This short trailer effectively shows the dramatic improvement in sharpness and colour between the 2009 restoration of Wake In Fright by AtLab and the original negative from 1971.

The improvements are particularly clear when the screen is split in half, and you can compare the before and after versions side by side.

A selection of scenes in a range of interior and exterior locations demonstrates that the improvements are visible throughout the film.

The trailer is backed by an excerpt of John Scott's original music composed for Wake in Fright, though the jaunty nature of the theme is not always a good fit for some of the scenes cut for this trailer.

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen

The opening shot of a car tyre spinning and squealing in the red dirt sets the tone for this trailer for the US release of Wake In Fright, where it was re-titled Outback.

In less than 30 seconds it manages to convey the menace and brutality at the heart of the film.

Though very short, and giving away nothing of the film's plot, the trailer effectively captures our attention.

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen

This is an excerpt from an NFSA video oral history interview between Paul Harris and Ted Kotcheff, the Canadian-born director of Wake in Fright (1971).

In this clip, he talks about the one scene he wished he had shot and included in the film, but which he dropped because of budgetary and logistical reasons.

Kotcheff was in Australia in connection with the release of the 2009 restoration of Wake in Fright by the NFSA.

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen

An extract from an ABC TV obituary of actor Chips Rafferty, featuring an interview with director Ken G Hall talking about Rafferty's contribution to Australian film.

Hall speaks frankly and thoughtfully about Rafferty. Put on the spot by a question about Rafferty's acting abilities, Hall doesn't hesitate in his appraisal which is measured and steers clear of straightforward flattery.

Hall also highlights Rafferty's final role – as the town police officer in Wake in Fright – as being a highlight of Rafferty's career, because of the quality of his performance.

The inclusion of images of Rafferty in various film roles usefully illustrates Hall's points.

Chips Rafferty died on 27 May 1971, several months before Wake in Fright was released in Australia on 9 October.

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen

In this 1971 colour lobby card, Dick (played by Jack Thompson) play-fights with Doc Tydon (Donald Pleasence) as Gary Bond (John Grant) approaches.

The lobby card was produced to promote the 1971 release of Wake in Fright in Australia.

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen

The Akubra hat – with beer-can ringpull hatband – worn by Peter Whittle (Joe) in Wake in Fright (1971).

In September 2009, Peter Whittle recalled the origin of the hat he wore in the film:

The Tale of a Hat by Peter Whittle

In deference to the heat and dust of the outback setting, it was decided Dick and Joe should wear hats in the Wake in Fright daytime 'roo chase' sequence and Wardrobe dutifully came up with a pair of brand new Akubras.

One looked about right – fawn-coloured with a rustic hatband – in the cattleman’s style that could be bashed into fair shape by the wearer. It was Jack Thompson’s size and he accepted it graciously. 

Jack’s satisfaction with his hat derived at least somewhat from the fact that the other hat on offer was cloth-trimmed and dark grey in the man-of-substance 'squatter' style that years later would come to be favoured for country electioneering by Prime Minister John Howard. 

What appeal it might have to a miner yahoo-ing around the outback in a V8 was a mystery. With the admonition: 'You can fix it up a bit if you want', it was placed in my hands.

During a previous Christmas Gold Coast sabbatical with my brother and his army mates (he had just finished his Nashos [National Service] in Queensland at the time), I had noted one of the cohort sporting a hat with a hatband made of beer-can ring-pulls linked together. Along with short hair and ubiquitous tinny, this stood as a sort of alky [alcoholic] counter to the counterculture – a reactionary home truth to confront the beaded and bearded adherents of pot, peace and love.

At the time of making Wake in Fright, I lived across from Bondi Beach and a short hunt around the known drinking spots there garnered a generous fistful of ring-pulls which I fashioned into a chain. It replaced the cloth hatband and after rolling up the hat’s flat sides and indenting its top into a narrow crown, I had a pork-pie-style titfer [rhyming slang: tit for tat = hat] with a bush tweak. (The French Connection’s Popeye Doyle with omnipresent pork-pie hat would appear on screens at about the same time as Wake in Fright adding further credence to the hat’s place in the zeitgeist.)

Ted Kotcheff quickly latched onto the idea of the alky ring-pull chain as a Christmas decoration and he worked a shot into the film of Dick and Joe festooning Tim Hynes’ Christmas tree with a long chain supposedly garnered from an afternoon’s drinking at Tim’s place. 

