Wake in Fright

1971
X
1h 49m

IMDb RATING

7.5/10

15K

YOUR RATING

The story of John Grant, a bonded teacher who arrives in the rough outback mining town of Bundanyabba planning to stay overnight before catching the plane to Sydney. But his one night stretches to five and he plunges headlong toward his own destruction

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After a bad gambling bet, a schoolteacher is marooned in a town full of crazy, drunk, violent men who threaten to make him just as crazy, drunk, and violent.After a bad gambling bet, a schoolteacher is marooned in a town full of crazy, drunk, violent men who threaten to make him just as crazy, drunk, and violent.After a bad gambling bet, a schoolteacher is marooned in a town full of crazy, drunk, violent men who threaten to make him just as crazy, drunk, and violent.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.5/10

15K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 1 nomination total

User reviews122

Featured review

8/10

too true, too true.

WAKE IN FRIGHT is also known Internationally as OUTBACK. Released to quite a furore in Oz in 1972, I saw it as a teenager and was not unshaken believing that it was all too true. The absolutely brutal sunbaked world of the inland 'scrub' is unflinchingly shown for every part of it's harsh reality. The bozo behavior of local men lubricated with endless alcohol and cruel boredom gets a mighty serve as well. A lot of media and tourist execs of the time were suitably outraged as were the conservative older establishment, and there were opposing films made to soften the blow (SUNSTRUCK, for example). However, WAKE IN FRIGHT is a major achievement as is Roeg's equally devastating WALKABOUT made around the same time. Recently THE TRACKER and RABBIT PROOF FENCE go into the same cinematic territory and deliver equally pungent views. WAKE IN FRIGHT will soon stand among the greats of Australian international cinema and rightfully so. A DVD release and a cinema reissue apparently is keenly awaited.

ptb-8
Feb 5, 2005
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Videos5

Wake In Fright: Clip 6

Clip 1:34

Wake In Fright: Clip 1

Clip 2:05

Wake In Fright: Clip 3

Photos205

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Storyline

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Trivia
This film went out of circulation for many years, in large part due to the dissolution of the two production companies involved: NLT Productions was liquidated soon after its failed release, and Group W's assets were absorbed by CBS in 1999. As a result, the original film and sound elements went missing, sparking an international search. After nearly three years search, in 2002, the film's editor Anthony Buckley tracked the film down to CBS' Iron Mountain archives in Pittsburgh, where an initial 60 cans of film were found in a shipping container marked "For Destruction". By September 2004, a further 263 cans - several of which contained the original camera negative - were recovered from the vaults, allowing for a full digital restoration.

Goofs
As Grant leaves the hotel bar in Tiboonda, he takes one last swig of beer - leaving his glass half full. In the next shot, when the camera focuses on the interior of the bar, his glass is now empty.

Quotes
Dick: [referring to John Grant] What's the matter with him? He'd rather talk to a woman than drink?
Tim Hynes: Schoolteacher.
Dick: Oh.

Crazy credits
[Australian version] PRODUCERS' NOTE: The hunting scenes depicted in this film were taken during an actual kangaroo hunt by professional licensed hunters. For this reason and because the survival of the Australian kangaroo is seriously threatened, these scenes were shown uncut after consultation with the leading animal welfare organisations in Australia and the United Kingdom.

[International version] PRODUCERS' NOTE: Photography of the hunting scenes in this film took place during an actual kangaroo hunt conducted by licensed professional hunters. No kangaroos were killed expressly for this motion picture. Because the survival of the Australian kangaroo is seriously threatened these scenes were included with approval of leading animal welfare organisations in Australia and the United Kingdom.

Alternate versions
The international TV version that, until 2009, replaced the uncut Australian version in circulation, runs approximately 101 minutes (97 minutes on most copies due to NTSC to PAL conversion), roughly eight minutes shorter than the original. The changes are as follows:
When John awakens the morning after the two-up game, an alternate take of the scene is used: instead of being naked, he is wearing underpants.
When Janette is seducing John, the scene fades to black when she nuzzles her head against his groin and cuts to Doc's handstand. In the original, she then unbuttons her dress and kisses John, who drunkenly vomits; disappointed, she wipes his face and leads him back to the house.
The entirety of John's conversation with Doc outside his shack is missing.
The daytime kangaroo hunt lacks most of the brief scene in which Doc cuts off a kangaroo's testicles, and only shows the shot of Joe handing his knife to Doc before cutting to John's bemused close-up.
The night-time kangaroo hunt is severely truncated: only the first two kills are shown, and prior to the sequence in which Joe fights the one-eyed kangaroo, the sequence consists entirely of close-ups of the actors firing at the screen. Similarly, the shot of Joe slashing the kangaroo's throat and a lingering shot of kangaroo carcasses post-carnage are cut.
During the bush pub fight, Joe's line "You bastard!" is cut, as is Doc rising from his chair saying "You bloody bastards!"; Doc's further utterances of the phrase in this scene are cross-faded so that only the first vowel is heard.
After Doc grabs John by the neck during their post-hunt "tryst", the scene fades to white when the ceiling lamp swings toward the screen and cuts to the following morning, thereby eliminating Doc's suggestive mounting of John (curiously, the part of this scene featured during the montage of John's mental breakdown remains intact).
The following have been removed from the montage of John's mental breakdown: Doc spitting beer into Janette's mouth; Doc playfully slapping Janette; John breaking into a run; both shots of Doc having sex with Robyn. John Scott's music is cross-faded over the penultimate crescendo so that the final sting is still synchronized with the reversed shot of the two-up pennies over Doc's eyes, although much of Dick, Joe and the two-up patrons' howling laughter is eliminated as a result.

Connections
Edited into Terror Nullius (2018)

Soundtracks
She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain
(uncredited)
Traditional, based on a Negro spiritual song known as "When the Chariot Comes"
Sung by passengers on the train