Wake in Fright **** (1970, Gary Bond, Donald Pleasence, Chips Rafferty, Jack Thompson, John Meillon) – Classic Movie Review 868

Director Ted Kotcheff’s 1970 Aussie movie is an extremely atmospheric, brutal-toned, imaginatively made and gripping psychological chiller. Gary Bond stars as a shy, educated English teacher John Grant, who soon finds himself in a whole lot of frightening trouble with the harsh, uncultured and alternative lifestyles of the Australian Outback.

Leaving the boring security of his bonded teaching job in a one-horse town, he travels by train to a slightly larger one-horse mining town called Bundanyabba, planning to stay overnight before going on to Sydney.

There in Bundanyabba, affected by the heat, the beer and the weird male bonding, he encounters copper Chips Rafferty and barman John Meillon, loses all his money (except a dollar), meets crazy struck-off doctor Donald Pleasence and lusty young Jack Thompson, and goes on a wild kangaroo hunt. Bit by bit, John Grant starts to fall to pieces as his one night stretches to a nightmarish five and he ends up sitting against a tree, looking at a rifle with one bullet left.

In a role intended for Dirk Bogarde when the film was to have been directed by Joseph Losey, Bond does extremely well, grabbing a good opportunity by the scruff of its neck and turning in a riveting performance. And then there’s the excellent star character support you’d expect of a cast of this quality. Pleasence is top billed with much less to do as Doc Tydon, but he is perfect in this kind of crazy role, as is Rafferty, effectively typecast as the creepy policeman Jock Crawford.

Director Kotcheff certainly knows how to involve, grip and disturb us. It’s a true original, though it has a passing resemblance to Deliverance with shades of Walkabout thrown in. Screenwriter Evan Jones creates memorable scenes, characters and dialogue. Brian West’s outstanding cinematography is eye-catching, and done with great flair and style.

It was screened in the UK as Outback, but now it’s been lovingly restored in Australia and re-released in February 2014 under its original title, Wake in Fright and finally recognised for its true worth. There’s a 99-minute cut version prepared for TV. Adapted from Kenneth Cook’s novel Wake in Fright, which suggests a horror story. This isn’t a horror movie at all, any more than Deliverance is. Don’t watch it expecting a horror movie, or you’ll be disappointed.

The film was out of circulation for decades after the negative went missing, sparking an international search. After ten years, Australian producer Anthony Buckley finally tracked it down in mid-2004 in a Pittsburgh warehouse, inside a shipping container marked ‘For Destruction’.

Bundanyabba is based on Broken Hill in New South Wales, the town where much of it was filmed. It is one of the most isolated inland cities in Australia.

In the original Australian release Wake in Fright, Gary Bond is shown naked during two shots but in the international version Outback he is wearing underpants.

The film makes a poignant and beautiful memorial to the almost forgotten actor Gary Bond. Gay actor Bond enjoyed a loving relationship with Sherlock Holmes actor Jeremy Brett in the 60s. He made his film debut as Private Cole in Zulu (1964) and played Smeaton in Anne of the Thousand Days (1969) but it was all TV work for the next 20 years after his spectacular star role in Wake in Fright. Tragically, he died of AIDS on 12 October 1995, aged 55.