Darlinghurst Blog: Detritus: Underbelly Razor Premiere

For someone who watches television about once a month I was surprisingly excited about the new series of Underbelly, which is based on Larry Writer's excellent 2001 book, Razor. And while there were way too many advertisements, including a bizarre promo for Nine News's upcoming ''Razor Riches'' story on property prices in Darlinghurst (''It's criminal!''), I was captivated by the premiere episode last night. Screentime have done an excellent job in recreating 1920s and 30s Darlinghurst and judging by the number of hits this blog received last night (about four times the daily number in the space of two hours) by people googling Kate Leigh, Tilly Devine et al, the show has sparked new interest in this colourful time of Sydney's history. 

Last night's premiere, which began at 8.30pm, featured many of the typical Underbelly traits: narration by Caroline Craig, sex, nudity and violence, but perhaps because the characters were in period costume it didn't seem to be as offensive or gratuitous as in past series. If you haven't seen it yet and are reluctant to watch it based on the previous Underbellies, I would have to say that if you were to ignore the Craig narration it is essentially an historical television series - with dazzling sets and costumes - based on Writer's book.

Anna McGahan's naughty North Shore school-girl Nellie Cameron was a joy to watch and Chelsie Preston Crayford's comic portrayal of Tilly Devine was fun, but it was Danielle Cormack's Kate Leigh that I found the most convincing of the three female leads. That could also be because Leigh, or Queen Kate as she was dubbed in Underbelly, came across as the more serious and wiser of the trio. I also liked her king consort, Wally Tomlinson, played with a big heart by John Batchelor.

The male cast (above) too was excellent, especially because there were so many big, strong, rugged looking actors who looked great in period hats and suits.

Jeremy Lindsay Taylor as Norman Bruhn (above) was a master casting stroke as he looked so much like the real razor-ganger. Lindsay Taylor's performance was impeccable too; I couldn't fault it. It was so compelling he could have stolen the show from the three women leads, so for their sake, it's a good thing he will be killed off soon as the narrator foreshadowed last night. Although, it will be a damn shame for viewers if they kill him off too early. What a great face he had; I couldn't take my eyes off it. 

The show focuses on the intense rivalry between Devine and Leigh, but there are also the coppers who fought to control the crime that was flourishing on Darlinghurst's streets. Lucy Wigmore, who plays Australia's first policewoman, Lillian May Armfield, lends a strong moral presence and I look forward to seeing her character develop. Wigmore also had one of the best lines of the night when she encountered Nellie Cameron, still in her school uniform, during a raid at Devine's brothel. ''Is this some kind of costume?'' she asked, perplexed.

It wasn't just the actors and storyline that had me transfixed for two hours (a rare feat) but the sets, location, extras and costumes. It was a treat for the eyes. Nellie Cameron's 1920s Darlinghurst apartment was a dream and would probably rent for about $400 a week these days. Cameron also seems to have the best wardrobe of silk underwear, stockings, low-waisted flapper dresses, big, long necklaces and pretty cloches. There was a memorable scene of her dancing around her apartment in her big silk knickers, old fashioned bra and embroidered shawl.

The set-designers and script-writers have really captured the small details of the era. There are hand-painted wall signs, fruit-sellers's carts, rabbit-sellers, ice-men, dunny-men and plenty of dunny-lanes, which prove a perfect location for fight-scenes. Redfern's The Block (which is about to be demolished and developed) also worked brilliantly as a stand-in for Darlinghurst's Palmer Street, with its row of Victorian-era terraces. 

The Sydney Harbour Bridge, mid-build, is a nice touch, as is the Sydney skyline, which is shown as clumps of industrial chimneys pumping out smoke. When I met Larry Writer on Saturday he was telling me that back in the Razor days there were no garbage collectors so residents would simply build a little fire in their yards and burn all their waste. As a result Sydney was a haze of smoke, which also became the scent of the city. This knowledge proved quite valuable to the makers of Underbelly who were able to simply add some digital smoke in post-production to mask the sight of Sydney's tallest building, Centrepoint Tower, which was built long after the Razor-gang days.

