★★★★★ 0/5

It’s time for The Dismissal

Video: Revisit the outstanding 1983 miniseries by Kennedy Miller.

10
Leave a comment

2014-10-22_1139I’m hearing whispers that TEN is looking at the possibility of replaying the outstanding 1983 miniseries The Dismissal.

This starred Max Phipps as Gough Whitlam, John Stanton as Malcolm Fraser and John Meillon as Governor-General Sir John Kerr.

But the cast also included John Hargreaves, Bill Hunter, Ruth Cracknell, Robyn Nevin, Tom Oliver and an appearance by Stuart Littlemore. Peter Carroll’s mellifluous narration made all the difference.

Produced by Kennedy Miller it was directed by Phillip Noyce and George Miller, written by Terry Hayes, with cinematography by Dean Semler.

Here’s a rather quaint promo that ran at the time, voiced by Bruce Mansfield.

In fact the full 4.5 hour miniseries is on YouTube. Don’t be put off by the 8 minutes of news-footage as set-up. If you have a Smart TV or the ability to stream to your television set, this is highly recommended.

10 Responses

  1. Is this the one where John picks Malcolm over Gough but is later caught texting Gough that he now realises that “he was the one all along” but didn’t think he could handle the pressure of being selected? Then he gives Malcolm the flick and gets together with Gough and they all do a bunch of interviews until everybody throws up or falls asleep?

  2. I have had it for years on DVD but I dont think its widescreen. It will rate its head off and could bring back replays of the great mini series Ten did so superbly. Someone forgot to mention “Vietnam:” the best of them all.

  4. @Andrew – According to IMDb
    Distributors: Network Ten (Australia) (all media)
    Roadshow Home Video (all media)
    Hopefully TEN still has the rights to it, as this suggests.

  5. @mv: You’re not alone. I’ve also been dodging The Project on the nights it has Bachelor interviews.

    Pity we don’t see more of these classic mini-series if only to remind us of a time that Ten was a leader in the genre. Kennedy Miller eventually parted ways with Ten and tied up with Nine if I recall correctly, so maybe Ten doesn’t have access to their back catalogue anymore?

  6. I agree with Randwick.

    The Bachelor has driven me mad, you cannot escape it, even in the Fairfax newspapers, day after day, it’s relentless!

    I have totally avoided The Project’s exclusive interviews, unfortunately it seems that I am alone as the rating go up dramatically on these nights.

    But yes please to The Dismissal!!

  7. Hopefully TEN will rescreen The Dismissal, and, if successful, they might replay other Kennedy Miller mini-series such as The Cowra Breakout , Bodyline and Bangkok Hilton.

  10. Yes, “IT’s Time”.
    If they can’t find the tapes, pop down to Wollongong Library and borrow the DVDs.
    Main Title: The dismissal [videorecording (DVD)]
    Collation: 2 videodiscs (DVD) (270 min.) : sd., col. with b&w sequences ; 4 3/4 in.
    Notes: Widescreen version.
    English subtitles for the hearing impaired.

Leave a Reply