Cirrus@Austlit

Mini-series dramatising the breakout of Japanese prisoners of war from a camp in the New South Wales town of Cowra, which led to the deaths of 231 Japanese prisoners. Moran notes, in his Guide to Australian TV Series, that it 'became a Bridge on the River Kwai in reverse, with the strategy of the mini-series being to stress heroism, as well as stupidity and cowardice, both on the Japanese and the Australian side.'

Moran notes that this mini-series employed the same approach as previous Kennedy Miller productions (including 'intensive workshops for actors, directors and parts of the crew'), but was 'the least dramatically successful of the Kennedy Miller series'. Nevertheless, it was sold to both Great Britain and Japan.

Beginning in Australia in the late 1940s, when movie theatres were the only source of audiovisual news coverage, the narrative follows the exploits of Len Maguire and his young sidekick Chris as they cover the big news stories for the Cinetone newsreel company. Len is a doggedly dependable and ever-cautious senior cameraman, trapped in a world of changing values. Len always knows the right thing to do, but becomes troubled as his marriage falters, his job becomes threatened by the arrival of television, and Cinetone is taken over and its work marginalised. Len's loyalties to the Catholic Church, the Labor Party, and his family are juxtaposed against both his brother/rival cameraman Frank--who sells out his values, abandons his responsibilities, and heads off to success in the USA--and his cocky young assistant, Chris.

The first feature film for Phillip Noyce, Newsfront also depicts the increasing changes to the Australian cultural and political landscape, tracing social shifts from the first waves of European post-war immigration through to the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne.