Ladies in Black - A NEW COMEDY FROM BRUCE BERESFORD DIRECTOR OF "DRIVING MISS DAISY" ACADEMY AWARD WINNER BEST FILM - Sue Milliken
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A NEW COMEDY FROM BRUCE BERESFORD
DIRECTOR OF “DRIVING MISS DAISY”
ACADEMY AWARD WINNER BEST FILM
Ladies in Black
1
Ladies in Black
an alluring and tender-hearted comedy about the lives of a group of de-
partment store employees in 1959 Sydney
Director
Bruce Beresford
Producers
Allanah Zitserman and Sue Milliken
Screenplay
Bruce Beresford and Sue Milliken
Based on the novel The Women In Black by Madeleine St John
PRAISE FOR THE BOOK
“... masterpiece, a witty and poignant snapshot of
Sydney the year before yesterday.”
BARRY HUMPHRIES
“This book is like the perfect, vintage little black dress. It is beautifully constructed, it evokes
another time while being mysteriously classic and up to date, and it makes you feel happy. I love it.”
KAZ COOKE (Author & Cartoonist)
“Seductive, hilarious, brilliantly observed, this novel shimmers with wit and tenderness.”
HELEN GARNER (Author & Screenwriter)
Cover designed by Studio DA
All other images by Rene Gruau
© 2016 Samson Productions Pty Ltd, The Entertainment Quarter 205/122 Lang Road Moore Park, NSW 2021 Australia
2
Background
Now is the perfect time to bring this
story, with all of its charm and wit, to
the screen.
Madeleine St John’s Australian classic The
Women In Black is to be brought to the screen
by internationally acclaimed director Bruce
Beresford - cinematic master of wit and
tenderness. Beresford has been passionate
about making a movie of this celebrated novel
ever since he read it almost twenty years ago.
The film titled Ladies In Black is set in the
summer of 1959 as the world is on the
brink of the swinging sixties and captures
through its beautifully crafted characters
the rapidly changing cultural landscape
of Australia at the time. As author
and broadcaster Clive James noted,
“Madeleine St John evokes the collision
of modern European history and the still
awakening Australian culture”.
The novel, described by many
reviewers as a masterpiece, is
uncannily modern. Its themes, a cultural
clash with the arrival of migrants in a
staid and homogenous society and the
transition of a young girl to womanhood,
are as relevant today as they were half a
century ago.
3
Contents
BACKGROUND 3
BRIEF SYNOPSIS 5
SYNOPSIS 6
BRUCE BERESFORD 8
ALLANAH ZITSERMAN 10
SUE MILLIKEN 12
ALLANAH & SUE’S TAKE 14
BRUCE’S TAKE 15
MADELEINE & ME 16
PRODUCTION & AUDIENCE 20
CONTACT 21
4
Brief Synopsis
Sydney, at the end of the 1950s, when thousands of European migrants
are arriving to make new lives. Suburban schoolgirl Lisa, while
waiting for the results of her final high school exams, takes a summer
job at a large city department store. Here she meets many of the “ladies
in black” (all the employees are required to wear black) including
Magda, a worldly, sophisticated and imperious Slovenian immigrant
who manages “Model Gowns”, the high fashion boutique within the
store. Beguiled and influenced by the exotic ways of Magda and her
circle of friends, Lisa starts metamorphosing - to the horror of her
controlling father and bewildered mother - from a shy schoolgirl to a
positive and glamorous young woman.
5
Synopsis
Adapted from the best selling novel by Madeleine a young woman with a neglectful husband. An
St John. The story takes place in Sydney in the older supervisor, Miss Cartwright, who comes to
summer of 1959 - a time when thousands of appreciate Lisa’s intelligence. Most important of
migrants were coming to Australia from Europe. all, Magda - the Slovenian immigrant who is in
charge of “Model Gowns” the most fashionable
Lesley Miles (Lisa) is 16 years old. Her father, Ed section of the store. Because of her innate
Miles, works as a compositor on the night-shift of sophistication and an unverifiable claim that she
a major city newspaper. Her mother is a suburban worked in a Paris fashion house before the war, she
housewife. is somewhat resented by the Australian sales ladies.
