WAKE IN FRIGHT (aka OUTBACK) - This extraordinary classic Australian film by the acclaimed Canadian director Ted Kotcheff ("The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz"), was, at a mere 30-years-old, a Cannes Palme D'Or nominee and the first film to revitalize Down Under as an important force in cinema, was ONE WEEK AWAY FROM HAVING ITS ORIGINAL NEGATIVES DESTROYED.

Wake in Fright – also known as: Outback (1971) Dir. Ted Kotcheff
Starring: Donald Pleasance, Gary Bond, Chips Rafferty, Al Thomas, Jack Thompson, Peter Whittle and Sylvia Kay

****

By Greg Klymkiw

It seems unthinkable in this day and age of film preservation and restoration that a motion picture classic made – not during the silent period of the early 20th century, but in 1971, a Cannes Palme D’Or nominee no less, and often cited (along with Nicholas Roeg’s Walkabout from the same year) as the beginning of Australia’s revitalization as a filmmaking force – was one week away from having all of its original negative elements destroyed. After a two-year search all over the world at his own expense, the film’s editor Anthony Buckley finally discovered the elements in the bowels of the CBS vaults in Pittsburgh (no less) in a pile of items marked to be “junked” (industry parlance for “destroyed”) and, I reiterate, ONE WEEK from the date he found them.

Because of his Herculean efforts as well as the frame-by-frame restoration by the National Film and Sound Archives of Australia and Deluxe Labs, Ted Kotcheff’s Wake in Fright (released outside of Australia as Outback) has a new lease on life – to shock and mesmerize audiences all over the world. Screened at Cannes in May of 2009 (only one of two features ever to be screened on two separate occasions at Cannes) and in a special presentation featuring Kotcheff in a personal dialogue on the film at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival, Wake in Fright stands as one of the most powerful explorations of male savagery in the context of a topography that seems as rugged and barren as the surface of the Moon. In a world of Samuel Fuller and Sam Peckinpah, Kotcheff’s brilliant film holds its own.

I first saw the movie when I was about 13 or 14 years old as Outback during a late night showing on the CBC (Canadian Broadcast Corporation) when, during this time, Canadian content guidelines allowed for the broadcast of ANY film that came from Britain’s Commonwealth to meet said guidelines. (Because of this, we saw some really fine movies and TV series during the 60s and 70s.) It was a movie that completely bewildered and obsessed me. Even a full frame standard telecine transfer did not detract from its strangeness, its terrible and terrifying beauty and its depiction of a world so foreign to my own, yet seeming to be imbued with a quality that suggested to me, even then, that what I was seeing was the stuff of life itself. For over thirty years I looked and waited, seemingly in vain, to see it again. To think I almost didn’t have that opportunity because of the aforementioned disappearance and death sentence is now, after seeing it again much older and (hopefully) wiser (on a big screen in a pristine, lovingly restored 35mm print), makes me feel like I have been witness to a miracle.

And what a miracle this movie is! Kotcheff, the Canadian born, raised and trained director (trained via and not unlike Norman Jewison, within the legendary CBC television drama department of the late 50s and early 60s), has made his fair share of good pictures – most notably the Berlin Golden Bear Award winner The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, the droll Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? and the first and, by far, the best of the Rambo pictures First Blood – but nothing in his canon comes close to the mind boggling perfection of Wake in Fright.

Stunningly photographed by Brian West, the picture opens on one spot of the desolation that is the outback of Australia and the camera proceeds to do a slow 360 degree turn – shocking us with the reality that the land is the same whichever direction one looks and that it seems to go on forever. Into this environment we’re introduced to the impeccably groomed and fussily attired schoolteacher John Grant (Gary Bond) who is about to leave the two-building rail town for a much-needed vacation to Sydney.

Grant describes his position as being enslaved to the Ministry of Education as they have required all new teachers to post a one-thousand-dollar bond to ensure they serve their entire first term in the most desolate postings imaginable. During a stopover in the bleak mining town of Bundanyabba, Grant meets Jock (played by legendary Aussie actor Chips Rafferty), an amiable policeman who plies him with beer and gets him into a card game where he loses all of his money. Stranded, perpetually drunk and eventually and brain-numbingly hung-over, Grant is hosted by a motley crew of locals (several hard drinking macho men and one extremely horny single female) who proceed to take him into the very heart of the Australian darkness.

