Boney (TV series)

Last updated

Boney
Genre Crime
Mystery
Detective
Starring James Laurenson
Nick Tate
Kate Fitzpatrick
Country of originAustralia
Original languageEnglish
No. of series2
No. of episodes26
Production
Running time40 minutes
Production companyFauna Television
Original release
Release1971 (1971) –
1972 (1972)

Boney is an Australian television series produced by Fauna Productions during 1971 and 1972, featuring New Zealand actor James Laurenson in the title role of Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte. Two series, each of thirteen episodes, were filmed. They were adapted from the twenty-nine novels by Arthur Upfield featuring his title character, published from 1929 to 1964.

Contents

The series is centred on Bonaparte, a highly educated, multiracial police inspector. His father was a white man and his mother was an Australian Aboriginal.

The casting of Laurenson, a white man who performed in dark make-up, was strongly criticised by the Australian Aboriginal community. They believed the part should have gone to an Aboriginal actor.

Cast

Main/regular

Guests (partial)

ActorRoleTenure
Anne Haddy Mary Parker / Mrs Cosgrove2 episodes
Ben Gabriel Senior Constable Sassoon1 episode
Bindi WilliamsPintubi1 episode: "Boney and the Powder Trail"
Brian Moll Bill Bulford1 episode
Brian Wenzel Sergeant Cox2 episodes
Bruce Barry Bull Johnson1 episode
Bruce Spence Sawyer's Ron1 episode
Charles "Bud" Tingwell Jeff Stanton1 episode: "Boney and the Powder Trail"
Cornelia Frances Stella Borredale1 episode
Danny Adcock Tony Carr1 episode
David Gulpilil Black Boy / Balinga / Dancer / Tonto / David Ooldea (plus featured dancer in opening & closing sequences)4 episodes
Deryck BarnesSgt Colin Harvey1 episode: "Boney Walks with Death"
Diane Craig Marion1 episode: "Boney and the Powder Trail"
Diana McLean Jessica Menzies1 episode
Enid Lorimer Mrs Thompson1 episode
Frank Gallacher Barman1 episode
Googie Withers Mrs Loftus / Diana Thompson3 episodes: "Boney and the Reaper", "Boney Hunts a Murderess" & "Boney and the Paroo Bikeman" [1]
Gus Mercurio Frail1 episode
Honor Blackman Mary Answorth1 episode: "Boney in Venom House"
Jack Thompson Jack / Red Kelly2 episodes: "Boney and the Kelly Gang", "Boney and the Strangler"
Jeanie Drynan Isobel Matthews / Sally Forrest2 episodes
John Orcsik Greg Pampino1 episode
John Waters Constable Peter Lloyd1 episode
Judy Morris Jill Madden / Kathy Markham2 episodes
June Salter Mrs Larkins1 episode
Kate Sheil Gloria Lacey1 episode
Ken Goodlet Inspector Walters / Lively Early / Sergeant Bob Edwards3 episodes
Ken Shorter Vic Vicery
Kerry McGuire Meena1 episode
Lesley Baker Boarding House Lady1 episode
Maggie Dence Mrs. Coutts1 episode: "Boney and the Emu Man"
Mark Lee Dave O’Dwyer1 episode
Max Cullen Glen Shannon1 episode
Max Phipps Morris Answorth1 episode: "Boney in Venom House"
Neva Carr Glyn Mrs Conway1 episode
Nick Tate Sergeant Peter Irwin2 episodes
Owen Weingott Bill Newton1 episode
Penne Hackforth-Jones Eve1 episode
Peter Gwynne Tim Thursley1 episode
Peter Sumner Sergeant Peter Fuller1 episode
Reg Gorman Bray1 episode
Rod Mullinar Frank Abbott1 episode
Roger Ward Constable Barnard1 episode
Ron Graham Mark Taylor1 episode
Ron Haddrick Leonard Jelly1 episode
Rowena Wallace Kat Loader1 episode
Ruth Cracknell Elizabeth Campbell1 episode
Serge Lazareff Greg Green / Dick Lake2 episodes
Tony Ward Bill Nettlefold1 episode

Production

Australian TV audiences were introduced to Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte in 1972. "Boney" (spelled "Bony" in the books) had an Aboriginal mother and a white father. He tracked murderers by spotting an overturned twig or a crushed ant on the sand. A loner who never failed to crack a case, he was impatient with authority, charming, arrogant and an expert burglar, moving in a world of sunbaked claypans and the most distant reaches of the Outback, where only the Aboriginal people could survive.

