She'll Be Right

{{Infobox television

| image = Shellberight.png

| image_upright =

| image_alt =

| caption = Advertisement from The Age 25 July 1960

| genre =

| creator =

| based_on =

| writer = George F. Kerr

| screenplay =

| story =

| director = Christopher Muir

| starring =

| narrated =

| music =

| country = Australia

| language = English

| num_episodes =

| producer =

| editor =

| cinematography =

| runtime = 60 mins

| company = ABC

| budget =

| network = ABC

| released = {{Start date|1962|07|25|df=y}} (Melbourne){{cite news|title=John Royle in New Roles|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=MDQ-9Oe3GGUC&dat=19620614&printsec=frontpage&hl=en|newspaper=The Age|date=14 June 1962|page=13}}

| released2 = {{Start date|1962|08|08|df=y}} (Sydney)

}}

She'll Be Right is a 1962 Australian television play which aired on the ABC.{{cite magazine|magazine=Filmink|url=https://www.filmink.com.au/forgotten-australian-tv-plays-shell-be-right/|title=Forgotten Australian TV Plays: She'll Be Right|first= Stephen|last= Vagg|date=May 22, 2021}}

Plot

In 1962, a group of tourists meet an Englishman, Gutherie, at a French mountain inn. Guthrie tells them about an Australian soldier, Nugget Wilson, a prisoner of war in Germany during World War Two. Wilson escaped and joined the French Resistance movement along with Guthrie. Wilson is captured and executed by a German firing squad. His last words are "she'll be right".

Cast

Fred Parslow as Guthrie
Kevin Hanily as Nugget Wilson
Alan Hopgood as Hank
Syd Conabere as Bluey
Julie Allen
Horst Bergfried
Agnes Dobson as Mrs. Wilson
Mary Duchesne as French resistance member
Mary Reynolds as Lisbeth
John Royle as German civilian
Stuart Finch
Andrew Lodge
Donald Sey

Production

The drama was shot in Melbourne.{{Cite news|title=Melbourne-made war drama|newspaper=Sydney Morning Herald|date=30 July 1962|page=12|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/121297503/?terms=%22she%27ll%2Bbe%2Bright%22}} It was the first straight dramatic role for dancer Mary Muchesne and ABV-2 announcer John Royle.{{cite news|newspaper=The Age|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=0DlVAAAAIBAJ&pg=5685%2C2603256|title=Untitled|date=19 July 1962|page=8}} "I am very pleased to be getting the part," said Royle. "It will give me an insight into the inside. In the past I have always been on the outside looking in."{{cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/120733036/?terms=%22she%27ll%2Bbe%2Bright%22|newspaper=The Age|date=14 June 1962|page=25|title=John Royle, 57, in new roles}}

The story also served as a radio play which was selected as the A.B.C.'s radio play for the 1961 Italia Prize and had been broadcast in Australia in 1961.{{Cite news|title=Young Star's Work|newspaper=Sydney Morning Herald|date=12 March 1962|page=13}}{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article130716147 |title=Advertising |newspaper=The Canberra Times |location=Australian Capital Territory, Australia |date=1 July 1961 |access-date=27 May 2020 |page=17 |via=Trove }} It had been repeated in February 1962.{{cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/122312993/?terms=%22she%27ll%2Bbe%2Bright%22|newspaper=The Age|title=Radio Guide|date=22 February 1962|page=28}}

Reception

The Sydney Morning Herald felt producer Chris Muir "adopting the immensely impressive pace of a professional, raised a living and passionate memorial to the memory of Australian soldiers" and felt the performance of Kevin Hanily ("completely credible and sympathetic") and the supporting cast "and the mode of presentation generally, bore the austere stark simplicity of a medieval passion play, and with much the same hushed effect."{{cite news|title=Australian play on television|newspaper=Sydney Morning Herald'|date= 9 August 1962|page=9|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/121523010/?terms=%22george%2Bf.%2Bkerr%22}}

Valda Marshall from the same paper called it "a first rate drama... a beautiful piece of craftmanship, with a casting that was almost faultless...Kerr's theme, that war and heroes are made up in the main from ordinary nondescript people, was one that could easily have become just that . . . ordinary and nondescript. But instead he produced a quiet, tight little drama that ranks as one of the best Australian plays the A.B.C. has given us."{{cite news|first=Valda|last=Marshall|title=TV Merry Go Round|newspaper=Sydney Morning Herald|date=12 August 1962|page=88}}

Frank Roberts from The Bulletin said writer Kerr "has taken one of the everyday phrases Australians use, like, and quit unintentionally he has written one of the jolliest spoof around it, guying incoherent Englishmen, casual Australians, international tourists, and the French Maquis. Produced, again unintentionally, as a farce by Christopher Muir, it proved one of the better television comedies of the year."{{cite magazine|first=Frank|last=Roberts|magazine=The Bulletin|date=18 August 1962|page=36|title= TELEVISION AN AUSTRALIAN NEAR PARIS|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-696405438}}