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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 Two Birds single work   film/TV   crime  
Issue Details: First known date: 1976... 1976 Two Birds
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'In Bluey's book, Wally Avery is not a bird of prey. Bluey has known him for years and it just doesn't add up when "Birds" becomes the prime suspect in a murder case. Not only suspected. There are witnesses who swear "Birds" is as guilty as hell.

'Bluey's first job is to get to "Birds" before the Homicide squad and find out what really happened. But "Birds" does nothing to help himself. He's scared and takes flight.

'And when he finally comes home to roost, there is more trouble awaiting 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):

'BRENDAN CUSACK: Detective Sergeant in the Homicide Squad. The antithesis of Bluey. Playing it straight up and down the line he has little time for Bluey's style. He and Bluey actively dislike one another. Humourless and faintly pompous he is the epitome of honesty and a good police officer.

'WALLY AVERY ("BIRDS"): Known as "Birds". He is a weedy, scrawny sparrow - a description which has no relation to his physical size - very much out of his element in the big world of the birds of prey. His career in crime has been spectacularly unsuccessful and he goes to gaol quite happily when caught, which is often. He keeps body and soul together working as a gardener, lawn mower driver, occasional squizzing, a bit of stealing; but only from the rich; he does have his principles. Neither brave nor brainy he's one of life's losers.

'SUE REEVES (NEE AVERY): Bird's younger sister and only relative. She's the one member of the aviary with all the pretty feathers and brains. She's one of Bluey's many one, two or three nightstands, and would be quite happy to join the queue again were it not for her husband, whom we never see.

'KEVIN READ & ALAN PALMER: Two heavies, who don't look like heavies but like senior junior executives. Their menace is in the coldly efficient way they attempt to carry out their orders. They have criminal records and are two of Sir Moray's charges who are beyond redemption, as he wishes them to be.

'SIR MORAY RUISLIP: Late 40's. Industrialist. Philanthropist which brought him his knighthood. He offers employment in his many industrial complexes to ex-criminals and he's had a great deal of success rehabilitating many. But Sir Moray, ex-fighter pilot and subdued robber baron, has his black side which goes well with the dark side of capitalism.

'DETECTIVE JACK FROST: A contemporary of Gary's working on the Homicide Squad with Cusack. Frost is frankly pompous. A straight up and down detective.

'ARTHUR FERRIS: An Inspector.

'GAIL: Private secretary to Sir Moray.

'JOURNALIST:

'POLICEWOMAN JACKSON:

'DETECTIVE #1 & UNIFORM POLICE: At murder scene.

'EXTRAS IN BAR (3):

'DETECTIVE #2: With A.C. in scene 52.

'DESMOND TAYLOR: Body.

'DRIVER FOR A.C.'S CAR'.

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: 72p.
      (Manuscript) assertion
      Note/s:
      • The script is labelled 'Code 11523' and 'Episode No. 26' on the cover page, although it aired as episode 27. Unlike most other Bluey scripts, this is not an original script: it is a copy printed on yellow paper.
      • The script is extensively annotated throughout in blue ink. The annotations are not, as in other Bluey scripts, merely corrections of obvious typing errors: these annotations include swathes of new dialogue and the deletion of old dialogue, all scribbled down the margins and blank spaces. In some cases, it involves the deletion of entire scenes (see pages 7 - 8, for example). In some instances, the annotations involve both extensive changes to the scene and deletion of the whole scene (see, for example, pages 28 - 32 inclusive), so that it is impossible to tell whether the scene will be shot in altered form or simply left out.
      • The annotations all appear to be in a single hand.

      Holdings

      Held at: AFI Research Collection
      Local Id: SC BLU : 27
      Note:
      AFI Research Collection record
    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Crawford Productions ; Seven Network , 1977 .
      Extent: 47 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: 27
VIEW PUBLICATION DETAILS FOR ALL VERSIONS ()
Last amended 9 Jan 2019 16:32:58
George T. Miller
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