Produced by Christopher Muir Productioncompany ABC Running time 60 mins | Distributed by ABC | |
Release date 25 July 1962 (Melbourne)8 August 1962 (Sydney) | ||
Plot
In 1962, a group of tourists meet and Englishman, Gutherie, at a French mountain inn. Gutherie tells them of Australian soldier, Nugget Wilson, a prisoner of war in Germany during World War Two. Wilson escapes and joins the French Resistance movement along with Gutherie. Wilson is captured and executed by a German firing squad. His last words are "she'll be right".
Cast
Production
The drama was shot in Melbourne.
It was also a radio play which was selected as the A.B.C.'s radio play for the 1961 Italia Prize.
Reception
The Sydney Morning Herald felt producer Chris Muir "adopting the immensely impressive pace of a professional, raised a living and passionate memorial to the memory of Australian soldiers" and felt the performance of Kevin Hanily ("completely credible and sympathetic") and the supporting cast "and the mode of presentation generally, bore the austere stark simplicity of a medieval passion play, and with much the same hushed effect."
Valda Marshall from the same paper called it "a first rate drama... a beautiful piece of craftmanship, with a casting that was almost faultless...Kerr's theme, that war and heroes are made up in the main from ordinary nondescript people, was one that could easily have become just that . . . ordinary and nondescript. But instead he produced a quiet, tight little drama that ranks as one of the best Australian plays the A.B.C. has given us."