Lisa has just finished high school and has to wait Magda finds Lisa a capable assistant and befriends
for her final examination results to appear. She her. She invites Lisa to lunch at her apartment in a
wants to attend University, a wish forcefully harbour suburb and introduces her to her Hungarian
opposed by her father, who - in common with many husband, Stefan, and his friend, Rudi. Lisa enjoys
men of his generation - thinks that educating girls the European food provided, so different to her
as far as University is pointless, as they won’t have mother’s cooking. After lunch Magda gives her
a career but will simply marry and have children. some advice on her clothes, hair and make-up.
Lisa’s mother is more sympathetic but both she and
Lisa are dominated by a man whose life, apart from Lisa’s parents (especially her father) find it difficult
his printing job, is an obsession with horse-racing. to cope with their daughter’s changing attitudes
and style. With her growing self confidence she
Lisa finds a job over the Christmas holidays at now tells them that she no longer wants to be called
Goodes, a major city department store. Here she Lesley, but “Lisa” – the name by which she is
meets a variety of sales ladies (the store uniform is known by the staff at Goode’s.
the black dress), and becomes friends with some
of them - Faye, an ex-dancer who has had some The high school exam results are announced.
unhappy love affairs and is “over men”, Patty, Because he works at the newspaper where all the
6
results are published Mr Miles is the first to hear Patty’s life hits a crisis when her husband
of his daughter’s brilliance. He is stunned then disappears for some weeks after a night of torrid
overwhelmed by the congratulations of the staff of lovemaking. When he returns she realises he was
the newspaper. Despite a display of indifference, he embarrassed at his outburst of passion. An outburst
is proud of his clever offspring. that in fact delighted her. Once he is aware she was
not offended but thrilled, their passion continues.
Still with reservations – he considers Universities
hotbeds of licentiousness - he bows to a concen- With the help of a sale price and a staff discount
trated assault by his wife and daughter and agrees Lisa manages to buy the dress that she has fallen
to Lisa’s enrolment. in love with. She wears it – now no longer an
awkward schoolgirl but a beautiful young woman
Goodes is inundated in the Christmas rush. Lisa has - to a party at Magda’s apartment. Even Mr Miles
her eye on a beautiful dress in Magda’s department is now reconciled to her “refugee” friends. With
that she can’t afford. hesitation, but then with warily expressed delight,
he enjoys the pate, salami and Australian wine
Lisa suggests to Magda, that Stefan’s friend Rudi, (he’d always been a beer drinker) offered by the
who is looking for an Australian girl-friend – effervescent Magda.
“some of them are very beautiful” – might like
to meet Fay. Magda surveys Fay…” she is about Lisa tells the group that after University she’d like
30 or less. She is not quite beautiful, but not bad. to be “an actress… or a poet… or a novelist… or
Her maquillage is terrible and of course she has maybe all three”.
no style. Perfect!” The romance blossoms, as Faye
(tired of the rough tactics of her Australian would-
be-lovers) succumbs to a man who has charm and
appreciates her. Her friend, Myra, warns her against
falling in love with a “Continental” but Fay is not
to be dissuaded.
7
Bruce Beresford
DIRECTOR
AWARDS [selected]
DONS PARTY Australian Film Awards Best Director
BREAKER MORANT Australian Film Awards Best Script and Best Director
THE FRINGE DWELLERS Australian Film Awards Best Adapted Screenplay and Official Competition, Cannes Film Festival
TENDER MERCIES Academy Award nomination for Best Director
BLACK ROBE Canadian Academy Awards Best Film and Best Director
MAO’S LAST DANCER winner of 11 international film festival Audience Awards for Best Film
DRIVING MISS DAISY Academy Award Winner Best Film
8ONE OF AUSTRALIA’S most
popular and well-known directors,
Bruce Beresford is a graduate of Sydney
University. He worked from 1964 - 66
as a film editor in Nigeria, then went to
London where he was head of the
British Film Institute Production Board
from 1966 - 1970. The board encouraged
many talented film makers at the beginning
of their careers - including Ridley and
Tony Scott, Mike Leigh, Nick Broomfield,
Stephen Frears and Derek Boshier. Bruce
returned to Australia in 1972 and made the
feature The Adventures of Barry McKenzie -
a popular success. Later films include Don’s
Party, The Getting of Wisdom, The Club,
Puberty Blues, The Fringe Dwellers and
Breaker Morant.