Arthur Upfield described his character as having been found as a baby near the body of his Aboriginal mother. (She was killed because of her forbidden relationship with a white man). The infant boy orphan was taken to a mission station. He was named Napoleon Bonaparte (nicknamed Boney, or Bony as it was later spelled). He was educated and grew up to become a police detective specializing in murder cases.

Development

During 1963, British film director Michael Powell first visited Australia to preproduce his film, They're A Weird Mob. There he met actor and theatre businessman John McCallum and Bob Austin (a legal expert), who used their local knowledge to gain financing from Australian backers. The film did well.

Three years later the trio bought the film and television rights to the Bony detective novels. A script written for Paramount Pictures failed to secure a deal, and Powell moved on to other projects.

By 1970, John McCallum, Bob Austin, and veteran Australian producer Lee Robinson had set up Fauna Productions. Having made their reputation with the children's TV series Skippy the Bush Kangaroo and Barrier Reef, and the feature film Nickel Queen , they found finance to make a series titled Bonaparte. They engaged various international sources (American investors had shown enthusiasm, but pulled out when the producers refused their demand that Bony be reframed as white rather than multiracial).

The producers decided to shoot the stories in contemporary Australia. English playwright and scriptwriter Eric Paice flew there to head the writing team. Signed up to direct alternate episodes were Peter Maxwell and Eric Fullilove. The team began casting for Upfield's half-Aboriginal hero and other characters.

Casting

According to John McCallum:

"We looked all over Australia! Ideally, of course, the part should have been played by a half-Aborigine, and we saw hundreds of people, but it needed someone with very considerable acting experience and expertise. We auditioned white actors in every state, but there was no-one with the right physiognomy and characteristics for the part..."

[ citation needed ]

Aboriginal groups felt that black actors were being discriminated against, and publicly denounced Fauna.

English actor Jon Finch was eventually signed, but he pulled out two weeks before shooting began. McCallum flew to London to conduct more casting interviews. He saw more than eighty actors, and just about to phone home and postpone production, when James Laurenson, an actor from New Zealand arrived. McCallum knew he'd found Bony, although he insisted that Laurenson wear dark make-up for the part.

In 2010, notable Aboriginal actor Jack Charles recounted that, when he auditioned for the role in 1972, the producer told him they were looking for an actor with blue eyes. [2]

Laurenson's casting was immediately criticised. He said in a 1972 interview:

"I think any actor, black or white or yellow, has the right to play any part... I can understand their grievances but the company searched long and hard for an aboriginal Boney. They felt they couldn't come up with anyone who could sustain a six days a week schedule. You do need a certain amount of experience to stay alive".

[3]

Bob Maza said, "I could have guaranteed John McCallum ten articulate, sophisticated black people to play that part. He didn't look very hard. Did he look at all?" [3]

Upfield had told McCallum that he'd always intended to call his detective "Boney", but a printer's error had changed it to "Bony". His preferred spelling replaced "Bonaparte" as the title of the series.

The crew flew to Alice Springs during July 1971 to film the first episode, "Boney Buys A Woman". Twelve-hour six-day working weeks bonded the producers, cast and crew. As John McCallum recalled:

"It wasn't an easy series to shoot. The long lines of communication to Sydney added to our difficulties and costs. Rushes took days, sometimes weeks to get to us. The heat was appalling for most of the time and the flies worse. But we had a splendid crew who would work in the blazing sun or the pouring rain... they complained, of course, but they did it!"

After the first series was well received in Australia and internationally, a further thirteen episodes were filmed. The second series co-starred Kate Fitzpatrick as Boney's assistant, Constable Alice McGorr. The second season started filming in July 1972. [4]

Reception

Although Upfield's novels featuring Bony were more popular in the United States than Australia, the series was not shown in the US. According to John McCallum, several attempts to sell the series to distributors in the US were rejected as the Americans could not accept that a police detective, along with most of the criminals he hunted, did not use firearms.

