Giancarlo Manara had been an assistant to Visconti on SENSO and the fledgling ABC TV brass hired him in to raise the tone of local production, which ended with him being stuck in a corner of the news room going out every month or so to do Italian language news item.
He managed to break free of these restraints and make an innovative documentary called LIVING ON THE FRINGE which attracted some attention and from that contrived to be put in charge of an atmospheric dramatisation of a celebrated Henry Lawson story with James Mason's then wife in the lead. This stood out in the lackluster dramas being made for Australian TV and should have led to more ambitious projects for Manara. It did not.
He managed to break free of these restraints and make an innovative documentary called LIVING ON THE FRINGE which attracted some attention and from that contrived to be put in charge of an atmospheric dramatisation of a celebrated Henry Lawson story with James Mason's then wife in the lead. This stood out in the lackluster dramas being made for Australian TV and should have led to more ambitious projects for Manara. It did not.