The first part of a trilogy that dramatises the recurring 'new chum' theme in Australian storytelling and also touches on racism, wartime propaganda, and the mateship and community that exists in a small town dependent on one industry to survive. The narrative begins in the late thirties, with the arrival of a young Englishman in the Queensland sugar cane town of Silkwood. When he is not accepted by the Australian cane cutters, the Italian workers take him under their wing. As the story progresses, he has several love affairs, goes to war, and eventually returns to the canefields.
Fields of Fire II
Nine Network
(publisher),
( dir. David Elfick
et. al. )agent
Sydney
Australia
Sydney
:
Zenith Entertainment
Nine Network
Palm Beach Pictures
,
1988
Z1711944
1988
series - publisher
film/TV
Inspired by Robert Donaldson's novel Cane, this sequel to the 1987 mini-series Fields of Fire begins in 1946. Following the marriage of WWII, British expatriate Bluey and Dusty, one of his co-workers in the Australian cane fields, the focus shifts to a pair of new characters - Gina, an Italian refugee, and Franco, her black-marketeer husband.
Fields of Fire III
( dir. Robert Marchand
et. al. )agent
London
Sydney
Australia
:
Zenith Entertainment
Palm Beach Pictures
Nine Network
,
1989
Z1831241
1989
series - publisher
film/TV
In this third instalment of the Fields of Fire series, Kate, now widowed, 'is a wealthy woman owning many cane farms. She is attracted to Rinaldo, a newly arrived Italian cane-cutter. The referendum to outlaw the Australian Communist Party splits the town. A big flood draws the community back together and brings the saga to a close.'
Source: Moran's Guide to Australian TV Series.
'The ‘gentlemen of the flashing blade’ laboured in an occupation that no longer exists in Australia: canecutting. It was a hard job done by hard men, and its iconic figure – the canecutter – survives as a Queensland legend, so extensively romanticized in the popular culture of the time as to constitute a subgenre characterized by subject matter and motifs particular to the pre-mechanization sugar country culture. Yet, it may seem like the only canecutters immortalized in the arts are Summer of the Seventeenth Doll’s Roo and Barney. To show the breadth and diversity of this subgenre, and the legend of the canecutter and sugar country culture, this article reviews a selection of novels, memoirs, plays, short stories, cartoons, verse, song, film, television, radio and children’s books. These works address the racial, cultural and industrial politics of the sugar industry and its influence on the economic and social development of Queensland. The parts played by the nineteenth-century communities of indentured South Sea Islanders and the European immigrants who followed are represented along with those of the itinerant Anglos. These works depict, and celebrate, a colourful, often brutal, part of Queensland’s past and an Australian icon comparable with the swaggie or the shearer.' (Publication abstract)
'The ‘gentlemen of the flashing blade’ laboured in an occupation that no longer exists in Australia: canecutting. It was a hard job done by hard men, and its iconic figure – the canecutter – survives as a Queensland legend, so extensively romanticized in the popular culture of the time as to constitute a subgenre characterized by subject matter and motifs particular to the pre-mechanization sugar country culture. Yet, it may seem like the only canecutters immortalized in the arts are Summer of the Seventeenth Doll’s Roo and Barney. To show the breadth and diversity of this subgenre, and the legend of the canecutter and sugar country culture, this article reviews a selection of novels, memoirs, plays, short stories, cartoons, verse, song, film, television, radio and children’s books. These works address the racial, cultural and industrial politics of the sugar industry and its influence on the economic and social development of Queensland. The parts played by the nineteenth-century communities of indentured South Sea Islanders and the European immigrants who followed are represented along with those of the itinerant Anglos. These works depict, and celebrate, a colourful, often brutal, part of Queensland’s past and an Australian icon comparable with the swaggie or the shearer.' (Publication abstract)