Although the producers were interested in producing a third series, James Laurenson was reluctant due to the continuing criticism of his having been cast in the role. [5]

While some episodes are set in towns, the "Boney" series was unique for its use of the Outback. The best stories take place in scorched orange landscapes where the white person is an outsider. Boney draws upon what are suggested as both his inherited skills and education to solve the crime. Striking images were filmed: a white-haired Aboriginal chief touring his lands in a rusty car pulled by camels; a car pushed into the path of a train by a combine harvester; a ghostly Aboriginal revenge squad implacably hunting a murderer, hoping to spear him.

Australian Aboriginal people are represented as dignified characters in the series. They are generally low-key and reserved, but dangerous when angered. They operate on the edges of the white world because of discrimination, but they are sometimes willing to help Boney, often by using telepathy or magic.

James Laurenson’s Boney is magnetic, arrogant yet charming, exasperatingly self-confident, and determined not to take "No" for an answer (unless it's the answer he wants). John McCallum said that "James gave an excellent performance. He looked right and he sounded right, and I think Arthur Upfield would have been very pleased with him". [1]

Reviewing Boney and the Black Opal, The Age said Laurenson's "talent is wrapped in a tall frame and dark, rugged good looks that should make him Australia's newest TV sex symbol". [6]

Valda Marshall of the Sydney Morning Herald said Laurenson was "superb... I predict Laurenson will have half the women of Australia drooling over their sets. He turns in an extraordinary performance, with not even a drop of Maori blood, he looks completely the part of the half-caste Aboriginal detective". [7]

1990s series

In 1992, a series entitled Bony was shown in Australia. Its thirteen episodes were produced by Grundy, a company known for packaging quiz show formats and producing soap operas. Starring 26-year-old actor and singer Cameron Daddo, the Bony pilot film was about Inspector Bonaparte’s grandson David, who also became a police detective.

Reacting to complaints from Aboriginal viewers, in the resulting series the producers changed Daddo to a white policeman who had been brought up and schooled by Australian Aboriginals. He had an elderly black mentor, his uncle (played by Burnum Burnum). With partial funding by the West German broadcaster ZDF, which had put money into the 1971/2 series, the producers had bought the name Bony. Otherwise the series did not draw from either the Upfield books nor the earlier Fauna series. [1]

Record producer Frank Farian named the 1970s disco group Boney M after the character of the first two series. [8]

Related Research Articles

James Philip Laurenson was a New Zealand stage and screen actor, based in the UK.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John McCallum (actor)</span> Australian Actor (1918–2010)

John Neil McCallum, was an Australian theatre and film actor, highly successful in the United Kingdom. He was also a television producer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arthur Upfield</span> Writer best known for Australian detective fiction

Arthur William Upfield was an English-Australian writer, best known for his works of detective fiction featuring Detective Inspector Napoleon "Bony" Bonaparte of the Queensland Police Force, a mixed-race Indigenous Australian. His books were the basis for a 1970s Australian television series entitled Boney, as well as a 1990 telemovie and a 1992 spin-off TV series.

Burnum Burnum was an Aboriginal Australian sportsman, activist, actor, and author. He was a Woiworrung and Yorta Yorta man, born at Wallaga Lake in southern New South Wales. He was originally christened Harry Penrith but in 1976, he changed his name to Burnum Burnum after his grandfather both to honour him and acknowledge his Aboriginal identity.

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Detective Inspector Napoleon "Bony" Bonaparte is a fictional character created by Australian novelist Arthur Upfield (1890–1964). Bony is a biracial Aboriginal Australian detective with a reputation for solving difficult cases by finding subtle clues. Upfield introduced the character in his 1929 novel The Barrakee Mystery. He published a total of 29 novels, through 1966, featuring this character.

Bony is an Australian television series made in 1992. The series of 13 episodes followed on from a telemovie made in 1990. The series was criticised for casting a white man as the title character Detective David John "Bony" Bonaparte, under the tutelage of "Uncle Albert", an elderly Aboriginal person played by Burnum Burnum. Bony was supposed to be a descendant of the Bony character created by Arthur Upfield in dozens of novels from the late 1920s until his death in 1964.

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Wings Above the Diamantina (1936) is a detective novel by Australian writer Arthur Upfield. It was the third to feature his recurring character Detective Inspector Napoleon 'Bony' Bonaparte. It was originally published in Australia by Angus & Robertson in 1936, and subsequently serialised in The Australian Journal between January and September 1936.

