''Wake in Fright'' (initially released as ''Outback'' outside Australia) is a 1971

psychological thriller Psychological thriller is a genre combining the thriller and psychological fiction genres. It is commonly used to describe literature or films that deal with psychological narratives in a thriller or thrilling setting. In terms of context and c ...

film directed by

Ted Kotcheff William Theodore Kotcheff (born April 7, 1931) is a Bulgarian-Canadian film and television director, writer and producer, known primarily for his work on British and American television productions such as '' Armchair Theatre'' and '' Law & Or ...

, written by Evan Jones, and starring

Gary Bond Gary James Bond (7 February 1940 – 12 October 1995) was an English actor and singer. He is known for originating the role Joseph in Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical ''Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat'', his performances ...

Donald Pleasence Donald Henry Pleasence (; 5 October 1919 – 2 February 1995) was an English actor. He began his career on stage in the West End before transitioning into a screen career, where he played numerous supporting and character roles including RAF ...

Chips Rafferty John William Pilbean Goffage MBE (26 March 190927 May 1971), known professionally as Chips Rafferty, was an Australian actor. Called "the living symbol of the typical Australian", Rafferty's career stretched from the late 1930s until his death ...

Sylvia Kay Sylvia Margaret Kay (16 May 1936 – 18 January 2019) was an English character actress who had many roles in British television programmes, most notably as Daphne Warrender in the BBC sitcom ''Just Good Friends''. Early life She attended Round ...

and

Jack Thompson Jack Thompson may refer to: Sports *Jack Thompson (footballer, born 1892) (1892–1969), English footballer who played for Sheffield United and Bristol City *Jack Thompson (1920s footballer), English footballer who played for Aston Villa and Bright ...

. Based on

Kenneth Cook Kenneth Bernard Cook (5 May 1929 – 18 April 1987) was an Australian journalist, television documentary maker, and novelist best known for his works ''Wake in Fright'', which is still in print five decades after its first publication, and the hu ...

's 1961 novel of the same name, it follows a young schoolteacher who descends into personal moral degradation after finding himself stranded in a brutal, menacing town in

outback The Outback is a remote, vast, sparsely populated area of Australia. The Outback is more remote than the bush. While often envisaged as being arid, the Outback regions extend from the northern to southern Australian coastlines and encompass a ...

Australia. Filmed on-location in

Broken Hill Broken Hill is an inland mining city in the far west of outback New South Wales, Australia. It is near the border with South Australia on the crossing of the Barrier Highway (A32) and the Silver City Highway (B79), in the Barrier Range. It ...

and

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mounta ...

, ''Wake in Fright'' was an international co-production between Australia, Britain, and the United States. Alongside ''

Walkabout Walkabout is a rite of passage in Australian Aboriginal society, during which males undergo a journey during adolescence, typically ages 10 to 16, and live in the wilderness for a period as long as six months to make the spiritual and traditiona ...

'', it was one of two Australian films to be nominated for the Grand Prix du Festival at the 24th Cannes Film Festival. Despite attracting positive reviews at the time, the film was a

commercial failure Failure is the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective, and may be viewed as the opposite of success. The criteria for failure depends on context, and may be relative to a particular observer or belief system. One ...

in Australia, in part due to scant marketing by

United Artists United Artists Corporation (UA), currently doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, is an American digital production company. Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the stu ...

, as well as controversy surrounding its portrayal of outback life, including a hunting scene in which real kangaroos are shot and killed. By the 1990s, ''Wake in Fright'' had developed a cult reputation as Australia's great "

lost film A lost film is a feature or short film that no longer exists in any studio archive, private collection, public archive or the U.S. Library of Congress. Conditions During most of the 20th century, U.S. copyright law required at least one copy ...

