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

'Against Bluey's advice, Gary takes on an undercover assignment with the drug squad.

'Gary's one-time modelling career brought him into contact with a model named Sandra Gibson. Now she appears to be very much involved in a shipment of heroin.

'It's Gary's job to make use of their previous friendship to find out how and when the shipment is to be made. He poses as a buyer from Sydney, after a good supply of drugs. But his job becomes increasingly difficult when he realises the girl has fallen in love with him.'

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):

'SANDRA GIBSON: About 25. Beautiful and intelligent, a one time model - now hooked on drugs. All her money is tied up an a [sic] drug shipment. If it falls through, she fears she'll end up on the streets hussling [sic] for drug money.

'LARRY DAVIS: Mid 30's. One of Sandra's partners in the drug shipment. Davis is a tall, and good looking. Dresses well. But underneath the suave exterior he is venomous. (DRIVES)

'GEORGE PALMER: Around 40. The main money man in the drug shipment. Seems an average type of business man, but Palmer sees drugs as an easy way to make money. Leaves the final decisions to Davis.

'INSPECTOR FRANK LORD: 50's. O.I.C. of the Drug Squad. Lord is a tough, honest, hard-working cop. He and Bluey are on a first name basis only when it suits him. Plays the game straight down the line and leaves the deviations to his underlings.

'JOHN CLANCY: Mid 30's. Only a small time crim, but very handy to have around. His thinking is all done for him. If he's told to keep his mouth shut, there's no way in the world you'll get it open.

'UNIFORM COP #1: Seen one you've seen 'em all.

'UNIFORM COP #2: No lines (DRIVES)

'HEAVY #1: No lines. (DRIVES TRUCK)

'HEAVY #2: No lines.

'HEAVY #3: No lines. (DRIVES LAUNCH)

'HEAVY #4: No lines.

'INFORMER: Small time junkie, no great importance. (NO LINES)'.

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 AFIRC Research Collection)
      Extent: 55p.
      (Manuscript) assertion
      Note/s:
      • The Crawford Collection holds two copies of this script, one held in this file and one filed separately.
      • The script is typed on thin white paper, and labelled 'Code 11536' and 'Episode No. 25' on the cover page, although it aired as episode 24. There is no indication on the cover page of to whom this copy of the script is designated.
      • The script is amended throughout with with liquid paper, which has then been typed over. The amendments are relatively infrequent and limited to relatively minor corrections at a copy-editing level, such as correcting typing mistakes.
      • The file also includes six pages of amendments, in the form of three separate two-page documents. The last two pages are adjustments to two scenes (or, alternatively, two new scenes to be inserted): no indication is given as to on whose authority these changes are being made. The first two documents are both memos signed by Denise Morgan, despite the fact that Tom Hegarty is given as the script editor for this episode. The first memo covers one long (one-and-a-half pages) scene that is replacing the extant scene 69. The second memo is a series of changes, ranging from the alteration of a single word to the addition of sixteen lines of dialogue in a scene.

      Holdings

      Held at: AFI Research Collection
      Local Id: SC BLU : 24
      Note:
      AFI Research Collection record
    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Crawford Productions ; Seven Network , 1977 .
      Extent: 46min. 3 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: 24
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Last amended 17 Apr 2013 12:33:51
Gary Conway
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