A Town Like Alice

I cannot believe it has been 25 yrs since I first watched this story on TV. I remembered to have been very much touched by it and was lucky to get the VHS tape several years ago. I did not watch it again until just recently. I have been watched it over and over ever since. I must have watched it 10 times in the past 2 wks.

The acting is superb, the story is compelling, and I am embarrassed to say that I did not appreciate actor Bryan Brown's talent until now. The playful facial expressions shown in the first half - when he gave Jean the stolen medicine in Malaya is such a contrast to his very reserved and nervous body languages shown in the second half: in their first drink together in Caines and the touring of the homestead. We have to wait until the wedding reception, especially the final dance scene to see his open display of affection for Jean. The same dancing eyes that first revealed his admiration in Malaya. Who wouldn't want to be his Mrs. Boong ?

While Joe changed from a cocky, almost bigger than life figure in the Malaya jungle to a somewhat self-conscious average Joe in his own backyard, Jean took the opposite road; her wartime experience seems to have given her new confidence. She wasted no time and went after what she wanted. She took steps to take what she could get - exactly as Joe had told her to once upon a time.

For me, all these transformations helps to show this is more than just a love story - this is a story about growth, courage and fragility in life. The solicitor -Noel is both a sweet and sad figure. He too gave much to Jean - he gave his last hope for love. At the end, he did what true love requires -- he put her happiness ahead of his own.

I happened to like the fight between Joe & Jean that was not in the book. I thought it's an appropriate and necessary addition for it helped to surface the inner struggles they both had to deal with in order to make their life together possible.

Now, I am older, maybe I understand life, love and loss a little better. This story touches me even deeper.

I am, however, surprised to see B. Brown has blue eyes in the promo photo shown on this site. He most definitely did not in "A Town like Alice." Well, 25 yrs is a long time !

Beautifully filmed, it tells the story of the book in wonderful detail. Conveys the courage of the heroine against horrible conditions in Malaya and her commitment to the virtue of productivity in turning a decrepit Outback village into a thriving "town like Alice (Springs)". No environmentalist her, she's definitely pro-development. The only downside, rather minor, is the injection of a gratuitous (and out-of-character) conflict between the two leads. Also captures the spirit of the Outback and inspires one to visit it (as it inspired me to visit Alice Springs and a Queensland cattle station).

Helen Morse (`Picnic at Hanging Rock'; `Caddie') delivers a notable performance as the graceful and determined quiet English woman with a thoroughly convincing strength of character, able to withstand the trauma of the Malayan trek and the challenges of a cross-cultural relationship in an environment alien to her. Although in many ways it is disappointing not to have seen Morse develop her promising film career beyond the following year's `Far East', for the past twenty years she has chosen to concentrate her prodigious talents on the Australian theatre instead where she finds the roles both challenging and fulfilling, something she suspects would not be available from current films. I find the comparisons others have made to Sigourney Weaver particularly significant as Morse gave by all accounts a harrowing portrayal of Paulina in `Death and the Maiden' for the Sydney stage to rank alongside her screen counterparts haunting rendition a year later in 1994. Curiously, they also both starred in Australian productions of Asia based `Casablanca' remakes released within months of each other in 1982; Weaver as Mel Gibson's love interest in Peter Weir's `The Year of Living Dangerously' and Morse as the prurient wife of a crusading journalist in John Duigan's `Far East'. Morse's recent outing as Theodora Goodman in Patrick White's difficult, both in adaptation and performance terms, `The Aunt's Story', which tells of her migration from dusty Australia to the relative calm of America via the maelstrom of Europe on the brink of the Second World War, has already received critical acclaim in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Though ably cast as Joe Harman, Leonard Maltin writing in 1994 believed that Bryan Brown has a likeability that had not been sufficiently tapped by the parts he had taken up till then, which included the romantic lead in `Gorillas in the Mist' also with Sigourney Weaver. His more recent Australian work in `Two Hands' (made in 1999 and ranked among Empire magazine's movie buffs top ten local films, though rather obviously heavily influenced by Tarantino's `Pulp Fiction') suitably cast Brown as a Sydney mobster boss with an unusual degree of compassion, providing along with the intensely black humoured heist the high spots of the film in an uneven mix of comedy and tragedy. Brown has also turned his hand to producing and last year returned from Hollywood to make local Australian films such as the gangster flick `Dirty Deeds' in which he took a starring role, and was released in the UK this summer.

