The directors from the American Golden Age of Television featured a number of made the leap successfully to features: John Frankenheimer, Arthur Penn, Sidney Lumet, Robert Aldrich, George Roy Hill, Delbert Mann, etc.
In Australia, barely any. Which is in part why Australian TV plays are so little known.
It's just surprising that when the film industry revived in the 1970s and 1980s that there weren't more people from Australian TV drama.
Some did make the jump:
* Ken Hannam - a director who came on in the 1960s, his credits included The Recruiting Officer. Like so many of his colleagues he emigrated to Britain and had success in TV. The British film industry went into a slump in the 1970s. But Hannam kept trying to make features and struck gold with his first: Sunday Too Far Away, one of the greatest Australian films of all time. Certainly it had a superb script. But... it was a troublesome shoot. Producer Gil Brearley wanted the running time down - I think with good reason (it's not a plot heavy movie). Hannam sulked - he was prone to doing this, he may have been a depressive. He whinged publicity "his" editor didn't fight more, which was completely unfair.
Nonetheless the success of the film meant Hannam could direct some more features: Break of Day and Summerfield. They are well directed. I really like Summerfield especially. But Hannam whinged again. You don't need that from a director. (The script was flawed but the flaws were, to me, easily fixed... Hannam wasn't able to recognise what needed to be done, which happens and to me means you can't whinge). Dawn! was also flawed, with a central bad piece of miscasting. These three flops ended Hannam's feature career but got him a chapter in The Last New Wave. He kept busy in British TV and got the chance to direct the poor feature/mini series Robbery Under Arms. Sam Neill, who was in that, said Hannam was the better director to Don Crombie (true) but that Hannam wasn't enthusiastic.
Yet, he still made a classic of Australian cinema, which is pretty cool.
*Henri Safran - a Frenchman who wound up in Australia and had great success working at the ABC. He directed some key Australian TV drama, then went to England. Like Hannam he returned to make features and again like Hannam had great luck first time out at the SAFC, in his case with Storm Boy. Like Hannam, he could never top it, though he tried - Listen to the Lion, Norman and Rose, Bush Christmas. Like Hannam, there was always television.
Let's look at who else
* Alan Burke -one of the leading Sydney TV directors, had a strong theatre background and that's where his heart seemed to lie. Did a hell of a lot at the ABC. Probably an ABC lifer who never had the inclination to go an hustle the way you did to get up a feature. I wonder if he ever came close. Seems a shame he couldn't have at least produced.
*Christopher Muir - hugely busy TV director for many years. Of theatre background. Only one feature film credit to my knowledge - Libido, on which he was credited as a producer.(His wife at the time starred in the film). This for me indicates some desire to make movies but it never happened.
*Ray Menmuir - very successful in the early days of Australian TV he moved to England and had a lot of success there too notably with The Professionals. Maybe if the British film industry had been bigger in the 1970s he would have done more features, but... none. Not one. No inclination? No desire?
*Oscar Whitbread - lots of TV in the 1960s and even more over the next two decade, as a producer and director. Indeed, he was one of the most important people in the history of Australian TV drama. Not one feature. He probably couldn't be bothered and you know something? He was probably right.
*William Sterling - one of the key early directors in Australian TV, he moved to England where he was successful on TV. He tried to make features and got up one - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. And that was it. He tried to get up movies in Australia, whinged about the ones that were made, His credits cut out after 1972. What the hell happened? Sterling actually did champion local stories in the early 60s when that was hard.
*Bill Bain - successful director of Australian, then British TV - he won an Emmy for Upstairs and Downstairs. He directed a film, the terrible Amicus movie Whatever Happened to Jack and Jill? He tried to make ones here but like Sterling had no luck. Died very young at age 52.
*David Cahill - a very good TV director his one feature was a feature version of You Can't See Round Corners which may have hurt his chances to make any more. May have been considered too old/unfashionable by the time the 70s came around for features. Or maybe he was more interested in TV and theatre.
*Colin Dean - king of historical miniseres. His TV credits seem to stop after 1964. What happened? He didn't die until 2007. I think he became an exec.
*Royston Morley - a renaissance man, someone only in the country briefly, it seems fitting that Morley only directed the one feature, Attempt to Kill (1961). Morley strikes me as one of those upper class toffs who are actually good at everything and try everything and do a little spying for MI5 on the side. A real character.
*Rod Kinnear - Mr Television, he did a lot of drama in the early sixties but also worked a lot in variety. No features.
*James Upshaw - like Rod Kinnear, a lot of TV, drama as well as variety. No features.
*Patrick Barton - imported from England to help direct TV in Melbourne (were there no Australians?), Barton seemed particularly allergic to Australian stories. I'm not sure what happened to him but have been unable to find feature film credits.
*Brian Faull - lots of TV. No features.
*Storry Walton - a very nice man, did a lot of important directing in the 1960s but then moved into a more executive role including a crucial part in the establishment of AFTRS. No features.
*Tom Jeffries, who did some late 1960s directing for ABC TV did a fair few features, including one classic (The Odd Angry Shot) and got a chapter in The Avacado Plantation.
*Eric Taylor - a very experienced producer and director, maybe more a producer. Became an ABC lifer.
*James Davern - did a little directing but really more a writer-producer, and also head of ABC drama. Made a fortune, deservedly, with A Country Practice. His company dabbled a little in features but Davern was more comfortable in TV.
So... what happened?
Maybe they didn't want to make features? I doubt it. In the 1970s making films was very sexy. And directors have more control in features - producers and writers rule television. I think Jim Davern never really wanted to direct - he was a writer. So he was in TV. But the others I'm less sure about. They did some writing but they weren't really writers.
Maybe there weren't opportunities? The British film industry struggled in the 70s and 80s unless it was horror or sex comedies; if a director didn't want to do one of them, they would find it hard. By the late 70s producers seemed to look for advertising people more than TV drama. However there were lots of opportunities in Australia. None, interestingly, seemed to go for America.
Maybe it was snobbery. Ageism. They were considered too old. Could have happened.
Also, maybe the directors got too comfortable. They were established in TV and back then you could work at the ABC for life. Why leave? You could tell stories, work consistently. You didn't have to go out and beg for money and suck up to stars. The work was varied and rich. Being senior helped rather than hindered.
I could totally be wrong about this.
But it is quite remarkable that so many of our leading TV directors either never directed a feature film or only directed one.
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