Grant is practically force-fed steady supplies of beer, seduced by the lonely woman (which is scuttled when he pukes while trying to penetrate her), taken on a mad, drunken and vicious kangaroo hunt and finally locked in a sweaty, smelly and almost violently homoerotic coupling with the mad alcoholic doctor Tydon (a malevolent Donald Pleasance).

At first, we are shown a passive observer, but as the film progresses, he regresses to the same savage state as the men he initially holds his nose up to and he decidedly and actively engages in acts so barbaric that he is forced to confront his inner demons to the point where he is sickened to the point of contemplating suicide.

Not unlike the world of playwrights Eugene O’Neill and Edward Albee, we find ourselves in the realm of alcohol-fueled depravity and game playing. Like any respectable Walpurgisnacht, booze is sloshed into empty cups with abandon and full cups are drained greedily, but these pagans who celebrate ARE the tortured spirits walking amongst the living and any bonfires they create seemed to be aimed squarely at themselves. Furthermore, the movie presents a “Paradise Lost” situation where depravity is merely presented and much like John Milton’s “hero”, Grant makes a conscious choice to immerse himself in the foul macho shenanigans like a pig in shit.

This is one daring, nasty piece of work and without question, the movie Kotcheff will ultimately be best remembered for. He not only elicits fine performances from a stellar cast, but his mise-en-scene is pretty much perfect.

It’s also no coincidence that he is Canadian and perhaps the perfect director outside of Australia to have tackled this story so rooted in that nation’s pathology. Given that the vast majority of Canada’s population resides within 100 kms along the Canadian and U.S. border, the rest of this vast country north of the 49th parallel is not unlike the world of the Australian outback. (To all non-Canadians: just think of a land populated by SCTV’s hosers Bob and Doug McKenzie – seemingly benign, but below the simpleton surface, a roiling, frustrated, angry, bitter nation of moose-hunting psychopaths.)

As well, it is no surprise that it was Anthony Buckley, the editor of the film, who searched high and low for the lost negative elements, since the cutting in this picture has few equals. For the most part, things are delivered at a steady, unobtrusive pace, but when we’re in the territory of dreams or overtly physical action, the editing veers from measured to positively Eisensteinian. At times, the action borders on the hypnotic, while at other points, it’s as jarring and disturbing as the images and action engaged in by the characters.

This action, as designed by director Kotcheff, is expertly blocked. His shot choices are impeccable and most importantly, he seems perfectly at home in capturing the claustrophobic nature of both barren exteriors and interiors – where the only way to break free is to rage against the dying of the light that has, for the characters who populate this world, become life itself.

This picture rages, alright!

It’s one hell of a ride and we’re all the better for it.

Sadly, the movie appears to not be available on any home entertainment format outside of Australia. A PAL version is available here:



Here is an extended item from Australian television:

FACE OFF - TIFF/VSC Restoration of Historic 1971 Canadian Hockey Picture: A Portrait of NHL Glory Days at Dawn of Indigenous Canuck Movie Culture

Face Off (1971) dir. George McCowan (U.S. Title: Winter Comes Early)

Starring: Art Hindle, Trudy Young, Frank Moore, John Vernon, Vivian Reis, Derek Sanderson, Austin Willis, Sean Sullivan, George Armstrong, Gordie Howe, Bobby Hull, Bobby Orr, Darryl Sittler, Harold Ballard, Paul Henderson, Jean Beliveau, Scott Young

RATING: (out of ****) ****

By Greg Klymkiw

"It takes a lot of courage to watch a man out there night after night. I know the players get most of the glory, but I think the women who wait at home for them at night deserve most of the credit. They must have to love the game as much as the man does." - Austin Willis as the silver-domed owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs to Trudy Young, the young singer who falls in love with the team's new star player.

