Forgotten Australian TV Series: Whiplash

by Stephen Vagg

WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are warned that the following article contains images  of deceased persons.

The 1978 Australian film Newsfront features a subplot about Bill Hunter’s brother, played by Gerard Kennedy, coming back from Hollywood determined to make a Western-style TV series in Australia. The show he’s making was clearly based on Whiplash, a series made here in 1959-60 with Peter Graves, that attempted to cash in on the then-huge hunger for small screen Westerns.

With its campy theme song and title, Whiplash has always been a bit of a joke in Australia, an easy target for cultural purists. But watching all 34 episodes more than sixty years later, I was surprised how well it held up.

That could be in part because Whiplash wasn’t a Hollywood show, as is commonly thought, but a British one. It was made by the Independent Television Company (ITC), the company run by the legendary Sir Lew Grade, which was a subsidiary of ATV (Associated Television), a British broadcaster within the commercial ITV network (aka “the only other channel you could get in Britain at the time apart from the BBC”).

ITC would produce its own programs for ATV, often at a loss, but make a profit by selling them internationally, especially into syndication in the USA. They had a lot of success, in particular making action-adventure series like The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Buccaneers and Danger Man; Whiplash was very much in that vein. In the words of BFI Screenonline: Clearly aspiring to the high production values and polished surface sheen of American productions, ITC shows were often set in exotic locations (though rarely straying from the backlot) and were glossily shot on 35mm film, not on 16mm as was then, and indeed is still, the norm in the UK. Even the lead actor was frequently either American or someone acceptable to the US networks, where the programmes were frequently pre-sold.

ATV were quite open to Australian ideas, more so than the establishment BBC – a lot of Aussie expats worked there, including Michael Plant and Michael Noonan, who were both credited with creating Whiplash. Interestingly, Noonan said in later interviews that he actually had very little to do with the series apart from coming up with the title; he claimed the prime creative force behind the project was actually Ralph Smart, a Britisher with numerous links to Australia – he had Australian parents, served here during the war, and helped make British films shot in Australia such as The Overlanders, Bush Christmas and Bitter Springs (he would later emigrate to Australia and spend his final years here). Smart was heavily involved in ITC’s hugely popular Danger Man and his enthusiasm would have carried a lot of weight.

The idea was to do an American-style Western series set in Australia for a bit of novelty. This wasn’t exactly a fresh concept: there had been a number of movies made along this line, some shot in Hollywood (Stingaree, Captain Fury), others actually filmed in Australia (Rangle River, The Kangaroo Kid), but this would be the first series.

Whiplash had the benefit of a true-life inspiration: it was based on the story of Freeman Cobb, an American who set up the famous stage coach line, Cobb and Co in 1853. The storylines would revolve around the various adventures of Cobb (renamed Chris) as he ran his operation in Gold Rush-era Australia. It was a very good concept for a series, incidentally – a smart way to justify an American star, and providing many opportunities for action, romance and adventure.

Noonan had recently created another television series for ATV set in Australia with an American lead: The Flying Doctor, about the adventures of the title character (played by Hollywood actor Richard Denning) in the Australian outback. It ran for 39 episodes and was mostly shot in London, with second unit footage filmed on location in Australia.

However, Whiplash would be shot entirely in Australia, with Artransa Park Film Studios in Sydney (who then mostly made advertisements and corporate films) providing studio facilities. (ITC occasionally made series overseas: New York Confidential was made in the US, and The Forest Rangers in Canada).

As a rough rule of thumb, British Westerns made in Australia (The Overlanders, Robbery Under Arms, Bitter Springs) tended to be more realistic than American ones (The Kangaroo Kid).

However, ITC needed Whiplash to sell to America in order to cover its costs and geared the show for that market especially.

The lead role of Chris Cobb went to Peter Graves, a workman-like actor who had recently starred in another Western series Fury, and who was the brother of James Arness, star of Gunsmoke.

You’ll most likely recognise Graves today from playing Jim Phelps on the original Mission: Impossible TV series – as well as its late 1980s reboot which was shot in Australia. The other semi-regular character was Cobb’s sidekick, Dan Evans, who was played by little-known Australian actor Anthony Wickert, a veteran of the Ensemble Theatre in Sydney.

The original head writer was Don Ingalls, an American screenwriter living in England at the time, hired by Sir Lew Grade to consult on Danger Man. A veteran of Hollywood TV Westerns, ITC then put Ingalls on Whiplash.

