Cathy's Child

Last updated

Cathy's Child
Directed by Donald Crombie
Written by Ken Quinnell
Based onbook A Piece of Paper by Dick Wordley
Produced by Pom Oliver
Errol Sullivan
Starring Michele Fawdon
Alan Cassell
Bryan Brown
Arthur Dignam
Willie Fennell
CinematographyGary Hansen
Edited byTim Wellburn
Music by William Motzing
Distributed by Village Roadshow
Release date
  • 1979 (1979)
Running time
89 minutes
CountryAustralia
LanguageEnglish
BudgetA$325,000 [1]
Box officeA$135,000 (Australia) [2]
$100,000 (overseas sales)

Cathy's Child is a 1979 Australian film, directed by Donald Crombie and starring Michele Fawdon, Alan Cassell and Bryan Brown.

Contents

Plot

Cathy Baikas (Fawdon) is a woman of Greek heritage who lives in Sydney, Australia with her three-year-old daughter. When her daughter's father kidnaps the child and takes her back to Greece, Cathy discovers the authorities can do little to help her. She turns to the media. A reporter (Cassell) on the Hotline column of The Sun, a major daily newspaper, proves sympathetic to Cathy's problem and begins giving her case press coverage, because the same situation had happened to him. The film is based on a true story.

Historical basis

On 14 January 1973, Greek-born John Baikas left Australia for Athens, taking his daughter Maris with him on a forged passport. Her mother Cathy found out and tried to get her back. The government seemed to do little, so she contacted Sun journalist Dick Wordley to run a campaign.

The film used the real names for the characters of Cathy Baikas, Dick Wordley and Wordley's Hotline editor Paul Nicholson. However, other names were fictionalised. [3]

Production

Ken Quinnell read Dick Wordley's 1973 book on the case, A Piece of Paper. He gave it to producer Errol Sullivan, who thought it might make "a small but highly emotional film, one that could reach the middle audience in Australia - the audience that people like Hoyts say doesn't exist: namely, the North Shore, blue rinse set." [4]

It was thought the budget had to be kept below $400,000, so the action was set in the present day rather than 1973. Finance from the Australian Film Commission, the New South Wales Film Corporation, Roadshow Distributors and $55,000 of private investment. Gillian Armstrong was originally meant to be director and money was raised from the AFC on the basis of her name, but there was a potential clash with My Brilliant Career , so Donald Crombie was offered the job instead; Crombie had a history of making films about women. [4]

Filming started in June 1978, with the majority of the film shot in Sydney over four weeks, with a week's filming in Greece. Money had been allocated in the budget for an overseas actor to play the Australian consul in Greece, but the filmmakers were unable to find anyone for an appropriate price and Willie Fennell took the role. [4]

The script included a scene where Cathy and Dick Wordley go to bed together. Wordley denied this ever happened but allowed it in the film after much discussion. [3] The scene was shot but ended up being cut after a preview. [1]

Reception

Awards

Michele Fawdon was awarded Best Actress in a Leading Role at the 1979 Australian Film Institute Awards for her role as Cathy Baikis.

The film also received nominations for Best Actor in a Lead Role, Best Direction and Best Film at the same awards.

Box office

Cathy's Child grossed $135,000 at the box office in Australia, [5] which is equivalent to $527,850 in 2009 dollars.

In 1996 Donald Crombie said the film was his favourite of all the features he had made:

Mainly because I think we were extraordinarily successful in creating that character, Cathy Bikos. Michelle Fawdon is obviously not Maltese, but she pulled that off brilliantly, I thought. The accent, I'm told, is perfect. She lived with a family and that's how she achieved it. That was a very good project to work on. [6]

Related Research Articles

<i>Caddie</i> (film) 1976 Australian film

Caddie is an Australian film biopic directed by Donald Crombie and produced by Anthony Buckley. Released on 1 April 1976, it is representative of the Australian film renaissance which occurred during that decade. Set mainly in Sydney during the 1920s and 1930s, including the Great Depression, it portrays the life of a young middle class woman struggling to raise two children after her marriage breaks up. Based on Caddie, the Story of a Barmaid, a partly fictitious autobiography of Catherine Beatrice "Caddie" Edmonds, it made Helen Morse a local star and earned Jacki Weaver and Melissa Jaffer each an Australian Film Institute Award.

Ken Quinnell is an Australia screenwriter and film director.

<i>Harlequin</i> (film) 1980 Australian film by Simon Wincer

Harlequin is a 1980 Australian thriller film directed by Simon Wincer and starring Robert Powell, Carmen Duncan, David Hemmings and Broderick Crawford. The film is a modern-day retelling of the historical figure Rasputin.

Imogen Annesley is an Australian actress and director who is perhaps best known for her performances in the films Playing Beatie Bow, Howling III: The Marsupials and Queen of the Damned.

