Australian TV Plays: My Three Angels (19 Dec 1962)

Based on a popular play, the acting debut of Murray Rose and Anna Volska. Gordon Chater appeared in the cast as well - his first Australian TV play.

Premise

On Christmas Eve in French Guiana in the year 1910, Felix and Emillie Ducotel struggle to maintain a small shop and the arrival of Felix's unpleasant cousin, Henri. Felix is a hopeless businessman and a dreamer. They have a daughter, Marie-Louise who is engaged to a man called Paul, Henri's son.

Three convicts repair the roof of the Ducotel's shop. They decide that, as a Christmas gift to the family, they will set everyone's problems to rights.

Marie Louise hears that Paul is going to marry someone else and is distraught. The convicts decide to arrange for Henri to be killed by a snake, and forge a will leaving all his money to Paul. The "execution" takes place. However Paul is revealed to be as bad as Henri, so they arrange for Paul to be killed as well.

A lieutenant arrives on the island who seems taken with Marie Louise. The convicts vow to help unite them instead.

Cast

Gordon Chater as convict
Murray Rose as convict
Richard Davies as convict
Laurie Lange as Felix Ducotel
Nancye Stewart as Emilie Ducotel
Owen Weingott as Henri
Anna Volska as Marie-Louise Ducote
Edmund Pegge as Paul
Olive Walter
Scott Tyler
Bowen Llewellyn

Original play

It was based on a 1953 play by Samuel (1899-1971) and Bella Spewack (1899-1990). This was a Broadway hit, directed by Jose Ferrer and starring Walter Slezak. It ran for 344 performances.

That play in turn was based on the 1952 French play La Cuisine Des Anges by Albert Husson (1912-78).

A link to a copy of the play is here (you have to borrow it).

My thoughts on the play - it was quite fun. I liked the black humour and that they killed two people who both deserved it. You can imagine this being very enjoyable to watch with the right actors as convicts and villains.

Being set in a penal colony this would seem to be a natural to be adapted to Australia, but they didn't.

Other adaptations

The play toured Australia with JC Williamsons in 1955. Not many plays that toured via Williamsons - the head of commercial theatre in Australia - were filmed by the ABC. Presumably this was considered too commercial or it may have been too expensive. But some were (eg Lady in Danger).

The play was turned into a 1955 Hollywood film We're No Angels with a dream cast: Humphrey Bogart, Aldo Ray, Peter Ustinov, Basil Rathbone. (This was remade in 1989 with Robert de Niro and Sean Penn.)

It was adapted for Australian radio in 1958. It played again on Australian radio in late 1962.

There was not a BBC radio adaptation until 1969. But it was done in July 1962 on British TV by ITV. There was a 1959 American TV version.

Production

It was shot at the ABC studios in Sydney. Alan Burke directed. Noel Robinson did the adaptation.

The show marked the acting debut of swimmer Murray Rose, nationally famous due to his Olympic achievements. Rose had become interested in acting after appearing in a play at college in the US. When back in Australia, a friend told Alan Burke of Rose's interest, and Burke called the swimmer to offer him a role. "He read very well," said Burke. "I was very pleased with him. His looks are ideal for the part. He was the only one of the actors I considered who could get across the gallic charm I was looking for."

(Burke had a soft spot for stunt casting... he put TV personality Tania Halesworth in Merchant of Venice.)

He later said in an interview with Graham Shriley:

I loved using people who were new because the television casting when I first went into it was very much the ‘known’ people. People were playing safe because there were so many imponderables in the new medium everybody, including the directors I’m sure, wanted to make it as good as possible. You didn’t take any risks, so you cast ‘known’ actors....

So one liked to break that nexus but to do it with some confidence that the person you’re going to pop in at the deep end is going to deliver and that was always a wee bit of a risk... [He talked about Halesworth]

The other one notably that comes to mind was My Three Angels and I’d cast Gordon Chater, Dickie Davies and there was a third, the romantic one I couldn’t cast, it’s always the tricky bit. And I was listening to radio one night and Norman May on the sports programme was interviewing Murray Rose and he asked Murray ‘well now that you’ve finished University’, which he had at that stage, ‘what are your plans, what are you going to do’? And Murray spoke of several things, he said ‘I would like very much to investigate being an actor’ because he’d done quite a lot at the University. And that was just an interview and I thought ‘hello’.

So I rang Nugget and said ‘was Murray for real’ and Nugget said ‘I don’t know, you’d better talk to him director’. So he gave me Murray’s number and I rang and Murray rang me back and I told him the situation that I had this youngish part that I wanted to cast and thought he would be very suitable visually and I wondered would he mind coming in and giving me a bit of a read. And he did and he was charming and he read beautifully and so I said ‘right, I think I’d like you to play this’. And he said ‘alright, one question’ and I said ‘yes’. He said ‘is it because I’m Murray Rose’? I said ‘nope, otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered auditioning you’. He took that as it was and he again gave a lovely performance. He worked for me later in other things but that was a bit of a risk as you can imagine. Golden boy hot from the pool.

Rose said the emphasis was different to the film version.

It was also the TV debut of Anna Volska, who was then 18. She had only just graduated from NIDA.

It was the first Australian TV play from Gordon Chater who was from England and had established himself in Australian theatre and revue. He would become nationally famous in The Mavis Bramston Show. (He had acted in British TV plays).

Chater wrote in his memoirs that he had met Volska in a production of The Cherry Orchard at the Old Tote and said with her "I met my match in the giggling stakes... We both tended to be uncontrollable and diagraced ourselves later in a TV studio where something sparked us off, enraging the director which made us both worse. Well, it's better to have been sacked than never to have laughed at all. We were reinstated." It is likely this production was My Three Angels.

(Must check if Chater and Volska acted with Burke again.)

It went for 75 minutes.

During the lead up to the play there was controversy over the TV series Jonah - the actors' union wanted pay rises, ATN-7 did not want to pay, the government did not support the union. This set back the cause of Australian drama a number of years until Homicide ensured its success.

Reception

The Sydney Morning Herald called it "moderately successful" because it did not manage to treat the material "so whimsically and delicately that its rather dubious morality remains in the realm of fantasy." However he did think that "on its own rather obvious terms it [the production] was efficient enough." The critic added that Murray Rose was "amiable and decorative and obviously did everything the producer had told him to do; but it would be overcharitable to suggest that he did it with any conviction or distinction."

The Sun Herald said Rose's performance was "neat, workmanlike and competent" adding that Gordon Chater "was superb."

The Age called it "a mediocrity".

Paul O'Loughlin called it "good" (below).

At the Vincent Committee Doris Fitton called it "very well done" see here

Also from Fitton "In regard to our television productions can you put your finger on the spot where the Australian production breaks down?

-I think they need more skilful directors. I have not acted on television and have appeared only in inter-views so I do not speak from the actresses' point of view, but I have heard from people in television that the technical side of television is not up to standard and that frequently lighting is bad and there are mistakes made, which of course always pulls an actor's performance down. An actor needs everything behind him technically to assist his performance." She argued directors needed to be imported from the BBC
Where ar"