I interviewed him over fifteen years ago about a Rod Taylor film he wrote (the TV movie A Matter of Wife… and Death, a pilot for a proposed series spun off from the 1973 film Shamus that was never picked up) and conversation drifted to Whiplash; all the quotes below came from an old email he sent me dated 20 May 2005 (he died in 2014).

Ingalls: I was to function as a writer, re-writer, associate producer; be responsible for all story and script development (hustling for good writers) and coordinate between London, Hollywood and Sydney! All started with high hopes. Maury Geraghty, an American director, was hired on as on-the-site producer. (I think it was his first go at producing.) Directors were to be flown to Australia from England. I was to bounce back and forth from my middle Hollywood locale to both London and Sydney, where a studio of sorts had been established.

I managed to get some very good writers (it took some talking as our budget wasn’t all that great), including Gene Roddenberry (later Star Trek creator), whom I knew personally; Morris L. West, Australian novelist, and very popular at the time; James Clavell, another Aussie as I remember (Ed – he was born in Australia but was really British), who was also establishing himself as a top novelist (later of Shogun fame, among other massive literary works); Harry Julian Fink (he worked for me on Have Gun Will Travel); David Evans, and others. I wrote several episodes as well. So, the scripts were in good shape and shootable, but things began to unravel at the higher echelons.”

In August 1959 Maury Geraghty did a ten-day tour of locations in Australia. Others who came out from England to assist with the production were art director Peter Mullins, his actress wife Jennifer Jayne, production supervisor Ted Holiday and director Peter Maxwell. The idea was for Geraghty and Maxwell to share directing duties on the 39 episodes rather than hiring anyone local to do it (in fairness, Australian directors with TV drama experience were thin on the ground at the time).

Filming started on 7 October 1959 at Artransa Park Studios in French’s Forest, Sydney, with location work at Scone, New South Wales and other locations.

Graves told the Sydney Morning Herald that “Nearly all the American Westerns are shot within 30 miles of Hollywood and a lot of that scenery is becoming mighty familiar to TV viewers. Now this scenery here is refreshing — something entirely new to folks overseas. We’re trying to keep right away from that word ‘Western’ by labelling the series a romantic adventure.”

Production did not proceed smoothly. Crews were inexperienced in making a television series on this scale, and issues were caused by the competing expectations of production partners from three different countries.

Ingalls: “London unexpectedly insisted that the dailies, each day’s shot film, be air-expressed to London for their approval and suggestions, and air-mailed back to Sydney for the recommended revisions!!! This on a three day-shooting schedule! By the time we got the film back, we were already one or two shoots down the road. Trying to get actors back for re-shooting and/or looping, quickly proved impossible.

“The Australian crew, hired locally in Sydney, also proved an insurmountable problem. For instance, if a strike-set was required (a set that is easily and quickly knocked apart and down to make room for the next set’s construction) the carpenters (wooed from the house building developments) insisted on immortalising each set with hundreds of ten inch spikes to hold it together! You couldn’t dynamite one of their sets down! If we remonstrated or tried to explain, they calmly told us what to do with the set, mate!, and huffed back to the house building trade from whence they came.

“Of course, the shooting schedules fell way behind, post-production was a disaster, tempers flared, egos were bruised, the budget went ballistic, as I wept over my well-written scripts that would never be shot.”

In December, Leslie Harris of ATV flew out from London to investigate the situation, by which time only four episodes had been shot. Filming was halted to reassess the situation and in February 1960 it was announced Gergahty was leaving the series (he would be credited on five episodes) to be replaced by Ben Fox as producer; Leslie Harris would replace Ralph Smart as executive producer. John Meredyth Lucas, an experienced television filmmaker, went on to direct the bulk of the episodes with Maxwell. Lucas was American but had several connections to Australia – he had an Australian wife (actress Joan Winfield) and his parents, Wilfred Lucas and Bess Meredyth, had made some films in Australia with Snowy Baker after World War One.

Filming recommenced on 4 March 1960. By this time, the budget of the series had blown out from an original £500,000 to a reported £650,000 (I have also heard a figure of £700,000 mentioned). It was originally planned to film 39 episodes (the standard figure at the time for a show to sell into syndication) but in the end only 34 were made.

