Wake in Fright
Wake in Fright is the story of John Grant, a bonded teacher who arrives in the rough outback mining…
- Director: Ted Kotcheff
- Genre:Drama / Thriller
- Runtime:109 minutes
Cast
Donald Pleasence: ‘Doc’ Tydon
Gary Bond : John Grant
Chips Rafferty : Jock Crawford
Sylvia Kay : Janette Hynes
Jack Thompson : Dick
Official Site:-
John Grant (Gary Bond) is a fledgling, middle-class teacher from the big city. He feels disgruntled because of the onerous terms of a financial bond which he signed with the government in return for receiving a tertiary education. The bond has caused him to be posted to a tiny school at Tiboonda — a remote fly-speck situated in the arid Australian outback. It is the start of the Christmas school holidays, and Grant plans to journey to Sydney to visit his girlfriend and surf at the beach. But first, he must travel by train to the nearby mining town of Bundanyabba (known as “The Yabba”) in order to catch a Sydney-bound flight.
At “The Yabba”, Grant encounters several disconcerting denizens of the town. They include a police sergeant, Jock Crawford (Chips Rafferty), who encourages Grant to consume repeated glasses of beer before introducing him to the local obsession with the gambling game of two-up. Hoping to win enough money to pay off his bond, and thus escape his “slavery” as an outback teacher, Grant at first has a winning streak playing two-up but then loses all his cash. Unable now to leave “The Yabba”, Grant finds himself dependent on the charity of bullying strangers while being sucked into the crude and hard-drinking lifestyle of the town’s residents.
Reluctantly at first, Grant goes boozing with a Bundanyabba identity named Tim Hynes (Al Thomas) and is taken to Tim’s house. Here he meets Tim’s daughter, 30-something Janette (played by Sylvia Kay, the then-wife of the movie’s director Ted Kotcheff). While he and Janette talk, several men who have gathered at the house for a drinking session question Grant’s masculinity, asking: “What’s the matter with him? He’d rather talk to a woman than drink beer.” Janette then initiates an awkward sexual episode with Grant, who vomits and eventually passes out drunk. Grant finds refuge of a sort, staying at the shack of an alcoholic medical practitioner known as “Doc” Tydon (Donald Pleasence). Doc tells him that he and many others have had sex with Janette. He also gives Grant a pill from his medical kit, ostensibly to cure Grant’s hangover. Read more
