Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%

Mad Dog Morgan by Jake Wilson

by
January-February 2016, no. 378

Mad Dog Morgan by Jake Wilson

Australian Screen Classics, $16.99 pb, 98 pp, 9781925005202

Mad Dog Morgan by Jake Wilson

by
January-February 2016, no. 378

The evocative Prologue to this book has a poetic precision that bodes well for its treatment of this too-long neglected film, and what follows more than answers such expectations.

Jake Wilson's analysis (resuscitation might be a better word) of the 1976 Australian bushranging adventure, Mad Dog Morgan, is above all a tale of three men, and he does justice to each. The three are Morgan himself, director Philippe Mora, and star Dennis Hopper. In dealing with the wayward, vengeful Morgan, Wilson skilfully negotiates the blurred territory between fact and fiction; believing that 'the image of a crazed monster, encouraged by the newspapers, was not the whole story'. Did he deserve to have the scrotum removed from his dead body to provide a tobacco pouch for the Police Superintendent? And did this really happen?

Wilson is on surer ground in charting Mora's European background of artistic endeavour, along with his Australian childhood fascination with bushrangers. He was never going to fit the prevailing trends of the 1970s film revival here, and his preceding documentary features, Swastika (1974) and Brother Can You Spare a Dime (1975), suggested that this 'short, dark, precocious youth' had grown into a maverick at odds with the literary adaptations and realist dramas of the decade. But was he maverick enough to deal with his American star, Hopper, frequently drunk and/or drugged out of his mind, as he came to Australia trailing clouds of his friendship with that other rebel-without-a-cause, James Dean, and of his moment of glory with Easy Rider (1969), the 'low-budget biker film' that became a smash hit?

Brian McFarlane reviews 'Mad Dog Morgan' by Jake Wilson

Mad Dog Morgan

by Jake Wilson

Australian Screen Classics, $16.99 pb, 98 pp, 9781925005202

You May Also Like

Leave a comment

If you are an ABR subscriber, you will need to sign in to post a comment.

If you have forgotten your sign in details, or if you receive an error message when trying to submit your comment, please email your comment (and the name of the article to which it relates) to ABR Comments. We will review your comment and, subject to approval, we will post it under your name.

Please note that all comments must be approved by ABR and comply with our Terms & Conditions.