In May 1960, it was reported that the unit of 22 actors and crew had left Sydney for Alice Springs to film sequences over ten days including scenes at Ayers Rock, the Macdonnell Ranges and the Ormiston Gorge. By this stage, a reported ten episodes had been shot and the series had sold to ATN Channel 7 in Sydney.  By October 1960, Graves was back in Hollywood on a break, saying the biggest problem on the series had been finding actors. “Those we got were very good but there just wasn’t enough of them.” The Age reported on 21 October 1960, that 27 episodes had been made and seven more were still to be shot. Fox and Lucas were in Melbourne looking for new acting talent; among those they found were Terry McDermott, who later said in an interview with TV Eye that he appeared in three of the last six episodes shot.

Whiplash began screening in England in September 1960, while it was still in production. The campy opening credits can be seen here.

There were some protests over the violence in the series, causing it to be shifted to a later timeslot. However, the series sold to 51 countries and 73 different US markets. Whiplash screened in 1961 in Australia and rated well on ATN-7 in Sydney and GTV-9 in Melbourne. Although ATV decided not to make a second season of Whiplash – the first had clearly been too traumatic – ATN-7 were encouraged to invest in another series shot at Artransa, Jonah (1962), which did less well.

Ingalls told me, “It was fun, the individuals involved were great guys, the intent was honorable. And it makes a great memory. The last time we met, Pete and I, on the set of Fantasy Island which I was producing and writing for, we shared a good laugh about our Australian adventure, but in a loving way! Australia’s movie making industry has come a long way since then!”

Looking back, Whiplash is an entirely adequate Western series, which stands up quite well against similar shows of its era. It does feel overly American and/or silly at times, with its shoot outs and transplanted storylines – but the stories always have twists and turns, narrative drive and strong guest roles, well acted by Australians.

And while the series became an exemplar of the transplanted meat pie Western, there are attempts to represent Australian culture, some more successful than others, particularly the ones from Australian writers like Ralph Peterson and Michael Plant. Each episode had an introductory spiel which would refer to something to touch on in an episode, such as merino wool, convicts, or Australian actors – and even in the most American-esque episodes, someone has at least gone through an encyclopaedia about Australia. By my count, Australian writers were responsible for 14 of the 34 episodes (mostly Plant and Peterson, with one to Morris West), which is a higher proportion than the ABC had with their TV plays in the early 1960s.

Aboriginal people are treated as exotica, but at least they are present. The series gave roles, sometimes quite decent ones, to several Aboriginal actors (albeit all male): Henry Murdock, Johnny Cadell, Robert Tudawali, Pat Wedge (a question for readers: was this the same Pat Wedge who was killed in 1963 by a railway police patrolman at St Peters Train Station in Sydney?) Whiplash gave work to Aboriginal actors more consistently than any other Australian television series of the 1960s.

The character of Chris Cobb isn’t terribly compelling, nor is Graves a particularly interesting actor, but both are totally consistent with the genre, and Graves is always professional. It’s the part of Dan Evans that feels like a missed opportunity. The character has an interesting backstory, but the show never seems sure how to use him, and he’s not super different from Cobb; Wickert does nothing wrong, but Whiplash would have been better off with a regular sidekick, who was more of a contrast to Cobb: Chips Rafferty, say, or Henry Murdock, or a woman.

The Australian guest stars are generally of very high standard (indeed, several play different roles). My own favourites were Robert Tudawali (who has “film star” practically tattooed on his forehead), Grant Taylor (looking a lot heavier than in his Forty Thousand Horsemen days), Chips Rafferty (who got a better shake at Whiplash than he ever did at the ABC), Delia Williams, Annette Andre, Guy Doleman, Stuart Wagstaff (huge fun as a gentleman bushranger), and Margo Lee (gold in everything she does).

It’s not hard to see episodes on YouTube and I’ve cobbled together an episode guide of Whiplash below with my thoughts on each one. I found the listing in the Classic Australian Television website extremely useful and also the one at CTVA. I’m gone off the Sydney air dates, though this was not uniform through Australia and as mentioned, the show aired in England first. The episode order would vary from territory to territory.

Episode 1 (18 Feb 1961) “Act Of Courage” (w: Gerry Day d: Ben Fox) Guy Doleman, who you’ll recognise from films like The Ipcress File and Thunderball, plays a sundowner putting the moves on a widowed mother (Margo Lee), mother to a whiny, bloodthirsty boomer surrogate kid a la Shane/Hondo (Brett Hard). It’s very Western style with Cobb going to give evidence in a trial, “the Stewart brothers” (including Terry McDermott) wanting to stop him, the widowed marm, Doleman singing a song on a guitar. Ric Hutton and Jeanette Craig play a squabbling couple. Gerry Day, who wrote this, was a female writer from Hollywood. The female influence is felt in putting Lee’s character front and centre, and also Doleman’s enigmatic anti hero.