Hockey is Canada's national sport. End of story. No arguments are necessary. They will not be considered, so just keep 'em to yourself, please. Unbelievably though, until 1994, our national sport was officially Lacrosse. I kid you not. Lacrosse! Lacrosse? Give me a break. When finally, this wrong had been rendered right, it was done so in that annoyingly moderate Canadian fashion wherein Hockey had to officially share the distinction with Lacrosse, to appease only those of the politically correct persuasion. But, no matter. I know it, you know it, everybody knows it. Hockey is as Canadian as Maple Syrup, peameal bacon, Canadian geese, pouding chômeur and Norman Jewison. As such, one can only wonder why the most Canadian movie NEVER made by Canadians was Slap Shot, George Roy Hill's hilarious hockey satire with Paul Newman. But hold the phone! Many years before everyone's favourite salad dressing magnate and the Hanson Brothers cracked heads like so many eggs, yielding runny crimson yolk matter upon the fresh, white ice, Canada did indeed generate a terrific piss and vinegar hockey picture - Face Off .

Written by George Robertson (based on written materials by Neil Young's Dad, sports writer Scott Young), directed by stalwart TV helmer George McCowan (who would happily go on to direct the utterly insane 70s horror thriller Frogs) and starring a very handsome Art Hindle (who went on to scare the shit out of movie audiences as Brooke Adams's pod-victim hubby in Phil Kaufman's Invasion of the Body Snatchers remake) and the delectable Trudy Young (former childstar and every young Canadian boy's wet dream from the long-running kids show Razzle Dazzle), Face Off blazed onto Canadian screens in the 70s and played premiere first run theatres all across the country. (I first saw the picture with my Dad in Winnipeg in a huge old picture palace.)

This was truly a movie by Canadians, for Canadians. They embraced it wholeheartedly - not just because it was a genuinely good picture, but the amazing on-ice action. Without question, Face Off is historically significant for a number of reasons, but most importantly, it contains the only existing 35mm film footage of actual NHL hockey action. In spite of this, the original elements to generate new prints went missing and it's suspected the negative had been thrown out by mistake after producer John F. Bassett's untimely death from brain cancer in 1985. With one decent existing print left in the whole world at the Toronto International Film Festival's Film Reference Library, the visionary Canadian home entertainment company Video Service Corporation (VSC) undertook the painstaking, expensive and worthwhile toil of restoring the film - frame by frame - to high definition.


The movie itself straddles the best of both worlds; that amazing early period of Canuck features that not only reflected English Canadian culture, but did so with that distinctive 70s darkness so prevalent in the work of the country's neighbours south of the 49th parallel. On the surface, Face Off is a simple, oft-told tale of star-crossed lovers; doomed from the start. the movie is all the more melancholy as we experience WHY they should be together, but also get a God's-eye perspective of WHY they won't be together. As the narrative unspools, we hope against all hope that things will work out for the best, but anyone who knows and loves the best movies from the 70s will realize it's a done deal - the relationship will be thwarted.

The emphasis on darkness was not only the 70s way, but the Canadian Way. Canuck pictures from this period shared the zeitgeist of tone so apparent in the work of Scorsese, Schrader, Toback, Reizs, Lumet and others. Where the movies differed was in "production value" (ugh - I hate that phrase). Naturally lower budgets as well as the huge National Film Board influence resulted in films that blended traditional, classical storytelling with an almost Neo-realist approach - less razzle-dazzle, more dour-dazzle.

The movie begins, however, with a narrative that in and of itself, is pure fairy tale. Billy Duke (Art Hindle), a fresh-faced young demon on ice from Northern Ontario scores a spectacular winning goal and luckily for him, a Maple Leafs scout is in the crowd and offers him a spot with the once-gloried, but now beleagured NHL team - they need a star and they need wins. Celebrating at the local bar with his team mates, Billy is hit with Cupid's arrow when he locks eyes with the beautiful songstress Sherri Lee Nelson (Trudy Young) who is playing in the band Winter Comes Early, an up and coming group led by the talented songwriter-musician Barney (Frank Moore). Barney clearly carries a torch for Sherri, but she's dazzled by the aw-shucks down-home charm of Billy.

With this, two important love triangles emerge.

