| Director | Michael Thornhill |
|---|---|
| Budget | A$320,000 |
The film examines four periods in the life of (the fictitious) doctor Edward Trenbow: *In 1918 Trenbow is treating shell-shocked soldiers from the front. *In the 1920s he works as a psychiatrist at the Sydney insane asylum and becomes involved in experiments in Freudian psychiatry, which bring him to the attention of a Royal Commission. *In the 1930s he works as a doctor in a small country town and becomes involved in a fight against the New Guard. *In 1939 he is working in Sydney as a psychiatrist and tries to defend a German psychiatrist who is being interned as a member of the Australia First Movement. He has become a pacifist and is dismayed when his son enlists for what became World War II.