Episode 2 (25 Feb 1961) “Convict Town” (w: Dwight Newton, d: Peter Maxwell) This episode introduced the character of Dan (Anthony Wickert), and shows how he came to work for Cobb. Dan lives in a settlement run by bitter ex-convicts who don’t want to expand. The story feels American but at least it pays note to Australia’s convict past. Crusty old Aussie faces like John Fegan and Ken Goodlet have support roles. (This was one of the Maury Geraghty episodes. It may have been the last one he produced.)

Episode 3 (4 March 1961) “Rider on the Hill” (w: Harry Fink, d: John Meredyth Lucas) This is a really violent episode… in the first few minutes, bushrangers cause a coach to crash, killing an unseen passenger, and Cobb shoots dead two bushrangers. Cobb is then sent a death stick from the “abos”, indicating he’ll die at the next full moon, and he has to figure out who’s got it in for him. This turns into a stagecoach story, with Cobb transporting a group of passengers, one of whom is the killer: a mystery woman (Delia Williams, my favourite actor from this era), an Aboriginal (Johnny Cadell, who was in the 1957 Peter Finch version of Robbery Under Arms), a cop (Ivor Bromley), a prisoner (Eric Reiman) and a swagman (Gordon Glenwright). Despite the violence, this is actually a well-plotted decent story – there’s plenty going on. (Writer Harry Fink later wrote Dirty Harry among many other things.) Its depiction of Aboriginal culture is a little ripe, to put it politely, but at least it is there.

Episode 4 (11 March 1961) “Sarong” (w: Gene Roddenberry, d: John Meredyth Lucas) Decent drama, just geographically weird. Cobb gets involved escorting women across country – they are a multicultural bunch, including one from near Saigon (an Indian), Penang, Samoa and Indonesia. Cobb gets shot and left for dead… the women wind up at a compound run by a despot (Joe McCormick), who uses them for pearl diving. The pearl diving aspect is weird, but in terms of action and twists, this is good and there’s a climax involving sharks, which is fresh. It’s great to see multicultural women, even if they are “me want help you” types. The ending implies Cobb is going to root them all.

Episode 5 (18 March 1961) “The Other Side of the Swan” (w: Michael Plant, d: Peter Maxwell). The (fictitious) Governor of NSW (Ken Fraser) asks Cobb to look for his brother (Nigel Lovell), who is wanted for murder and was last seen in Melbourne. Support roles are played by Margo Lee and Reg Lye. The involvement of an Australian writer was presumably why there is emphasis on the Governor avoiding a scandal. (One of the Geraghty episodes.)

Episode 6 (25 March 1961) “Barbed Wire” (w: Harry Fink, d: Peter Maxwell) The always reliable Grant Taylor is a Western-style baron, who torments a plucky small landholder. Eric Reiman is a henchman of Taylor’s, who engages in a whip duel with Peter Graves – there were also whip duels in Rangle River and Kangaroo; I think Hollywood writers were a bit obsessed with them in meat pie Westerns. The support cast also includes Gerry Duggan, who you’ll recognise from movies like Goldfinger, and Robert Tudawali, who plays a tracker for Taylor. Tudawali’s presence on screen is electric. The final resolution isn’t entirely interesting and the story feels American – it’s a rip-off of Shane, complete with bitter tycoon trying to repel small farmers, a henchman who knows the hero, and a baby boomer surrogate who thinks his father is a coward for not fighting. However, it is entertaining. Cobb kills some more henchmen in this one.

Episode 7 (1 April 1961) “Episode in Bathurst” (w: Gene Roddenberry, d: Peter Maxwell) Three brothers take over Bathurst and run riot. The brothers are Texan, and this feels very American, with outlaws hanging in saloons and it being unconvincingly explained that the constabulary is away. There’s a shootout between Cobb and one brother, which Cobb wins via the help of a nearby boomerang hanging on a wall! And in the final shootout in the main street of town, Cobb uses a whip to smack the gun out of the baddy’s hands, which feels awfully risky for a strategy. (Horsewhips again!) There’s a lot of talk about not needing a gun to be a man, but Cobb solves his problems using weapons (boomerangs, whips). Joe McCormick, an American actor who had moved to Australia, and Richard Meikle make strong villains. Ron Shand from Number 96 plays a publican.