Tragically, Arkie Whiteley who played the young barmaid Annie, died from cancer at the end of 2001 at the far too early age of 37. She was the daughter of the renowned painter Brett Whiteley, the subject of the original David Williamson play `Up for Grabs' which last year enjoyed a run in London's West End with the pop-goddess Madonna, before he and Australia, at the star's insistence, were unjustly usurped by Jackson Polock and America for an international audience. Whiteley's painting `Arkie Under The Shower' has come home ten years after the actress sold it, and it fetched $810,000 at auction in Sydney this August. Arkie was memorably the beauty against a backdrop of beasts in the squalid horror of `Razorback' before she made a successful career on the London stage, as well as appearing in TV productions in the UK such as `The Last Musketeer' in 2000. Also for the keen-eyed viewer, Anne Haddy can be spotted in a minor role as Aggie Topp, Jean's English friend who is brought to Australia to help out in her venture. Haddy, as I am sure we all know, went on to become as Helen Daniels the much loved and long serving matriarch of `Neighbours', that phenomenal export to the UK, before her life long battle with ill health was sadly lost in 1999.

Inspiration for Nevil Shute, came from the true story of 80 Dutch women and children who spent 2½ years walking around the island of Sumatra, although less than 30 survived the ordeal. The invasion of Malaya in 1942 also saw the forced march of legions of civilians fleeing the marauding army with many perishing en route. Incidentally the author spent the remainder of his years in Australia after researching for his novel `On the Beach' in which he depicts a nuclear holocaust in the Northern Hemisphere engulfing all life except for a few survivors in the Antipodean continent. The novel was published just three years before the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis that culminated in the critical Black Saturday on 27 October. Fortunately for us all, sanity just about prevailed as Kennedy and Khrushchev climbed down from the brink of a catastrophic nuclear strike, as was revealed in last year's BBC Radio 4 documentary commemorating the 40-year anniversary, and in a further BBC4 programme screened a few weeks ago.

The TV mini-series faithfully follows the original novel, and though at times at the same plodding pedestrian pace it still makes for a splendid love story set against the brutality of the Japanese occupation in Asia and the toughness of the Australian outback. It is a fine tribute to those essential qualities of human endeavour, courage and determination in overcoming life's obstacles in order to achieve personal dreams.

Although ScreenSound Australia holds a master video it is not permitted to sell the film overseas, however NTSC versions can be obtained via Amazon's website.

I have seen this film at least 100 times and I am still excited by it, the acting is perfect and the romance between Joe and Jean keeps me on the edge of my seat, plus I still think Bryan Brown is the tops. Brilliant Film.

Apparently this Australian film based on Nevil Shute's novel exists in more than one form. Beware heavily cut versions sometimes shown on cable or satellite, running anywhere from 95 minutes to 2 hours. Only the full 5 hour miniseries version tells the story properly. It is a very close realisation of the story, suffering only from editorial faults commonly found in TV movies: choppiness and episodic progression. But this excellent cast carries the story forward very well with generally good production values accompanying their work. Yuki Shimoda is notable as "Gunso Mifune", one of the guards assigned to accompany the women on their agonising trek. In the end he becomes a friend. You will agonise with him when his loss of face leads him into death.Helen Morse as "Jean Paget", pretty but not a great beauty (she resembles Sigourney Weaver a bit)registers just the right amount of spunk and winsomeness as the occasion demands. The miniseries properly emphasises the beautiful love stories, three of them: "Joe" and "Jean", "Noel" and "Jean", and "Jean" and Willstown. Gordon Jackson plays "Noel Strachan" appealingly, but as a somewhat younger man than Nevil Shute indicated in the novel. The third love affair I mentioned doesn't get quite the emphasis it is due, and the full significance of the title is diminished. "Jean" is devoted to the goal of bringing businesses to Willstown that will attract young women and girls and their civilising influence to this god-forsaken out back town. She wants to make it "A Town Like Alice"; Alice Springs, that is. We get only a few hints of this in several scenes. If you have the five hours to spare, this miniseries is a truly rewarding experience. Nevil Shute based his novel about the cruelty of the Japanese military in shunting a large group of women and children from one place to another on the Maylay Peninsula on a true occurrence. It happened on Sumatra, according to Shute, though, rather than on the peninsula. The crucifixion of "Joe" by a Japanese officer for stealing chickens to feed the women is probably fiction, but the cruelty of the Japanese in dealing with prisoners is certainly a matter of record.