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form y separately published work icon Speak to Me Only single work   film/TV   crime  
Issue Details: First known date: 1976... 1976 Speak to Me Only
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Not many crims hold out against Bluey's style of interrogation. Muley has. For three endless days. Bluey, and everybody else at Russell Street, counts it as one of his rare failures.

'Now there's a robbery planned in the district where Bluey was born and raised - his patch. And Bluey, needing very little provocation, gets his second chance to crack Muley. This time he's determined to succeed, no matter how many rules he has to break.

'Gary feels that Bluey's obsession with Muley may be affecting his judgement. He follows a different course to Bluey and comes up with a different conclusion. Who is right?'

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):

'"MULEY" (THOMAS JOHN PRICE): Drives. Late forties. Tough crim, came up the hard way. Some brains. Has a hidden weak streak.

'PORGY BEAUMONT: Early thirties. Smart, hard, handsome, ambitious crim.

'ALSIE THOMAS: Early twenties. Smart, hard, cheap-pretty, ambitious crim's girl.

'SAMMY PARSONS: Early fifties. Cunning little card dealer type, courteous and cowardly.

'BARBRA PRICE [sic]: Thirtyish. Nice looking, not real bright, needs loving.

'NIPPER REED: Fortyish. One of Muley's boys. Ex-jockey.

'REX HARRIS: Fortyish. Another of Muley's boys. Tall, tough, but not such a bad bloke for a crim.

'DAVE BROWN: Mid-thirties. Stolid. Inspires faith. The man closest to Muley.

'YOUNG BARMAN (ALBERT): Late twenties. Dark, silent type. Interesting to women.

'UNIFORMED SENIOR: Fortyish. Friendly natured, fatherly sort of bloke.

'NIGHT SISTER: Mid-twenties. Friendly. (Couple of lines.)

'MATRON: Fifty. Unfriendly. No lines.

'OLD WOMAN: No lines.

'OLD MAN DRINKING: No lines.

'MYSTERY GUNMAN: Stunt driver.

'MAN PEDESTRIAN: No lines.

'WOMAN PEDESTRIAN: No lines.

'UNIFORMED CONSTABLE:

'UNIFORMED CONSTABLE EXTRAS (4)

'BAR EXTRAS.'

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

    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Crawford Productions , 1976 .
      Extent: 46 min. 50 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: 13
      1976 .
      person or book cover
      Script cover page (Crawford Collection at the AFI Research Collection)
      Extent: 65p.
      (Manuscript) assertion
      Note/s:
      • The script is typed on thin white paper, and labelled 'Code 11517' and 'Episode No. Fifteen' on the cover page, although it was produced as episode 13.
      • This is the original script, amended throughout (including the cover page) with liquid paper, which has then been typed over. The amendments are at the level of copy-editing rather than changes to dialogue and stage directions. On page 13, the break for the second commercial has been deleted and inserted on page 19 instead.
      • There is no indication of to whom this copy of the script is designated.
      • The script has been typed on at least three different machines.

      Holdings

      Held at: AFI Research Collection
      Local Id: SC BLU : 13
      Note:
      AFI Research Collection record
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Last amended 4 Apr 2013 15:49:22
Graeme Arthur
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