Mad Max

For other uses, see Mad Max (disambiguation).

Mad Max
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	George Miller
Produced by	Byron Kennedy
Screenplay by	George Miller James McCausland
Story by	George Miller Byron Kennedy
Starring	Mel Gibson Joanne Samuel Hugh Keays-Byrne Steve Bisley Tim Burns Roger Ward
Music by	Brian May
Cinematography	David Eggby
Edited by	Tony Paterson Cliff Hayes
Production company	Kennedy Miller Productions
Distributed by	Village Roadshow Pictures
Release dates	12 April 1979 (1979-04-12)
Running time	93 minutes
Country	Australia
Language	English
Budget	A$400,000
Box office	US$100 million

Mad Max is a 1979 Australian dystopian action film directed by George Miller, produced by Byron Kennedy and starring Mel Gibson. James McCausland and Miller wrote the screenplay from a story by Miller and Kennedy.

It became a top-grossing Australian film, holding the Guinness record for most profitable film for decades and has been credited for further opening up the global market to Australian New Wave films. The first film in the series, Mad Max, spawned sequels Mad Max 2 (a.k.a. The Road Warrior) in 1981 and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome in 1985. A fourth installment, Mad Max: Fury Road starring Tom Hardy as Max, is scheduled for release in May 2015.

Plot

In a dystopian future Australia, law and order has begun to break down following a major energy crisis. Most of the Outback has been reduced to low-populated communities with low fuel and a relatively peaceful life, with major metropolitan cities still continuing to exist. However, motorcycle gangs scavenge the lands and terrorize the population. As such, Main Force Patrol, an out-run police force, has been created to patrol the lands to uphold the remains of law and justice.

A berserk motorcycle gang member named Crawford "Nightrider" Montazano (Vincent Gil), having killed an MFP rookie officer while escaping from police custody, is attempting to outrun the other MFP officers in a stolen Pursuit Special (a 1973 Holden HQ Monaro). Though he manages to elude his initial pursuers, the MFP's top pursuit man, Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson), then engages the less-skilled Nightrider in a high-speed chase that ends in the latter's death in a fiery crash.

The Acolytes, Nightrider's motorcycle gang, led by Toecutter (Hugh Keays-Byrne) and Bubba Zanetti (Geoff Parry), are running roughshod over a town, vandalizing property, stealing fuel, and terrorizing the population. Max and fellow officer Jim "Goose" Rains (Steve Bisley) arrest Toecutter's young protégé, Johnny "the Boy" Boyle (Tim Burns), who was too high to leave the scene of the gang's rape of a young couple. When neither the rape victim nor any of the townspeople show for Johnny's trial, the federal courts throw out the case. Goose, furious at Johnny's release, must be restrained as he and Johnny exchange violent threats. After Bubba drags Johnny away, MFP Captain Fred "Fifi" Macaffee (Roger Ward) tells his officers to do whatever it takes to combat the gangs, "so long as the paperwork's clean."

A short time later, Johnny sabotages Goose's motorcycle. The next day, the motorcycle locks up at high speed, throwing Goose into a field. An uninjured Goose borrows a ute to haul his damaged bike back to the MFP HQ. However, Johnny and Toecutter are waiting in ambush, with the former throwing a brake rotor at Goose's windscreen, causing him to crash the ute. With Goose unable to get out of the ute, Johnny - under pressure from Toecutter - throws a match into the gasoline leaking from the wreck, triggering an inferno that severely burns the helpless Goose. After seeing Goose's charred body in a hospital intensive care unit, Max becomes disillusioned with the MFP, and the fear of losing his sanity convinces him to resign. His superior, Fifi, talks Max into taking a holiday before making his final decision about the resignation.

