A Pat Flower/Henri Safran combination. Very groovy direction.
Premise
Harvey Monroe is married to the beautiful Rosa who constantly cheats on him. He does not want to divorce her because he wants her money so he decides to murder her.
He accidentally kills their maid, Lucy, with some explosive flowers. He also kills Joe, the Gardener.
Harvey winds up killing himself.
Cast
- Alexander Hay as Harvey Monroe
- Irene Sims as Rosa Monroe
- Willie Fennell (Rosa's father)
- Reg Cannon (Joe, the gardener)
- Tom Oliver as Mr Carruthers
- Rob Inglis (Mr Henderson)
- John Gregg
- Janie Stewart (Lucy, the maid)
Production
It was produced and directed by Henri Safran, who had collaborated a number of times with writer Pat Flower. It was the last thing he made before heading over to work in Europe for a number of years.
Pat Flower wrote Easy Terms and The Lace Counter for theatre. They were recommended to the ABC's Australian Playhouse. Flower wrote them this play in a weekend.
It was shot on location in Sydney and at the ABC Gore Hill Studios.
During filming armed guards were needed to watch a scene involvined $70,000 work of jewels.
Photography - Bill Grimmond. Camera operator - Frank Parnell. Sound - John Heath. Film editor - Arthur Southgate. Music composed and conducted by - Sven Libaek. Producer/director - Henri Safran.
Reception
The Sydney Morning Herald said there was "originality in the presentation of the play... and for that reason it can be counted among the more interesting" of the series, saying "the conception of combining a technique reminiscent of the old silent films with that of contemporary television production was cleverly contrived.... This story, banal and completely improbable in itself, was acceptable owing to the slick production in the hands of Henri Safran. some effective photography and not least Miss Flower's constructive ability."
Another critic from the same paper praised Flower for "her clever bit of something-out-of-nothing" but most of all Safran "for easily the year's most inventive production work. With a tongue-in-cheek combination of stills and action, he made this lightweight piece into a halfhour comedy gem."
The Canberra Times praised the "taut writing... and fast and furious directing... Using The Avengers technique of whirling cameras, flash backs, stills and exotic means of destruction such as perfume containers loaded with a poison dart and exploding chrysanthemums, the play certainly made the grade in technique. The ABC obviously let its head go with this one 011 sets, scenery and props."
The Woman's Weekly disliked it, calling it "a shocker".
The Age said "the theme is amusingly clever" and praised the direction.
The same paper at the end of the year called it "a witty bit of nonsense" adding it was one of the best TV plays of the year"
It sold to the BBC.
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| Canberra Times29 July 1966 p 11 |
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| Canberra Times 1 Aug 1966 p 15 |
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| The Age TV Guide 28 July 1966 p 1 |
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| Canberra Times 9 Aug 1966 p 11 |
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| AWW 17 Aug 1966 p 15 |
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| The Age 6 Aug 1966 p 23 |
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| The Age TV Guide 29 Dec 1966 p 2 |
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| The Bulletin 3 Dec 1966 p 46 |
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| SMH 1 Aug 1966 TV Guide |
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| SMH 7 Aug 1966 p 81 |
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| SMH 2 Aug 1966 p 11 |
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| The Age TV Guide 26 July 1966 |
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| TV Times Qld 23 Nov 1966 p 1 |
Forgotten Australian TV Plays: Done Away With
by Stephen Vagg
May 19, 2021
Stephen Vagg’s series on forgotten Australian TV plays looks at what could best be described as “new wave black comedy”: 1966’s Done Away With, directed by Henri (Storm Boy) Safran.
One doesn’t traditionally associate 1960s Australian television with funky visuals. And for the early part of that decade that was a correct assumption… directors concentrated on just shooting the story, which heaven knows is hard enough to get right.
But as the sixties went on, skirts went up, hair went down, and things became more experimental. Australian directors would have been familiar with the exciting developments of the French New Wave, and the British New Wave, and the Italian New Wave, and American New Wave, and… everywhere they had cinema, there seemed to be a new wave, except in Australia because we made so few features.
However, some of these techniques dribbled through to Australian TV plays, most notably with Done Away With. This was a 1966 episode of the Australian Playhouse anthology TV series about which I have written before. It was made by the team of writer Pat Flower and director Henri Safran, who had previously collaborated on The Tape Recorder. The premise feels like the sort of tale that had been done countless times before, even on Australian television – namely, a man (Alexander Hay) tries to murder his wealthy adulterous wife (Irene Sims).
But Done Away With is different. Firstly, it’s a black comedy, where Hay finds himself accidentally killing off other people – the gardener, maid, etc – instead of his wife. Secondly, it was entirely shot on film – the first Australian TV play to achieve this honour (I think). Thirdly, the handling is unconventional. Flower-Safran tell their story via a whole grab bag of new wave techniques: narration rather than dialogue, asides to camera, zooms, funky music, freeze frames, whip pans, absurdism, dream sequences, stills, animated credits. It’s as if Richard Lester ran loose at Gore Hill. Although based on an original Australian script by a local writer, I think it’s set in Britain, or at least Dial M for Murder-land: everyone talks in posh accents, there’s references to “cook”, the men wear top hats.
It’s all very swinging sixties and has remarkable energy. Safran left for Europe shortly after making this and the play feels directed by someone who’s gone “stuff it, I’m going to go crazy”. It’s quite sexy – Irene Sims and Alexander Hay have a decent sex life (when things are going well) with plenty of touching and neck kissing, she sleeps around with several other men (one of them played by Tom Oliver of Neighbours fame), Irene Sims performs one scene in a bubble bath and another in lingerie. To be honest, she’s probably too good looking for Hay: he gives a fine performance (he was best known as a theatre actor and was coming off an acclaimed turn in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf), there’s just a hotness imbalance.
Comedies about wanting to murder your wife tend not to age particularly well but Done Away With still demands some attention for its irreverence and experimentation, particularly visually. It was a complete, entertaining surprise.
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| NAA APH 2 |
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