In 1983, Bruce went to USA and directed Tender
Mercies; for which he received an Academy
Award nomination. Other films made in America
include Crimes of the Heart (1986) and Driving
Miss Daisy, (1989) which won four Academy
Awards including Best Film.
Black Robe followed Driving Miss Daisy and won
ten Canadian Screen awards including Best Film,
Best Director and Best Screenplay. Later films include
Mister Johnson, Silent Fall, Double Jeopardy and Mao’s
Last Dancer. His most recent film (2016) is Mr Church
a drama with Eddie Murphy, Britt Robertson and Natasha
McElhone.
For TV Bruce has directed And Starring Pancho Villa as
Himself with Antonio Banderas, a 3 hour Bonnie and Clyde
with Emile Hirsch and Holliday Grainger and an episode of
the 2016 remake of Roots.
He has written an entertaining and indiscreet book about his film
experiences – Josh Hartnett Definitely Wants to do This. Published
by Harper Collins. Various short stories by Bruce have appeared
in published collections. A new book of faxes between Bruce and
the producer Sue Milliken, There’s a Fax from Bruce was recently
published (2016) by Currency Press.
Bruce has also directed operas on stage in Australia, USA and Italy
including A Streetcar Named Desire (Andre Previn), Elektra (Richard
Strauss), Of Mice and Men (Carlisle Floyd) and The Dead City (Erich
Wolfgang Korngold).
9Allanah Zitserman
PRODUCER
10ALLANAH HAS BEEN in the film industry for 17 From 2009 to 2013, Allanah represented the
Years. In 1999, after graduating from University Australia Day Council as an Australia Day
Of Technology, Sydney’s Business School, Allanah Ambassador.
teamed up with film maker Stavros Kazantzidis
to produce and pen her debut feature film Russian From 2008 - 2012, Allanah created and produced
Doll starring Hugo Weaving. The project garnered the film development programs “Student Film
the pair the 2000 AACTA/AFI Best Original Project” and “In The Raw”.
Screenplay Award, making her the youngest
recipient of this award. She followed this by Schools across NSW took part in the “Student Film
writing and producing the black comedy Horseplay Project” and dozens of short films were produced,
starring Abbie Cornish in 2003. screened and exhibited. In 2011, key sponsor Hoyts
was awarded, for its association with the program,
In 2007, Allanah founded the celebrated Dungog Marketing Campaign of the Year by AHEDA
Film Festival, winner Inside Film’s 2012 Best Film (Australian Home Entertainment Distributors
Festival Award. She was responsible for attracting Association).
some of Australia’s biggest corporate partners
including Apple, Adobe, Hoyts and Toyota. The For “In The Raw” Australia’s leading acting
festival annually raised $1 million in sponsorship. talent read unproduced screenplays to live
audiences. The program successfully assisted
In 2009, Allanah established Australian Film in the development of projects to production
Syndicate (AFS) a film distribution company that including Strangerland, Last Cab to Darwin,
championed Australia independent films. 33 Postcards, Sleeping Beauty and Little Death.
11Sue Milliken
PRODUCER
12SUE MILLIKEN BEGAN her career in film at the ABC in the
late 1960s. After working as a continuity girl on ABC drama
productions and later freelancing as continuity and production
manager on productions such as Skippy and The Picture Show
Man, she began producing in the late 1970s with Tom Jeffrey.
Together they produced Weekend of Shadows (1977), The Odd
Angry Shot (1978) and Fighting Back (1981).
In 1985 Sue produced Bruce Beresford’s The Fringe
Dwellers, Australia’s official entry at the 1986 Cannes
Film Festival. In 1990/91 she worked again with
Beresford, as Australian producer of Black Robe,
the first official Australia/Canada feature film co-
production.