" because its master negative had gone missing, resulting in censored prints of degraded quality being used for its few television broadcasts and VHS releases. After the original film and sound elements were rescued by editor

Anthony Buckley Anthony Buckley AO (born 27 July 1937) is an Australian film editor and producer. Career On leaving school, Buckley went to work for Cinesound Productions as a projectionist and assistant editor. He worked in Canada and Britain before return ...

in 2004, the film was digitally remastered and given a 2009 re-release at

Cannes Cannes ( , , ; oc, Canas) is a city located on the French Riviera. It is a commune located in the Alpes-Maritimes department, and host city of the annual Cannes Film Festival, Midem, and Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. The ...

and in Australian theatres to widespread acclaim; it was issued commercially on DVD and Blu-ray later that year. ''Wake in Fright'' is now considered a pivotal film of both the

Australian New Wave The Australian New Wave (also known as the Australian Film Revival, Australian Film Renaissance, or New Australian Cinema) was an era of resurgence in worldwide popularity of Australian cinema, particularly in the United States. It began in the ea ...

and the Ozploitation cycle, earning praise from contemporary critics for Kotcheff's direction and the cast's performances. ''Wake in Fright'' was

remade Bas-Lag is the fictional world in which several of English author China Miéville's novels are set. Bas-Lag is a world where both magic (referred to as "thaumaturgy") and steampunk technology exist, and is home to many intelligent races. It is in ...

as a two-part miniseries that aired in 2017.

Plot

John Grant is a young,

middle-class The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. Com ...

schoolteacher who feels disgruntled because of the onerous terms of a financial bond that he signed with the government in return for receiving a

tertiary education Tertiary education, also referred to as third-level, third-stage or post-secondary education, is the educational level following the completion of secondary education. The World Bank, for example, defines tertiary education as including univers ...

. The bond has forced him to accept a two-year post at a tiny school at Tiboonda, a remote township in the arid

. It is the start of the Christmas holidays, and John plans on going to

to see his girlfriend Robyn, but first he must travel by train to the nearby mining town of Bundanyabba – affectionately nicknamed "The Yabba" by the locals – in order to catch a Sydney-bound flight. Upon arriving at The Yabba, John goes to a pub, where he meets the local policeman, Jock Crawford, who befriends him after both drink repeated glasses of beer at the pub and an RSL club, where they witness an unnerving

ANZAC The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) was a First World War army corps of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force. It was formed in Egypt in December 1914, and operated during the Gallipoli campaign. General William Birdwood comm ...

memorial service. Crawford then introduces him to the illegal game of two-up, and to Clarence "Doc" Tydon, a vagrant,

alcoholic Alcoholism is, broadly, any drinking of alcohol that results in significant mental or physical health problems. Because there is disagreement on the definition of the word ''alcoholism'', it is not a recognized diagnostic entity. Predomina ...

medical practitioner who questions John's contemptuous view of The Yabba and its populace. Deciding to try his luck at two-up, John has a winning streak but becomes reckless: in a desperate bid to win enough money to pay off his bond and escape his

indentured servitude Indentured servitude is a form of labor in which a person is contracted to work without salary for a specific number of years. The contract, called an " indenture", may be entered "voluntarily" for purported eventual compensation or debt repayme ...

as an outback teacher, he loses all of his cash in two rounds. This results in John becoming stranded in The Yabba with no money, leaving him at the mercy of its searing heat and eccentric but sinister townsfolk. While drinking, John becomes friends with a resident named Tim Hynes and goes to Tim's house, where he meets his adult daughter, Janette, and his two friends, miners Dick and Joe. Tim, Dick and Joe engage in an all-day drinking session, where they are eventually joined by Doc. John converses with Janette, who quietly desires a life outside of waiting on her father and his friends. She tries to seduce John, who vomits due to the beer he has ingested. After engaging in more debauched rituals with the Hynes and their guests, John finds refuge in Doc's isolated shack. After providing him with medicine to cure his hangover and feeding him on

kangaroo Kangaroos are four marsupials from the family Macropodidae (macropods, meaning "large foot"). In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, the red kangaroo, as well as the antilopine kangaroo, eastern ...

meat, Doc expounds his worldview onto John, revealing that his alcoholism and self-sufficient attitude to life prevented him from practicing in Sydney. He also reveals that he and Janette have had a long-standing

open relationship An open relationship is an intimate relationship that is sexually non-monogamous. The term is distinct from polyamory, in that it generally indicates a relationship where there is a primary emotional and intimate relationship between two partner ...

