THE WEEKLY'S WAR

Australia, 1983, 180 minutes, Colour.
Noni Hazelhurst, Michael Caton, Patricia Kennedy, Judi Farr, Jane Harders, Pat Thomson, Jacquline Kott, Bill Hunter.
Directed by Stephen Ramsay.

The Weekly's War is television docu-drama focusing on the national institution, The Australian Women's Weekly.

The film highlights the personalities involved in the Weekly in the early '40s - Tillie Shelton- Smith, Dorothy Drain, Alice Jackson, Les Heylen. They are portrayed by an interesting cast led by Noni Hazlehurst and Michael Caton. The film includes an amount of film footage from archives and many visuals from the Women's Weekly itself.

The Weekly was a popular magazine, reflecting many of the attitudes of the average women of Australia. It was geared for their taste, for their interests, for the stereotyped roles of women. However, the women producing the magazine were a determined group who were in the vein of emerging feminism. (A parallel with some of the incidents and attitudes can be found in the documentary on Australian women and work, For Love Or Money.)

The film has the tone of the Women's Weekly - an appeal to the widest audiences for an appreciation rather than a depth understanding of the Women's Weekly and the importance of this magazine for morale boosting. One of the important features of the film is the awareness of the transition from British influence to American influence during World War Two and for the subsequent decades. This means that the production, enjoyable, is a 'coffee table' docudrama.

1. The personalities of the Women's Weekly: Tillie, Dorothy, Alice Jackson? The portrait of the people and their working together: weeping at newsreels, the picture of Churchill, Les Heylen and morale, the restaurant and the politicians, the women taking their flat, the diggers reading the stories, the Malaya stories, 'the girl in the digger hat', the influence of the Packer family, Tillie's entertaining, staff petitions, Mary Gilmour's poems, Mary Gilmour and Singapore, Dorothy and the poem, the Irish pilot, the American soldiers as guests, the compere at the club, the Rose Bay interview, recreation, sunbaking, the bathroom and its plushness, the feminism emerging at the end of the war, interviews?

2. The portrait of Australia at war: the AIF at Katoomba, news briefs and the place of women drivers, letters from the Front - Arab, politics, Curtin and his speeches, Russia, pro-American stances, Macarthur, baseball and government PR, the fall of Singapore? 'The best morale and propaganda is not obvious - national spirit', a tenacious enemy, Japan in Sydney Harbour, Rose Bay, Kokoda Trail, the training the American stars arriving in Australia, 42nd. Street, Damien Parer and his work, Curtin's death, Chifley?

3. The outline history of World War Two and Australia's involvement in the world-wide context, use of newsreel footage etc.? Poland, Hitler, Holland and Rotterdam, blitzkrieg, Paris and Petain, the bombers, the British and radar, incendiaries, Italy attacking Egypt, the Australians in North Africa -'Waltzing Matilda'? Two hundred Italians surrendered to eight, Rommel, the capture of Tobruk, the resistance, mines and wire? 'Moral beacon to allies'? The Australians to Greece, families, 30 dive-bombers, machine guns, the RAF and the Battle of Britain, Crete? The invasion of Russia, 4,500,000 die, the Leningrad winter? The 7th. of December 1941 and Pearl Harbor, the Japanese? Consequences for Port Moresby, Darwin, Battle of the Coral Sea? New Guinea, the Kokoda Trail, Sydney Harbour, Milne Bay? Papua- New Guinea? Macarthur? D- Day, the concentration camps, Hiroshima?

4. The involvement of the Women's Weekly, photos, the romantic treatment of the troops, morale photos, morale covers? Pro England - 'There'll always be an England'? Domestic stories, children evacuated, Cinesound's phone calls, Patrick in the surf, parcels, Daphne and animals? Letters from home and editorials, Malaya? Packer and the cartoons? Heylen and his articles? Stalin's stances, the Soviet attitudes, sympathy towards Russia? Dr. Evatt, George Yates, Hughes? Popular elements- recipe stories etc.? Themes of Soviet women and equality? Menzies' trip, Fadden and the budget, transition to Labor, Curtin's speeches? Packer and the staff meetings, funds? Songs, advertisements and diggers, the covers of 1943? Red Cross dream home, donations, progress and the taking readers' minds from the war? The club for women in uniform? Shops? The living in austerity, no stockings, Liberty Loans? The Americans, the conscripts, Sundays? Inviting bored GIs home? Letter-writing? The interview with the mother with the two boys? Macarthur to Tokyo? The bomb editorial? Women in parliament, Heylen to parliament? Packer's attitudes?

5. The effectiveness of this kind of nostalgia, recalling of the past? Insight into history via images, popular magazines, popular attitudes?