[WAKE IN FRIGHT
screens Thursday December 6th at 8:45 pm and Sunday December 9th at
6:30 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]
Review
by Bob Ignizio
It's Christmas break, and Australian
schoolteacher John Grant (Gary Bond) has plans to visit his
girlfriend in Sydney in the once thought lost Austrailian thriller
WAKE IN FRIGHT. John is essentially an indentured servant,
having signed a $1000 bond in order to get his teaching degree. His
end of the bargain is that he has to go where he's sent and stay
there until he pays his debt, in this case the tiny outback town of
Tiboonda, a posting the young pedagogue clearly feels is beneath him.
Before John can get to Sydney, his
train has to make a stopover in the mining town of Bundanyabba, which
the locals all refer to as “The Yabba”. Here John is confronted
with the horrors of working class Australian manhood, people he views
as a bunch of sweaty, dirty, beer drinking slobs. Even the
friendliness of these people gets on John's nerves, but after he
loses all his money gambling John finds he has no choice but to
depend on the kindness of strangers.
