This script is for an episode of Bluey that was seemingly never aired, and may never have been produced, though it did reach the stage of casting. Don Storey makes no mention of this episode, and the title does not match any of the known episodes of Bluey.
The script held in the Crawford Collection in the AFI Research Collection contains the following character notes (excluding regular characters):
'MARION: Marion Hagan is a shapely, good-looking lady in her late twenties. She has a lovely body and has learned to use it to her advantage. Her crime career started with prostitution but as she grew older she discovered she had a knack for planning and organisation. This has resulted in her running her own gang. She hasn't forgotten her years working for a series of bludgers and she likes to remind her men who the boss is now. She drives a car and smokes. Must be able to ride a bicycle.
'McALLISTER: Tall, well-built, around fifty and looks distinguished. He was born rich and has spent his life getting richer. It's all very boring. He's turned to crime to seek some relief from his boredom. He doesn't need the money, doesn't have the neck to take the chances but gets his kicks from helping the crims to set their jobs up and by buying the loot from them. He is the boss in the sense that he employ's [sic] Marion and her gang. He's let it be known that he'll order the death of a crim rather than let him/her leave his employ. He works hard at keeping under cover.
'STEVE: He's big, good-looking and not really bright. He's Marion's chief back-up man and provides the brawn she lacks to go with her brains. He's content to let her do the thinking as long as it's profitable and he also reaps the fringe benefits.
'GREG: A habitual crim who's content to stay with the gang because it pays him to. Must be able to drive. He's short, lean build, around 40.
'DENNY: Thin, wiry, also a habitual crim and a pessimist by nature. He's enjoyed the money he's made working for Marion but the magnitude of the crimes is starting to get to him -- not for moral reasons but for the years in Pentridge they can bring him. He's the weak link in the gang.
'FREEMAN: The manager of the security company. He's an efficient and, to some extent, self-important businessman. His composure suffers from his contact with Bluey.
'TAYLOR: Jack Taylor -- Superintendent. A career cop. Average height and build. Middle-class accent.
'SNOWY: Average lower class Australian, small time crim.
'DRIVER: Late fortie's [sic]. Short haried [sic]. Security guard type.
'GUARD: Around thirty. Younger in years and outlook than the driver.
'ARNIE WEST: Your average knifeman. Small in size and courage.
'NUGGET NOVAK: Short but heavy set crim.
'FORENSIC MAN: Typical police type.
'FROGMAN: Seen only in wet suit with flippers. Should be able to swim.
'PLAIN CLOTHES Ds: Two. Typical types.
'UNIF. POLS: Two. Typical types.'
Bluey
( dir. Graeme Arthur
et. al. )agent
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.)