punctuated by unorthodox sexual encounters. John and Doc are joined by Dick and Joe in a drunken, barbaric kangaroo hunt that lasts into the night, which culminates in Joe engaging in fisticuffs with one such kangaroo and John clumsily stabbing another to death. The four then vandalize a bush pub, where Dick and Joe engage in a playful fight that turns brutal, interrupting Doc as he lectures an unconscious John about the violent nature of civilization despite its philosophical and materialistic trappings. At dawn, John returns to Doc's shack, where Doc initiates a homosexual encounter between the two. Repulsed, John leaves that morning and returns to town, where his two suitcases, left behind at a hotel after he met Tim, are returned to him by Crawford. After discarding one suitcase – mostly containing textbooks, including one on

Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...

– he wanders through the desert towards Sydney, hitch-hiking with truck drivers where possible and procuring food using the rifle he was given during the hunt. He eventually arrives at a truck stop, where he persuades a driver he assumes is heading for Sydney to give him a lift. However, due to miscommunication, John returns to The Yabba instead. Enraged with Doc and his perversity, John rushes to his empty cabin, intent on shooting him upon his return. However, he becomes overwhelmed with loneliness and remorse, and turns his rifle on himself. Doc arrives to witness John shoot himself in the temple, the impact of which scars but fails to kill him. John recovers in the hospital and signs a statement from Crawford explaining that his

suicide attempt A suicide attempt is an attempt to die by suicide that results in survival. It may be referred to as a "failed" or "unsuccessful" suicide attempt, though these terms are discouraged by mental health professionals for implying that a suicide resu ...

was an accident. Several weeks later, Doc takes him to the railway station, where they quietly make peace with each other. No longer contemptuous of the outback's inhabitants and more assured of himself, John returns to Tiboonda to begin the new school year.

Cast

Production

film adaptation A film adaptation is the transfer of a work or story, in whole or in part, to a feature film. Although often considered a type of derivative work, film adaptation has been conceptualized recently by academic scholars such as Robert Stam as a dia ...

's 1961 novel '' Wake in Fright'' was linked with the actor

Dirk Bogarde Sir Dirk Bogarde (born Derek Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven van den Bogaerde; 28 March 1921 – 8 May 1999) was an English actor, novelist and screenwriter. Initially a matinée idol in films such as '' Doctor in the House'' (1954) for the Rank Org ...

and the director

Joseph Losey Joseph Walton Losey III (; January 14, 1909 – June 22, 1984) was an American theatre and film director, producer, and screenwriter. Born in Wisconsin, he studied in Germany with Bertolt Brecht and then returned to the United States. Blacklisted ...

as early as 1963.

Morris West Morris Langlo West (26 April 19169 October 1999) was an Australian novelist and playwright, best known for his novels '' The Devil's Advocate'' (1959), '' The Shoes of the Fisherman'' (1963) and ''The Clowns of God'' (1981). His books were pub ...

later secured the film rights and tried, unsuccessfully, to raise funding for the film's production. The rights were eventually bought by Australian company

NLT Productions NLT Productions was an Australian production company formed in 1961 which made a number of films and TV series. It was founded in 1961 by entertainer Bobby Limb, talent manager Jack Neary (OAM, OBE) (born; John Edwin Neary; 19 January 1916 – 6 Ap ...

and American firm Group W Films and Canadian director

was recruited to direct the film. After ''Wake in Fright'', Kotcheff would continue to have a successful career as a director. His later films included '' The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz'' (1973), '' Fun with Dick and Jane'' (1977), ''

First Blood ''First Blood'' (also known as ''Rambo: First Blood'') is a 1982 American action film directed by Ted Kotcheff, and co-written by Sylvester Stallone, who also stars as Vietnam War veteran John Rambo. It co-stars Richard Crenna as Rambo's ment ...

'' (1982) and ''

Weekend at Bernie's ''Weekend at Bernie's'' is a 1989 American black comedy film directed by Ted Kotcheff and written by Robert Klane, loosely based on the 1959 novella '' The Two Deaths of Quincas Wateryell'' by Jorge Amado. The film stars Andrew McCarthy and ...

'' (1988).

