIKIT BLOKE: Good-natured, professional.

'FARM BOY: About 10, smart, clean-cut, country kid.

'FARM WOMAN: About 30. His mother. Attractive, believeable as a widow running a farm.

'COUNTRY BAR PATRONS: Three.

'FRENCH COLONIAL TROOPS: Two.

'DIVVY VAN POLICE: Two.

'THE VOICE OF VKC'.

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 typed on thin white paper, labelled on the cover page 'Code 11510' and 'Episode No. Ten', although it was produced as episode 9. There is no indication on the cover page of to whom this copy of the script was designated.
      • The script is amended throughout with liquid paper, but the amendments appear to be relatively minor and at the level of copy-editing (for example, correcting errors in typing).
      • There is some evidence of annotation in blue ink at some point: see, for example, page 41, where the accent in 'Santé' has been added in blue ink.
      • Pages 15 – 36 inclusive and 46 – 52 inclusive appear to have been typed on a different machine.

      Holdings

      Held at: AFI Research Collection
      Local Id: SC BLU : 9
    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Crawford Productions , 1976 .
      Extent: 46 min. 22 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: 9
Last amended 4 Apr 2013 15:53:13
Settings:
  • Melanesia, Western Pacific, Pacific Region,
  • Melbourne, Victoria,
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