Bodgie (film)

Bodgie
Directed by Raymond Menmuir
Written by Alan Seymour
Based on Wide Boy by Rex Rienits
Starring John Ewart
Distributed by ABC
Release dates
 12 August 1959 (Sydney) (live)
27 August 1959 (Melbourne)
Running time
 60 mins
Country Australia
Language English

Bodgie is an Australian television movie, or rather a live television play with filmed sequences, which aired on ABC during 1959. Originally broadcast on 12 August 1959 in Sydney on ABN-2, a kinescope recording was made of the program and shown in Melbourne on ABV-2 on 2 September 1959.

At the time, most live plays broadcast on Australian television were simply performances of overseas plays. Bodgie represents an early example of depicting Australia in the context of a television drama, along with soap opera Autumn Affair (1958–1959), hospital series Emergency (1959), and a few other live plays. (It was an adaptation of a British story, but relocated to Australia.)

It is not known if the kinescope recording of the broadcast is still extant or not.

Plot

Kenny lives in Kings Cross with his ex-convict father, who becomes a "bodgie". Kenny has a girlfriend (Lola Brooks) and is forced into blackmail of a politician (Nigel Lovell). He tries to protect a woman (Thelma Scott) and murder results.

Cast

Production

The story was written by Rex Rienits and previously filmed in Britain as the film Wide Boy (1952). It was adapted for Australian TV by Alan Seymour, who relocated it to Australia.[1]

It starred John Ewart and was produced by Ray Menmuir, who had previously collaborated for the ABC in Murder Story.[2]

While mainly a live drama, it also featured exterior scenes shot in King's Cross and North Sydney.[3]

Reception

The critic for the Sydney Morning Herald wrote that:

The thoroughly professional qualities of Rex Rienits' writing in his play Bodgie were fairly satisfactoriliy matched in production and acting... Mr Rienits has said very little that is new in his neatly tailored but conventional plot about the eroding effects of crime and its spurious glamour on a weak character, or about the relative moral positions of the blacamailer and his victims - around whom the play revolves. But then his aim, justifiably, is not sociological comment but entertainment. Not that social comment was entirely missing. John Ewart as the "bodgie" at least showed how the mind of a lay about turned involuntary murdered, works, although the part gave him little opportunity to reveal why it gets that way. This was a well-observed performance in which Ewart gave a convincing air to the egg-shell thin toughness covering a profound insecurity, and the desperate hysterical bravado used as a cloak for cowardice. This may not have been the picture of a typical "bodgie" but it was a good portrait of a scared, lonely, weak - and as a result of this, criminal - young man. With its use of filmed Sydney backgrounds, and some carefully designed studio sets, Ray Menmuir's production added some refreshing authenticity to the tensions generated by the author's clever writing and Alan Seymour's adaptation... [support cast]] acted adequately, but without much imagination.[4]

The critic from the Sun Herald called it:

A neat and imaginative little drama of the more seamy side of King's Cross life.... some sympathetic acting from John Ewart... Douglas Kelly... and Lola Brooks... Not quite so convincing in secondary roles were Nigel Lovel... and Thelma Scott... The play suffered slightly from rather obvious differences in quality between the prefilmed exterior scenes and those done live from the studio. But all in all it was a worthwhile effort.[5]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Bodgies in Drama", Sydney Morning Herald, 10 August 1959 p 13
  2. ↑ "I'd Have Watched It", Sydney Morning Herald 8 August 1959 p 19
  3. ↑ "The Age - Google News Archive Search". news.google.com. Retrieved 2014-03-13.
  4. ↑ J.M., "Rex Rienits' "Bodgie" Telecast", Sydney Morning Herald, 13 August 1959 p 10
  5. ↑ Valda Marshall, Sun Herald, 16 August 1959 p 98

External links

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