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Clip description
John Dingwall has just died and Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton speak warmly of his long career.
Curator’s notes
John Dingwall has died far too early in his distinguished career which began as a journalist doing the rounds of the police courts where he honed his writing skills. He worked for years with Crawford Productions and won the 1970 Writers Guild Award for his 'Johnny Reb’ episode of the long running police drama series Homicide. His first feature screenplay Sunday Too Far Away (1974) was directed by Ken Hannam and selected for the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes and was one of the first Australian new wave films to receive international distribution. In 1983 he wrote the AFI award-winning screenplay for the comic adventure Buddies. Margaret and David recall the story of John Dingwall advertising that he’d refund the ticket price of anyone who went to see Buddies who didn’t enjoy it. They felt that was the measure of a man whose passion was the resurgence of the Australian film industry. And both agreed that Buddies was indeed a great Australian comedy.