In 1994 Sue produced the feature film Sirens,
directed by John Duigan, and in 1995, Dating
The Enemy directed by Megan Simpson
Huberman. In 1996 she produced (with Greg
Coote) Paradise Road directed by Bruce
Beresford. In 1999 she produced the Imax
documentary Sydney, A Story of a City
and in 2001 the television production My
Brother Jack, winner of the Best Mini
Series at the 2002 AFI Awards.
She was producer or executive producer for three series (sixty six episodes) of
the US Sci-Fi TV series Farscape for the Jim Henson Company. In 2005 she was
an executive producer for the Project Greenlight Australian million dollar movie,
Solo and in 2006 she produced the short drama Crocodile Dreaming for director
Darlene Johnson. In 2014 she produced the documentary The Redfern Story, with
director Darlene Johnson, for ABC TV.
From 1980 to 2009 through her company Samson Productions, Sue represented
the completion guarantor Film Finances, Inc., in Australia. Film Finances is
the world’s leading completion guarantor and during this time Film Finances
successfully delivered over two billion dollars worth of Australian feature films
and television productions.
Sue is a former Chair of the Australian Film Commission, and she served for five
years on the board of Screen West and for five years as a member of the Film
and Literature Censorship Board of Review. She is a past President and Vice
President of Screen Producers Australia (SPA) and was made a life member of
the association. She is a recipient of the Australian Film Institute’s Raymond
Longford Award. In 2004 she presented the National Film and Sound Archive’s
fourth Longford Lyell Lecture, and in 2013 she served as National President of the
Cinema Pioneers association. She is a recipient of the Centenary Medal and the
Order of Australia (AO) for service to the film industry.
She has published three books, Dogs In the City; a memoir, Selective Memory and,
with Bruce Beresford their correspondence There’s A Fax From Bruce.
13Allanah & Sue's Take
Like Beresford’s Driving Miss Daisy, this is a subtle film that
discovers drama in small things, as it looks into the heart of its
charming characters and finds us a gift of human spirit.
LIKE THE BEST Australian stories this film St John’s trademark dialogue.
is uniquely and authentically Australian, but
explores universal themes that appeal to an The charming and lively characters and the
international audience - women challenging essential humour and good nature of the piece
the status quo and discovering themselves; and will attract audiences who are drawn to films like
migrants settling in a new land with hope for a The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, The Dressmaker,
better future. Love Actually, The Lady In The Van and Brooklyn.
It is easy to forget in the current wave of refugees THE PERIOD The late 50s, is a turning point
all over the world, that around eight million in our nation’s history. As author and critic Toni
people were displaced as a result of the Second Jordon pointed out in her Readings Monthly
World War, and the reception of those who came review, “Australia [was] on the cusp of many
to Australia was not always a welcoming one. revolutions: multicultural and sexual, as well as
Ladies In Black is a story of the effect on Australia the breakdown of class structures”. The script
and Australians of just a few of these displaced manages, through its tapestry of characters, to
people. It is not a political film; rather through its touch on all of these important themes.
sensitive treatment of the subject, it reminds us
that however different we may seem to each other THE SETTING Sydney’s iconic department
on first acquaintance, we are all human beings just store habitat, ingrained in Australian’s psyche, is
trying to get on in the world. original and unexplored in our cinema. There is
also the visceral and visual production value to
Beresford is right at home with this very human be attained from the period’s music, fashion and
story, while his personal relationship to the author design.
provides invaluable authenticity and connection to
the work. This is seen with the adaptation, which
beautifully captures the novel’s delightful wit and
exuberant sensibility and effortlessly incorporates
14Bruce's Take
I was instantly captivated
I READ Madeleine St John’s (pronounced Synjin) that she did, but said “I often went shopping there
novel The Women in Black a few days after with my mother”. Her characters are so alive, so
Clive James raved about it to me shortly after its human, that I find it hard to believe they weren’t
publication in 1993. based on real people. I suspect this was actually the
case.