Robert Helpmann Sir Robert Murray Helpmann CBE ( Helpman, 9 April 1909 – 28 September 1986) was an Australian ballet dancer, actor, director, and choreographer. After early work in Australia he moved to Britain in 1932, where he joined the Vic-Wells Ballet ( ...

was initially hired to play the role of Doc Tydon, but he was replaced with

due to scheduling conflicts. Actor

Michael York Michael York OBE (born Michael Hugh Johnson; 27 March 1942) is an English film, television and stage actor. After performing on-stage with the Royal National Theatre, he had a breakthrough in films by playing Tybalt in Franco Zeffirelli's ''Ro ...

stated in a 1980 interview that he turned down a role in the film due to being offended by the kangaroo hunting scene. The shooting of ''Wake in Fright'' began in January 1970 in the mining town of

Broken Hill, New South Wales Broken Hill is an inland mining city in the far west of outback New South Wales, Australia. It is near the border with South Australia on the crossing of the Barrier Highway (A32) and the Silver City Highway (B79), in the Barrier Range. It i ...

(the area which had inspired Cook for the setting of his novel), with interiors shot the next month at Ajax Studios in the Sydney beach-side suburb of Bondi. It was the last film to feature the veteran character actor

, who died of a heart attack prior to ''Wake in Fright''s release, and the first film with

, a future Australian cinema star, among its cast members.

Release

The

world premiere A première, also spelled premiere, is the debut (first public presentation) of a play, film, dance, or musical composition. A work will often have many premières: a world première (the first time it is shown anywhere in the world), its firs ...

of ''Wake in Fright'' (as ''Outback'') occurred on opening night of the

1971 Cannes Film Festival The 24th Cannes Film Festival was held from 12 to 27 May 1971. The Palme d'Or went to ''The Go-Between'' by Joseph Losey. The festival opened with ''Gimme Shelter'', a documentary about English rock band The Rolling Stones directed by David Mays ...

on 13 May. Ted Kotcheff was nominated for a

Golden Palm Award The Palme d'Or (; en, Golden Palm) is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival. It was introduced in 1955 by the festival's organizing committee. Previously, from 1939 to 1954, the festival's highest prize was the Grand Prix du Fe ...

. Internationally, the film opened commercially in the United Kingdom on 29 October 1971 and the United States on 20 February 1972. When the film was re-released in Australia on 25 June 2009, it grossed $62,393 in its opening weekend, and eventually earned $321,323. The film made $50,394 during a 2012 re-release in the United States.

Reception

''Wake in Fright'' found a favourable public response in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, where it ran for five months, and in the United Kingdom. However, despite receiving such critical support at Cannes and in Australia, ''Wake in Fright'' suffered poor domestic box-office returns. Although there were complaints that the film's distributor,

, had failed to promote the film successfully, it was also thought that the film was "perhaps too uncomfortably direct and uncompromising to draw large Australian audiences". During an early Australian screening, one man stood up, pointed at the screen and protested "That's not us!", to which Jack Thompson yelled back "Sit down, mate. It is us." In his 1972 review for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'',

Roger Greenspun Roger Greenspun (December 16, 1929 – June 18, 2017) was an American journalist and film critic, best known for his work with ''The New York Times'' in which he reviewed near 400 films, particularly in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and for '' ...

praised the film for its atmosphere "of general foreboding that crystalizes often enough into particular terror and that is not quite like anything else I can remember feeling at the movies. Certain science-fiction films come closest to it, especially those in which some evil alien presence has taken over a community that to all outward appearances remains normal—with only the slightest most fugitive hint that something somehow is hideously wrong"; he also admitted to finding the memorial service at the RSL club to be more disturbing than the kangaroo hunting sequences, and praised the performances of the cast, particularly Kay and Thomas. A review of the Cannes premiere in ''

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

'' called it "a creditable effort" from the Australian film industry, "even allowing for the fact that key technical and acting credits are British. The end result is a forceful glimpse of little-known territory in which the emphasis is on booze and violence, with a touch of sex for good measure." Gillian Hanson of ''

The Monthly Film Bulletin ''The Monthly Film Bulletin'' was a periodical of the British Film Institute published monthly from February 1934 to April 1991, when it merged with ''Sight & Sound''. It reviewed all films on release in the United Kingdom, including those with a ...

