Wake in Fright


DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT – TED KOTCHEFF
MAKING WAKE IN FRIGHT: THE NOVEL
THE FILM
FILMING IN AUSTRALIA
SHOOTING IN BROKEN HILL
POST-PRODUCTION AND RELEASE
RECOVERY AND RESTORATION
WAKE IN FRIGHT ON AUSTRALIANSCREEN
WAKE IN FRIGHT ON DVD AND BLU-RAY

THE FILM

Dirk Bogarde purchased the films rights to Wake in Fright in 1963. He had already established a strong working relationship with his chosen director Joseph Losey, who, by the early 60s, was set up in London. (In the 50s Losey had been blacklisted in the US during McCarthy communist witch hunts).

When the young screenwriter Evan Jones, who had worked with Losey on 1961’s The Damned, first looked at Cook’s novel he was impressed: “In some ways, it seemed to me, to have been written with filming in mind,” he recalls. “I read the book in one sitting. It has the classical unities of time, place and action. The story – of what
happens to John Grant – is classic since it is a story of self-discovery. I thought it was almost a movie already.” He adds modestly: “I didn’t have to do very much.”

Jones wrote the screenplay in London and did not do any specific research. He says the film’s precise details of the outback experience derive from the novel and his correspondence with Kenneth Cook.

The novel’s psychology appealed to him, especially in the way that the school teacher John Grant’s true personality seems to be forged in the cauldron of the Yabba, over a long weekend of drinking and violence…even if the outback way of life seems alien to him: “I think Grant’s idealism has not led him from strength to strength. I think he came out to teach school with nothing behind him except aspiration and love. Grant doesn’t have the experience or the strength to say ‘no’ to things. His very sweetness and kindness obliges him to take part.”

Jones says his favourite character is Doc Tydon (Donald Pleasance), who attempts to educate Grant in the ways of the Yabba, but his advice goes unheeded. Still his hospitality and kindness perhaps is a mask for something darker and more sinister. “The Doc clearly manipulates and exploits people…he is maybe psychotic. He would go too far if he were pushed and he is my favourite character because he is the most complex.”

Cook announced the Bogarde-Losey-Evans production in the Australian media in October 1963 with a shooting start date of December that year. “It fell over,” says Jones, “certainly because the money was not there but I suspect it
was never a real thing [prospect] in the first place.”

Morris West bought the rights from Bogarde in 1966, worked with Jones on the script and then sold the project off to NLT Productions, in a deal reported at the time worth $49,000. By 1970 Cook was telling journalists the whole thing had not worked out well for him: by the time the novel was before the cameras the author had only received $6000.

NLT Productions, a subsidiary of one of Australia’s top theatrical agencies, signed a deal with the Westinghouse Corporation’s film division Group W in December 1968 to produce ten films over five years. Wake in Fright was put forward as a project for Stanley Baker, better known as an actor, who had gone into producing, and had some spectacular success behind him with the British hit, Zulu (1963). Meanwhile Hollywood-based Australian leading man Rod Taylor (The Birds, The Time Machine) approached the project as a possible starring vehicle. Nothing came of this deal.

Jones and Canadian born and London based director Ted Kotcheff teamed on Two Gentlemen Sharing (1968). Jones remembers suggesting Kotcheff as a possible director for Wake in Fright which, by now had been knocking around as a prospect for nearly ten years.

Kotcheff explains how he became connected with the project: “Evan told me about a script he had written and he thought I would love it and be good for it. Indeed I did, and Evan went to Peter Katz in London and he ran Group W films. We liked each other.”

The producers at Group W with Kotcheff started casting. Robert Helpmann was announced as Doc Tydon at one point. Kotcheff says that Group W wanted an English actor for John Grant as it would boost the marquee. He approached every eligible performer and all turned him down including Michael York: “He was the first choice,” says Kotcheff. “After a lot of dithering he passed on it. Many years later he bumped into me and he told me, “to my dying day I will regret not doing that wonderful picture”.

Finally Kotcheff cast Donald Pleasance, who he had known for some years, as Doc Tydon and a young actor, Gary Bond, who was better known on stage than on film or TV, who the press dubbed as the “new Peter O’Toole”. The only major female role, of Janette, who attempts to seduce Grant, would be cast in Australia.

Photo:
(1) Doc Tydon (Donald Pleasence) with Two-Up coins in his eyes in Wake in Fright
(2) Gary Bond as John Grant in Wake in Fright

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