When we eventually got to the Yindee location, my hat was 'broken-down' some more with glycerine and red dust to become the hat you see on screen. The interior lining eventually gave way (thanks, not least, to [the kangaroo] Nelson’s frenetic pawing – the hat did sterling duty in our 'fight' scene) and was replaced by sewn-in foam which has since deteriorated.

A couple of ring-pulls have broken and been replaced over the years, but most are still the originals picked up at Bondi in 1970.

Peter Whittle kindly donated the hat to the NFSA in 2009.

This introduction to a 1960s audiobook recording of the novel of Wake in Fright is spoken with a refined radio broadcaster's accent. The voice couldn't be more at odds with the the tone of the novel itself, making for an unusual contrast.

Nevertheless, this spoken word extract to the 'talking book' offers a useful summary of the story. It concludes with a dedication to author Kenneth Cook's wife, Patricia. The speaker also intones the expression that gave rise to the book's title: 'May you dream of the Devil and wake in fright'.

Wake in Fright was the first novel by Australian author Kenneth Cook and was published in 1961.

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen

In this excerpt from a video oral history interview with actress Maggie Dence, she recalls the reaction of the audience at the first cast and crew screening of Wake in Fright in Sydney, 1971.

Maggie had only a small role (as Receptionist) in Wake in Fright, her first film, but went on to have a long and successful career in film and TV and on stage.

Among the long-running TV series she has appeared in are The Sullivans (in 1976–77), A Country Practice (1981–89), Prisoner (1984), Neighbours  (1993) and All Saints (1998–2003).

Brendan Horgan interviewed Maggie Dence for the NFSA in 2007.

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen

This is an excerpt from director Ted Kotcheff's introduction to the premiere screening of the restored Wake in Fright at the NFSA in 2009.

He describes the long and arduous search for the missing film negatives, undertaken by the editor of Wake in Fright, Anthony Buckley. After six years, Buckley finally located the original materials in Pittsburgh, USA in bins marked 'for destruction'.

Kotcheff describers the poor condition in which the negatives were found and credits the efforts of Anthos Simon at Atlab/Deluxe for painstakingly digitally restoring the negative over a two-year period.

Sound elements for the film were pieced together by NFSA audio technicians with the assistance of Soundfirm to remix the soundtrack.

The fully restored Wake in Fright premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, in the Cannes Classics program, on 15 May 2009. The film had originally screened in competition at Cannes in 1971.

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen

The 1971 Australian one-sheet poster for the original release of Wake in Fright.

Cast in orange tones, it features an illustration of four men and a woman waiting on a railway platform, holding beer cans and guns. Superimposed above them is John Grant carrying a suitcase and gun.

The tagline reads: 'Outback. Have a drink, mate? Have a fight, mate? Have a taste of dust and sweat, mate? There's nothing else out here.'

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen

An excerpt from a bi-fold press sheet for Wake in Fright (AKA Outback). It features an image of a film poster with alternative art to that used finally to advertise the film.

This dramatic poster is roughly sketched in black-and-white with two of the film's main characters, 'Doc’ Tydon and John Grant, forming a kind of tunnel through which another image of Grant walks with a rifle and suitcase.

The image of Grant walking is framed by the sun but could also suggest we're looking down the barrel of a gun or though a dust storm. It also hints at the implied sexual encounter between the men in the film and the fighting and brawling that occurs between the townsfolk on a regular basis.

The artist has cleverly drawn the faces as if they are part of the landscape itself – storm clouds or rocky outcrops. This effectively reflects the feeling throughout the film that the arid Australian outback transforms and consumes those who live in it.

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen and Adam Blackshaw

The Australian one-sheet poster advertising the re-release of the restored film in 2009.

A young schoolteacher loses all his money in an outback two-up game, while en route to Sydney. In the next two days he loses a lot more – self-respect, inhibitions, almost his life.

In this clip, John Grant (Gary Bond) and policeman Jock Crawford (Chips Rafferty) share a few beers in the crowded pubs of 'The Yabba’. Crawford explains why the town is very honest, even if suicides are common. Drinking in the RSL Club, Grant is mystified, then bemused, by the nightly minute’s silence in memory of fallen soldiers. Summary by Paul Byrnes.

In this clip, Grant (Gary Bond) has succumbed to the temptation of two-up. Flushed with success, he sees the chance to win enough money to buy out his $1,000 bond with the education department. That would mean never going back to the one-room school at Tiboonda. He returns to the game and takes the kip for the first time, betting his whole wad of cash on heads. When he loses, he cashes his holiday cheque and bets it all on one more throw of the coins. 

