Jenny (1962 film)

Jenny
Ad from SMH 28 Mar 1962 p 17
Written byGeorge F. Kerr
Directed byHenri Safran
Country of originAustralia
Original languageEnglish
Production
ProducerHarrie Adas
Running time75 mins
Production companyABC
Release
Original networkABC
Original release28 March 1962 (Sydney)
4 April 1962[1]

Jenny is a 1962 Australian TV drama.[2][3]

Plot

Jenny is a 16 year old girl whose father Roger, an actor, and mother Margaret, a television personality, have been separated for 15 months. Jenny has a boyfriend, Michael, a law student.

Margaret tells Jenny she has met a Melbourne businessman, Rex Porter, that she wants to marry.

This sends Jenny out looking for her father and boyfriend. She winds up at a party at Kings Cross being held by beatniks.

She gets a cab driver to take her to The Gap where she intends on committing suicide. However the cab driver talks her out of it and takes Jenny home to her father.

Roger returns and he and Margaret realise how troubled Jenny is. They decide to try again for her sake.

Cast
  • Carolyn Keely as Jenny
  • Joan Winchester as Margaret Playford
  • James Condon as Roger Playford
  • Grant Taylor as Rex Porter
  • David Yorston as Michael
  • Lex Mitchell as the beatnik
  • Tony Carere, Joan Morrow and Kerry Collins as beatniks

Hunger of a Girl

The play appears to be based on a stage play written by Kerr called Hunger of a Girl. This was set in the Blue Mountains and was about a 17 year old girl whose parents are separated and who reacts badly when her mother falls for another man. It results in the girl killing the other man.

This play was sponsored by the Elizabethan Theatre Trust and produced by the North Sydney Independent in September 1960 with Leonard Teale and Joan Winchester.[4]

The Sydney Morning Herald called the play "commendably smooth" but felt it became contrived in the second act.[5]

Production

It was the first of a series of six Australian plays to be produced by the ABC in 1962.[6] The other five were:[7]

Patricia Hooker worked as script assistant.

Reception

A critic from the Sunday Sydney Morning Herald called it "first rate drama" until the last five minutes when "it collapsed into nothingness" because it left unanswered the central question, namely "Should the partners of an unsuccessful marriage forgo their own chances of happiness for the sake of their children?... Did author Kerr simply throw up his hands and give the whole thing away?"[8]

The critic from the Sydney Morning Herald said "the play had all the searing truth and genuine emotion of a piece of eminently marketable woman's magazine fiction."[9]

See also
  • List of television plays broadcast on Australian Broadcasting Corporation (1960s)

References
  1. "TV Guide". The Age. 29 March 1962. p. 35.
  2. "TV Guide". Sydney Morning Herald. 26 March 1962. p. 13.
  3. Vagg, Stephen (18 February 2019). "60 Australian TV Plays of the 1950s & '60s". Filmink.
  4. "Music and Theatre". Sydney Morning Herald. 23 August 1960. p. 10.
  5. "Kerr's "Hunger of a Girl" at the Independent". Sydney Morning Herald. 16 September 1960. p. 7.
  6. "Young Star's Work". Sydney Morning Herald. 12 March 1962. p. 13.
  7. "Drama Go Ahead with Six Australians with Ideas". The Age. 1 March 1962. p. 12.
  8. Marshall, Valda (1 April 1962). "Six Beauties and a Corpse". Sydney Morning Herald. p. 86.
  9. "Kerr Play on ABN". Sydney Morning Herald. 29 March 1962. p. 12.


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