Something to watch tonight: Thursday 10 July

Wake in Fright (Kotcheff, 1971)

I men­tioned a few weeks ago that the BBC once com­mis­sioned me to write an appre­ci­ation of Australian Outback hor­ror. The ur-text for that idea is Ted Kotcheff’s Wake in Fright, a ter­ri­fy­ing por­trait of Australian cul­ture when it is let off the leash thanks to dis­tance from mod­er­at­ing urb­an norms.

Schoolteacher John Grant (Gary Bond, the first Joseph in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, fact fans) is frus­trated that he is still bon­ded to a remote out­back town­ship when he would rather be in the big smoke of Sydney, hanging out with his beau­ti­ful girl­friend, Robyn (Nancy Knudsen), espe­cially as it’s Christmas.

Before fly­ing out, Grant has one night in the min­ing town of Bundanyabba (inspired by Broken Hill), where he gets hooked on the illeg­al but sanc­tioned coin flip gambling game of Two-Up. Hoping to win the thou­sand bucks that would pay off his bond, he in fact loses everything and — hun­gov­er — misses his plane. The first of sev­er­al ‘wakes in fright’ he will exper­i­ence before the film is over.

No wor­ries, it’s 1971 and there’s plenty of work — he’ll just get a job and go a few days later. Except it’s Saturday and the Labour Exchange is closed. Plied with extra­vag­ant amounts of beer by all and sun­dry — includ­ing Chips Rafferty as the loc­al cop in his final per­form­ance, a young Jack Thompson and a ter­ri­fy­ingly three-dimensional per­form­ance by Donald Pleasance — Grant starts to lose his mind as well as his money.

What’s inter­est­ing about Wake in Fright as a hor­ror film is that the ant­ag­on­ists aren’t in any way malevol­ent or evil. In fact, every­one thinks they are every­one else’s best mate — “ Will you have a drink with me, mate?” is the first thing every (male) char­ac­ter says — and it’s Australia itself that will do him in. An edu­cated, book-reading, man, with artist­ic pre­ten­sions, it’s as if the Outback has decided to teach him a les­son for his snob­bery and when his last attempt at escape only finds him looped back to where he came from, he looks like Edward Woodward in anoth­er folk-horror of a sim­il­ar vin­tage, The Wicker Man.

This time around, I was really struck by the film’s epi­logue or coda. Grant — and the audi­ence — see that the ‘Yabba is just anoth­er medium-sized town, noth­ing to be afraid of, and that Pleasance’s “Doc” Tydon isn’t the deranged mani­ac he thought he was, just a lonely alco­hol­ic who was try­ing to make a friend.

Once thought to be hope­lessly lost, the ori­gin­al cam­era neg­at­ive was dis­covered in 2002 in Pittsburgh of all places, in a ship­ping con­tain­er labelled “For Destruction”. That neg­at­ive has been ‘restored’ twice since then: for a 2008 Madman Blu-ray and last year by new rights hold­er Umbrella for the new 4K ver­sion. Watching it last night, I was struck by how suc­cess­ful that res­tor­a­tion is. It’s a DolbyVision mas­ter and the col­our is superb, as if every frame has been scrubbed clean of years of Outback dirt. 

In 2017, Kriv Stenders dir­ec­ted a two-part min­iser­ies adapt­a­tion of Kenneth Cook’s 1961 book for Network 10. Has any­one seen it? It’s a got a great cast (includ­ing New Zealand’s Robyn Malcolm).

Further reading and listening

Back in September 2016, I appeared on RNZ Afternoons with Jesse Mulligan to refute David Hepworth’s claim that 1971 wasn’t a great year for cinema and wrote up an art­icle for the web­site shortly after­wards. Examples include Wake in Fright, The French Connection, Harold & Maude, THX-1138 (also fea­tur­ing Donald Pleasance), and Death in Venice.

Where to watch Wake in Fright

Worldwide Physical Media: UHD and Blu-ray from Umbrella Entertainment

The ulti­mate col­lect­ors’ edi­tion fea­tures a book, T‑shirt, Two-Up set and — in hor­ri­fy­ingly poor taste — a souven­ir beer pot glass.

The con­tent below was ori­gin­ally paywalled.

Aotearoa: Streaming on Brollie (free with ads1) or digit­al rent­al from AroVision

Australia: Streaming on Brollie, ABC iView (free) or FoxtelNow

Canada & USA: Streaming on Fandor2

Ireland: Not cur­rently available

India: Not cur­rently available

UK: Not cur­rently available