A Town Like Alice (1956 film) A Town Like Alice (1956 film) A Town Like Alice is a 1956 British drama film produced by Joseph Janni and starring Virginia McKenna and Peter Finch that is based on the eponymous 1950 novel by Nevil Shute. The film does not follow the whole novel, concluding at the end of Part Two and truncating or omitting much detail. It was partially filmed in Malaya and Australia. In post-Second World War London, a young woman, Jean Paget, is informed by solicitor Noel Strachan that she has a large inheritance. Asked what she wants to do, Jean decides to travel to
Alice Adams (novel) ladies down to "hideous obscurity"). On the walk back home, she encounters Arthur Russell, who shows an obvious interest in her. As she assumes he is all but spoken for, she doesn't know how to handle the conversation—while warning him not to believe the things girls like Mildred will say about her, she tells a number of lies to obscure her family's relatively humble economic status. Arthur returns, several days later, and his courtship of Alice continues. All seems well between them until he mentions a dance being thrown by the young Miss Henrietta Lamb; Arthur wants to escort Alice