Annette Andre is credited on the episode as “Charlene”, but does not appear.  She told me: “It was my first ep. in the series and I had one scene with Peter where I think I was the ‘hooker’ and we were having a little love scene (in those days it was very tame), but the scene was cut and I found myself in a large photo in one of the newspapers with a headline, “scene cut from series for being too torrid” (I actually still have the newspaper cutting) and “torrid” was in the headline. I was stunned because I was fully dressed, I think simply kissing etc. I was quite proud of that headline, even though I couldn’t remember what we could have done to earn “torrid.” Ho Ho what was going on, I ask myself, I wish I could remember….sounds wonderful!!!”

Episode 8 (8 April 1961) “The Twisted Road” (w: Michael Plant d: Peter Maxwell) Cobb helps transport a doctor’s assistant (Ben Gabriel) to Brisbane (!) on a charge of murder, with his boss (Tom Farley) coming along to prove his innocence. They run into a spoilt woman (Rachel Lloyd). I liked this one – Tom Farley is superb as a beloved doctor, who actually hates his patients, leading to murder. There is a very unconvincing shark-infested river at the end and a brief appearance by the Aboriginal actor Pat Wedge.

Episode 9 (15 April 1961) “Dutchman’s Reef” (w: Gene Roddenberry, d: Peter Maxwell) A matriarch (Queenie Ashton) hires Cobb to find her son (Leonard Teale), who has run off to live with Aboriginals, complete with brown make up. This is silly, but works on its own terms. Robert Tudawali is in this briefly. Teale was asked about the episode for TV Eye magazine and said “most of the time, the people who came out here [for Whiplash] were second-stringers – they wouldn’t leave Hollywood if they weren’t. And that was the terrible part – they could do format, they were practiced at format. The scriptwriters had no idea – that’s why I played a white man who turned into an Aboriginal!”

Episode 10 (22 April 1961) The Actress” (w: Gene Roddenberry, d Peter Maxwell) The opening spiel pays tribute to Australian actors, mentioning their modern-day forebears like Judith Anderson, Merle Oberon (who was actually Indian), Peter Finch, and “the late Errol Flynn”. The plot concerns a troupe of strolling players. Jennifer Jayne, an English actor who was in a lot of ITV shows, is cast in the title role, while Lew Luton is a bushranger. I liked the parallels drawn between bushranging and acting and how at the end, the girl realised that she wanted to be an actor and didn’t go off with the guy. This episode sets up two characters who seem like they’re going to be regulars – a girlfriend of Cobb (Cherie Butlin), and Luton’s character, who goes to work for Cobb at the end – but we never saw them in any other episodes. (One of the Geraghty produced episodes. I think this may have been the second episode made.)

Episode 11 (29 April 1961) “Divide and Conquer” (w: David Evans, d: Peter Maxwell) Cobb helps a man (Harry Dearth) look for a pass through a mountain range and comes across some vicious bushrangers led by Owen Weingott. Noted Aboriginal actor Henry Murdock pops up in this as a black tracker. This is a good episode – it’s an American-ish story, but does feel as though it works in Australia. Excellent work from Weingott and Colin Croft, the latter as a more literate crook.

Episode 12 (6 May 1961) “The Remittance Man” (w: Wells Root and Ron Bishop, d: John Meredyth Lucas) Great fun with Stewart Wagstaff perfect as a gentleman bushranger, Jimmy Quicksilver. This episode was so well received that they brought back the character of Quicksilver in another episode.

Episode 13 (13 May 1961) “Day of the Hunter” (w: Don Ingalls d: John Meredyth Lucas) A real old-style Western tale with Chips Rafferty as a poor but plucky squatter being picked on by a vicious land owner (Max Osbiston). Rachel Lloyd plays the girl. Rafferty’s role is quite small. The third act involves Cobb and his mates going through ancient Aboriginal land, which involves Cobb showing off his skill with a boomerang again. Henry Murdock is in this.

Episode 14 (20 May 1961) “Solid Gold Brigade” (w: Don Ingalls, d Maury Geraghty) The first episode filmed, apparently. It starts with Cobb bodysurfing on the way to a town called Fury Creek when he’s shot and left for dead by a villain, Strickland (John Gray), who impersonates Cobb. Strickland and his cohort (Tony Arpino) kill a lot of people in this – one innocent, three guards, then Strickland kills sidekick. I mean, cripes. Decent episode, though, with lots of scenes by the beach and Aussie miners trying to lynch Cobb. The set for Fury Creek apparently cost 30,000 pounds.