While vacationing, Max stops at a roadside garage to have a tire repaired while his wife, Jessie (Joanne Samuel), and their infant son, Sprog (Brendan Heath), go for ice cream. The two encounter Toecutter's gang, who attempt to molest Jessie. Max and his family flee to a remote farm owned by an elderly friend named May (Shelia Florence), but the gang learns of their destination from the garage mechanic and follows them. Jessie is waylaid by the gang after a trip to the beach; May holds them off with a shotgun and she, Jessie, and Sprog manage to escape in the van. After the van breaks down on the road, Jessie attempts to flee with her son on foot, but they are run down by the pursuing gang on their motorcycles; Max arrives too late to intervene.

With Sprog having been killed instantly and Jessie near death, a rage-filled Max dons his police leathers, and takes a supercharged black Pursuit Special (Ford XB Falcon) from the MFP garage to pursue the gang. After torturing the auto mechanic for information, and forcing several members of the gang off a bridge at high speed, Max methodically hunts down the gang's leaders. He shoots Bubba Zanetti at point blank range with a shotgun (after sustaining a significant gunshot leg-injury of his own), though Johnny escapes when he sees Bubba killed. As Toecutter flees on his motorcycle, tailed closely by Max, he veers into the path of an oncoming semi-trailer truck and is brutally run-over.

Max eventually locates Johnny, who is looting a car crash victim he presumably murdered. In a cold, suppressed rage, Max handcuffs Johnny's ankle to the wrecked vehicle, and sets a crude time-delay fuse involving a slow fuel leak and Johnny's lighter. Throwing Johnny a hacksaw, Max leaves him the choice of sawing through either the handcuffs (which will take ten minutes) or his ankle (which will take five minutes). As Max casually drives away, the wrecked vehicle explodes, with Johnny's fate left unknown. Now a shell of his former self, Max drives on to points unknown, pushing deep into the Outback.

Cast

• Mel Gibson as Max Rockatansky
• Joanne Samuel as Jessie Rockatansky
• Hugh Keays-Byrne as The Toecutter
• Steve Bisley as Jim "Goose"
• Tim Burns as Johnny the Boy
• Roger Ward as "Fifi" Macaffee

• Geoff Parry as Bubba Zanetti
• Lisa Aldenhoven as Nurse
• Peter Felmingham as Emergency Room Doctor
• Neil Thompson as TV News Anchor
• David Bracks as Mudguts
• Bertrand Cadart as Clunk

• David Cameron as Barry
• Stephen Clark as Sarse
• Jonathan Hardy as Commissioner Labatouche
• Robina Chaffey as Nightclub Singer
• Brendan Heath as Sprog Rockatansky
• Jerry Day as Ziggy

• Howard Eynon as Diabando
• Max Fairchild as Benno
• John Farndale as Grinner
• Sheila Florence as May Swaisey
• Nic Gazzana as Starbuck
• Paul Johnstone as Cundalini

• Vincent Gil as Crawford "The Nightrider" Montazano
• Steve Millichamp as "Roop"
• John Ley as "Charlie"
• George Novak as "Scuttle"
• Reg Evans as Station Master
• Nico Lathouris as Mechanic

Production

Development

George Miller was a medical doctor in Sydney, Australia, working in a hospital emergency room, where he saw many injuries and deaths of the types depicted in the film. He also witnessed many car accidents growing up in rural Queensland and had as a teenager lost at least three friends in accidents.

While in residency at a Sydney hospital, Miller met amateur filmmaker Byron Kennedy at a summer film school in 1971. The duo produced a short film, Violence in the Cinema, Part 1, which was screened at a number of film festivals and won several awards. Eight years later, the duo produced Mad Max, working with first-time screenwriter James McCausland (who appears in the film as the bearded man in an apron in front of the diner).

Miller believed that audiences would find his violent story to be more believable if set in a bleak dystopian future. Screenwriter McCausland drew heavily from his observations of the 1973 oil crisis' effects on Australian motorists:

Yet there were further signs of the desperate measures individuals would take to ensure mobility. A couple of oil strikes that hit many pumps revealed the ferocity with which Australians would defend their right to fill a tank. Long queues formed at the stations with petrol – and anyone who tried to sneak ahead in the queue met raw violence. ... George and I wrote the [Mad Max] script based on the thesis that people would do almost anything to keep vehicles moving and the assumption that nations would not consider the huge costs of providing infrastructure for alternative energy until it was too late.

