Australian
Screen

Clip description

Jason Moran (Les Hill) celebrates the failure of the police to find evidence to convict him for a series of assaults, with family and friends including father Lewis (Kevin Harrington) and brother Mark (Callan Mulvey). At the bash, associate Mick Gatto (Simon Westaway) offers Lewis some unwelcome words of advice. Meanwhile, Roberta Stevens (Kat Stewart) walks into the life of Carl Williams (Gyton Grantley) for the first time. Policewoman Jacqui James (Caroline Craig) narrates.

Curator’s notes

In this scene from episode three, written by Felicity Packard and directed by Geoff Bennett, the exchange between Hill and Gatto underscores the series’ early tension between 'old-fashioned’ codes of criminal behaviour and new criminal activities.

Editing and staging help set up the relationship between Roberta and Carl. Editor Peter Carrodus includes a fleeting shot that emphasises their positions outside the inner circle before the two have spoken to each other. After Roberta says 'Excuse me, ladies’, a brief shot from behind her shows Carl across the heads of those at the central table, who ignore them both. Music also introduces Roberta before she appears on screen: a change in the score announces a playful shift in tone.

Roberta and Carl are played for comedy in this episode. Grantley’s Carl seems bumbling and harmless. And Stewart’s Roberta is Kim (from Kath and Kim) meets Lady Macbeth. They’re entertaining performances that bring energy to the screen and both were rewarded with AFI Awards. The joke lies not just in the action but in the knowledge with hindsight that Carl was to become a notorious and powerful underworld figure. This is the storyline at the heart of the series.