Episode 15 (27 May 1961) “Stage for Two” (w: Terry Maples, d: Peter Maxwell) Cobb has a bromance with an outlaw (Leonard Teale) being chased by other outlaws and the police. Teale is a strong actor, with that superb voice, and he has a three-dimensional part here. Large death toll as usual, including Ron Haddick, who plays a former associate of Teale’s – Haddrick tries to shoot Teale and Graves shoots Haddrick.

Episode 16 (3 June 1961) “The Bone That Whispered” (w: Michael Plant d: John Meredyth Lucas) Cobb goes looking for a white man (Nigel Lovell), who is the father of a (hilariously dubbed) little girl whose mother has died. The man is living with the Aboriginals, and is covered in boot polish. There’s a strong support cast, including Robert Tudawali, Reg Lye and Henry Murdock.

Episode 17 (10 June 1961) “The Legacy” (w: Bill Templeton, d: John Meredyth Lucas) Betty Lucas is enjoyable as a former maid who inherits a property that Cobb wants to buy… only it really belongs to an Aboriginal, the former owner’s old adopted son… played by Reg Livermore in brown face. Well, brown body really. This is unfortunate. They hint at romance between Cobb and the maid but he’s really keen to get rid of her and get Livermore running the place, running horses for Cobb (we never saw this character in any other episodes, though). While Livermore’s character is a man child, it does have a plot about whites trying to con Aboriginals out of land, which is quite bold for the time. Cobb shoots a baddy dead – I think he killed at least one person an episode if an American wrote it.

Episode 18 (17 June 1961) “The Adelaide Arabs” (w: Ralph Petersen, d: Peter Maxwell) Cobb gets robbed by some masked men and winds up getting involved with horse thieves. Chips Rafferty appears in this as a horse thief; Stuart Wagstaff plays a policeman (a different role from his gentleman bushranger). This episode was a little underwhelming, though there’s decent action at the end and I always like Rafferty.

Episode 19 (24 June 1961) “The Canoomba Incident” (w: Ralph Peterson & Richard Grey d: Peter Maxwell) Cobb and his partner set up shop at a town where all the men have gone to a gold rush. That’s an excellent idea, though they don’t do enough with it. Lew Luton is back as a bushranger – a different character to the other one he played. There’s no romance for Cobb but some for his offsider who falls in love (with Janette Craig) in one scene. It turns out she’s (SPOILERS) a lady bushranger, which is another fantastic idea, not sufficiently explored. Peterson himself has a small role as a shopkeeper – he was later the head writer on My Name’s McGooley What’s Yours?

Episode 20 (1 July 1961) “The Rushing Sands” (w: Michael Plant d: Peter Maxwell) A veteran coach driver (Gordon Glenwright) wants to kill the outlaw (Barry Linehan) responsible for killing his son. There’s also a dodgy bank manager (Nevil Thurgood) involved. There’s talk of “the best gunman” and scenes in jail cells, which feel particularly American despite its Australian writer, but there are plenty of twists and turns plus excellent character work. This is a good episode.

Episode 21 (8 July 1961) “Fire Rock” (w: Michael Plant, d: John Meredyth Lucas) One of Cobb’s assistants disappears in Aboriginal grounds and his sexy wife (Delia Williams) asks for help in finding him. This is a highly watchable episode which gives Robert Tudawali a decent-sized part, helping Cobb track the missing man – Tudawali’s character actually has an arc in this one as opposed to being “exotic native”, he’s a person cut off from his tribe for a crime he didn’t commit. Williams overacts a little as a Messalina in the outback type but is a lot of fun, stunningly beautiful and has an all-time awesome (SPOILERS) death dying in boiling mud. There’s a lot of spooky Aboriginal exoticism and a great moment where Williams tells Graves “you could’ve had me for nothing”. Kevin Golsby, a top voice over artist, plays Williams’ brother in law.

Episode 22 (15 July 1961) “The Hunters” (w: Morris West, d: John Meredyth Lucas) An adaptation of Morris West’s pulpy novel The Naked Country, which was later turned into a 1987 Tim Burstall film. It’s ideal source material for a 30-minute episode because that novel was short and simple… the pursuit of a rancher (Philip Ross, in the role played by John Stanton in the film) by an Aboriginal (Robert Tudawali) with Cobb stepping in as the policeman. Bettina Welch is the frustrated wife who goes along to help track him down (the future Rebecca Gilling part). Henry Mudock is also in this. There are impressive cave sets at the end.