—James McCausland, writing on peak oil in The Courier-Mail, 2006

Finance

Kennedy and Miller first took the film to Graham Burke of Roadshow, who was enthusiastic. The producers felt they would not be able to raise money from the government bodies "because Australian producers were making art films, and the corporations and commissions seemed to endorse them whole-heartedly," according to Kennedy.

They designed a 40-page presentation and it was circulated among a number of different people, and eventually raised the money. Kennedy and Miller contributed funds themselves by doing three months of emergency medical calls, with Kennedy driving the car while Miller did the doctoring.

Miller claimed the final budget was between $350,000 and $400,000.

Casting

Miller deliberately wanted to cast lesser known actors so they did not carry past associations with them.

Gibson, who had only one film role in Summer City (1977), went to auditions with his close friend and classmate, Steve Bisley, who landed the part of Jim Goose. Gibson went to auditions in poor shape, as the night before he had got into a drunken brawl with three men at a party, resulting in a swollen nose, a broken jaw, and various bruises. Gibson showed up at the audition the next day looking like a "black and blue pumpkin" (his own words). He did not expect to get the role and only went to accompany his friend. However, the casting agent liked the look and told Gibson to come back in two weeks, telling him "we need freaks." When Gibson returned, the filmmakers did not recognise him, because his wounds had healed almost completely; he received the part anyway.

Many of the other cast had previously appeared in Stone (1974).

Most of the biker-gang extras were members of actual Australian outlaw motorcycle clubs, and rode their own motorcycles in the film.

Production

Due to the film's low budget, only Bisley and Gibson were given jackets and trousers made from real leather. All the other actors playing police officers wore vinyl leather outfits.

Originally the filming was scheduled to take ten weeks – six weeks of first unit, and four weeks on stunt and chase sequences. However four days into shooting, Rosie Bailey, who was originally cast as Max's wife, was injured in a bike accident. Production was halted and Bailey was replaced by Joanne Samuel, causing a delay of two weeks.

In the end, the shoot took six weeks over November and December 1977 with a further six weeks second unit. The unit reconvened two months later and spent another two weeks doing second unit shots and re-staging some stunts in May.

Shooting took place in and around Melbourne. Many of the car chase scenes for Mad Max were filmed near the town of Little River, just north of Geelong. The early town scenes with the Toe Cutter Gang were filmed in the main street of Clunes, just north of Ballarat. Much of the streetscape remains unchanged.

Mad Max was one of the first Australian films to be shot with a widescreen anamorphic lens, although Peter Weir's The Cars That Ate Paris (1974) was shot in anamorphic four years earlier.

The film's post-production was done at a friend's apartment in North Melbourne, with Wilson and Kennedy editing the film in the small lounge room on a home-built editing machine that Kennedy's father, an engineer, had designed for them. Wilson and Kennedy also edited the sound there.

Tony Patterson edited the film for four months, then had to leave because he was contracted to make Dimboola. George Miller took over editing with Cliff Hayes and they worked on it for three months. Kennedy and Miller did the final cut.

George Miller's brother Bill Miller was associate producer.

Music

The musical score of Mad Max was composed and conducted by Australian composer Brian May (not to be confused with the guitarist of the English rock band Queen). George Miller wanted a gothic, Bernard Herrmann type score and hired Brian May after hearing his work for Patrick (1978).