I'd be really keen to know what you, occasional readers of my blog, thought of last night's show! And will you be tuning in next week?

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Underbelly: Razor

13 Episodes

Airs 8.30pm Sundays

Nine Network

Darlinghurst Blog: Detritus: Underbelly: Razor

There is Razor-fever on the streets of Sydney ahead of Sunday night's premiere of Underbelly: Razor on the Nine Network. The advertising is everywhere: across billboards, taxis, bus shelters and phone booths and it's making me very excited to soon see all the characters and streets of 1920s and 30s Darlinghurst brought to life. I may even dress up in period garb for the occasion and mix myself a few Sidecars or Mint Juleps. 

I also have some very good news to share: Larry Writer, the excellent author of Razor, will be reading from the book in Potts Point tomorrow. Writer will also be joined by former policewoman turned author PM Newton to discuss the fine craft of crime writing. The special event is being held to coincide with the very first National Bookshop Day and starts at 4pm at the Potts Point Bookshop. 

It's a good opportunity to bring along your old, dog-eared copy of Razor for signing by Writer before he becomes too too famous. You can also no doubt purchase Writer's latest book, Bumper, about copper Frank Farrell who patrolled the streets of Darlinghurst, Kings Cross and Surry Hills from the 1930s to the 1960s. Or buy Newton's well-reviewed debut detective novel, The Old School, which was released by Penguin last year.

National Bookshop Day is a new event run by the Australian Booksellers Association to promote books and reading. 

The Oscar and Friends bookshops are also celebrating the day with free gelato and children's storytelling at their Double Bay store, as well as Chaser comedian Dom Knight in their Surry Hills store. 

I really hope it's going to be a blue-sky Saturday. 

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LINKS (to get you in the mood for Underbelly:Razor):
MDD Blog Interview with Larry Writer

MDD on Razor, by Larry Writer

MDD on City of Shadows, by Peter Doyle

MDD on Mum's In, by Vashti Hughes

Mediaweek Podcast Interview with Underbelly: Razor Producer Peter Gawler

Darlinghurst Blog: People: Larry Writer

Larry Writer (above) is a Woollahra-based journalist, author and publisher who is set to become a household name when the new Underbelly television series, based on his 2001 book, Razor, begins airing on the Nine Network on August 21.

Filming of the series only wrapped up a couple of weeks ago and as a treat for My Darling Darlinghurst readers, Writer took some time off set to answer some questions and to provide an insight into the creation of the new Underbelly: Razor, as well as to share his favourite Darlinghurst places and secrets. 

If you haven't already read Razor, you better chop-chop and pop off to the library or Ariel and grab yourself a copy because it is the authoritative book on 1920s and 30s Darlinghurst, a period which saw the birth of organised crime in Australia.

Scene from Underbelly:Razor

Writer's most recent book, Bumper: The Life and Legend of Frank 'Bumper' Farrell, published late last year, is also set in Darlinghurst and traces the career of a "rough as bags" cauliflower-eared policeman who patrolled the streets of Kings Cross, Darlinghurst, East Sydney, Woolloomooloo and Surry Hills from 1940 to 1976. 

Bumper Farrell appears in Razor too, which follows the lives of sly-grogger Kate Leigh, brothel madam Tilly Devine and the crooks, crims, cops and prostitutes around them, and brings the mean streets of historical Darlinghurst to life in meticulously researched detail. 

In 2002, Razor was the joint winner, with Mike Richards's The Hanged Man, of the Ned Kelly Award for Best True Crime. 

It would be fair to describe Razor as a seminal work and with the impending television series, it is likely to experience increased popularity. Victorian-based authors Andrew Rule and John Silvester watched their Underbelly series of true crime books hit the bestsellers list and surpass the 1.5million sales mark following the first television series about Melbourne's gangland wars. 

I look forward to seeing Razor and Writer enjoy the same successes. 

