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Wake in Fright (1971) 7.8
Ratings:
7.8/10 from 4,479 users
Metascore: 88/100
Reviews: 54 user | 118 critic | 14 from Metacritic.com 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. Director:Ted Kotcheff |
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Title: Wake in Fright (1971)
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1 nomination.
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Cast
| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Donald Pleasence | ... |
Doc Tydon
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Gary Bond | ... |
John Grant
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Chips Rafferty | ... |
Jock Crawford
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Sylvia Kay | ... |
Janette Hynes
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| Jack Thompson | ... |
Dick
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Peter Whittle | ... |
Joe
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Al Thomas | ... |
Tim Hynes
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| John Meillon | ... |
Charlie
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John Armstrong | ... |
Atkins
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Slim DeGrey | ... |
Jarvis
(as Slim De Grey)
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Maggie Dence | ... |
Receptionist
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Norm Erskine | ... |
Joe the Cook
(as Norman Erskine)
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Owen Moase | ... |
1st Controller
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John Dalleen | ... |
2nd Controller
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Buster Fiddess | ... |
Charlie Jones
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Plot Summary
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Plot Synopsis
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Storyline
Wake in Fright is 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. When the alcohol-induced mist lifts, the educated John Grant is no more. Instead there is a self-loathing man in a desolate wasteland, dirty, red-eyed, sitting against a tree and looking at a rifle with one bullet left... Written by Anonymous
Plot Keywords:
animal cruelty | male full frontal nudity | australia | mining town | teacher |Taglines:
Have a drink, mate? Have a fight, mate? Have some dust and sweat, mate? There's nothing else out here.Parents Guide:
View content advisory »
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Details
Language:
EnglishRelease Date:
21 July 1971 (France) See more »Also Known As:
Outback See more »Box Office
Opening Weekend:
$6,761 (USA) (5 October 2012)Gross:
$50,394 (USA) (21 December 2012)Company Credits
Show detailed
company contact information
on
IMDbPro »
Technical Specs
Runtime:
Sound Mix:
MonoColor:
Color (Technicolor)Aspect Ratio:
1.85 : 1
Edit
John Grant: New to the 'Yabba.
Tim Hynes: You like the old place?
John Grant: No, I think it's bloody awful.
Tim Hynes: You don't like the 'Yabba?
John Grant: No!
Tim Hynes: [pauses] Will you have a drink?
John Grant: No, I'm toying with this one, thanks.
Tim Hynes: Well, drink it down. I'll buy you another.
John Grant: Look, I'm flat broke and I can't afford to drink!
[...]
See more »
(uncredited)
Traditional, based on a Negro spiritual
Sung by passengers on the train
See more »
Did You Know?
Trivia
There are two drink sizes ordered - a middy (10 fluid oz or 285 ml) and a schooner (15 fluid oz or 425 ml). See more »Goofs
When John first meets Doc in the steakhouse, Doc's beer can switches from hand to hand while he is drinking. See more »Quotes
Tim Hynes: [John has just walked into a bar] New to the 'Yabba?John Grant: New to the 'Yabba.
Tim Hynes: You like the old place?
John Grant: No, I think it's bloody awful.
Tim Hynes: You don't like the 'Yabba?
John Grant: No!
Tim Hynes: [pauses] Will you have a drink?
John Grant: No, I'm toying with this one, thanks.
Tim Hynes: Well, drink it down. I'll buy you another.
John Grant: Look, I'm flat broke and I can't afford to drink!
[...]
See more »
Soundtracks
She'll be coming around the mountain(uncredited)
Traditional, based on a Negro spiritual
Sung by passengers on the train
See more »
Yet another first-class film made in Australia by foreigners (a Canadian director working for a British studio), during the long period from World War II to the early 1970s when Australian cinema lay fallow. Like many other good ones - "The Overlanders" (1946), "They're a Weird Mob" (1966), "Age of Consent" (1969), "Walkabout" (1971) - although "Walkabout" is more seriously flawed than the others I've named - it doesn't feel like a foreign film; it feels as if the director made an honest attempt to be Australian, and succeeded. It's interesting that all these films are British. American films shot in Australia during the same period are, without qualification, American films; one scarcely even notices that "On the Beach" was shot in Melbourne rather than, say, Capetown or Tierra del Fuego, however many trams and banksias there may be.
The central character is clearly English; just as clearly, he doesn't like Australia. But I suspect that even in 1971 a greater proportion of Australians would have felt themselves to have been trapped in Hell if they'd been in his circumstances, than English. A greater proportion of Australians, then as now, live in cities, and the outback is further away from over 90% of Australians than anything is from anyone in England.
It's interesting that this fellow should be so RIGHT about everything (The Yabba IS a "bloody terrible" place, the hospitality he encounters DOES border on aggression, the game of two-up IS about as simple-minded and dull as it's possible for a game of chance to be), and yet be such an unsympathetic, unimaginative prig with scarcely more insight than he has backbone. He always needs a local to tell him what's going on and even then he doesn't get it. Yet we follow him with fascination and real concern all the same.