Soundtrack

Track Listing for the first release on LP

Side one

1. Main Title 2:03
2. Max The Hunter 2:10
3. Max Decides On Vengeance 2:40
4. The Final Chase 1:47
5. The Terrible Death Of Jim Goose 1:02
6. We'll Give 'Em Back Their Heroes 1:13
7. Pain And Triumph 2:15
8. Dazed Goose 0:35
9. Foreboding In The Vast Landscape 2:08

Side two

1. Declaration Of War 1:30
2. Flight From The Evil Toecutter 2:25
3. Pursuit And Tragedy 1:55
4. Jesse Alone, Uneasy And Exhausted 1:40
5. The Beach House 1:55
6. The Nightrider Rave 1:20
7. Jesse Searches For Her Child 0:55
8. Rampage Of The Toecutter 1:47
9. The Crazing Of Johnny The Boy 2:05

Track Listing for the First Release on CD

1. Main Title 2:03
2. Max The Hunter 2:10
3. Max Decides On Vengeance 2:40
4. The Final Chase 1:47
5. The Terrible Death Of Jim Goose 1:02
6. We'll Give 'Em Back Their Heroes 1:13
7. Pain And Triumph 2:15
8. Dazed Goose 0:35
9. Foreboding In The Vast Landscape 2:08
10. Declaration Of War 1:30
11. Flight From The Evil Toecutter 2:25
12. Pursuit And Tragedy 1:55
13. Jesse Alone, Uneasy And Exhausted 1:40
14. The Beach House 1:55
15. The Nightrider Rave 1:20
16. Jesse Searches For Her Child 0:55
17. Rampage Of The Toecutter 1:47
18. The Crazing Of Johnny The Boy 2:05
19. Outtakes Suite [in 5 parts; indexed] 6:00

Vehicles

Max's yellow Interceptor was a 1974 Ford Falcon XB sedan (previously, a Victorian police car) with a 351 c.i.d. Cleveland V8 engine.

Mad Max Interceptor replica outside the Boston, Mass. area

The Big Bopper, driven by Roop and Charlie, was also a 1974 Ford Falcon XB sedan and also a former Victorian Police car, but was powered by a 302 c.i.d. V8. The March Hare, driven by Sarse and Scuttle, was an in-line-six-powered 1972 Ford Falcon XA sedan (this car was formerly a Melbourne taxi cab).

Replica Mad Max Pursuit Special vehicle outside the Silverton Hotel

The most memorable car, Max's black Pursuit Special was a 1973 Ford XB Falcon GT351, a limited edition hardtop, (sold in Australia from December 1973 to August 1976) which was primarily modified by Murray Smith, Peter Arcadipane and Ray Beckerley. The main modification is obviously the Concorde front end, and the supercharger protruding through the bonnet (which is for looks only and didn't work). The Concorde front was a fairly new accessory at the time, designed by Peter Arcadipane at Ford Australia as a showpiece, and later becoming available to the general public due to its popularity. After filming of the first movie was completed, the car went up for sale but no buyers were found; eventually it was handed over to Murray Smith (film mechanic).

When production of Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior began, the car was bought back by George Miller for use in the sequel. Once filming was over the car was left at a wrecking yard in Adelaide since it again found no buyers, and was bought and restored by Bob Forsenko. Eventually it was sold again and was put on display in the Cars of the Stars Motor Museum in Cumbria, England. The museum recently closed and the Black on Black car went to a collection in the Dezer museum in Miami, Florida.

The Nightrider's vehicle, another Pursuit Special (one of two in the film), was a 1972 Holden Monaro Coupe HQ LS, also tuned but deliberately damaged to look like it has been involved in crashes.

The car driven by the young couple that is vandalized and then finally destroyed by the bikers is a 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air Sedan, also pretuned to look like a hot-rod car with fake fuel injection stacks, fatter tires and a flame red paint job.

Of the motorcycles that appear in the film, 14 were Kawasaki Kz1000 donated by a local Kawasaki dealer. All were modified in appearance by Melbourne business La Parisienne – one as the MFP bike ridden by 'The Goose' and the balance for members of the Toecutter's gang, played in the film by members of a local Victorian motorcycle club, the Vigilanties.

