Based on a French radio play .
Why did they film this? Because it was done by the BBC probably.
I'm not sure if it played in Sydney.
Premise
The two big things in the life of Georges Dupont were pride in being a provincial stationmaster and his hopes of taking his family to spend a holiday in the fashionable resort of Biarritz. But great disappointment comes to the well-meaning Georges, and a tragedy is narrowly averted.
Cast
* Peter O'Shaughnessy as George Dupont
* Moira Carleton
* Neil Fitzpatrick
Original play
The one-act play by Jean Sarment premiered in 1936 in the Comedy Francais.
It appears to have played in England in 1950.
Adaptation
The play had been adapted for Australian radio by the ABC in 1953 and British TV in June 1953 (the BBC), translated by Emanuel Wax. It was done for BBC radio in April 1953.
The play was adapted into a Fernandel movie in France in 1963, The Trip to Biarritz.
Production
Eric McCleery directed it in Melbourne at ABV-2's studios in Ripponlea. I'm not sure it showed in Sydney. McCleery was a staff director there - did Village Glee Club, Kindergarten Playtime, as well as drama like The Right Person. He transferred to talks in 1959 and I think emigrated to Canada in 1961. An obituary is here.
John Cameron in Aunty's Jubilee said there were shenanigans involving champagne. Cameron wrote in his memoirs (full link here)
One of the first plays we produced had a scene in a cocktail lounge. This was considered too adventurous for the times, and the scene was changed to a lunch counter. No-one was allowed to smoke on camera, lest it encourage viewers to take up the deadful habit. No brand names could be shown on bottles or packages, as this was considered to be advertising. In another play a bottle of champagne had to be opened on camera, and the script required the typical champagne explosion when the cork was removed. In rehearsal it was discovered that a gush of bubbles did not necessarily follow the pop of opening, so we tried heating the bottle slightly and achieved the desired result. By the time the show went to air, rehearsal and experiment had used all but one of the half-dozen bottles of the cheapest champagne we could buy for the purpose.
Somehow news of this reached the General Manager, Sir Charles Moses, and he seized on this as an example of television’s extravagant behaviour. General Manager’s letters came on a distinctive yellow paper, known naturally enough as “yellow perils”, and we received one on the subject of our champagne. Sir Charles was horrified that we had used real champagne for the actual production, let alone rehearsals. We should have used our initiative and dummied up a soft-drink bottle to look like champagne. Unless we were much more aware of the need for economy, television would break the bank. Melbourne became known as the champagne station, and for years to come our extravagance was cited by the General Manager as an example of how not to service television. We were so shocked by the folly of his position, that we were too embarrassed to correct him. The time taken to dummy-up a soft-drink bottle to look and act like a bottle of champagne would have cost many times the price of even top quality champagne, and ran the risk of spoiling the production in the live performance.
Moses had battled hard to secure television for the ABC, and his main argument had been that, given the ABC’s radio base, TV would cost little more. His whacker was probably justified by the end, but it made our early TV operations a lot more stormy. We were not helped either by the absence of any link initially between the stations in Sydney and Melbourne. They were two rival operations. My opposite number in Sydney was a longtime ABC employee who had his mind focussed on the day when our stations would be linked, and one of us would have to be declared the boss of our combined empires. To this end, opportunity was taken to bring to management’s attention any differences in our practices with the clear implication that Sydney was the paragon, and Melbourne the prodigal son. Only now does it occur to me that the champagne incident was probably the first shot in that long war.
Some of the differences were farcical. The basic unit of settings in TV, as in the theatre, was the “flat”. Flats were joined together to make the required walls. In theatre they were traditionally canvas-covered wooden frames to keep them light and easy to move. Television, like film, subjected sets to the close scrutiny of the camera, and the tendency of canvas flats to sag and wobble was not acceptable. Accordingly, the wooden frames were covered in plywood before being papered or painted as required. In Melbourne, we sprayed a lacquer base on to the plywood, and then painted or papered it as required. In Sydney, the senior designer was a highly respected theatrical designer, Desmonde Downing. I had worked with her in the theatre, admired her work, liked her as a friend but knew that her dedication could involve a lot of work. She could take an age getting just the right shade of paint or texture. She did not like working on plywood; she was used to canvas, and convinced Jim Hall, my opposite number, that television’s plywood flats should be canvas covered. As flats were often covered in wall-paper, it is hard to credit that anyone could believe that Sydney’s practice was more economical than ours, but Sydney had one big advantage: it was Head Office and they had access to our costs, while we did not have access to theirs. Over the years, we gradually sank under the weight of yellow perils that came like autumn leaves, and we could do no more than assert that our practices seemed logical and wonder how Sydney could be so much more efficient.
