She wants to make it "A Town Like Alice" Alice Springs, that is. "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.
The third love affair I mentioned doesn't get quite the emphasis it is due, and the full significance of the title is diminished. Gordon Jackson plays "Noel Strachan" appealingly, but as a somewhat younger man than Nevil Shute indicated in the novel.
The miniseries properly emphasises the beautiful love stories, three of them: "Joe" and "Jean", "Noel" and "Jean", and "Jean" and Willstown. 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. Yuki Shimoda is notable as "Gunso Mifune", one of the guards assigned to accompany the women on their agonising trek. But this excellent cast carries the story forward very well with generally good production values accompanying their work. It is a very close realisation of the story, suffering only from editorial faults commonly found in TV movies: choppiness and episodic progression. Only the full 5 hour miniseries version tells the story properly. Beware heavily cut versions sometimes shown on cable or satellite, running anywhere from 95 minutes to 2 hours. Apparently this Australian film based on Nevil Shute's novel exists in more than one form.
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