I was instantly captivated by its effortless prose
style (the result of a lot of work, I know), its wit My passion for film making, which began before
and its evocation of life in Sydney in the late 1950s. I was 10 years old, has resulted/is still resulting
With a varied group of characters thrown into the in a long career. I can’t claim that all my films
mix, I became obsessed with the idea of making a are successes – some failed both critically and
feature film of the work. commercially. However, the ones I most strongly
believed in have been shown world-wide, to
Apart from the appeal of recreating, on film, the considerable acclaim - Breaker Morant, Tender
Australia of over 60 years ago, I was fascinated by Mercies, Driving Miss Daisy, Black Robe, Mao’s
Madeleine’s deft handling of key themes which are Last Dancer, Crimes of the Heart. I am totally
as contemporary today as they were when the book convinced that Ladies in Black will be equal to the
is set - the emergence of a young girl to emotional best of these.
and physical maturity and the cultural clash as
isolated and Anglocentric Australians interact, often Madeleine St John died in 2006. The Women in
warily, with migrants from the other side of the Black was the first of her four novels and is the
world. Themes which Madeleine handles with a only one set in Australia. The others, all quite
light touch, warmth and above all, humour. outstanding, have a London setting. They are - The
Essence of the Thing (nominated for the Booker
As the novel is set around a large department story, Prize), A Pure Clear Light and A Stairway to
based on David Jones, I asked Madeleine if she Paradise.
had a holiday job there when she was a University
student, just as Lisa does in the book. She denied
15Madeleine & Me
BY BRUCE BERESFORD
Nineteen sixty was my first year as an indifferent student at
Sydney University. In pursuit of the prettiest girls I joined the
Sydney University Players where I was an even more indifferent
actor, easily outclassed by the stars of the era—who included
John Bell, John Gaden, Germaine Greer, Arthur Dignam, Clive
James and Robert Hughes.
16MADELEINE ST JOHN (she pronounced the name was basic, the most striking items being a number
‘Synjin’, though I understand her family preferred of well-thumbed paperbacks and a vicious white
the standard ‘Saint John’) was to be found cat, which snarled and clawed the air whenever
backstage, helping with the costumes and props. it considered I had approached too close to its
Definitely not one of the university’s glamour girls, mistress.
she still managed to be striking. Tiny and with rusty
red hair, she always reminded me of a sparrow She seemed to have become even smaller, the
with her darting movements, her beak-like nose, rusty red hair maintained its aura with bottled
her inquisitive eyes. Her odd appearance contrived assistance and she was almost permanently
to prevent her performing in anything other than attached to an oxygen tank with a long tube - the
minor theatrical roles, although she was cast, rather result of emphysema. She was as sharp-tongued as
maliciously I thought, in a revue, Dead Centre, in ever and tartly dismissed my query as to whether
which she appeared, singing, dancing and dressed it was advisable to smoke so heavily with such a
in red crepe, as Lola Montez. condition. She was happy to talk at length about
literature, classical music and jazz. Her opinions,
I can recall only a couple of conversations with her as always, were firm and precise - contemporary
- all vague now (forty-eight years later!) - including novelists being airily dismissed as a bunch of
one where she expressed a passion for the poetry of parvenus. Mitsuko Uchida, she insisted, was the
Thomas Hardy. I distinctly remember being so in finest classical pianist and Art Tatum the greatest
awe of her wide reading - ‘are you really unaware jazz pianist. Personal information was much harder
of the work of Gwen Raverat and Djuna Barnes?’ to obtain, though I found out that she had married
- her forthrightness and her wit, that, in order to Chris Tillan, a fellow student from Sydney, in
prevent my self-esteem plummeting, I took evasive 1965. They had lived in San Francisco for a few
action. The factor which distinguished her from years, where he studied film. Once his course
virtually all of our contemporaries was that she was was completed they decided to go to London.
the daughter of a famous father, Edward St John, Madeleine went on ahead but ‘he never arrived’.
a prominent QC and Liberal politician, though if She made no further comments, so I gathered he
father or family was mentioned she immediately had met another lady - and that was the end of the
made it clear the subject was taboo. marriage.
