Trivia for
Paradise Road (1997) More at IMDbPro »

• The final credits state that the vocal orchestra performed over thirty works in the P.O.W camp during 1943 and 1944. It discontinued performing though when about half of the members had died and the remaining survivors were not well enough to participate.
  
  
• This P.O.W film centers women prisoners as its principal cast and subjects with a theme of utilizing music to survive the horrors of war. However, it's not the first film to do this. Playing for Time (1980) (TV) examined similar themes.
  
  
• The film is based on actual true events and according to the end coda, the film was inspired by the reminisces of the actual women prisoners of war, many of whom became life-long friends after the ordeal.
  
  
• This is not the first World War II war movie to be called "Paradise Road". About nine years before this film was made, Paradise Road (1988) examined the relationship between a British Army nurse and an American journalist in Rhodesia in 1942 during WWII. This Bruce Beresford film is not a remake of the earlier movie and both films are unrelated except that both are set in WW 2 P.O.W camps.
  
  
• The film refers to the singing prisoner of war women as a vocal orchestra rather than as a choir.
  
  
• In 1982, the Peninsula Women's Chorus performed a tribute concert to the women in Australia recreating a concert from the surviving score transcripts.
  
  
• This is the second war movie directed by Bruce Beresford. His first was 'Breaker' Morant (1980).
  
  
• The real-life first concert held by the women in the actual P.O.W camp was held on 27 December 1943.
  
  
• From her memory, in the actual P.O.W camp, Margaret Dryburgh wrote down and arranged the music for the vocal orchestra from works by the likes of such composers as Ludwig van Beethoven, Frederick Chopin and Claude Debussy.
  
  
• The film is based on the diaries, reminisces and testimonies of Helen Colijn and Betty Jeffrey as described in their books, "Song of Survival" and "White Coolies".
  
  
• When the film ends, the war has ended. In reality, as the closing statement mentions, the women did not leave the P.O.W camp for another two weeks, as Alllied soldiers did not arrive at the the Belalau internment camp (the most remote of them all) until a fortnight after the end of the war. At this time, they were taken to Singapore and Sumatra where they received medical treatment and after that they returned to their various homes.
  
  
• The music in the film was derived from the actual score transcripts used in the P.O.W camps which survived World War II.
  
  
• The vocal orchestra performed over thirty works in the P.O.W camp during 1943 and 1944. It discontinued performing though when about half of the members had died and the remaining survivors were not well enough to participate.
  
  
• This is one of few P.O.W films where an escape(s) or attempted escape(s) does not feature as a major prominent storyline in the film.
  
  

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