AustLit

The script held in the Crawford Collection in the AFI Research Collection contains the following character notes (excluding regular characters):

'JAMES COCHRANE ALIAS WHEELER ALIAS FINLAYSON Adept fighter, about 35. He is English - a man with wit and determination - who is basically ruthless and a megalomaniac. If he had been willing to work, he could have been a successful actor, writer, salesman or diplomat. But he has disdain for ordinary drudgery - so he has become a super-con man, prowling the world for easy money. He has a neat but very distinctive beard.

'JANE COCHRANE Age 55 - 60. James Cochrane's mother. A quiet, well spoken, well-to-do Englishwoman - of the genteel middle-class. A likeable, warm personality.

'SYBIL COCHRANE 30 - 35. James Cochrane's wife. She is a young woman of character and strong feeling - which she controls. She is English, and in appearance more distinctive than actually pretty. Like Jane, she is well spoken.

'PAM GIBSON Age about 20. Australian. She is pretty, dresses well, basically a very nice girl, and in spite of her affair with Cochrane quite naive and inexperienced. Above all she is genuine, and her reactions are intelligent - though not sophisticated.

'NIGEL HARCOURT Age 30-50. He is English. A lean, saturnine, 'interesting' looking man - piercing gaze, suitable to a spiritualist - which is what Harcourt is.

'INSPECTOR RICHARD BRYCE Age 40-50. Scotland Yard. English or Scottish. He should look and act best English police type - quiet, efficient, etc.

'KEVIN POITIER Age 30-45. Australian. A private investigator. At a glance - tough - but under it he is fairly human and understanding.

'GORDY WEBB Age 30-45. A Scotsman with an asthmatic wheeze. Pathetic rather than menacing.

'LENICE CHARLWOOD Age 25-35. Career woman. Bright out-going personality.

'PETER WESTON Age 30-50. Australian, who has become anglicised in dress only.

'DOUG MARSHALL

'ELAINE COX Age 19-25. Australian. Attractive likeable girl - who is an amateur actress, but not way out.

'RECEPTIONIST Smooth; English accent.

'ASIAN COUPLE (EXTRAS)'.

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'.

'IT was inevitable that Roy Smith would meet a man like Bill Taylor in a place like Yellow Joe’s. Roy kept telling himself what a "dive" the place was, but somehow he was drawn to it. Despite the revulsion he felt, one night he agreed when Bill Taylor asked if he would join him for a drink. The story he heard from this derelict of a man made him feel almost ill, yet he was fascinated. Could this story have any connection with the black rages he flew into at home — a happy home till unaccountably he would lapse into a black temper over some trivial thing, and almost strike his wife.'

Source: 'For Next Week', ABC Weekly, 24 March 1951, p.13.