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
A Town Like Alice decides to travel on to Australia to find him. On her travels, she visits the town of Alice Springs, where Joe lived before the war, and is much impressed with the quality of life there. She then travels to the (fictional) primitive town of Willstown in the Queensland outback, where Joe has become manager of a cattle station. She soon discovers that the quality of life in "Alice" is an anomaly, and life for a woman in the outback is elsewhere very rugged. Willstown is described as "a fair cow". Meanwhile, Joe has met a pilot who helped repatriate the