And now, over to Writer:

Tilly Devine (Chelsie Preston-Crayford) takes her dogs for a stroll.

''After the negotiations were completed for Screentime, makers of Underbelly, to use Razor as the basis for the new series, I was invited to come on board as a consultant. 

"I’d heard horror stories of film-makers turning books into train wrecks, but from the first, I was delighted to find that the producers, scriptwriters, researchers, actors and directors’s respect and affection for the people and places in Razor matched my own. 

"I read all the scripts as they were written and attended conferences, and there and on the phone I was asked all kinds of questions: What were the common expressions used in that era? What did the Tradesman’s Arms look like then? What is 'gingering'? What would a Darlinghurst street look like in 1928? Where did the gangsters access their cocaine? What brand beer, wine and spirits did Kate Leigh sell? What did Snowy Prendergast do before he became a gangster in Darlinghurst? What are the lyrics of Tilly Devine’s favourite song, 'The Marquis of Camberwell Green'? Whatever happened to the survivors of the razor gang wars?"

"The actors wanted to know their character’s back stories, how they spoke, what they wore, any other idiosyncrasies that could help them make their character real. 

"The production designers moved heaven and earth to find authentic period clothing, razors and guns, furniture, props and cars. 

"They also invited me to play a 'wealthy businessman' in a nightclub. I hope I don’t end up on the cutting room floor!"

Two razor-gangers are taken aback when north shore schoolgirl Nellie Cameron (Anna McGahan) proposes a career as a prostitute.

Violet: Are you happy with the finished product?

Writer: ''I’m delighted. It rocks! It’s very Underbelly in that it’s fast and racy and assaults the senses, but the acting, direction and design is wonderful, and it’s true to the spirit of my book, and more importantly to the people and the places of Darlinghurst in the 1920s and 30s.''

Kate (Danielle Cormack) or Tilly? – who is your favourite and why?

"I am very fond of them both, but I think Tilly is a little closer to my heart. 

"They are both brilliant mixes of good and bad, kindness and cruelty, greed and altruism, but I’m intrigued by the way Tilly fought her way up from abject poverty to be so successful, despite her husband Big Jim Devine, her treacherous gang, her own demons. 

"Somehow, and against much of the evidence, she seems more vulnerable. 

"I like too that she was always singing and knew how to party . . . even if those parties often ended in mayhem. I’m very glad that she was never my neighbour."

What would Kate and Tilly think about the television series?

"They’d be sitting on their lounge surrounded by their henchmen and women and loving every moment. Both had a keen sense of self-promotion. I reckon Tilly would be griping though that the actress who plays her, Chelsie Preston Crayford, is not nearly as beautiful as her."

How enjoyable was the writing process of Razor?

"I became obsessed with the people and the era during the three and a half years when I was researching and writing Razor. I enjoyed every moment, and it was such a pleasure. 

"I had a fulltime job so I’d be up at 3am before I went to my day job, and then again till late at night. Most of my weekend was occupied on the project. 

"I was in such a zone I didn’t realise I was working terribly long hours. When I finished I fell in a heap. My family was very glad to have me back from living in the 1920s."

You lived at Hensley Hall for a time. Have you lived at any other houses in the area?

"Hensley Hall was the only place I lived in Darlinghurst, though when I was in my teens and 20s I lived in many share terraces in Paddington and Kings Cross. Now I live in Woollahra with my family. 

"In 1958, when I was eight, I lived with my Aunt Dolly in Hensley Hall. I remember sword fighting my brother with copper sticks from the laundry, and him spitting toothpaste out of our first floor window onto a passerby who banged on the front door. 

"Often, before I set off to Darlinghurst Primary School or to the movies, my aunt told me if I saw them coming I should steer clear of Tilly Devine and Kate Leigh."

What is your favourite thing about Darlinghurst?

