Australian TV Plays: June 2022

Australian set play written by Sumner Locke Elliott filmed for US TV in 1949.

Synopsis

Synopsis from here when it was done by ABC radio in 1956 with a top cast - Betty Lucas, Reg Lye. Directed by Paul O'Loughlin.

No one in the little North Queens- land township of Tooraburra knew exactly what had caused the crater that lay some miles out of town An extinct volcano? The locals knew it as a hole, forty feet across, and seemingly bottomless. No Aborigines would go near it; for them it was haunted by an evil spirit. Legend told of an unfaithful gin who had been thrown into the water by an enraged husband, and whose body had turned up weeks later in Lake Barringa, many miles away. It was Herbert Curtis, a respectable town councillor, who took the new schoolteacher, Turner, to see the crater Turner shivered when he gazed down into the foul black depths, and said, half-laughing that it would be an ideal place to dispose of a body. Soon after he was to recall his grim jest.

Bert Turner is the new schoolteacher at the town of Tooraburra. Herb Curtis, the shire councillor and president of the school P and C, tells him about a nearby crater and takes him out to visit it. It makes Turner uneasy and it seems to be bottomless. Curtis brings Turner home for a cup of tea and to meet Curtis' wife Amy. Their marriage is in trouble, due to the loss of their child in an accident some years ago. Also Curtis is having an affair with Tessie Durkin. Town gossip Mrs Button tells Turner that Amy has left to join her sister. However Amy turns up and suspicion begins that Curtis may have killed her. Turner realises he gave Curtis the idea to throw Amy down the crater. Turner confronts Curtis at the crater and Curtis tries to kill him but is overpowered. Curtis kills himself. The body of Amy Curtis is never recovered, but that of a dead missing Aboriginal girl is.

Original radio play

The play was first produced (I think) on ABC radio in January 1949.

It later played in Melbourn in Aug 1949. Then in Oct 1950 where the Age said "it did not replay the 90 minutes of listening). It played in Adelaide in Oct 1951. Then again in April 1956.

A copy of the play is at the Hangar Collection at UQ see here. It's from a Melbourne production - Patricia Kennedy and Brian James starred.

Thoughts on the radio play - good suspense. Crater is spooky. Another play in Queensland - Elliot did Grey Nurse Said Nothing There. Obvs found it nice and creepy. Decent mystery. I was never sure if Curtis did it. Builds to excitement. Unfortunate use of racial slang.

Production

After Wicked is the Vine, Elliot said he had another TV play "The Crater" set in Western Queensland (also rewritten from an old radio play_ that he was going to do after this. (Kraft liked Wicked so much that they bought The Crater and one set in England, Panhallagon's Ball - read this)

Apparently when the NBC story editor read it she said "Honey! It's a honey!". It was optioned by August 1949 see here.

The Crater was filmed in 1949. Apparently aired 9 Aug - that's when the show aired though doesn't list the ep.

About Lights Out : The poor quality of reproduction may be conceded to be a factor in film’s slow start, but more important is the fact that the cost per half-hour was well over $16,000 as compared to $6,000 or less for a half-hour live drama. So NBC decided to go “whole hog” and began in the late summer of 1949 with a series on NBC under the title Lights Out , produced by Fred Coe.4 This series, The Big Story, and the Armstrong Circle Theater series differed from the conventional dramatic series in that they attempted a continuity of mood, theme, or style from production to production, much in the manner of the filmed situation comedies that became a major enter¬ tainment feature of television. They did not, however, fall into that class of comedy, mystery, or Western situation series that maintains the same hero from week to week in a new situation.... 7. This low budget program was based on the popular old radio series and was designed so that Coe could use experimental production techniques for the first time without fear of losing the audience or sponsor reprisals. The purpose of the show according to a publicity release was to do “psy¬ chological, mystery, and supernatural fare using adaptations and originals.” The show was noted in successive seasons for its “first person” technique wherein the camera became the eyes of an unseen central character in the drama. It was also cited for the first utilization of a “split screen” technique; for example, when viewers witnessed simultaneously both sides of a telephone conversation of a frantic wife who is trying to save her husband from the electric chair.

According to one account The Crater was filmed, with authentic Australian atmosphere, a British cast, and a weird music score, replete with frog noises and bird screams.'

It was directed by Kingman T. Moore, adapted by Ethel Frank. Produced by Fred Coe who would give Elliott a lot of work in the 1950s. Was Jan Minor in it - see here. Although another piece says Minor was in a LIghts Out ep called Long Distance see here.

Elliott's biographer says Richard Fraser was is it - see here. If that's the case it could have also starred John Stephen and Inge Adams see here.

Other adaptations

It played on Australian radio in 1949 (frank Harvey directed) and 1956. (The ABC did the 1956 - Paul O'Loughlin directed.)

June 1949 Elliot was reportedly working on another TV play with an Australian setting see here. Not sure what this was. Daisy, Daisy perhaps.