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Reviews
When Havoc Struck (1978)
Disaster documentaries with atmosphere
This aired in Australia in many forms. In its complete episodic form it featured regularly on "The World Around Us" in the late 1970s. Later it was chopped to pieces to fit 30-minute slots of "Great Mysteries Of The World". Both shows were on the Australian Seven Network.
A series devoted to documentary coverage of spectacular disasters, mainly from the 20th century, the episodes were arranged along a common theme such as "Disasters At Sea" (the Andrea Doria, Titanic, Queen Mary and more), "Air Disasters" and so on.
It was occasionally a little dry and a little pompous, and the presentation in general wasn't always that convincing (Glenn Ford sometimes got a little stilted), but my single clearest memory of the entire series is composer Harry Robinson's chilling "disaster sting", a ten-second theme of Hammond organ (?) and choir (sounding very much like a lost fragment of the music to "Picnic at Hanging Rock") which entered at the moment in the narrative where disaster struck and frequently left younger viewers (like me) with the hair on the backs of our necks standing on end. Fellow viewers of the series can surely hear it in their heads right now...!
A strong candidate for video release to the 70s TV nostalgia brigade. Bring it on!
Going Out (1981)
Hope to see it in full one day
The character with the braces was called Cathy, I seem to remember, but I've only had the chance to read the (very good) novel of the series, which I picked up in a bargain bookstore in Sydney in 1982. The series has never been shown here to the best of my knowledge, but the previous reviewer makes it sound like something worth seeking. DVD release anytime?