person or book cover
Screen cap: opening shot
form y separately published work icon Wake in Fright single work   film/TV   horror  
Alternative title: Outback
Adaptation of Wake in Fright Kenneth Cook , 1961 single work novel
Issue Details: First known date: 1971... 1971 Wake in Fright
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Film Details - Group W Films ; NLT Productions , 1971

Producers:

Maurice Singer (Associate Producer )
Bill Harmon (Executive Producer)
George Willoughby (Producer)
Howard G. Barnes (Executive Producer)

Production Companies:

Group W Films
NLT Productions

Director of Photography:

Brian West

Editors:


Production Designers:

Dennis Gentle

Composer:

John Scott

Cast:

Incl. Donald Pleasence ('Doc' Tydon), Gary Bond (John Grant), Chips Rafferty (Jock Crawford), Sylvia Kay (Janette Hynes), Jack Thompson (Dick), Peter Whittle (Joe), Al Thomas (Tim Hynes), John Meillon (Charlie), John Armstrong (Atkins), Slim DeGrey (Jarvis), Maggie Dence (Receptionist), Norm Erskine (Joe the Cook), Owen Moase (First Controller), John Dalleen (Second Controller) Buster Fiddess (Charlie Jones), Tex Foote (Stubbs), Colin Hughes (Stockman), Jacko Jackson (Van Driver), Nancy Knudsen (Robyn), Dawn Lake (Joyce), Harry Lawrence (Higgins), Robert McDarra (Pig Eyes), Carlo Manchini (Poker Player), Liam Reynolds (Miner).

Release Dates:

1. First screened in May 1971 at the Cannes Film Festival (as Outback). Later released in Paris (22 July 1971), London (29 October 1971), Australia (ca. October 1971), and the USA (20 February 1972, New York City). Later screened at the 2004 Scottsdale Film Festival (USA). The restored version was given limited release in Australia, beginning 25 June 2009. This version has also been screened at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival (France) and 2009 Toronto Film Festival (Canada).
2. Released on videocassette format by Group W Films and NLT Productions in 1971. Released on DVD format in USA and Canada in 2005 by Learmedia. Re-released on DVD format in Australia in 2009.

Location:

  • Filmed largely on location at Broken Hill, Menindee Lakes, Old Silverton Railway Station, and Silverton (New South Wales). Interior scenes filmed at Ajax Studios, Bondi (New South Wales).

Awards:

  • Cannes Film Festival (1971) Golden Palm Award - Ted Kotcheff (nomination)

Notes:

1. The rights were originally bought by American actor Dirk Bogarde in 1963. Bogarde had hoped to make the film with expatriate American director Joseph Losey. Although regarded as an Australian film, Wake in Fright was eventually made as a co-production between NLT Productions (Australia) and Group W Films (an American subsidiary of Westinghouse), with a Canadian director and a Jamaican scriptwriter, Evan Jones.
2. Several sequences were cut for the television release (running time approximately 100 min.).
3. Also known as Despertar en el Infierno (Spain); Kova loma (Finland); Vaarallinen Loma (Finland); and Xypnima ston Tromo (Greece).
4. While the original negatives of Wake in Fright were lost sometime after 1972, Bill Collins occasionally presented the television version late at night during the early-mid 1980s. A VHS version of Outback was also released in the US during the 1980s, and some 16mm and 35mm prints of the film existed but were in extremely poor condition for screening. In 1996, filmmaker Anthony Buckley (the film's editor) began searching for the original materials, making good on a promise he had made to the NLT co-founder Bobby Limb sometime prior to Limb's death in 1999. Buckely eventually located a damaged 35mm print (of Outback) in Dublin. Two years later, after an extensive search, he discovered the original film materials in a Pittsburgh (USA) vault, marked for destruction and imminent disposal. These materials were later used to produce a restored version of the film (Source: www.wakeinfright.com. Sighted 15 September 2009).
5. Further reference: Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper. Australian Film 1900-1977, A Guide to Feature Film Production (1980, q.v.), p. 333.
6. Further reference: Synopsis and Curator's Notes, Australian Screen http://aso.gov.au/titles/features/wake-in-fright/notes/
'Restoration of Australian film Wake In Fright' from the ABC's 7:30 Report is available at http://youtu.be/le78LmmI6Kc (Sighted 10/02/12)

Settings:
  • Far West NSW, New South Wales,
  • Australian Outback, Central Australia,
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