I left for England in 1963 and lost track of She refused to discuss her Australian relatives, just
Madeleine for thirty years. My attempts at as she had back at university, although she made
establishing myself as a film director slowly met vague references to their ‘ill - treatment’ of her.
with some success. One day, in 1993, I was having Subsequent meetings with a couple of charming
lunch with Clive James, by now an internationally members of her family, in Australia, have led me
known critic and poet, when he mentioned that a to believe that Madeleine never recovered, while
novel he’d just read, The Women in Black, was by still in high school, from the shock of the death, by
our old university colleague, Madeleine St John suicide, of her mother. She then created a cast of
- and was a comic masterpiece. I bought a copy evil relations who had accepted her father’s re-
immediately, agreed with Clive’s assessment, and marriage.
called the publisher for Madeleine’s number.
In the late 1960s, following her alleged
She was cordial and cheery over the phone, said abandonment by her husband, she lived around
she’d seen a number of my films over the years and London in various apartments, sharing with various
was delighted I wanted to film her novel. Australian university friends. To the astonishment
of some she fell under the influence of a dubious
A few days later I went to see her. She was living Indian mystic, Swami Ji, and for a couple of years
in a large apartment on the top floor of a council adopted Indian clothes and assumed an Indian
house building in Notting Hill. The area had been name.
derelict but was now being gentrified. Madeleine
must have qualified for rent assistance some years She supported herself with odd jobs, mostly in
previously and there was no indication that her bookshops and an antique shop in the West End,
financial situation had improved. The furnishing although she tried to vary this routine by applying,
17at one point, and unsuccessfully, for a position
as Kenneth Tynan’s secretary. It was not until
sometime in 1991 that Madeleine decided to write
a book herself, convinced, she told me, she could
do at least as well as the authors of so many of the
books she was selling. She was fifty-two when The
Women in Black was published in 1993 and it is the
only one of her four novels to be set in Australia. It
is difficult not to see Madeleine herself in the clever
and sensitive young heroine, Lesley (Lisa) Miles,
though the well observed lower middle-class family
background she describes with such affection was
certainly not her own, as she grew up in the smart
suburb of Castlecrag, on Sydney’s north shore,
and had a father she insisted had a cold and distant
personality. It is probable that she appropriated the
family of her university friend, Colleen Olliffe,
who lived in a modest suburb. Colleen’s father, like
Mr Miles, was in the printing business.
The novel was clearly set in a fictionalized version
of the David Jones department store in Elizabeth
Street, Sydney. The interplay of the saleswomen
(who dressed in black in 1960, when the novel
is set, just as they do now) is so convincing,
so comprehensively realized, that I assumed
Madeleine had a holiday job there while a student,
but she insisted this was not the case, ‘although I
often went shopping there with my mother’.
Madeleine’s subsequent novels, A Pure Clear
Light, The Essence of the Thing (nominated for
the Booker) and Stairway to Paradise, are, I think,
equally superb - though none have the warmth and
pervasive good humour of The Women in Black
- and mark her as a major writer. The palette is
small, but the observation and the dialogue acute,
touching and often very funny. A fastidious stylist,
whose model was Jane Austen, she created, or re-
created, a section of late twentieth-century London
society in a manner similar to Austen’s world of
the nineteenth century. I remain astonished at the
fidelity with which Madeleine captured the manners
and mores of the middle-class English as I was
never aware that she knew many of these people.
I assume that her years working in bookshops
introduced them to her and her interpretive genius
took over from there.
If Madeleine’s social circle was not wide, there
were a number of devoted friends who seemed
to be able to cope with her changes of mood, her
demands and general waspishness. Perhaps her
18fervent Christianity, acquired sometime after she Madeleine was always capable of surprising me.
dispensed with Swami Ji, supplied her with a moral Her wild enthusiasm for the TV series, Buffy,
code that meant she often found others wanting. At the Vampire Slayer seemed to me totally out of
some point most friends and relatives were cast off. character. I found a few episodes on DVD and
A few managed a comeback but many, especially failed, still fail, to see why this nonsense would
relatives, were in permanent outer darkness. Agents have interested her. But then I have all of Willie
and publishers were almost saintly in the way they Nelson’s discs and my friends can’t equate that
dealt with Madeleine’s tantrums, her obsession with my passion for opera.
