The God Boy

The story of the hardening effects on eleven year old Jimmy Sullivan of the bitter (and finally tragic) relationship between his parents.

The God Boy, New Zealand, 1976

Produced & directed by Murray Reece
Production co: Television One
From the novel by Ian Cross, adapted for television by Ian Mune
Script editor: Keith Aberdein
Photography: Allen Guilford
Sound: Russell Hay, Dick Reade
Film editing: Simon Reece
Design: Ron Highfield
Music: John Charles
Camera assistant: Paul Richards
First assistant director: Yvonne McKay

With: Jamie Higgins (Jimmy Sullivan), Maria Graig (Mrs Sullivan), Graeme Tetley (Mr Sullivan), Judie Douglass (Sister Angela), Ivan Beavis (Bloody Jack), Bernard Kearns (Father Gilligan), Yvonne Lawley (Sister Theresa), Dorothy McKeg (Sister Francis), Sandra Reid (Molly Sullivan), Mark Scott-Smith (Joe Waters), Harold Kissin (Mr Waters), Colleen McColl (Mrs Waters)

DV from 16mm, 83 minutes, G

Winner Best Script, Best Play, Best Actress 1977 Feltex Television awards.

The story of the hardening effects on eleven year old Jimmy Sullivan of the bitter (and finally tragic) relationship between his parents.

At his Catholic school, the other boys are unable to see what he is driving at when he wants to discuss parents, and think he is trying to start a sex discussion. While not actually a battered child, Jimmy exists in a ‘no man’s-land’ between the warring parties. He is virtually an only child because his older sister Molly lives in a boarding school in another town.

“The God Boy is a skilful adaptation of Ian Cross’s novel, a rite of passage psychodrama where the surface calm of private and public lives in a small town 1950s New Zealand masks regression, abuse, violence and dishonesty. Raggleton seems the setting for an idyllic childhood and for a time young Jimmy thinks God is on his side, that he is a ‘God Boy’. In that society sex roles are sharply delineated and Jimmy’s violent father, a war trauma victim, makes his wife the scapegoat of his disappointments. As well as being used as his father’s stalking horse at home, Jimmy is trapped in the violence of a punitive convent education. An imaginative boy, he comes to see Catholicism’s iconography and its strictures on love, sin and penance as inextricably linked to his sense of guilt. In his fantasies he comes to see himself as a Christ-like victim, railing against God (‘If I went after God I could beat him too unless he killed me’) and anaesthetising himself against pain with rituals of his own. Young Jamie Higgins gives a fine portrayal of inarticulate suffering as Jimmy chooses to live in denial of how things really are, and to ‘care about nothink.’ Screenwriter Ian Mune maintains the spirit of the novel while simplifying its complex structure. The main body of the narrative is framed as a flashback and shot in an ‘objective’ style. Jimmy’s interpretation of God’s complicity is verified by high angle shots giving a God’s-eye-view of the action… The God Boy, the first feature made for New Zealand television, was made when, the NZBC having been replaced by Televison One, Television Two (later known as South Pacific Television) and Radio New Zealand (1975), television drama production was reorganised and flowered as senior executives became program – rather than administration – oriented. The telefeature screened in 1976 to mark Television One’s first birthday and on 20 June 1985 to mark New Zealand’s first 25 years of television.” — Helen Martin, New Zealand Film 1912-1996

First published in 1957, The God Boy was an immediate best seller and has become a New Zealand classic. The novel has been reprinted several times (most recently in 2004 in the Penguin UK, Modern Classics series) and has been adapted for television (1975) and the stage. As Brian McDonnell has written, the television adaptation of The God Boy was a “prestige production designed to mark the success of the split of New Zealand’s publicly owned television organisation into two independent channels. The God Boy first transmitted on Sunday 4 April 1976 as the dramatic centerpiece of the celebrations marking the first birthday of the new channel. In hindsight it can be seen that The God Boy enjoyed more freedom than any other similar programme made since.” (Brian McDonnell, NZ Journal of Media Studies, vol.7, no.1, p.3) With an above-the-line-budge of $35,000 (that means only the extra costs involved in making an individual television programme are counted, it doesn’t include expenses such as salaries of permanent staff, the use of permanent studios or equipment) filming began on 18 August and finished on 27 September 1975. With the exception of wharf scenes shot in Whakatane, all of the film’s locations were within driving distance from Wellington – in Martinborough and Featherston in the Wairarapa, in Waikanae and Otaki. Interiors of the Sullivan house were sets in Studio 10 at Avalon. McDonnell concluded his two-part article on The God Boy in 2000 saying the film “can still be regarded today, 24 years after its first broadcast, as one of New Zealand’s finest pieces of television drama, demonstrating how the resources of public television can be properly used. Even read aesthetically as a film, it ranks among our most accomplished, especially as a depiction of childhood... The film owes much of its success to the enlightened freedom given to a talented film-maker, and for once a New Zealand director pushed visual style beyond the limits of bland realism... Despite a great deal of talk over the years about other planned adaptations of New Zealand novels, we have still not seen its like on New Zealand television. Perhaps, after TVNZ was turned into a profit-driven SOE in 1989, the production of such highbrow dramatic fare became impossible. At all events, the promise which The God Boy held out for local television drama remains unfulfilled.”

JAMIE HIGGINS who played Jimmy Sullivan was then a 15 year-old school-boy from Wainuiomata the starring role launched his acting career. Two years after The God Boy, and on the strength of his performance, Jamie was asked to audition for a part on Australia’s long-running drama The Sullivans. He was successful at the audition and went on to play Geoff Sullivan for five years. In 1983 he was back in New Zealand for a stint on Close to Home. According to a June 1985 issue of the Listener “he was last reported to be in Australia, pursuing his career as an actor.”

Screenings: The God Boy screened on 21 February 2007 as part of the Adapted: NZ Literature into Film series