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Movie Showcase: The Getting of Wisdom

on BBC Two England

Continues the season of recent, highly-acclaimed films, starring Susannah Fowle, John Waters
Sent by her hard-working mother to attend Australia's most exclusive girls' school in turn-of-the-century Melbourne, Laura finds that it is not just her homemade clothes and country manners which set her apart from her snobbish, well-off schoolmates. For she is gifted with a strength and a brilliant musical talent which gradually allows her to transcend her unhappy situation, helped by the love of the school's beauty, Evelyn.
This moving portrait of girlhood emerges as an optimistic and triumphant affirmation of the human spirit in one of the most original and visually beautiful of all Australian films.
"Susannah Fowle's debut as Laura is spectacularly successful, by turns funny, sensitive, brattish, devious, utterly flawless." (EVENING STANDARD) (First showing on British television) Films: page 23

Contributors

Screenplay:
Eleanor Witcombe
From the novel by:
Henry Handel Richardson
Producer:
Philip Adams
Director:
Bruce Beresford
Laura:
Susannah Fowle
The Rev Strachey:
Barry Humphries
The Rev Shepherd:
John Waters
Mrs Gurley:
Sheila Helpman
Miss Chapman:
Patricia Kennedy
Isabella Shepherd:
Julia Blake
Miss Hicks:
Dorothy Bradley
Mrs Rambotham:
Kay Elklund
Mr O'Donnell:
Max Fairchild
Miss Snodgrass:
Jan Friedl

BBC Two England

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