THE Border will play host to the shooting of a television movie about Cliff Young, the 61-year-old Victorian potato farmer who captured worldwide attention in 1983 when he beat some of the finest distance runners to win the Sydney to Melbourne ultra marathon.
Cliffy will be produced by Clock End films for the ABC and screen next year, the 30th anniversary of Young’s win of that first race.
The film will be directed by Dean Murphy, the former Kergunyah resident who took Yackandandah to the screen and stage with his film and stage productions of Strange Bedfellows.
Producer Dean Murphy on the red carpet at the world premiere of the Strange Bedfellows musical in Albury in 2010.
Murphy said casting for the movie was under way and the five-week shoot would begin in mid April.
“I thought it was about time we brought another production to the Border,” he said.
“We chose Albury-Wodonga because it has a range of landscapes that reflect the route of the run between Sydney and Melbourne, as well as Albury itself.
“It gives us everything we need and we are even doubling up in filming the scenes of Beech Forest, where Cliff came from, near Colac.”
- Click here for famous photos of Cliff Young
Murphy said the story became more interesting as he delved into it.
“The fact that he was running 145 kilometres a day, and he was 61 and doing that six days in a row, was quite extraordinary,” he said.
Young died in 2003, aged 81, so Murphy has spent time with his brother Sid.
“He was just like him, with the same dry sense of humour,” Murphy said.
“I think Cliff was a lot sharper than people realised.
“The amazing thing we learnt is that despite being the age he was and going up against runners including world record holder Tony Rafferty, he still told his brother ‘put some money on me, I think I can win it’. Sid didn’t and I think he regretted it ever since.”
Murphy said Young presented some difficulties in casting the appropriate actor to play the role.
“What Cliff did was extraordinary, so getting someone to play him physically and capturing the essence of the man is an interesting challenge.
“They will have to be very fit as well. While we’re not expecting them to run the marathon, there will be plenty of running involved.”
He is hoping to cast locals in some small roles.
Set against the backdrop of the early 1980s, Cliffy will retrace Young’s journey from famously training in gumboots among the cow paddocks to an epic six-day period of the ultra marathon and his emergence as the nation’s most unlikely sporting hero.
“With the 30-year anniversary of the running of the race next year, the timing was perfect to celebrate the race and Cliff’s achievements, who he was and where he came from.”
Editorial — page 16
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