"I like the places that figured in Razor that are still there to see and experience: The Strand Hotel (above) where Frankie Green shot Barney Dalton and Wally Tomlinson; the Tradesman’s Arms pub (now the East Village), Charlotte Lane where Norman Bruhn was assassinated, Tilly’s former brothel and home at 191 Palmer St, the little lanes around Palmer St, (Chapel, Berwick, Woods, Palmer) which are beautiful and peaceful today but were once Tilly’s kingdom; even the empty space where 104 Riley Street used to be beguiles me – that’s where Kate Leigh lived and sold sly grog and shot Snowy Prendergast dead."

What's your favourite restaurant in the area?

"It’s just closed down but the Bayswater Brasserie was a great haunt in my younger, single days . .  . Arthur’s night club too. I enjoy the schnitzel at Una’s. 

"Billy Kwong’s (above) serves superb food but I don’t go often, because I don’t enjoy queuing for a table and then being hustled out the moment I’m finished so the people standing outside in the street in the cold with their noses pressed to the front window eyeing my table can be seated."

What's your favourite pub in the area?

"The Dolphin in Crown Street . . . Yes, I know I’m a dinosaur, but I like it not for what it is today, but for what it was, a wild and crazy Irish sports pub, where Bumper Farrell would go to drink Guinness and sing Irish ballads (very badly but enthusiastically)."

What's your favourite secret in the area?

"I have to say the Razor hangouts. How many times do we go past the East Village pub, or the Chard Building on William Street (above) without even thinking that the Tradesman’s Arms was the most notorious pub in town, and the Chard Building was once the site of the Fifty Fifty Club, Phil “The Jew” Jeff’s temple of cocaine, prostitution, illegal alcohol and gambling, where Tilly and Kate and Nellie Cameron and Guido Calletti and Frank Green and Big Jim Devine and the other gangsters mingled with Premiers, sports stars, business leaders and celebrities."

What's your favourite Darlinghurst building?

"The old Darlinghurst Police Station (above). With its ageless sandstone and pointy round roof it reminds me of a castle in a fairy tale, and in many ways it was. 

"This is where the baddies were locked up, where Bumper Farrell ruled, where those fabulous mug shots that have been published in Peter Doyle’s magnificent books City of Shadows and Crooks Like Us were taken, and where Lance Hoban, an old time cop who I interviewed for Razor, found a cache of Guido Calletti’s razors that had been confiscated when he was arrested."

Inspector William Mackay (Craig Hall) patrols the dangerous streets of Darlinghurst.

''Darlinghurst is my heartland in many ways, and I adore it. It retains the dangerous and gloriously seedy miasma of earlier times, and it continues to resist change and fads better than many Sydney suburbs.

''I hope it never becomes too cool, and I hope they never demolish Hensley Hall.

''Oh . . . and it’s lucky to have a chronicler like you, Violet.''

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Underbelly: Razor will premiere on the Nine Network on August 21.

Sign up to the My Darling Darlinghurst Facebook page and my Twitter account for updates.

All Underbelly: Razor photographs courtesy of, and copyright to, the Nine Network.

Darlinghurst: Books: City of Shadows, Sydney Police Photographs 1912-1948, by Peter Doyle, with Caleb Williams

This smartly dressed chap (above) may appear to be a good, law-abiding citizen, but he is actually a dirty crook by the name of H. Ellis who gadded about Sydney in the 1920s getting up to mischief. This mug-shot was taken sometime in that decade at the Sydney Central cells, but I don't really know what his crime was, because his and many other records have been lost.

As Peter Watts, the director of the Historic Houses Trust, explains in the introduction to this curious and deeply fascinating publication, a vast collection of forensic crime photography created by the NSW Police between 1912 and 1960, was damaged in a flooded warehouse. 

In the 1980s, the Trust managed to salvage ''about four tonnes of photographic material, including many glass plate negatives still in their original Kodak boxes . . . (but) sadly, none of the detective's notes or investigation files that would have provided context and explanation for the subjects depicted appeared to have survived.''

Enter crime novelist and academic Peter Doyle who sifted through the piles of photographs, decrypted messy handwriting, examined old streets and buildings, studied the Police Gazette and other publications of the day, and was then able to piece together at least some of the stories behind the 240 crime scene photos and mug-shots in this book.