Summary by Paul Byrnes.

Grant (Gary Bond) is full of remorse, nursing a bad hangover. Somehow, he has ended up staying with 'Doc’ Tydon (Donald Pleasence), who lives in a shack on the outskirts of town. The doctor taunts him about his failure the previous night with Janette Hynes. The doctor explains that he and Janette have an understanding – a sexual relationship based on mutual need, nothing more. Grant’s discomfort is relieved when Dick (Jack Thompson) and Joe (Peter Whittle) arrive to go hunting kangaroos. 

Summary by Paul Byrnes.

Director Ted Kotcheff talks about 'Nelson', the impressive one-eyed kangaroo that fights Peter Whittle (Joe) in a memorable scene in Wake in Fright.

He also explains why finding Nelson was 'the greatest piece of luck that any director could hope for'.

Paul Harris interviewed Ted Kotcheff for the NFSA Oral History program in 2009.

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen

Wake in Fright editor Anthony Buckley recounts how the production company got in trouble when the film's realistic looking stage money, created for the two-up scenes, ended up at Randwick Racecourse!

This short excerpt is from an Oral History interview with Buckley, conducted for the NFSA by Martha Ansara in 1993.

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen

The cult classic Wake in Fright really gets under your skin. It tells the harrowing story of a city slicker’s slow descent into madness while stranded in a small outback town called 'The Yabba'. 

A group of unruly locals lead him down a dark path where drunken benders, gambling and blood sports are the norm. In the US, the film was simply titled Outback, while the Czech title Zapadakov translates to One-horse town. 

In this 1976 Czech poster, with artwork by Zdeněk Vlach, the film title appears below an image of a rock outcrop against a yellow-and-brown background.

Overlaying the centre of the image is an Australian postage stamp featuring two kangaroos, postmarked Australia and dated 6 August 1975.

This is an unusual poster design that focuses more on the emptiness of the Australian outback than the conflict between the main characters.

The starkness and foreboding of the landscape are well rendered but ultimately say little about the film itself. The inclusion of the postage stamp tells the local audience they will be watching a film from a far-flung location.

The cult classic Wake in Fright really gets under your skin. It tells the harrowing story of a city slicker’s slow descent into madness while stranded in a small outback town called 'The Yabba'. 

A group of unruly locals lead him down a dark path where drunken benders, gambling and blood sports are the norm. In the US, the film was simply titled Outback, while the Czechs went with One-horse Town. 

The Polish translation, At the End of the World (Na Krańcu świata), best captures the story’s themes of despair and isolation. The poster, with artwork by Wiktor Górka, masterfully captures the terror depicted in this outback tale, illustrating grotesque faces of men inciting alcohol-fuelled violence.

See more Polish Film Posters in the NFSA collection and read more about Polish film poster art.

An Australian lobby card to promote the release of Wake in Fright in 1971 featuring a photo of Doc Tydon (Donald Pleasence) at the two-up game.

Note the Wake in Fright title appears to be covering the film's overseas title, Outback, suggesting this lobby card was also modified and used to publicise the film in other countries.

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen

John McLean, camera operator on Wake in Fright, talks about Ted Kotcheff as a director and the expectation at the time that the film would be a success.

This is a short excerpt from an Oral History interview with John conducted for the NFSA by Martha Ansara in 2007.

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen

A black, white and yellow poster featuring the French title Le Réveil Dans La Terreur (The Awakening in Terror) and Flemish title Het Vreselijk Ontwaken (The Awful Awakening). The poster also features images of Gary Bond aiming his gun during the kangaroo hunt, and Donald Pleasence with two-up coins over his eyes.

Using a stark three-colour scheme and a brutal font, this poster effectively captures the all-pervading tension of the film. It's a dramatic, diagonal composition that suggests Gary Bond is actually shooting Donald Pleasance. Pleasance, with the 'dead man coins' over his eyes, is an iconic image from the film and the artist rightly uses it for the poster.

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen and Adam Blackshaw

Bundanyabba police officer Jock Crawford (played by Chips Rafferty) talks with English school teacher John Grant (Gary Bond). An Australian lobby card to promote the release of Wake in Fright (known overseas as Outback) in 1971.

Note the Wake in Fright title appears to be covering the film's overseas title, Outback, suggesting this lobby card was also modified and used to publicise the film in other countries.

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen

Doc Tydon (played by Donald Pleasence, left) and John Grant (Gary Bond) seated at a table in Doc's hut. An Australian lobby card to promote the release of Wake in Fright in 1971.

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen