Australian
Screen

Clip description

Max Pearson (Terry McDermott) and Dr Liz Sinclair (Margaret Cruikshank) attempt to distract Colonel Jim Emerson (Carl Bleazby) from his concern over the imminent birth of his child. Meanwhile Lori Chandler (Elspeth Ballantyne), Fiona Davies (Gerda Nicholson) and Rose Lang (Dorothy Bradley) offer help and advice to Cathy (Anne Pendlebury), David Emerson (Gary Gray) and Auguste Grossark (Kurt Ludescher), who are preparing the nursery for the new baby.

Curator’s notes

About three-quarters of the population of Australia live in urbanised areas, yet there is a strong nostalgia for life in a small community. In this clip we see some of the reasons for this and for Bellbird’s initial appeal to Australian audiences. That small-town solidarity and the sense that everyone pulls together in a crisis is at the very core of Bellbird, and is also reflected in more recent productions like SeaChange (see SeaChange – One of the Gang, 1998).

This is serial television produced at an efficient rate. The sets are basic and the characters and situations can be summed up quickly – caring doctor, anxious father – so new viewers can be quickly drawn into the drama. The second scene has a slightly twee, sitcom feel, with a hapless male struggling with putting up wallpaper to the merriment of his friends. But it provides some effective light relief from the more dramatic goings on at the hospital.

The ’70s iconic fashions – miniskirts, Mary Quant-style shift dresses and matching handbags carried on the wrist – are worth noting. Women wear dresses or skirts; men, a jacket and tie as a matter of course, unless astride a horse or, in this case, papering walls.

Many actors that appeared on Bellbird went on to become household names in other TV shows. Sheila Florance, Lizzie Birdsworth in Prisoner (1979–86), was one of the original cast members of Bellbird. Elspeth Ballantyne later played the only character to appear in all 692 episodes of Prisoner, Wentworth Detention Centre officer Meg Morris.