Product Details

• Actors: Helen Morse, Bryan Brown, Gordon Jackson, Dorothy Alison, Yuki Shimoda
• Directors: David Stevens
• Format: Color, Full Screen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Starmaker Entertainment
• VHS Release Date: July 30, 1992
• Run Time: 301 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (54 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302796857
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #84 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

70 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my all-time faves, January 7, 2004

By	Peggy Vincent "author and reader" (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: A Town Like Alice [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Joe Harmon (played by Bryan Brown) rocks! And so does this whole movie, based on Nevil Shute's superb novel of the same name. It starts well, picks up speed, and gets better and better. During WWII, Jean (who is her family's only survivor) is force marched back and forth across Malaysia by the Japanese, who don't know what to do with a bunch of English women and children. As their group dwindles from starvation, fatigue, malaria and dystntery, Jean becomes the leader of the little group, and she negotiates a deal with the headman of a small village whose men have been taken off to fight in the war: if the village will shelter them, the surviving English will work in the rice fields.
But it was during the months of wandering that Jean met Joe Harmon, an Austrailian prisoner of war who steals food for her, is crucified and left for dead by the Japanese.
After the war, when Jean is back in England, she comes into her family's money, and she has a dream: to return to Malaya to build a well for the village women. To her amazement, she learns that Harmon actually survived: when the Japanese could not grant him his last wish, they were honor bound to save his life. Jean goes back to find him at the same time he, having just discovered that she wasn't married when he met her (a deception she fostered for her own protection), flies to England to look for her. The two planes cross.
But, as with most good love stories, they meet - and things are awkward and stilted. When he knew her, her hair was loose and tangled, she was barefoot and wearing a sarong, and she had an orphan child balanced on her hip. Now when he sees her, she's an English lady - and he's still just a bloke from the outback.
Oh, I'm telling too much. Suffice to say that Jean's attempt to resume their former easy and relaxed relationship while in Australia's Great Barrier Reef is spectacularly successful, and she's faced with spending the rest of her life in the desolate and lonely outback. Alice Springs, the nearest thing to `civilization,' is too far to go, so Jean determines to spend her small fortune turning her little nowhere town into a place from which the young people will no longer flee in frustration. In short, she creates the world in which she wants to live and raise Joe's and her children.
It's so, so, so, so good, one of those videos you'll have to buy. Trust me on that.

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars GREAT LOVE STORY OF THE CENTURY, June 14, 2000

By	"brybrown" (Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Town Like Alice [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This is a movie to be viewed time and again. It encompasses several different cultures and spans several continents.

It is a love story that survives not only the nastiness of war but the trials of separation and the very unforgiving climate of Australia's outback.

When Jean and Joe, played admirably by Helen Morse and Bryan Brown, first meet, it is in the very trying conditions of war. After a separation of several years, they are reunited only to have their love tested again by the conditions of the land around them.

This movie was a TV mini-series based on Neville Shute's book and is quite long. However, it is worth it and I have watched it many, many times and never tire of it.

Beautiful scenery and great acting by everyone, especially Brown and Morse make this a thoroughly enjoyable must see movie.

36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A nearly perfect miniseries, May 7, 2002

By	Scott FS (Sacramento, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Town Like Alice [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Originally presented in the US on PBS, A Town Like Alice is engrossing enough to sustain interest in a 5-hour miniseries. Set in the Malaysian peninsula and the Australian outback, it follows the love story of two people thrown together in the maelstrom that is war.

I think this is one of the best miniseries around if you are at all attracted to love stories, the absurdities of war, and the gain and loss of love. This miniseries also gives you an excellent picture of life in the very small, very rural towns in the outback of Australia.

Highly recommended; if you haven't seen this one, you'll be pleasantly surprised. Helen Morse is excellent in this feature, and Bryan Brown really does a turn with a taciturn cattle rancher.