TV Week
29th April 1978
… No wonder Sonny Blake gets restless.
Restless Years star Sonny Blake is breathing a little easier these days after what he calls a “horrifying experience.”
The “horrifying experience” was a scene of the hit 0-10 Network serial which called for him to be bitten by a one-and-a-half-meter deadly brown snake.
In the scene Sonny was lying on the ground tending to farmer Arnie Blunder (played by Richard Moir) who had been injured.
The snake crawls towards him and bit him on the leg.
But, in reality, there were two snakes – one live which was used for the lead up scenes and a well-preserved dead one which was placed on his leg in the scene in which he was supposed to be bitten.
Sonny who plays Alan Archer, said last week that he had long nurtured a fear of snakes.
“It wasn’t the easiest of scenes to play,” he said, “even though I knew the snake was dead.
“Just the feel of the thing on my leg made my flesh creep.”
Although the snake was hooked on to my leg I had the particular spot bandaged up so that its teeth would not come in contact with my bare flesh,” said Sonny.
Sonny made the snake look real by grappling with it and twirling it around his head.
The location scene was filmed on the outskirts of Sydney where in the series, Allan Archer is living on a farm.
He is befriended by farmer Arnie Blunder and Rosie Bailey (played by Terrie Hudson) who believes Allan resemble her dead brother and falls in love with him.
Arnie, enraged with jealousy about the liaison, rides after them with a shotgun to kill young Allan.
But his horse rears when it sees the snake and Arnie falls off, breaking his leg.
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