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

'Brad Dexter, after twenty years in Hollywood, returns to Australia to make a film. Much to his disgust - and Monica's delight - Bluey is assigned to protect him.

'It soon becomes apparent that Dexter needs protection. Not from his fans, who've grown sparser with the years, but from himself. A long time battle with the bottle has turned into capitulation. The few friends and associates who have remained loyal to him are beginning to realise their star is on the wane.

'But Dexter continues on his erratic path of self-destruction, oblivious to every warning signal.'

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):

'BRAD McGRAW: An Australian actor around 45 with boyish good looks. He's spent the past twenty years in the U.S. Speaks with an American accent. He's been all the way to the top and is more than halfway in the other direction now. He refuses to accept he's no longer a super-star. Deadens the truth with bourbon. (He drives.)

'NORA: McGraw's long-suffering private secretary. She's good-looking and shapely enough to have been a star herself but has been able to get a good living in the administration end of the business. She knows McGraw's just about washed up but hopes he can make a fresh start in his old home town. West coast U.S. accent.

'BELINDA DEMPSEY: Around 30. Pushy female journo from "The Star". About on a par scruple-wise with McGraw.

'BULL MASON: An ex-prize fighter around 50 and still fit. He's devoted to McGraw in the belief that McGraw still cares about him. He speaks with an East coast U.S. accent, The Bronx or Bowery maybe, certainly not Brooklyn.

'BERT STUBBS: Reporter. Australian. About 45. Small, shabby dresser. One scene. (Important dialogue.)

'ARTHUR FERRIS: Homicide detective well known to Bluey and his crew. Typical type. (Quite a bit of dialogue. As previously cast in "End of the Line" - if possible.)

'NEIGHBOUR: Working-class man around 60. He remembers McGraw well, without sympathy.

'POLICE MECHANIC: Two scenes. (Some dialogue.)

'TURNER: Late 50's. Average small businessman type. He shows he's worn badly since his daughter's death.

'BETTS: Middle-aged working man. Two scenes, some dialogue.

'BELLHOP:

'AIR HOSTESS: V.O. Only.

'ANNOUNCER: American. V.O. Only.

'GIRL (HEATHER): Australian. 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

      1976 .
      person or book cover
      Script cover page (from the Crawford Collection at the AFI Research Collection)
      Extent: 68p.
      (Manuscript) assertion
      Note/s:
      • The script is typed on thin white paper, and labelled on the cover page 'Code 11525' and 'Episode No. Eighteen', although it aired as episode seventeen.
      • The script is amended throughout, including on the cover page, with liquid paper, which has then been typed over. The amendments are infrequent and at a copy-editing level (correcting typing errors rather than altering dialogue or stage directions).

      Holdings

      Held at: AFI Research Collection
      Local Id: SC BLU : 17
    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Crawford Productions , 1977 .
      Extent: 47 min., 14 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: 17
Last amended 4 Apr 2013 09:13:43
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