As Christmas 1956 approached, our first large studio was completed, and the second large studio was taking shape. We decided that it would be a great place to hold our first Christmas party. For a bar, the workshop made a cut-out champagne bottle about 3 metres high, with beer barrels behind it and the pipes and taps coming out the front. It seemed a good joke, until Tal Duckmanton, then Co-ordinator of Television for Moses, came down from Sydney to show the flag at our party. Fortunately, he took it in good part.
Good relations with him did not last however. He had appointed me, and initially it was “Tal” and John’ in a very informal and amiable relationship. Another of his appointments had been an Englishman as my Senior Designer. The man in question had worked in films in England and was a competent professional. I suspect Tal may have decided to restrict the title of Senior Designer to a single national position probably in Sydney. He wrote to me telling me to change our man’s title to Designer. As our man had been brought out from England as Senior Designer and supervised the work of our other designers, I did not see how I could simply tell him he was now just a designer, and I wrote back to Tal to this effect. The exchange of correspondence which followed grew colder with each letter. “Tal “ and “John” disappeared, and our Senior Designer remained till he terminated his contract some years later. The irony of the situation was that Tal had appointed as our Staging Supervisor an Australian who was a much better designer than our Senior Designer. This factor gave rise to unnecessary tension in our operations for the first few years, and I often wished I had been able to do as Tal had asked.
Our Staging Supervisor, Kevin Lynch, was a man of extraordinary talents. One of his first great achievements was to make the first vacuum-forming machine for Australian television. Kevin had read about a new product, Flovic plastic. This was a plastic sheet which became semi-fluid when heated, and would replicate any form to which it was applied. Kevin reversed the connections on our air-compressor, to convert it to a vacuum tank. He built a battery of infra-red lights, and a frame to hold the sheets of Flovic over a base carrying the mould to be copied. The heated sheet was lowered onto the mould and the air between the mould and the sheet evacuated. The efficiency of the process was such that it was possible to reproduce the engraved lines on a bank note. It was used to produce everything from “brick walls” to army helmets. Such machines are common now, both in television and in industry where they produce standard packaging for biscuits, hardware etc. ABC Melbourne had Australia’s first in TV thanks to Kevin.
I have never known anyone so versatile, though Kevin did have one fault: he could not bear to be the bearer of bad news. If ever I tried to contact him, and could not find him, I started searching for something to be wrong. I knew that somewhere in his kingdom there was something he couldn’t bear to tell me about. It was a tribute to his efficiency that such searches were rare.
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| The Age 16 May 1957 p 24 |
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| The Age 16 May 1957 p 21 |
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| Auntie's Jubilee |
ERIC JOHN MCCLEERY After being diagnosed with cancer only one month ago, Eric passed away on Sunday, July 18, 2004. Born in Melbourne, Australia on the 18th of September, 1926, he is survived by his loving wife of 31 years, Gail Einarson-McCleery O.F., Honorary Consul for Iceland, and by his two sons Andy and Cameron, from his first marriage to Joan (deceased 1971) and four grandchildren, Sean, Lauren, Christopher and Esther. He also leaves Joanne (Cam’s wife) and in Australia his sister Lois, his niece Liana and nephew David, and in Vancouver Gail’s daughter Lesley and her family. Eric was studying to become an aeronautical engineer but as World War II came to a close and the cold war began, he found a career in international broadcasting as a news announcer for Radio Australia. Eric then became a pioneer of Australian television being one of the first three producers at the Australian Broadcasting Commission in Melbourne. He produced and directed documentaries and variety programs for five years, notably live multi camera broadcasts of several plays. Arriving in Canada in 1961 with his first wife and two children, he joined the CBC and produced shows such as ‘Let’s Speak English’, ‘Country Calendar’ and ‘This Land’. At the CBC Eric was again a pioneer, producing CBC’s cutting edge program ‘Analog’, the first business analysis and stock market program of its kind. Eric retired after 25 years of service. Although he was a Canadian citizen for almost forty years, Eric delighted in his Australian heritage and many of the friendships ‘down under ‘ he kept throughout the years. During Eric’s brief illness he received many visits, e-mails and calls from all around the world which cheered him greatly. He enjoyed wonderful memories. The family thanks the staff at St. Joseph’s Health Centre, in particular Dr. Jon Blondal, and the caring staff and volunteers at St. Michael’s Palliative Care Unit.
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