While Barney pines for Sherri, Sherri pines for Billy. The Dukester's mistress is not flesh and blood, but rather, the Bitch-Goddess that is pro-hockey. Billy and Sherri have everything going for them - both are rising stars and ascending the heights with speeding bullet velocity and yet, as their love deepens, so do the pressures of their respective lifestyles. Billy's first true love is hockey and his relationship with the peace loving hippie chick songstress is strained to say the least because of it. Billy's game is also off due to the real-world realities of l'amour and even Sherri threatens her commitment to music due to the same.

Add to this, as one must do in tales of star-crossed lovers, the outside forces which toss an unwanted spanner in the works. Sherri's are both Barney, who offers stability, commitment and friendship, and her need for a family (Mom was a single parent AND drunken floozy - this in sharp contrast to the down home hearth she experiences in Billy's familial Shagrila in Northern Ontario.) The primary outside force wreaking havoc with Billy's love life is the male patriarchy of the sports world. It's a man's world and his iron-fisted Coach (the late, great John Vernon) does everything in his power to let Billy know that hockey comes before everything. This is more than ably demonstrated in the Coach's relationship with his own wife, a lonely, clinging, drunken floozy. This is not lost on Sherri - Lord knows she doesn't want to become anything like her own Mom, nor does she envision the love of her life being an absentee-husband.

One of the best scenes in the movie is a New Year 's Eve party hosted by the team. Naturally, Billy brings Sherri and naturally, every male in some position of power, subtly and not-so-subtly, put the necessary bugs in her ears that being a hockey wife requires sacrifice. The writing here is first rate as Sherri is tossed, almost La Ronde-like about the room while McCowan's expert direction captures the rhythm of the patriarchal rotisserie with consummate camera-jockeying.


Later in the film, the Coach has a chilling conversation with Billy wherein he opines with the force of fact: "Kid, everything in life has to be in its proper place. Even the wife, eh." Billy regards this with a mixture of skepticism and acceptance. He responds in a poker face with: "Something to think about." The Coach delivers the final knockout verbal blow: "Just don't think about it. DECIDE!!!"

For Billy, it IS a tough decision. He's not only being seduced by the game, his teammates, his bosses, but by fame itself. At one point, Billy and Sherri clash when he gloats over his "bad boy" press in the sports pages. When she accuses him of being "just like the rest of them" (the patriarchal world that has attempted to put HER in her place), Billy responds, "No I'm not." And here is where Hindle and Young really break hearts - thanks to their fresh, meaningful performances and the great 70s-style dialogue. Billy brashly, directly and romantically takes the bull by the horns, looks Sherri in the eyes and says, "I'm younger, stronger and tougher and that's why you dig me. You know that's right. We both know it, eh." And here, for me is the clincher where I fell in love all over again with this movie. Billy adds: "So dry your eyes and put on something warm. I think we both could use some fresh air."

Ah, young love in Canada.

A stroll through sub-zero winter snow and all will be well.


And, like the name of Sherri's band and the U.S. title of the film, winter does indeed come early, and this tale of star-crossed lovers against the backdrop of Canada's national sport races to a tragic and moving finish.

What a terrific movie!

On and off the ice, Face Off captures the world of pro-hockey with a considerable degree of reality. Even when it might not be to the letter, the world, the atmosphere, the locker room camaraderie, the wood paneled smoky taverns, the cheap suits adorning the men, the clutches of sports reporters, the parties and, as detailed above, the place of women in this world of gladiators on the ice and their masters in the back rooms. Even as a kid, so much of the movie resonated for me on this level. Having a father who played pro-hockey, did post-game radio analysis and in his later years, promoted pro-hockey in his position as a marketing man with a major league sponsor, I was surrounded by so much of the atmosphere that when Dad took me to see the movie in 1971, I was totally enamoured with it.

I'm also pleased to say that seeing the movie forty years later, those days came alive again and, I might add, in deeper ways - especially in the film's examination of men and women and their, respective places in that world.

The other important aspect of the film is just how Canadian it is - not just stylistically, but in how it so effortlessly captures Canada's unique indigenous culture. Like all good things Canadian, it doesn't do this in obvious flag waving ways, but with a subtle matter-of-factness. For example, one (of many) terrific cuts in the picture, occurs at the small town railway station as Billy is about to leave for Toronto. A nice close up on a metal footstool placed in front of the train's passenger doorway leads us simply into a "goodbye" scene and emblazoned upon it are the immortal words: "Canadian Pacific".

