True Believers | |
---|---|
Genre | Miniseries |
Written by | Bob Ellis Stephen Ramsay |
Directed by | Peter Fisk |
Starring | Ed Devereaux Simon Chilvers John Bonney |
Country of origin | Australia |
Original language | English |
Production | |
Producers | Stephen O'Rourke executive Matt Carroll Sandra Levy |
Running time | 8 x 1 hour |
Budget | $3.6 million [1] |
Original release | |
Network | ABC |
Release | 28 June – 16 August 1988 |
True Believers is a 1988 Australian miniseries which looks at the history of the Australian Labor Party from the end of World War II up to the Australian Labor Party split of 1955. [2]
It was co-written by Bob Ellis who focused on three characters "Chifley, the unlettered man of great dignity; Menzies, who used to stand for something but eventually stood only for Menzies; and Evatt, the grand idealist... It's almost like Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1. It's a chunk of national history during Australia's great era of change after the war." [3]
The idea for the mini series and the title came from Bob Ellis, who pitched it to Matt Carroll at Channel Ten. Carroll commissioned Ellis and Stephen Ramsey to write it, originally as a feature film. In October 1984 Ten announced they did not want to make it. [4]
The producers of The Petrov Affair reportedly tried to buy part of the script, but were turned down. Carroll took the project to Sandra Levy at the ABC and she agreed to make it provided it was done on videotape. If it was shot on film the estimated cost would be $5.6 million but on video it could be done for $3.4 million. It would be shown on the ABC for the Bicentenary. [5] The project needed to be rewritten and Ellis and Ramsay refused. John Lonie rewrote the scripts. [1]
Filming took place in October 1987. [6]
Fred Daly watched the show and said "the bloke playing Chifley hasn't got the voice right but then nobody could get Chif's voice right." [7]
Jim McCelland said "while I am prepared to concede that I may be an atypically political animal I have to report that I experienced not a moment of boredom in watching the eight hour mini-series... It pulls off that rare double-historical accuracy and rivetting entertainment." [8]
Fred Daly called it "an excellent production." [9]
Sir Robert Gordon Menzies was an Australian politician and lawyer who served as the 12th prime minister of Australia from 1939 to 1941 and 1949 to 1966. He held office as the leader of the United Australia Party (UAP) in his first term, and subsequently as the inaugural leader of the Liberal Party of Australia, which he was responsible for establishing and defining in policy and political outreach. He is the longest-serving prime minister in Australian history.
The United Australia Party (UAP) was an Australian political party that was founded in 1931 and dissolved in 1945. The party won four federal elections in that time, usually governing in coalition with the Country Party. It provided two prime ministers: Joseph Lyons (1932–1939) and Robert Menzies (1939–1941).
Joseph Benedict Chifley was an Australian politician and train driver who served as the 16th prime minister of Australia from 1945 to 1949. He held office as the leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), having previously served as the treasurer of Australia under Prime Minister John Curtin and later himself from 1941 to 1949. He was notable for defining Australia's post-war reconstruction efforts.
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Arthur Augustus Calwell was an Australian politician who served as the leader of the Labor Party from 1960 to 1967. He led the party through three federal elections, losing each one in turn.
Herbert Vere Evatt, was an Australian politician and judge. He served as a judge of the High Court of Australia from 1930 to 1940, Attorney-General and Minister for External Affairs from 1941 to 1949, and leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and Leader of the Opposition from 1951 to 1960. Evatt is considered one of Australia's most prominent public intellectuals of the twentieth century.
The Petrov Affair was a Cold War spy incident in Australia, concerning the defection of Vladimir Petrov, a KGB officer, from the Soviet embassy in Canberra in 1954. The defection led to a Royal Commission and the resulting controversy contributed to the Australian Labor Party split of 1955.
Robert James Ellis was an Australian writer, journalist, filmmaker, and political commentator. He was a student at the University of Sydney at the same time as other notable Australians including Clive James, Germaine Greer, Les Murray, John Bell, Robert Hughes and Mungo McCallum. He lived in Sydney with the author and screenwriter Anne Brooksbank; they had three children.
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Anne Elizabeth Henderson, is an Australian writer, deputy director of The Sydney Institute, editor of the institute's The Sydney Papers and co-editor of The Sydney Institute Quarterly.
The Australian Labor Party split of 1955 was a split within the Australian Labor Party along ethnocultural lines and about the position towards communism. Key players in the split were the federal opposition leader H. V. "Doc" Evatt and B. A. Santamaria, the dominant force behind the "Catholic Social Studies Movement" or "the Movement".
Alan Douglas Joseph Reid, nicknamed the Red Fox, was an Australian political journalist, who worked in the Federal Parliamentary Press Gallery from 1937 to 1985. He is noted for his role in the Australian Labor Party split of 1955 and his coinage of the term "36 faceless men" to describe the members of the Australian Labor Party's Federal Conference.
The Menzies government (1949–1966) refers to the second period of federal executive government of Australia led by Prime Minister Robert Menzies. It was made up of members of a Liberal–Country Party coalition in the Australian Parliament from 1949 to 1966. Menzies led the Liberal–Country Coalition to election victories in 1949, 1951, 1954, 1955, 1958, 1961 and 1963. Robert Menzies was Australia's longest serving prime minister. He had served a previous term as prime minister as leader of the United Australia Party from 1939 to 1941. Although he would retire in 1966, his party would remain in office until 1972, an unprecedented 23 years of government from nine consecutive election victories.
The Curtin government was the federal executive government of Australia led by Prime Minister John Curtin. It was made up of members of the Australian Labor Party in the Australian Parliament from 1941 to 1945.
The Last Bastion is a television mini-series which aired in Australia in November 1984. It is a docudrama telling the story of Australia's involvement in World War II, and its often strained relations with its two main allies, Great Britain and the United States.
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Infamous Victory: Ben Chifley's Battle for Coal is a 2008 Australian documentary about the 1949 Australian coal strike. It combines documentary footage with dramatised re-enactments.
The history of the Australian Labor Party has its origins in the Labour parties founded in the 1890s in the Australian colonies prior to federation. Labor tradition ascribes the founding of Queensland Labour to a meeting of striking pastoral workers under a ghost gum tree in Barcaldine, Queensland in 1891. The Balmain, New South Wales branch of the party claims to be the oldest in Australia. Labour as a parliamentary party dates from 1891 in New South Wales and South Australia, 1893 in Queensland, and later in the other colonies.
A leadership election in the Australian Labor Party, then the opposition party in the Parliament of Australia, was held on 20 June 1951. It saw the election of Leader H. V. Evatt as leader following the death of sitting leader Ben Chifley.
A Local Man is a 2004 Australian play by Bob Ellis and Robin McLachlan about Ben Chifley. It is a one man show.