Color Me Dead

I remember seeing Color Me Dead on Australian TV in the early 1970s. I finally tracked down a surprisingly good copy on Youtube with an equally good copy of the original D.O.A(1949).

Color Me Dead is a lot better than I remembered and I watched i it more out of curiosity to see locations in Australia as they were in the late 1960s. The story follows closely to the original script of D.O.A. which I believe is out of copyright. The film starts out in the country town of Mittagong in New South Wales and then moves to the Chevron Hotel, Surfers Paradise in Queensland and then to The Menzies Hotel, Australia Square, and the Roselands Shopping Centre (Australia's biggest shopping centre at the time) in Sydney.

Americans Tom Tryon, Carolyn Jones and Rick Jason were cast in the lead roles to encourage international film sales with local actors cast in supporting roles. I found Tom Tryon's acting rather wooden where as Carolyn Jone's acted her heart out. Sandy Harbutt who overacts in the role of "Chester" went on to create the 1974 Australian cult bikie film "Stone." Rick Jason was good as the heavy and former Australian child actor Gary Gray got a role as the bellboy. Also a surprising amount of topless nudity for the time.

Overall it was a good film and still worthy of a spot on TV. It seems it is quite rarely shown these days.

A another time capsule of Australian life in the 1960s caught on film.