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FILMING 'THE THORN BIRDS'
Australian
scenes in
California
From JERRY BUCK, in Los Angeles
LOOKING down from the
hillock on to the 'Drogheda'
sheep station in the valley
below might cause an Aus
tralian stockman to think he
was home.
From the weathered wooished to
the imposing Georgian sandstone
house, it appears an authentic re
production of a 1920s Australian
sheep station. It was built in the
i>imi Valley north-west of Los An
geles for the nine-hour American
Broadcasting Company's mini
scries based on Colleen Mc
Cullough s romantic family epic,
The Thorn Birds'. It will be tele
cast in 1983.
It looks right, from the worn
fences to the wisteria creeping up
the ironwork on the verandah. It
smells right, too, from the sheep to
the manure to the roses blooming
beside the verandah.
The "station" cost the
equivalant of SA2.5 million to
build. But when shooting has
finished in late October the build
»ngs, or what's left after the fire
sweeps 'Drogheda', will be torn
down and once again it will become
California ranchland.
Why is a novel so Australian
being filmed here? Producer Stan
Margulies says, "When I got to
Australia I saw wisteria, bottle
brush, jacaranda trees and roses It
was southern California.
"Riding from the airport to Syd
ney, my wife looked at the moun
tains and said, 'There are the Santa
Susana Mountains'. That's what
they looked like."
Margulies, a co-producer of
Roots, went on, "We've ac
cumulated more than 200 books on
Australia, some specifically on
sheep stations. 'Drogheda' doesn't
aM°LVh?n Tara did in
Gone With The Wind'. Colleen
McCuIlough took features from
many places to create a fictional
setting for Father Ralph and Mary
Carson and Paddy and Meggie."
Warner Bros, hoping for a film
as popular as the best-selling book
IT'i- th=film r'ghts before
publication. But it gave up after
three directors and a number of
scripts. It could not tell the sweep
ing story in just two hours
, It had tried to get Robert Red
ford to play Father Ralph, but.
according to Margulies, "Redford
was getting himself mentally ready
I. "Irecting at the time and wasn't
! interested."
I After that, Alan Shayne, presi
| dent of wanier Bros Television,
turned it over to Margulies and his
co»producer.
"We knew it was perfect for a
mini-series," Margulies said. "We
went right to ABC, hired writer
Carmen Culver and spent a year on
the script. The only other thing we
did was to sign Richard Cham
berlain to play Father Ralph "
Chamberlain stars as Ralph de
Colleen McCullough with her best-seller. Help
Colleen McCullough with her best-seller.
Bricassart, the priest who becomes
romantically involved with Meggie
Clcary (Rachel Ward) and rises to
power in the Vatican. Barbara
Stanwyck is the strong-willed
Mary Carson, Jean Simmons is
Fee, Richard Kiley is Paddy, and
Australian actor Bryan Brown is
Luke O'Neill, the man Meggie
marries.
The woolshed is the only com
plete building on the "station".
The others are all shells.
"This is the only building where
we are shooting both exteriors and
interiors," Margulics said. "We
have 16 working sheep-shearing
stations and a 19th century steam
engine to run them. Recently we
filmed them shearing wool for two
days.
"You'll notice that the shed is
cathedral-shaped. When the sun is
right it throws a cross on the floor.
Meggie discovers this at an early
age, and this becomes her sanc
tuary. We'll have a lot of scenes
here with Meggie and Father
Ralph. In the next generation Jus
tine uses it for her stage."
The Queensland scenes will be
filmed in Hawaii, and other scenes
will be filmed in and around Los
Angeles.
Daryl Duke, the director, said,
"This was so appealing because it's
seldom that you find this passion
and sweep of characters in an
American television show. We've
got 1,500 sheep, the great vista of
the ranch, and so many characters
set against such a broad back
ground.
'I'm paying a lot of attention to
the dramatic scenes and bringing
forth the emotional elements that
appealed to me as a director. I
knew it would cast well and would
be a piece of worth and stature."
Duke, a Canadian, said during a
lunch break, "We're shooting this
in sequence by episodes. I think
everyone would go crazy if we
didn't. The hardest problem is
keeping a consistent style over such
a long shooting schedule. You have
to keep it fresh and growing and
movifig forward."
Richard Kiley (Paddy), is film
ing the scene in which he dies in
the fire. His face is blackened by
soot and he wears asbestos under
wear beneath his work shirt and
woollen pants.
"As I see Paddy, he's no a ter
ribly complex guy,' he said. "He's
one of the most sympathetic in the
novel and screenplay. I feel Paddy
acts from the heart. His relation
with Fee is sort of tragic. He adores
her but she doesn't realise her love
for him until he's dead.
"You could call him a tragic
figure. Really, all of them are.
"That's the legend of the thorn
bird. You buy happiness at the cost
of intense pain.
-AAP-AP
$