Episode 23 (22 July 1961) “Stage Freight” (w: Ralph Peterson d: Peter Maxwell) Stagecoach-esque drama with Cobb escorting a group of people, and he’s worried that a murderer(s) may be among the passengers. The group include an actress (Margo Lee is tremendous fun), a shady accountant (Eric Reiman), an undertaker (Barry Linehan), a widow (Fernande Glyn), a bushman with an unconvincing American accent (Terry McDermott). There’s plenty of twists and suspense and it’s never too over the top. Peterson was a good writer. This is one of the best episodes in the series.

Episode 24 (29 July 1961) “Portrait in Gunpowder” (w: Michael Plant, d: John Meredyth Lucas) Cobb escorts a French painter (Therese Talbert), across country and they have a lovely romance, in part because both feel like equals. They wind up hostages by Stuart Wagstaff’s gentleman bushranger from “The Remittance Man”. This was fun – the scripts by Michael Plant and Ralph Petersen had a lighter touch, generally. I loved how Wagstaff had to deal with his bogan bushranger helpers. Talbert was a French singer who appeared a bit on Australian television around this time (she sings in this episode). I’m not sure how much other acting she did but she’s quite good here.

Episode 25 (5 Aug 1961) “Ribbons and Wheels” (w: Ralph Peterson, d: Peter Maxwell) Aussie writer Ralph Peterson came up with a strong idea: a former driver of Cobb’s, Bunyip Joe (Tom Farley) has gone to work for a shady rival coach line run by Grant Taylor. The competition between them all is playful rather than violent – it ends with a race rather than a shootout. Ursula Finlay is the girl.

Episode 26 (12 Aug 1961) “The Wreckers” (w: Daphne Field, d: John Meredyth Lucas) Guy Doleman plays a bushranger who takes over Cobb’s coach and starts committing robberies pretending to be Cobb. This is a good idea, as is Cobb enlisting an Aboriginal warrior (Robert Tudawali) to help. Despite him, this feels very American but there’s plenty of action and decent acting – a more prominent role for Tudawali than normal. There’s mention of Port Macquarie and Brisbane. I don’t know much about writer Daphne Field.

Episode 27 (19 August 1961) “Storm River” (w Don Ingalls d: John Meredyth Lucas) Cobb winds up at a deserted homestead where a hot woman (Anette Andre) dreams of escaping to the city to be a designer, but is kidnapped basically, by oppressive Grant Taylor and his dimwit son (Norman Erskine). There’s solid acting in this one from Andre and Taylor especially, and I like how Taylor’s character was a frustrated writer. There are scenes in the swamps with canoes which is different. Cobb reveals he went to Harvard!

I spoke with Annette Andre about this episode, and she told me: “I can’t swim. But in “Storm River”, I was on a canoe with Peter Graves, and I have to fall overboard. Well, I told the director I couldn’t swim, which was true, I couldn’t, but he reassured me that I’d have a double to do the stunt. When we went to shoot it and I asked where the double was, they said “we haven’t got one.” I said, “I can’t swim, I really mean it.” But I was told it was shallow and I’d be able to stand up. So, when the moment came, I took a deep breath and threw myself into the water. I went down and down and down and then I did come up but went down again!! When I came up the second time, Peter was ashen, he grabbed me by the dress and yanked me up into the boat – it wasn’t very elegant – but they kept that shot in.

“We took a lot of chances in those days, it would never get past the insurance now, but back then, I doubt there was any insurance for the actors. We were all learning, it was early days. We had to find our own way through it – there was no one to teach us.

“I think it was an excellent time for people like me, because I was young, and we had to cope with a lot of things that were beyond our experience. But it was a truly good grounding for actors, I’ve always been grateful for that.

“Peter Graves was such a lovely man. And very helpful to us, because he was a very experienced American actor. He was one of the few at the time that we could learn from. Sometimes there were problems on set with the odd argument or disagreement or upset or just nerves, but Peter always calmed things down. He was a bit like Roger Moore in that way when I worked with Roger on The Saint.

“John Meredyth Lucas, one of the directors on Whiplash, was a bit difficult. He wasn’t easy to get on with.”

Episode 28 (28 Aug 1961) “Flood Tide” (w: Michael Plant, d: Ben Fox) Cobb gets holed up overnight in a spooky mansion with a woman (Shirley Broadway). A man turns up (Barry Linehan)… and he, or her, or both, might be insane. This was a terrific episode. Different but creepy.

Episode 29 (2 Sept 1961) “Dilemma In Wool” (w: Ralph Peterson, d Peter Maxwell) Cobb and Dan transport a Spanish couple (Janette Craig and Neil Fitzpatrick), who are involved in intrigue. The Spanish connection is cute – it’s tied in with merino wool – although there’s too much accent acting and the episode is a little sluggish. The cast includes Nigel Lovell and singer Lionel Long.