'' wrote, "Canadian director Ted Kotcheff has captured the mindless brutality of life in the outback with extraordinary felicity ... Yet, despite its unmistakable competence, the film's bite is blunted by the script's shallow and largely unmotivated characterisation of John Grant, and by the loosely-knit and over-melodramatic story line which never achieves thematic coherence." The unrestored version of ''Wake in Fright'' received a three stars (out of four) rating from the American film reviewer

Leonard Maltin Leonard Michael Maltin (born December 18, 1950) is an American film critic and film historian, as well as an author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives. He is perhaps best known for his book of fi ...

in his ''2006 Movie Guide'', while Brian McFarlane, writing in 1999 in ''The Oxford Companion to Australian Film'', said that it was "almost uniquely unsettling in the history of new Australian Cinema". Askmen.com echoed these sentiments, citing that "it's not hard to see why the dusty savagery and clown-faced surrealism of Ted Kotcheff's fourth feature was never shown on telly at the time." Following the film's restoration, ''Wake in Fright'' screened at the

2009 Cannes Film Festival The 62nd Cannes Film Festival was held from 13 May to 24 May 2009. French actress Isabelle Huppert was the President of the Jury. Twenty films from thirteen countries were selected to compete for the Palme d'Or. The awards were announced on 23 M ...

on 15 May 2009 when it was selected as a Cannes Classic title by the head of the department,

Martin Scorsese Martin Charles Scorsese ( , ; born November 17, 1942) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter and actor. Scorsese emerged as one of the major figures of the New Hollywood era. He is the recipient of many major accolades, incl ...

. ''Wake in Fright'' is one of only two films ever to screen twice in the history of the festival. Scorsese said, "''Wake in Fright'' is a deeply -- and I mean deeply -- unsettling and disturbing movie. I saw it when it premiered at Cannes in 1971, and it left me speechless. Visually, dramatically, atmospherically and psychologically, it's beautifully calibrated and it gets under your skin one encounter at a time, right along with the protagonist played by Gary Bond. I'm excited that ''Wake in Fright'' has been preserved and restored and that it is finally getting the exposure it deserves."

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

reviewed the re-release and said "It's not dated. It is powerful, genuinely shocking and rather amazing. It comes billed as a 'horror film' and contains a great deal of horror, but all of the horror is human and brutally realistic." Don Groves of SBS gave the film four stars out of five, claiming that "''Wake in Fright'' deserves to rank as an Australian classic as it packs enormous emotional force, was bravely and inventively directed, and features superb performances." American critic

Rex Reed Rex Taylor Reed (born October 2, 1938) is an American film critic, occasional actor, and television host. He writes the column "On the Town with Rex Reed" for '' The New York Observer''. Early life Reed was born on October 2, 1938, in Fort Wo ...

, an early advocate of ''Wake in Fright'', praised the film's restoration as "the best movie news of the year", and said it "may be the greatest Australian film ever made". Reed, Rex (2 October 2012)
"A Beautiful Nightmare"
''

The New York Observer ''The New York Observer'' was a weekly newspaper printed from 1987 to 2016, when it ceased print publication and became the online-only newspaper ''Observer''. The media site focuses on culture, real estate, media, politics and the entertainmen ...

''. Retrieved 14 December 2012. According to Australian musician and screenwriter

Nick Cave Nicholas Edward Cave (born 22 September 1957) is an Australian singer, songwriter, poet, lyricist, author, screenwriter, composer and occasional actor. Known for his baritone voice and for fronting the rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, ...

, it is "the best and most terrifying film about Australia in existence." The film has an approval rating of 96% and a rating average score of 8.71/10 on the

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

, based on 56 reviews. The site's consensus states: "A disquieting classic of Australian cinema, ''Wake in Fright'' surveys a landscape both sun-drenched and ruthlessly dark." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the film holds a score of 85 out of 100 based on reviews from 21 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". ''Wake in Fright'' is also listed in the 2015 edition of the film reference book ''

1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die ''1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die'' is a film reference book edited by Steven Jay Schneider with original essays on each film contributed by over 70 film critics. It is a part of a series designed and produced by Quintessence Editions, a ...