For all the film's melodrama and simple classical story structure, McCowan happily embraces the Neo-realist approach to much of the action. Montage sequences in the streets pulsate with life, the bars are replete with background extras who look like they've lived there forever - puffing on cigarettes and sucking back beer in the distinctive Canadian stubby bottles, the on-ice action of real NHL hockey games is expertly matched with recreations of said matches using Hindle himself or his stand-ins. The professional actors handle their roles with the requisite dollops of naturalism so they blend beautifully with the numerous appearances of non-actors. (One of the best performances comes from NHL bad boy Derek Sanderson in a small, but important role in which he plays himself. The other comes from Leafs' captain George "Chief" Armstrong who delivers a speech to Billy that is so bursting-at-the-seams with hockey wisdom, fans will feel they've died and gone to Heaven.)


Art Hindle and Trudy Young as the love-struck couple are a marvel to behold. The camera loves them and their chemistry is natural. Given how popular the movie was in Canada, I remember thinking - even as a kid - why neither of them became stars. Hindle, of course, went on to make a long and successful career as a "working actor" and is now one of our country's finest character actors.

The immortal John Vernon, always a treat to watch in any movie, had a long career in character roles on both sides of the 49th parallel. His performance here as the coach is ice personified. (Though for me, nothing will ever match the scene in the classic Linda Blair women-in-prison picture Caged Heat where Vernon, as the warden, sat back in a hot tub full of naked women whilst puffing a cigar. I'm sure this was far more edifying than a scene in Mob Story where, in my sporadic acting career doing cameos for friends, I was accosted by Mr. Vernon who played a gangster whilst adorned in stereotypical Canadian-hoser garb, I suffered the indignity of being interrupted during a leisurely dump as Mr. Vernon tore the door off the frame of a cubicle in an airport john.) Vivian Reis as Vernon's beleagured wife delivers an absolutely heartbreaking performance while Austin Willis renders a more than creepy paternalistic tone as the hockey team's owner. The real revelation here is Frank Moore as Barney. Moore has become a great character actor, but in this film, his soulful eyes betray his poker face. His presence lends the film both pathos and humour while many of the songs sung by the group in the picture, "Winter Comes Early", are genuine top-tappers. Here's yet another example of a tremendous Canadian actor who has star written all over him, but for whatever reason, neither he nor the system ever adequately let him take that path.

And yes, let us pause again to mention that director McCowan rendered the cult classic Frogs. While this may seem a dubious achievement to some, it's one of my favourite 70s horror pictures and the images of Ray Milland being attacked by frogs and resulting in his death by heart attack is as indelibly etched upon my mind as the shot of Trudy Young and Art Hindle in Face Off jumping joyfully upon a liquid-filled mattress in a Yorkville waterbed store.


Face Off is classic Canadian cinema. To think it was almost lost forever is sickening and VSC deserves huge kudos for taking this on. The results of the restoration are spectacular - the film is now available to all its original fans in a brand spanking new 40th Anniversary DVD/Bluray Combo edition. This edition will also serve new generations of Canadian audiences and hockey nuts; the high definition work is superb, maintaining grain and the distinctive colour palette and the sound work is superb with a cleaner version of the mono mix on the optical and occasionally with bits and pieces of the original optical "sound" (or if, you will, "hiss"). For me, this always gives older films a lot more warmth than the idiotic overkill sometimes performed by over-zealous audio technical artists on mono mixes.


The package includes the original SCTV parody of Face Off, a trailer and commentary track. I personally don't much like commentary tracks - I find them meandering and almost pointless. Luckily, stars Art Hindle and Trudy Young share a few cool stories, but what this really needed was a moderator who could have guided the conversation in more practical fashion. I also think the expense of doing a short video documentary on the film's history and subsequent restoration might have been a worthy addition. These quibbles aside, it's a great home entertainment release and VSC proves once more it's one of the most original and committed companies generating important product for the home market in North America.