Wake in Fright
All actors and roles (10)
Short description
John Grant teaches at a one-room school in a remote Australian settlement, earning little and dreaming of a career as a journalist in England. When the Christmas holidays arrive, he travels toward Sydney to see his girlfriend, but a stopover in the mining town of Bundanyabba turns into something else. One night of drinking with the locals becomes five, and as his money and his plans slip away, the town and its hard-drinking, hard-living inhabitants draw him further into a personal decline.
The film is directed by Ted Kotcheff, who wrote the screenplay with Evan Jones, and it was produced by George Willoughby. It came seventh in the director's filmography, between Life at the Top and Fun with Dick and Jane, well before First Blood. Gary Bond plays John Grant, with Donald Pleasence as Doc Tydon, Chips Rafferty as Jock Crawford, Sylvia Kay as Janette Hynes and Jack Thompson as Dick heading a credited cast of twenty-seven. Released in 1971, the Australia, United Kingdom and United States co-production runs 109 minutes.
On TMDB it holds a rating of 7.2 out of 10 from 356 votes, a solid score for a drama-thriller of its era, suggesting the film has found a steady audience over the decades since its release.
What's left behind the scenes
- A minute of silence under dimmed lights—this ritual is still observed in the clubs of the Australian Army and Naval Veterans League. Every evening, the lights are dimmed, and those present stand in silence to remember the fallen. Usually, during the ceremony, the 'Ode of Remembrance' is played over the speakers, a stanza from the poem 'For the Fallen' by British poet and playwright Lawrence Binyon (1869-1943).
- The kangaroo hunting scene was filmed with real hunters, who became intoxicated after a few hours of work and began to miss their shots. According to cinematographer Brian West, the film crew grew tired of the senseless drunken slaughter and faked an equipment failure to stop the hunters.
- Director Ted Kotcheff recalled that Chips Rafferty (1909-1971), who played the role of John in what would be his final on-screen appearance, insisted on drinking real beer during the bar scenes. Kotcheff tried to substitute it with non-alcoholic beer, but he was unable to fool Rafferty. By Kotcheff's estimation, the actor drank up to 30 pints of beer daily.
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