So was the man above a con-man, moonshiner, abortionist or murderer? 

We might never know, but as Mr Watts writes, the photographs still manage to ''come alive in their own right'' and are also a reminder that ''photography as a medium of visual communication possesses a deep and lasting power to move, entrance and captivate, even when produced for a purely bureaucratic or investigative purpose with no thought to the reactions of posterity.''

Here is a small selection of photographs and captions from the book, including ones shot in Darlinghurst, with thanks to Master Tailor Russell Wade for letting me borrow his treasured and much-read copy.
I thought it would be a timely post, considering the razor gangs of 1920-30s Darlinghurst, detailed in Larry Writer's excellent book, Razor, are going to be brought to life again in the latest television series of Underbelly. As an aside, I would really like a bit-part or to appear as an extra in this new series. I have the wardrobe ready. 

Liverpool Street, Darlinghurst, near the corner of Riley Street, looking east, circa 1930.

''The police interest seems to centre on one of the terrace houses on the left, in the Riley to Crown Street block. Details unknown but the entire series, of which this photo is a part, has the pronounced sombre ambiance of a murder scene.''

The same street scene on December 25, 2010: no murder, more trees, Horizon building.

The 1930s murder appears to have taken place at a set of terraces, now heritage-listed, which I wrote about here.

Kings Cross, late 1930s. Details unknown.

The mug-shot of Phillip Henry Ross, in the middle row, left, was taken at Darlinghurst Police Station in the late 1920s.

Uninscribed . . .

''. . . but a similar photograph of this pair appears in Truth, 14 June 1942. They are Neville McQuade, 18, and Lewis Stanley Keith, 19, at North Sydney Police Court on charges of being idle and disorderly persons, having insufficient means of support and with having goods in their possession believed to be stolen. After being remanded in custody for a week, both were released on bonds.

Of the photographs, McQuade later said to a Truth correspondent: 'We were bundled out of the police cell and snapped immediately. My friend and I had no chance to fix our hair or arrange our make-up. We were half asleep and my turban was on the wrong side'.''

I suspect this pair (while arrested on the North Shore) may have frequented the Darlinghurst and Kings Cross area.

Crime Scene: 1930s, details unknown.

I just love the dressing table, twin lights, club chair and satin angel wings cushion. There are many photographs like this in the book, including a great number with the murder victim or corpse in situ. As the details are unknown, I wonder if the apartments and homes still exist, and if the people who live in them now are aware of their gruesome history.

Nancy Cowman, 19, and Vera Crichton, 23. Sydney Central cells, February 21, 1924.

''Both were listed in the Police Gazette, 24 March, 1924, charged, along with three others, with 'conspiring to procure a miscarriage' on a third woman. Cowman (alias Divvers, Denvers,) was eventually acquitted; Crichton was 'bound over to appear for sentence if called upon within three years'. Their three male co-accused received sentences of 12 and 18 months hard labour.''

Very fashionable abortionists, don't you think?

Harry Chapman, June 30, 1924.

''Arrested in June 1924 for breaking and entering a dwelling-house and stealing articles, valued at 2 pounds 16 shillings, 6d. In September that year, aged 19, he was arrested again and charged with stealing a motorcyle and sidecar (value 175 pounds) and a till containing money (value 17 shillings, 6d), in league with Harold ('Tarlow') Tarlington, 15, and Alfred Fitch, 17. Tarlington went on to become a well-known criminal and was eventually shot dead in St Peters by Myles Henry 'Face' McKeon, who was himself later shot dead in Chippendale. Chapman received two years hard labour for motorcycle theft.''

See, no matter how handsome Chapman was - and how well he could strike a pose - this caption proves that crime never pays.

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City of Shadows
Sydney Police Photographs 1912-1948
By Peter Doyle
With Caleb Williams
Published by the Historic Houses Trust 2005,
in association with the exhibition, City of Shadows,
held at the Justice and Police Museum, November 2005 to February 2007.
Hardback $65