with detail. She was aware, I realize, that a major
strength of her writing was the accumulation of On one of my visits to London, a year or so before
minutiae. She was so furious over some minor Madeleine died, there was no answer at the flat, so I
point in a French translation of one of her novels feared the worst. Through her former literary agent,
that she refused to allow it to appear. Kamikaze- Sarah Lutyens, I tracked her down in a hospital on
like, she stipulated in her will that there were to be the Kings Road. She was in a surprisingly stylish
no translations of her novels into any language. public ward with a TV set suspended over the bed
and numerous tubes connecting her to all sorts
With a terrible sense of foreboding I sent her the of sci-fi machines. Never one to complain about
screenplay of The Women in Black, written by Sue her unenviable health she remained cheerful. She
Milliken and myself. To my surprise, astonishment enjoyed meeting the other patients and nurses and
rather, she made no comment other than saying hearing the stories of their lives. She told me her
she looked forward to seeing the film. Perhaps she blood count.
felt that if I could make a success of the intimate
character studies of Driving Miss Daisy and ‘Is that good?’ I asked. ‘My doctor says that for me
Tender Mercies then I could do it again with her it’s very good,’ she replied. ‘If it was anyone else
novel. It must have been a struggle, but she kept they’d be dead.’
her reservations, and I can’t believe they were not
numerous, to herself. That was the last time I saw her. We spoke
on the phone a few more times, then an email
Unlike so many of Madeleine’s friends and arrived, in June 2006, saying she had died. She
associates I escaped being sent to Siberia - probably must have been bitterly disappointed that I had
because I was only in London occasionally, was directed numerous other scripts but not The
a link with university days (she enjoyed talking Women in Black, but affected indifference. She
about our contemporaries) and shared Madeleine’s also minimized the acclaim she received for The
interest in music. We even managed a visit to the Essence of the Thing, although it cannot fail to have
Royal Albert Hall to hear Mitsuko Uchida play the meant a lot to her.
Schumann Piano Concerto. Somehow, I engineered
Madeleine down four flights of stairs in Nothing Her will left her modest estate, as well as future
Hill into a taxi, and then, complete with large royalties from her books, to charity. I was named
oxygen cylinder, into a box near the stage. On her literary executor, in addition to which she left
another occasion, I arranged to take her to dinner me a charming drawing, by Bernard Hesling, of the
at the Ivy so that she could meet an American film Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Various friends
maker she admired, Whit Stillman - the writer- shared out her modest collection of books. On her
director of three witty character-driven films desk was a hundred pages or so of a new novel - a
dealing with middle class Americans, The Last few typed but many in longhand and unnumbered.
Days of Disco, Metropolitan and Barcelona. Whit, With the help of Sarah Lutyens the pages were
a handsome young man, was polite but clearly arranged in their probable correct order. There
bewildered by this tiny person with dyed red hair, are many characteristically witty and touching
an oxygen cylinder, and forceful opinions. I also scenes, but the manuscript is too fragmentary for
introduced her to my son, Adam, then a classics publication.
student at Balliol, and found myself somewhat
bored as they discussed, at length, Adam’s theory The angry cat was no problem as it had
as to the identity of Shakespeare’s Mr W.H. predeceased her.
Madeleine assured Adam he had no idea what he
was talking about.
19Production & Audience
BUDGET
AUD $10-12 million
financing budget & schedule available upon request
CAST
proposed cast list available upon request
SHOOTING
Early 2017
GENRE
Comedy / Drama
PERIOD
1959/1960, Sydney Australia
AUDIENCE
35+ women
Ladies In Black will appeal to audiences drawn to
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, The Help, The Dressmaker,
Love Actually and Brooklyn.
THE MUSICAL
The sellout stage musical adaptation received a glowing response, was nominated for six 2016
Helpmann Awards and won Best New Australian Work.
THE AUTHOR
Madeleine St John’s books have been printed and celebrated the world over.
St John was the first Australian woman to be shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction.
In 2013, The Life of Madeleine St John a biography by Helen Trinca was published.
20Contact
Allanah Zitserman
Lumila Films
allanah@lumila.com.au
Tel: +61 (0)2 9973 2227
Mob: +61 (0)427492420
Sue Milliken
Samson Productions
suem@samsonprod.com.au
Tel: +61 (0)2 8353 2600
Mob: +61 (0) 419 435 127
21Ladies in Black
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