In its early years in Australia, television programming relied heavily on variety, comedy and drama shows imported from overseas markets. But Australia’s first foray into the police procedural was a game-changer for the domestic television industry. This year marks the 60th anniversary of Homicide.
In October 1964, Australian audiences tuned into the country’s first Australian-made police drama series. Homicide followed the fictional detectives of Victoria Police Headquarters’ homicide squad and the murder cases they set out to solve.
Until then, police procedurals were strictly imported: ABC TV had the British show No Hiding Place (from 1959) and the Nine Network aired US crime drama Dragnet (from 1957). Nobody had attempted to create a primetime Australian-made drama – it was much cheaper to buy an overseas series that was guaranteed to be a hit than pay for an untried local product costing far more.
Then along came Crawford Productions and Homicide, a roaring success that made Australian local drama production a realistic, viable business.
First telecast by HSV7 Melbourne, the series would go on to produce more than 500 episodes, attracting high ratings for the Seven Network. By 1970, nearly three million people were tuning in each week across the nation. It was a multi-award-winning groundbreaker, collecting the Logie for Best Drama a whopping seven times.
The show was later sold internationally to the UK, Canada and parts of Africa. Domestically, it proved a fertile training ground: for its crew and production staff in a nascent industry – and its central cast, who on the back of the show’s success became stars. Most memorable are the detectives featured across its 12-year run – John Fegan, Alwyn Kurts, George Mallaby and Leonard Teale, the longest-serving actor, playing Detective David ‘Mack’ Mackay in 357 episodes. But Academy Award-nominated Jacki Weaver and Australian veteran actor Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell also claim credits.
It was not without its off-screen drama. Despite the early ratings wins, there were considerable financial struggles for Crawford Productions, the company making the series. In the 1970 feature-length documentary The Homicide Story, the company’s managing director Hector Crawford talked candidly about Homicide’s precarious start.
‘We all took risks on those days. This was a risk for Crawford Productions,’ he says in the documentary. ‘Homicide was untried.’
But Crawford Productions was sustained by the series’ success and potential: they understood the legacy they were creating with Homicide and this ensured that the show would have life beyond its cancellation in 1975.
Hector Crawford interviewed in The Homicide Story (1970). Courtesy: WIN Television Network Pty Ltd. NFSA title: 41796
The show has been preserved. The NFSA holds master copies of every episode of Homicide, in addition to publicity and production documentation. These include press releases, scripts, still images, negatives, transparencies, contact sheets and prints, synopses, cast lists, publicity scrapbooks and correspondence. All of these come from the Crawford Productions Documentation Collection transferred to the NFSA’s care when Crawfords’ Box Hill premises closed in 2005.
The highlight: Homicide ‘bibles’ from the Crawfords publicity department. These ring-bound folders are each more than 200 pages in length, detailing in chronological order episode storylines, key cast and crew appearances and interesting productions details, interspersed with relevant publicity and production stills. Three volumes reside in the NFSA collection, covering the first 106 episodes.
Also in the collection are the scriptwriting standards in a six-page set of guidelines authored by Crawfords’ senior script editor Jim Stapleton. Homicide storylines took inspiration from real life events, but key to its success was its adherence to a winning script formula. Crawford Productions offered screenwriters clear guidance on its aims and requirements for maintaining a high standard of engagement, authenticity and character development in its stories, packaged to create a successful production formula for a 7.30 pm timeslot.
This landmark series set a precedent for Australian police dramas. While many have enjoyed success, none have experienced the same enduring appeal, and none have had such a significant cultural impact.
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Main image: the final Homicide detective line up c.1974-75: (l-r) Dennis Grosvenor, Gary Day, Don Barker, Charles Tingwell.
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