AustLit logo

AustLit

image of person or book cover 1169678499567475170.jpg
CBC Program Schedule, 22 April 1945, p.5
Della Foss Pascoe Della Foss Pascoe i(A151512 works by) (a.k.a. Della Foss Pain)
Born: Established:
c
Canada,
c
Americas,
;
Gender: Female
Arrived in Australia: 1945
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

BiographyHistory

Script-writer for Crawford Productions.

As Della Foss Pain, she wrote for Winnipeg radio when she was based in Edmonton, Canada: in particular, her scripts were produced by Esse Ljungh, Prairie Region drama producer. After marrying an RAAF man, she left Canada for permanent residency in Australia in 1945, where she continued to write for radio and, later, television.

Sources include CBC Program Schedule, 22 April 1945, p.5; 'Salute to Canada', ABC Weekly, 29 June 1946, p.40.

Most Referenced Works

Awards for Works

form y separately published work icon Homicide ( dir. Bruce Ross-Smith et. al. )agent Melbourne : Crawford Productions , 1964-1975 Z1813076 1964 series - publisher film/TV crime detective

Running for twelve years and a total of 510 episodes, Homicide was a seminal Australian police-procedural program, set in the homicide squad of the Victoria Police. According to Don Storey in his Classic Australian Television, it represented a turning point for Australian television, prompting the development of local productions over the purchase of relatively inexpensive American dramas. Indeed, Storey quotes Hector Crawford as saying that his production company intended three outcomes from Homicide: demonstrating that it was possible to make a high-quality local drama series, counteracting criticism of local performers, and showing that Australian audiences would watch Australian-made dramas.

As Moran notes in his Guide to Australian TV Series, the program adopted a narrative structure focusing on crime, detection, and capture, rather than on character studies of the lead detectives. The early episodes were produced by a small crew (Storey notes that the crew was frequently limited to four people: cameraman, grip, director, and assistant director), requiring some degree of ingenuity to achieve a polished result (including, in some cases, the actors performing their own stunts). However, the program received extensive support from the Victoria Police (who recognised, in its positive portrayal of police officers, a valuable public-relations exercise) and, as its popularity grew, from the public.

The program's cast changed extensively over its twelve years on the air, though it remained focused on a small group of male detectives, with the inclusion of irregular characters such as Policewoman Helen Hopgood (played by Derani Scarr), written on an as-required basis to reflect the involvement of women in the police force. In Moran's words, 'The other star of Homicide was the location film work. These ordinary, everyday familiar urban locations were what gave the series a gritty realism and familiarised audiences with the shock of recognition at seeing themselves and their milieus on air'.

1973 winner Logie Awards Best Australian Drama
1970 winner Logie Awards Best Australian Drama
1969 winner Logie Awards Best Drama
1968 winner Logie Awards Best Drama
1967 winner Logie Awards Best Drama
1966 winner Logie Awards Best Drama
1965 winner Logie Awards Best Australian TV Drama Series
Last amended 26 May 2020 11:39:04
Other mentions of "" in AustLit:
    X