Hunter (1967)

Overview

Hunter was an Australian espionage adventure television series screened by the Nine Network from 5 July 1967 to 1969. The series was created by Ian Jones and produced by Crawford Productions. The title character, a dashing spy, was played by Tony Ward. However he was quickly overshadowed by the show's main antagonist, Kragg, played by Gerard Kennedy, the show's breakout character. Kennedy won a TV Week Logie Award for Best New Talent for his portrayal of the character. Scripts were written by Ian Jones and Terry Stapleton. The series became extremely popular rating in the top-ten most popular programs in Australia for 1967, and had a run of 65 one hour episodes; it also achieved a limited number of international sales. It was shot in black and white, with interior scenes shot on videotape in the GTV-9 Richmond studio and outdoor scenes shot on location on 16 mm film. Compared to Australian drama series of the day, the series featured an above-average quota of location-shot action footage. It featured a sophisticated jazz score by Frank Smith. The Melbourne-based show filmed some episodes in Sydney and in the Snowy Mountains in New South Wales, on the Gold Coast, Queensland, in South Australia, and in Singapore.