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

'Stowaways come in all shapes and sizes. The one that ends up with Bluey is 12 years old, dark-skinned and can't speak a word of English.

'Nevertheless, Bluey agrees to help Rapata find his father - despite a profound lack of interest in the kid. Or so he claims to Monica. But Monica is not fooled. And neither, once he gets to [sic] his over-weight and loud friend, is Rapata.

'Gary has problems of his own. In trying to get a lead on the illegal immigrant trade, he strikes up an acquaintance with a character called Seaboots. Seaboots turns out to be even more than Gary bargained for.'

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):

'RAPATA: A 12 year old Rarotongan boy, coffee coloured skin, and huge brown eyes. Tough, resourceful. At home in the islands, with his own people, Rapata would be a cheerful little larrikan. The moment he mixes with white people he becomes very shy. Bluey is one of the few people to break through this shyness.

'SEABOOTS: A big girl who's been hanging round the docks - or rather the sailors - all her life. Knows it all, seen it all, done it all. And she's only about 23. Been in court more times than you've had hot dinners. Love her.

'PETERSON: First mate on the "Manu Wai". Probably Scandinavian. A reasonably efficient ship's officer who knows that he'll never be more than reasonably efficient. More formal than nasty. 30-ish.

'CANNIBAL: A hulking able seaman on the "Manu Wai". The original dumb ox. Any age, but best if he's mid-20's.

'DAVID ANDREWS: The religious equivalent of Peterson. As a young missionary he had all the zeal you could wish, but has turned into a rather sour and greasy failure.

'TED JACKSON: Ordinary lad, late teens or early 20's. Probably lives in North Fitzroy or South Melbourne. Salt of the (Australian) earth.

'CAPTAIN: Of the "Manu Wai". Middle-aged, cheerful, weather beaten man. Been sailing round the islands all his life. Should be played by Trevor Howard in a good mood.

'CONNOR: If he'd only been in the police force, he'd have been Bluey's rival. Mid-40's, doesn't stand on any kind of ceremony. As anxious to do his job (in Immigration) as Bluey is to do his.

'RAYMOND: Known to his (?) intimates as "Rosie". Just this side of being a drag queen. Knows nearly as much about the docks (and the sailors) as Seaboots.

'SEAMAN #1: Just that. Handy with his fists. Regards the waterfront as his territory and doesn't like intruders.

'SEAMAN #2: Like Seaman #1.

'WHARF PC #1: An older copper. Good bloke.

'WHARF PC #1: Early 20's, a good copper. In a few years time he'll be the same man as PC #1.

'MAVIS: The original heart-of-gold barmaid. An old intimate of Bluey's, and close to his age.

'WIREMU: Rapata's father. Rarotongan, 35. Should be a biggish man.

'WORKMAN: A forestry worker with Wiremu. Angle-Saxon.

'DOCKS GATEMAN: Just that.'

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: 63p.
      (Manuscript) assertion
      Note/s:
      • The script is typed on thin white paper, labelled 'Code 11518' and 'Episode No. Sixteen' on the cover page. There is no indication on the cover page of to whom this copy of the script is designated.
      • The script is amended throughout with liquid paper that has then been typed over. As with other Bluey scripts, the amendments are at a copy-editing level: for example, on page 1, the stage direction 'PERHAPS THE SOUND OF A SMALL PART COMING FROM ONE OF THE SHIPS' has been corrected to 'PERHAPS THE SOUND OF A SMALL PARTY COMING FROM ONE OF THE SHIPS'. There are some adjustments to the stage directions on page 9, but it is more a rearrangement of material than adding any extra material.
      • Some of the content in the script (see, for example, pages 10 – 11) is marked with the pattern of brackets down the margin that indicates tentative content.
      • The script has been typed on at least two different machines.
      • The script includes background notes on the Cook Islands, details on the dialect of Maori spoken there, and a glossary of the basic Maori dialect terms used in the script.

      Holdings

      Held at: AFI Research Collection
      Local Id: SC BLU : 19
      Note:
      AFI Research Collection record
    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Crawford Productions ; David Stevens , 1977 .
      Extent: 47 min. 45 secs (according to the cover page)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: 19
VIEW PUBLICATION DETAILS FOR ALL VERSIONS ()
Last amended 29 May 2013 11:05:22
Gary Conway
Subjects:
  • Rarotonga, Southern Cook Islands,
    c
    Cook Islands,
    c
    South Pacific, Pacific Region,
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