WAKE IN FRIGHT (1971)

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Ted Kotcheff

SCREENWRITER: Evan Jones, Ted Kotcheff

FILM STARS: Donald Pleasence, Gary Bond, Chips Rafferty, Sylvia Kay, Jack Thompson, John Meillon, Norman Erskine, Slim DeGrey

COUNTRY: Australia

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Kenneth Cook

TYPE: Novel

PUBLISHER: Penguin

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1973

COUNTRY: Great Britain

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1961

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Drama

WORDS: The film is certainly not an advertisement for “Tourism Australia” though, perhaps, at the time it was a more truthful depiction of a part of Australia … the “Outback”. One of the great Australian films. It is in your face and certainly picks up on a specific part of Australian culture – rural, pre migration Anglo-Celtic, working and lower middle class.

It could be argued (if this was a sociological exercise) that the culture depicted extends beyond that. There is some evidence to suggest that Australian culture is the great equalizer and that its power lies in making you become part of it rather than you making it part of you. It is certainly seductive in it cavalier attitude to social norms and rules .. and the further one travels from “society” the more the norms and rules can be disregarded.

The central character, John Grant, certainly lives that as he journeyed into a alcoholic, cultural, sexual and spiritual nightmare as he tried to get back to Sydney from his teaching post in outback New South Wales. He is stranded in a small rural town (the fictional town of Bundanyabba is based on Broken Hill in New South Wales) and becomes immersed in the local culture of the “outback”.  Kenneth Cook is, I suspect, a much underrated writer. He was a journalist (who spent much time in the outback) but with an artistic bent.  His lines are matter of fact though there is a big picture going on. The book opens with a great opening “He sat at his desk, wearily watching the children file out of the room, reflecting that, this term at least, it was reasonable to assume that none of the girls was pregnant”. The title comes from an old curse: “May you dream of the Devil and wake in fright”.

Despite that the film was called “Outback” in both the UK and the USA and only reverted to its current tile on the DVD release in 2012

The film came at a time when few Australian films were being made though English money (largely) financed the film which explains director Kotcheff (Canadian but working in England) and the two leads, Englishmen Gary Bond and Donald Pleasence (interestingly, Michael York stated (apparently) in a 1980 interview that he turned down a role in the film due to being offended by the kangaroo hunting scene and Robert Helpmann was initially hired to play the role of Doc Tydon, but he was replaced with Donald Pleasence due to scheduling conflicts). Director Ted Kotchelff who had worked in film and television (and would go on to direct westerns (“Billy Two Hats” (1974)), action films (“First Blood” (1982)), and comedies (“Fun with Dick and Jane” (1977), “Switching Channels” (1988), “Weekend at Bernie’s” (1989)) is much underrated and approaches the material straight on. The cast is great including Australians Chips Rafferty (who died of a heart attack prior to the film’s release), Jack Thompson (whose first film it was), and John Meillon. The only surprise was why Bond didn’t become a bigger star (though he was quite well known in the UK in theatre). The film won (apparently) much critical acclaim in Europe, and was Australia’s entry at the Cannes Film Festival. Interestingly a film version was linked with the actor Dirk Bogarde and the director Joseph Losey in the early 1960s. Cook originally sold the adaptation rights for his novel in 1963 to Bogarde, who intended to play John Grant and make the film for his production company, Bendrose Films, with Joseph Losey directing the film. Nothing happened so Bogarde sold the rights to (Australian author) Morris West who sold it to the films producers. Ironically, when the film was shown at Cannes, it was competing with “Death in Venice ” (1971) starring Bogarde and Losey’s The Go-Between (1971) for the Grand Prix du Festival. It lost to the latter.

Quoted from the movie credits … “The hunting scenes depicted in this film were taken during an actual kangaroo hunt by professional licensed hunters”. Apparently the hunt lasted several hours, and the hunters were getting really drunk and they started to miss. Kangaroos were wounded, hoping around. There was blood, there were intestines. The crew were not used to this and eventually orchestrated a power failure in order to end the hunt. Art imitating life? The kangaroo hunt scene is confronting to modern urban audiences (apparently at the 2009 Cannes Classic screening 12 people walked out during the kangaroo hunt)

Despite this the mindless brutality of human and life in the Australian outback is, perhaps, even more confronting, unsettling and disturbing. And controversial, at the time … apparently, during an early Australian screening, one man stood up, pointed at the screen and protested “That’s not us!”, to which Jack Thompson yelled back “Sit down, mate. It is us.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake_in_Fright

Amusingly, according to some trainspotter there are approximately 107 occurrences in the film where a person drinks from a beer glass, beer bottle, whiskey bottle or whiskey glass. Director Ted Kotcheff recalled that Chips Rafferty insisted on drinking real pints of beer during the bar sequences. Kotcheff replaced non-alcoholic beers for the real stuff, but Rafferty noticed immediately and demanded proper pints be served. He told Kotcheff: “You concentrate on the directing, I’ll concentrate on the drinking.”  The director calculated that due to this, Rafferty was drinking up to 30 pints per day.

The book is a good read. the film is a must see.

And, the big question is, does the culture shown still exist?

LINKS

TRAILER

40th Anniversary trailer (2012)

1971 US Release Trailer