''.

Controversy

In addition to the film's atmosphere of sordid realism, the

hunting scene contains graphic footage of kangaroos actually being shot. A disclaimer at the conclusion of the movie states: The hunt lasted several hours, and gradually wore down the filmmakers. According to cinematographer Brian West, "the hunters were getting really drunk and they started to miss, ... It was becoming this orgy of killing and we he crewwere getting sick of it." Kangaroos hopped about helplessly with gun wounds and trailing intestines. Producer George Willoughby fainted after seeing a kangaroo "splattered in a particularly spectacular fashion". The crew orchestrated a

power failure A power outage (also called a powercut, a power out, a power failure, a power blackout, a power loss, or a blackout) is the loss of the electrical power network supply to an end user. There are many causes of power failures in an electricity ...

in order to end the hunt. At the 2009 Cannes Classic screening of ''Wake in Fright'', 12 people walked out during the kangaroo hunt. Kotcheff, a vegetarian, has defended his use of the hunting footage in the film.

Restoration and home-media releases

For many years, the only known print of ''Wake in Fright'', found in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 ...

, was considered of insufficient quality for transfer to DVD or videotape for commercial release. In response to this situation, ''Wake in Fright''s editor,

, began to search in 1994 for a better-preserved copy of the film in an uncut state. Eight years later, in

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

, Buckley found the negatives of ''Wake in Fright'' in a shipping container labelled "For Destruction". He rescued the material, which formed the basis for the film's painstaking 2009 restoration. Evidently a 35mm print in excellent condition had also survived in the collection of the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The libra ...

, which screened it in the library's

Mary Pickford Theater The Mary Pickford Theater, named in honor of silent film star Mary Pickford, is the "motion picture and television reading room" of the United States' Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption ...

in 2008, although its reported running time of only 96 minutes suggests this was an edited version. ''Wake in Fright'' was released on DVD and

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...

formats by

Madman Entertainment Madman Entertainment Pty. Ltd., also known as Madman Films, is an Australian distribution and rights management company headquartered in East Melbourne, Victoria, specialising in feature films, documentaries and television series across theatr ...

on 4 November 2009, based on a digital restoration completed earlier that year. This restoration was shown to the general public for the first time at the

Sydney Film Festival The Sydney Film Festival is an annual competitive film festival held in Sydney, Australia, usually over 12 days in June. A number of awards are given, the top one being the Sydney Film Prize. the festival's director is Nashen Moodley. Histo ...

in June 2009, and in re-release has been called "a classic Australian film which has achieved cult status".

Network Ten Network 10 (commonly known as Ten Network, Channel 10 or simply 10) is an Australian commercial television network owned by Ten Network Holdings, a division of the Paramount Networks UK & Australia subsidiary of Paramount Global. One of fiv ...

premiered a two-part

miniseries A miniseries or mini-series is a television series that tells a story in a predetermined, limited number of episodes. "Limited series" is another more recent US term which is sometimes used interchangeably. , the popularity of miniseries format ...

based on the novel on 8 October 2017.Idato, Michael (8 September 2016)
"Wake in Fright joins TV's new wave of literary adaptations and film reboots"
''The Sydney Morning Herald''. Retrieved 6 November 2016.

Notes

References

External links

* * *
''Wake in Fright''
at Oz Movies * {{DEFAULTSORT:Wake In Fright 1971 films 1971 LGBT-related films 1970s thriller drama films 1970s Christmas films 1970s Christmas horror films Australian LGBT-related films Australian thriller drama films Australian Christmas films American thriller drama films Animal cruelty incidents in film Broken Hill, New South Wales 1970s English-language films Film controversies in Australia Films about educators Films based on Australian novels Films directed by Ted Kotcheff Films scored by John Scott (composer) Films about alcoholism Films about hunters Films about physicians Films set in deserts Films set in mining communities Films shot in New South Wales Films shot in Sydney 1970s rediscovered films Films set in the Outback LGBT-related thriller drama films Rediscovered Australian films Obscenity controversies in film 1970s American films