An ambitious cycle of four television plays, taking place in Italy between 1945 and 1964, by script-writer Iain MacCormick. They were constructed not as a series nor as individual plays, but as a cycle in which the final film returned to the concerns of the first.
The plays were originally produced for the BBC, but at least two of them were subsequently produced for the ABC: The Liberators (as Sound of Thunder) and A Small Victory. In 1960, the BBC produced new versions of The Liberators and A Small Victory, independent of the cycle as a whole.
The Liberators
London
:
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
,
1954
8039813
1954
single work
film/TV
A group of Allied soldiers occupy an Italian farmhouse in order to undertake a bombing raid on a nearby town, still being used as a supply dump by German soldiers and Italian partisans.
The Good Partners
London
:
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
,
1954
8040430
1954
single work
film/TV
The second in MacCormick's sequence of television plays. Two of the characters from the previous play carry over to this one.
The Small Victory
London
:
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
,
1954
8040684
1954
single work
film/TV
Set in a Catholic mission that has been overtaken by Chinese forces.
Return to the River
London
:
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
,
1954
8041099
1954
single work
film/TV
In 1964, one of the soldiers from The Liberators returns to the farmhouse in Italy that he occupied in 1945.
