Cyclone Tracy – Nostalgia Central

1 9 8 6 (Australia)
3 x 120 minute episodes

This Australian miniseries dramatised the events of Christmas Day 1974 when a cyclone named “Tracy” devastated the city of Darwin in the Northern Territory, leaving over 100 people dead, 20,000 homeless, and 80% of the city’s buildings destroyed.

For six hours in November 1986, the series followed the fortunes of a group of disparate and mostly likeable people as they faced trial by wind and water, each in their own way.

Most appealing of them all is Connie, played by Tracy Mann, who acts up a storm as the little Aussie battler.

A widow with two daughters, Connie is the proud publican of the Paradise Hotel, which she has just finished paying off.

Least appealing are Harry (Nicholas Hammond), a self-interested American drug-runner and his good-time girlfriend, Joycie (Linda Cropper). In something of a cynical concession to the American market, an inordinate amount of time is devoted to this unlikeable couple at the expense of characters we come to care about.

Somewhere in between are Steve (Chris Haywood), a burnt-out journalist and potential love interest for Connie if he can stop wallowing in self-pity and come good in the crisis; Mick (Tony Barry), Connie’s delightful dad and the proud father of a second family by his devoted Filipino wife, Sandy; Caroline, Mick’s first wife, a kindly but rather lonely woman; and her mother, an embittered and disparaging old battle-axe.

Others in the line-up include Bobby Fontaine (Jack Webster), a superannuated female impersonator reduced to performing in D-grade dives; Tony (Noel Hodda), a navy lieutenant and Connie’s rather wimpy lover; and Theo (Nicholas Papademetriou), a Greek truck-driver, who is preparing to make a new home for his widowed mother.

Their small and large dramas are played out against the cataclysmic climatic drama raging around them.

While some of the special effects are splendid – in particular the wind which whipped houses, pummelled cars, propelled debris and sucked chunks of rooms out into the night – some of the others (a branch thrown javelin-style through a window, a beam tossed caber-fashion and a newborn babe as rigid as any porcelain doll, for example) smack of the man-made and cackhanded, even allowing for dramatic licence.

Cyclone Tracy also has times when it is heavy-handed, unconvincing and just plain boring, a fault of the journeyman script by Michael Fisher, Ted Roberts and Joseph B. Lowe.

There are some truly trenchant and touching moments and some exceptionally well-handled scenes. Those at the hospital immediately afterwards and at the airport when the evacuation got underway successfully evoke the grief, shock, numb disbelief, confusion and chaos which the people of Darwin must have felt after Tracy blew out of town.

The producers, John Edwards and Timothy Read, have used archive footage to advantage and incorporated into the script some authentic touches which act as potent reminders.

Leading performances, under the direction of Donald Crombie and Kathy Mueller, are proficient at their worst and powerful at their best, particularly from Tracy Mann and Tony Barry.

When it is not distracted by its own frequent bursts of silliness, Cyclone Tracy has moments of great integrity and great dramatic interest.

Steve
Chris Haywood
Harry
Nicholas Hammond
Connie
Tracy Mann
Joycie
Linda Cropper
Mick Brennan
Tony Barry
Big Caroline
Aileen Britton
Little Caroline
Caroline Gillmer
Bobby Fontaine
Jack Webster
Hilton
Paul Pryor
Theo
Nicholas Papademetriou
Lt Tony Baker
Noel Hodda
Sandy Brennan
Charito Ortez
Wayne Churchill
Gerry Skilton
Molly
Kate Ritchie
Megan
Kendall Monaghan
Hawthorne
David Slingsby
Mrs Hong Snr.
Ruth Chong
Bobby Hong
Justin Lo
Gavin Hong
Brendin Lo
Baby Hong
Robert Leong
Dr Renmark
David Downer
Nurse Lyndoch
Susan Leith
Sister Kingston
Mary Regan
Narrator
Peter Carroll