<i>Mr. Jellys Business</i> 1937 novel by Arthur Upfield

Mr. Jelly's Business (1937) is a novel by Australian writer Arthur Upfield. It was the fourth to feature his recurring character Detective Inspector Napoleon 'Bony' Bonaparte. It was originally published in Australia by Angus & Robertson in 1937, after being serialised in the Daily News between December 1932 and January 1933.

Winds of Evil (1937) is a novel by Australian writer Arthur Upfield. It was the fifth of the author's novels to feature his recurring character Detective Inspector Napoleon 'Bony' Bonaparte. It was originally published in the Australia by Angus & Robertson in 1937, and subsequently serialised in The Australian Journal in Melbourne between March and October 1937.

<i>The Bone is Pointed</i> Novel by Australian writer Arthur Upfield

The Bone is Pointed (1938) is a novel by Australian writer Arthur Upfield. It was the sixth of the author's novels to feature his recurring character Detective Inspector Napoleon 'Bony' Bonaparte. It was originally published in the Australia by Angus & Robertson in 1938, and subsequently serialised in The Herald newspaper in Melbourne between September and November 1938, under the title Murder on the Station.

<i>The Mystery of Swordfish Reef</i> Novel by Australian writer Arthur Upfield

The Mystery of Swordfish Reef (1939) is a novel by Australian writer Arthur Upfield. It was the seventh of the author's novels to feature his recurring character Detective Inspector Napoleon 'Bony' Bonaparte. It was originally published in the Australia by Angus & Robertson in 1939.

Bushranger of the Skies (1940) is a novel by Australian writer Arthur Upfield. It is the eighth of the author's novels to feature his recurring character Detective Inspector Napoleon 'Bony' Bonaparte. It was originally published in the Australia by Angus & Robertson in 1940.

Man of Two Tribes is a 1953 Australia radio serial based on the stories of Arthur Upfield about Detective Inspector Napoleon "Bony" Bonaparte. Morris West adapted several of Upfield's stories.

<i>Death of a Swagman</i> 1945 novel by Australian writer Arthur Upfield

Death of a Swagman (1945) is a novel by Australian writer Arthur Upfield. It is the ninth of the author's novels to feature his recurring character Detective Inspector Napoleon 'Bony' Bonaparte. It was originally published in USA by Doubleday Books in 1945.

<i>The Devils Steps</i> 1946 novel by Australian writer Arthur Upfield

The Devil's Steps (1946) is a novel by Australian writer Arthur Upfield. It is the tenth of the author's novels to feature his recurring character Detective Inspector Napoleon 'Bony' Bonaparte. It was originally published in USA by Doubleday Books in 1946.

An Author Bites the Dust (1948) is a novel by Australian writer Arthur Upfield. It is the eleventh of the author's novels to feature his recurring character Detective Inspector Napoleon 'Bony' Bonaparte. It was originally published in Australia by Angus and Robertson in 1948.

The Widows of Broome (1950) is a novel by Australian writer Arthur Upfield. It is the thirteenth of the author's novels to feature his recurring character Detective Inspector Napoleon 'Bony' Bonaparte. It was originally published in USA by Doubleday in 1950 under their Crime Club imprint.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Boney - Following The Footprints Of A Lost Television Series" by Roger Mitchell
  2. ↑ Anna Krien, Anna (October 2010). "Blanche's Boy". The Monthly (61). Retrieved 3 June 2014.
  3. 1 2 Nicklin, Lenore (26 October 1972). "Black is white and white is black". Sydney Morning Herald. p. 7.
  4. ↑ "Boney on the TV trail again". Sydney Morning Herald. 2 July 1972. p. 111.
  5. ↑ TV Week, Interview with James Laurenson, Dec 22, 1973
  6. ↑ "Day in the Bush to preview Boney". The Age. 20 July 1972. p. 32.
  7. ↑ Marshall, Valda (30 July 1972). "Trish is Voted a Winner". Sydney Morning Herald. p. 91.
  8. ↑ Boney M by John Shearlaw and David Brown, Hamlin Paperbacks, 1979, ISBN   0 600 20009 4-page 35-6
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