Episode 30 (9 Sept 1961) “Dark Runs The Sea” (w: Michael Plant & Oscar Maillard, d: John Meredyth Lucas) Joe McCormick plays a magistrate whose niece (Annette Andre) is kidnapped by a bushranger (Guy Doleman)… only it seems there may be more to it. Reg Lye plays a witness who has a cockatoo on his head. Andre is heaps of fun as a flirty femme fatale. There’s an excellent fist fight at the end between Graves and Doleman on location at a waterfall and a racy scene where Andre goes for a nude swim. It’s one of the best episodes, with decent twists and fast pace, though again a really high death toll.

Annette Andre told me about an incident from the episode involving Joe McCormick where he was threatened with a shotgun: “The other guy pulls the trigger and Joe falls to the ground, shot. Thing is, he was really shot. Luckily, it was blanks that were fired but because it was so close, they caused quite a bad injury, which sent Joe to hospital for about two weeks. Obviously, whoever was in charge of “props” didn’t check it out correctly. That was an experience!”

Annette also recalled a moment with Reg Lye, with whom she later appeared in an episode of The Saint set in Australia: “In my Whiplash episode, we were caged with two emus. I love animals but emus are a bit scary. They have sharp beaks and they peck you. Poor Reg was bald, and they loved to peck at his head, it was not amusing to him. The emus were eventually taken out of the cage. There were a lot of odd things that went on in Whiplash.”

Episode 31 (16 September 1961) “Magic Wire” (w: Ralph Peterson, d: Peter Maxwell) The one about the laying of the telegraph, a popular trope in Westerns. Robert Tudawali offers star power as the leader of an Aboriginal tribe who keep making things difficult. This is an episode with whites mistreating blacks and then blaming them – all too believable. There’s some attempt at authenticity here (including mention of “kadaitcha”), perhaps prompted by the Australian writer. The cast includes Peter Aanensen (who appears to have been dubbed into American), Terry McDermott and an Aboriginal actor, Nosepeg, whose real name was Tjungkarta Tjupurrula, a tribal elder of the Pintupi people, whose life was the subject of a 1989 episode of The First Australians. He met the producers when they went to Alice Springs for second unit and wound up being flown to Sydney to make this episode. Apparently, he’d been in Jedda, Dust in the Sun and The Phantom Stockman.

Episode 32 (23 Sept 1961) “The Haunted Valley” (w: Gerry Day, d: John Meredyth Lucas) This is an episode about missing cattle, whose main feature is a very effective performance by Bettina Welch as a sort of femme fatale of the plains. The cast includes Ron Whelan, from old Cinesound movies, who went to Hollywood not long after this and had a decent career as a guest actor on various TV shows before his death in 1965. There’s also Kevin Colson, who became a big musical theatre star. Like the other episode by Gerry Day, it feels very American no matter how many times the characters say “Wallaby Dick” – a lotta cattle and people getting off land – but it has a strong female character.

Episode 33 (30 Sept 1961) “Love Story in Gold” (w: James Clavell, d: John Meredyth Lucas) Lively episode with an outlandish premise… Cobb is lured to a valley where he’s forced to marry a woman (Margaret Newhill), who is the daughter of a convict (Neva Carr Glyn). Neva Carr Glyn is great value as the materfamilias. Written by James Clavell, who had just broken into Hollywood big time with his script for The Fly, but before he became a bestselling writer! The heart goes out of this when Glyn dies… you expect a big showdown with the psycho (Owen Weingott) but it never happens.

Episode 34 (7 Oct 1961) “Secret Of The Screaming Hills” (w: Don Ingalls, d: Peter Maxwell) Cobbs gets a treasure map from a dying man (Ken Goodlet). The support cast includes Marion Johns (as Goodlet’s wife), Veronica Lang (Goodlet’s daughter), Frank Waters (baddy), Reg Livermore (Goodlet’s son) and Aboriginal actor Pat Wedge, playing a different role to “The Twisted Road”. There are probably too many characters – these eps were better with only two or three guesties. This plays into the “spooky Aboriginal land” trope, with it being protected land.

The author would like to thank Annette Andre and the late Don Ingalls for their assistance with this article. He also acknowledges he has drawn heavily on the work done by the Classic Australian Television website (https://www.classicaustraliantv.com/whiplash.htm). Unless specified, all opinions are my own.

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