Chantal Contouri, sometimes credited as Chantal Cantouri, is a Greek Australian television and film actress. She has acted in many films and TV series as well as on stage, with one of her best known roles being in the 1970s soap opera Number 96 as nurse Tracy Wilson.

<i>Jesus Christ Superstar (Original Australian Cast Recording)</i> 1972 album

Jesus Christ Superstar or Jesus Christ Superstar – Original Australian Cast Recording is an album released in late 1972 on MCA Records. Jesus Christ Superstar is a rock opera created by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber in 1970. The earliest Australian version was staged from May 1972 to February 1974. This album features Trevor White, Jon English and Michele Fawdon. Together with other cast members, they performed vocals for a studio recording. It was produced by Patrick Flynn, the show's musical director and a conductor for Opera Australia. The album peaked at No. 17 on the Go-Set Albums Chart in June 1973, while it reached No. 13 on the Kent Music Report and remained on its charts for 54 weeks. It appeared in the top 100 on the 1974 End of Year Albums Chart. In May 1973, the album was awarded a gold record for sales of 50,000 albums.

<i>My Brilliant Career</i> (film) 1979 Australian film

My Brilliant Career is a 1979 Australian period drama film directed by Gillian Armstrong, and starring Judy Davis, Sam Neill, and Wendy Hughes. Based on the 1901 novel of the same name by Miles Franklin, it follows a young woman in rural, late-19th-century Australia whose aspirations to become a writer are impeded first by her social circumstance, and later by a budding romance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laurette Luez</span> American actress (1928–1999)

Laurette Luez was an American supporting actress and successful commercial model who appeared in films and on television during a 20-year career. She was a widely known Hollywood celebrity during the 1950s, owing much to publicity about her social life. She is best known for her supporting role as photographic model Marla Rakubian in Rudolph Maté's 1950 film noir D.O.A..

Unfinished Business is a 1985 Australian film directed by Bob Ellis and starring John Clayton, Michele Fawdon, and Norman Kaye. Unfinished Business was nominated for five AFI Awards.

Donald Charles Crombie is an Australian film and television director.

<i>Playing Beatie Bow</i> (film) 1986 Australian film

Playing Beatie Bow is a 1986 Australian science fiction drama film. It is directed by Donald Crombie and stars Imogen Annesley, Peter Phelps and Mouche Phillips. The screenplay by Peter Gawler and Irwin Lane is based on the 1980 novel of the same name by Ruth Park.

The Irishman is an Australian 1978 romantic drama film directed and written by Donald Crombie.

The Place at the Coast is a 1987 Australian drama film directed by George Ogilvie and starring John Hargreaves. Given the working title "The Bee Eater", it was based on an unpublished novel by Jane Hyde, provisionally called "At Kilkee" but subsequently published with the same name as the film.

Michele Fawdon (1947–2011) was an English-born Australian actress and singer. She is known for her roles in TV serials Matlock Police (1971–1974), The Unisexers (1975) and A Country Practice. In 1979 she won the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for Cathy's Child (1979) and Australian Film Institute Award for Best Lead Actress for a Telefeature for The Fish Are Safe (1986) in 1987. She died of an unspecified cancer.

...Maybe This Time is a 1980 Australian feature film starring Bill Hunter, Mike Preston, Ken Shorter and Judy Morris. It was the first feature directed by Chris McGill.

Rough Diamonds is a 1994 Australian film directed by Donald Crombie. It was the first lead role in a feature for Jason Donovan.

Do I Have to Kill My Child? is a 1976 Australian film

Ring of Scorpio is a 1990 Australian TV miniseries by Alan Bateman, Errol Sullivan and Kim Williams. It was made with assistance from the Film Finance Corporation Australia, BBC Television and the Nine Network. It was shot in Morocco, Spain, Sydney and Broken Hill.

Dorothy Muriel Turner Crawford, also known as Dorothy Balderson, Dorothy Strong, and Dorothy Smith, was an Australian actress and announcer, as well as a producer in radio and television, who, with her brother Hector Crawford, co-founded the important Australian broadcasting production company Crawford Productions.

The Sammy Awards were Australian television and film awards held annually between 1976 and 1981, initially supported by the TV Times and the Seven Network.

References

  1. 1 2 David Stratton, The Last New Wave: The Australian Film Revival, Angus & Robertson, 1980 p152-153
  2. ↑ Australian Films at the Box Office - Report to Film Victoria Archived 28 July 2015 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 5 October 2012
  3. 1 2 Peter Beilby & Scott Murray, "Donald Crombie", Cinema Papers, Oct-Nov 1978 p131-132
  4. 1 2 3 Peter Beilby & Scott Murray, "Errol Sullivan", Cinema Papers, Oct-Nov 1978 p128
  5. ↑ "Film Victoria - Australian Films at the Australian Box Office" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 February 2011. Retrieved 24 October 2010.
  6. ↑ "Interview with Donald Crombie", Signet, 18 December 1998 Archived 9 December 2012 at archive.today Retrieved 16 November 2012
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.