Homicide 

The cases and crimes actioned by the Victoria (Australia) homicide squad, with many cases based of true events.

Stars:

Leonard Teale, George Mallaby, John Fegan

10 wins.

Cast

Complete series cast summary:
Leonard Teale	...	Det. Sgt. David Mackay / ... 361 episodes, 1965-1976
George Mallaby	...	Det. Peter Barnes / ... 268 episodes, 1966-1973
John Fegan	...	Insp. Jack Connolly 206 episodes, 1964-1970
Alwyn Kurts	...	Insp. Colin Fox / ... 185 episodes, 1968-1973

Storyline

The cases and crimes actioned by the Victoria (Australia) homicide squad, with many cases based of true events.

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Plot Keywords:

australia | melbourne australia | one word series title | police | 

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Genres:

Action | Crime | Drama

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Did You Know?

Trivia

After making the pilot episode, it took the best part of a year for Hector Crawford to sell the programme - a Nine Network executive rejected it because he thought the opposition would kill it with a 'Cowboys and Indians' show. The stations were not interested in local drama production, and it was only Hector's unrelenting persistence that caused HSV-7 to finally shut him up and purchase 13 episodes of the show. Seven probably thought it would fail, and they certainly never dreamed that it would become such a huge success.

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Connections

Referenced in Patrick: On-set Interview with Richard Franklin (1978)

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Soundtracks

Victory
(uncredited)
Performed by The New Concert Orchestra
Composed by James Reichardt
[theme]

User Reviews

One of Australia's earliest and best television series

This was one of my very first recollections of an Australian television series. It was a police drama involving elegant dressed detectives, stationed in the city headquarters,investigating serious crimes (mainly murders), which is probably where it gets the name "HOMICIDE". The first pilot to the series was debut before I was born back in 1964, hence I cannot comment on what I haven't seen. I recall later episodes and when I heard the opening score (being a well composed classic) at a much later age, it rang a bell to when I was probably four or five years old. Firstly, it was made on a shoe string budget and I later discovered that most of the actors also played their own stunts. It has a blend of great Australian actors and most of them would later be noticed on other Australian television.

What made this television series special in my humble opinion, is recalling that most of the episodes that I saw were all urban based, being something very very rare for Australian television, as most of Australian television is always based on the outback, unfairly giving an international image of Australians as only rural in nature (hoping not to offend anyone here). This is one feature of Australian television that really annoys me, and the portraying of a one sided image of Australian life does not do Australian culture much justice, especially, ignoring the fact that there are also skyscrapers and densely populated cities. The series "HOMICIDE" did try to fill in this Australian picture. By the same token, anyone who enjoyed this series would also enjoy the rural counterpart "MATLOCK POLICE", being in my humble opinion the rural equivalent of 'HOMICIDE" - and also amongst Australia's very best television. This would have to be amongst Australia's earliest and sadly the very best of Australian television series.

Details

Country:

Australia

Language:

English

Release Date:

20 October 1964 (Australia)

Filming Locations:

HSV-7 Studios, 22-66 Dorcas Street, South Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Company Credits

Production Co:

Crawford Productions, 7 Network

Technical Specs

Runtime:

50 min (509 episodes)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White (1964-1971) Color (1972-)

Aspect Ratio:

4:3