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Clip description
Cassie McCallum (Louise Howitt) takes a call from Tooraglen Stud and alerts Peter Ramsay (John Hargreaves) that his help is required there – Maurice Morpeth (Lewis Fitz-Gerald) has allowed the stud’s prize bull Ottoman to escape. His employer Russell Scott (Tim Robertson) stands to lose a lot of money if Ottoman is not found in good condition. Maurice is sent off on his own in disgrace, with Scott pouring scorn on his suggestion of a way to find the animal. However, when Ernie Farrell (Edward Howell) hears Maurice’s idea, he realises that he can use it to his own advantage.
Curator’s notes
Young Ramsay always had relatively small casts, probably for budgetary reasons (it gets expensive moving and accommodating cast and crew). The producers turned this to their advantage, however, by always ensuring that they spent their money on talent of the highest quality. In the two-hander that ends this sequence, we see Lewis Fitz-Gerald (Maurice Morpeth), about 20 at the time and at the beginning of his career, and Edward Howell (Ernie Farrell) who died at the age of 84, only seven years after this was shot. Both show the true actor’s ability to communicate subtext with ease.
Maurice is clearly a fish out of water and Fitz-Gerald conveys his awkwardness, embarrassment and diffidence without mugging, retaining an aura of intelligence and dignity, despite acting like a bungling idiot. In the year this episode went to air, Fitz-Gerald was nominated for an AFI Award for his role in Breaker Morant (1979). Coincidentally, he lost out to Bryan Brown, who was cast in the Breaker Morant role originally earmarked for John Hargreaves (contractual obligations to Crawford Productions precluded Hargreaves from accepting the offer).
Edward Howell, on the other hand, gives a masterclass here in feeding audience anticipation. Without a hint, verbally, at what he has in mind he leaves the audience in no doubt, by the end of the scene, that he can see a very real advantage in following this business up on his own. Audiences like to be a little ahead of the story sometimes; when their guess is proved right it makes for a very satisfying ending and not only for the bull.
I chose this clip mainly because of the scene just discussed, with the rest of the sequence intended to place it in context. Speaking of subtext however, it’s worth noting the kind of information that is provided by set dresser Julie Skate and props master Clark Munroe in the contrasting living conditions of the two graziers. Real locations were searched out and used for these settings but they were always ‘dressed’ to enhance our knowledge of the characters who dwelt within. The Tooraglen homestead is furnished with classic clean lines; expensive but serviceable pieces; paintings on the wall; a big picture window through which the well-run property can be seen. Ernie’s cottage is far more humble, cosy but also insular; a refuge from the encroaching world, decorated with homemade articles and memorabilia and with free picture calendars.
One of the subtler effects of this is to lead the audience to side happily with Ernie. Scott, after all, is clearly much better off than Ernie. That he probably works just as hard and has to face the same harsh conditions is somehow immaterial. He should be pleased enough just to get his expensive bull back, thanks to Ernie’s clever plan to lure Ottoman out of his lair at dusk and paddock him overnight with his breeding cows. If nature has taken its course by morning, well – that’s not the cunning old codger’s fault, is it?
