Please note this is a region 2 DVD & will require a region 2 (Europe) or region Free DVD Player in order to play In a storm off the Victorian coast in 1890 a young English girl is shipwrecked & orphaned She is rescued heroically by the only other survivor of the wreck who is feted & rewarded in Melbourne The girl is taken in care by her guardian Uncle Charles who has made a meager fortune from gold & settled at Echuca
- the great Australian inland port on the River Murray His ward is sixteen years old & her name is Philadelphia Gordon She is known as Delie Delie is an energetic & high-spirited girl who wants to paint & not conform She finds it difficult to understand why her aunt Hester a tart & unsmiling woman seeks to impose her ideas of womanhood femininity even good housekeeping on a girl who needs nothing more than the freedom to lead her own life It is her cousin Adam who truly awakens in Delie the feelings of young womanhood Tom the seaman who rescued Delie arrives in Echuca on a paddle steamer he bought with his reward It is the beginning for Delie of a remarkable ten years in her life Her investment of part of her inheritance in the riverboat is without her knowing it the first step towards a turbulent marriage to a riverboat man & indeed to the boats who ply their great trade along the mighty unpredictable & perilous river In a riverboat ceremony Delie marries Brenton Edwards a cavalier riverman who wins & loses the girl on their way to the alter Their years together are as unpredictable as the river & more than once Delie is attracted to bohemian Melbourne & the patronage of Alistair Raeburn the gentleman art critic who falls in love with his protege Yet Delie remains magnetically drawn to Brenton & the river the crew of their paddle-steamer Philadelphia & the river community of Echuca friends like Bessie Griggs a merchant&s daughter & George Blakeney the bluff rival riverboat captain Their community has grown from the 1850&s when it was merely a river crossing established by Henry Hopwood an English convict Mobs of cattle & sheep were driven across the Murray at Echuca on their way to the stockyards at Melbourne Proudly Delie & Brenton race the Philadelphia in dangerously narrow waters & for a wager they cannot afford They dare the Darling River in drought a dash which could go for nearly 1000 miles across outback New South Wales in the hope that rains will wash down from Queensland & allow their escape In tinderbox conditions they survive a fire which all but bankrupts them They have a son in a way many women did at the time on the riverbank in circumstances far removed from Echuca when hardened riverman became midwives Brenton turns against the law to find a way out of their financial maze & the couple part before coming together again Brenton is critically injured in a riverboat accident It inspires Delie to turn her talents towards being a riverboat captain to winning her own Master&s Ticket Actors Sigrid Thornton John Waters John Alansu Kirk Alexander Harold Baigent Roy Baldwin Don Barker Ernie Bourke Don Bridges Nicholas Brown Carol Burns Michael Carman Chantal Contouri Diane Craig Steven Cummins & Lloyd Cunnington Director Pino Amenta & George Miller Certificate PGYear 1983 Languages English Duration 5 hours (approx)