By the end of filming, fourteen vehicles had been destroyed in the chase and crash scenes, including the director's personal Mazda Bongo (the small, blue van that spins uncontrollably after being struck by the Big Bopper in the film's opening chase). All the crashes had to be taken in one shot.

Release

Mad Max was first released in Australia through Roadshow Entertainment (now Village Roadshow Pictures) in 1979.

The movie was sold overseas for $1.8 million, with American International Pictures to release in the United States and Warner Bros. to handle the rest of the world.

When shown in the United States during 1980, the original Australian dialogue was redubbed by an American crew. American International Pictures distributed this dub after it underwent a management re-organisation. Much of the Australian slang and terminology was also replaced with American usages (examples: "Oi!" became "Hey!", "See looks!" became "See what I see?", "windscreen" became "windshield", "very toey" became "super hot", and "proby" — probationary officer — became "rookie"). AIP also altered the operator's duty call on Jim Goose's bike in the beginning of the film (it ended with "Come on, Goose, where are you?"). The only dubbing exceptions were the voice of the singer in the Sugartown Cabaret (played by Robina Chaffey), the voice of Charlie (played by John Ley) through the mechanical voice box, and Officer Jim Goose (Steve Bisley), singing as he drives a truck before being ambushed. Since Mel Gibson was not well known to American audiences at the time, trailers and television spots in the United States emphasised the film's action content.

The original Australian dialogue track was finally released in North America in 2000 in a limited theatrical reissue by MGM, the film's current rights holders. It has since been released in the U.S. on DVD with the U.S. and Australian soundtracks on separate tracks.

New Zealand and Sweden banned the film, the former due to the scene where Goose is burned alive inside his vehicle. It mirrored an incident with a real gang shortly before the film's release. It was later shown in New Zealand in 1983 after the success of the sequel, with an 18 certificate. The ban in Sweden was removed in 2005 and it has been shown on TV and is also in video stores.

Reception

Upon the release, the film polarised critics. In a 1979 review, the Australian social commentator and film producer Phillip Adams condemned Mad Max, saying that it had "all the emotional uplift of Mein Kampf" and would be "a special favourite of rapists, sadists, child murderers and incipient [Charles] Mansons." After the United States release, Tom Buckley of The New York Times called it "ugly and incoherent". However, Variety magazine praised the directorial debut by Miller. In 2004, The New York Times placed the film on its Best 1000 Movies Ever list.

Mad Max grossed A$5,355,490 at the box office in Australia and almost US$100 million worldwide. Since it was independently financed with a reported budget of just A$400,000 it was a major financial success; for 20 years, the movie held a record as the highest profit-to-cost ratio of a motion picture, conceding the record only in 1999 to The Blair Witch Project. The film was awarded three Australian Film Institute Awards in 1979 (for editing, sound, and musical score). It was also nominated for Best Film, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor (Hugh Keays-Byrne) by the American Film Institute. The film also won the Special Jury Award at the Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival.

Mad Max currently holds 95% of positive critic reviews on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, marked "Fresh", with consensus being "Staging the improbable car stunts and crashes to perfection, director George Miller succeeds completely in bringing the violent, post-apocalyptic world of Mad Max to visceral life."

Accolades

Award	Category	Subject	Result
AACTA Award (1979 AFI Awards)	Best Film	Byron Kennedy	Nominated
	Best Direction	George Miller	Nominated
	Best Original Screenplay	George Miller	Nominated
		James McCausland	Nominated
	Best Editing	Cliff Hayes	Won
		Tony Paterson	Won
	Best Original Music Score	Brian May	Won
	Best Sound	Ned Dawson	Won
		Byron Kennedy	Won
		Roger Savage	Won
		Gary Wilkins	Won

In popular culture

Main article: Mad Max series legacy and influence in popular culture

External links

• Official website – home to the original Mad Max film, maintained by members of the cast and crew.
• Mad Max at the Internet Movie Database
• Mad Max at the TCM Movie Database
• Mad Max at Rotten Tomatoes