Share
Clip description
Caroline (Caroline Gilmer) tries to hide from the storm with her two small granddaughters Molly (Kate Ritchie) and Meghan (Kendall Monaghan). Meanwhile their mother, Connie Hampton (Tracy Mann), tries desperately to contact boyfriend Tony Baker (Noel Hodda), a navy lieutenant who earlier promised he would find them and bring them to safety.
Curator’s notes
Pre-cyclone Darwin had experienced a rapid housing expansion – and most new houses were not adequately constructed to withstand a cyclone. An enduring image from first-person accounts of the cyclone is that of corrugated iron roofs being torn from houses, re-created at the start of this clip, and the sound of them, en masse, scraping at high speed across the ground.
The storm sequences in Cyclone Tracy effectively and realistically dramatise this chaos. The cacophonous soundtrack drives home the disturbing images of destruction, with howling winds and rain and the sound of shattering glass and houses breaking apart.
Sound is used subtly but effectively in the second half of the clip. The howling winds are muted but still able to be heard inside the naval control room. The unsettling sound undermines the calm and authority of the uniformed men and underscores Baker’s guilt at not looking after Connie’s kids.
Kate Ritchie went on to play a popular, long-running role in the soap opera Home and Away (1988–2008) – her role in Cyclone Tracy was her television debut.
