Kodak/Atlab Cinema Collection

A new 35mm print of the feature film, MAD DOG MORGAN is now available. Courtesy of Phillipe Mora, John Webb and the sponsors Kodak (Australasia) and Atlab Australia

National Film and Sound Archive National Collection Title number 4505

Mad Dog Morgan

MAD DOG MORGAN (1976)
Classification: M rating

Director: Philippe Mora

Year of Production: 1975

Duration: 102 minutes
Format: 35mm, Colour. Mono-optical soundtrack, remastered to Dolby® Digital.

Production Company: Motion Picture Productions
Producer: Jeremy Thomas
Associate Producer: Richard Brennan
Screenplay: Philippe Mora. Based on a the book, Morgan, by Margaret Carnegie
Director of Photography: Mike Molloy
Camera Operator: John Seale
Art Director: Robert Hilditch
Editor: John Scott
Music: Patrick Flynn
Aboriginal Songs: David Gulpilil
Sound recordists: Ken Hammond
Stunts: Grant Page

Cast: Dennis Hopper (Daniel Morgan), Jack Thompson (Detective Mainwaring), David Gulpilil (Billy), Frank Thring (Superintendant Cobham), Michael Pate (Superintendant Winch), Wallas Eaton (MacPherson), Bill Hunter (Sergeant Smith), John Hargreaves (Baylis), Martin Harris (Wendlan), Robert Ramsay (Roget), Graeme Blundell (Italian Jack), Gregory Apps (Arthur),Liza Lee-Attkinson (barmaid), Elaine Baillie (farm girl), Don Markman (Morrow), Kurt Beimal (Dr Dobbyn), David Bracks (McLean), Liddy Clark (Alice), Peter Collingwood (Judge Barry), Peter Cummins (Gibson), John Derum (Evans), Peter Thompson (Mayor), Robert Mcdarra (parole officer).

Mad Dog Morgan

Synopsis

Based on the life of Daniel Morgan, a bushranger who roams the Riverina and northern Victoria during the gold rush days of the 1860s. As a poor Irishman, Morgan is driven to a life of crime as a reaction to a brutalising society and after witnessing a senseless bloody massacre of Chinese on the goldfields.

With an Aboriginal boy, Billy, as his only ally, he is hounded to more desperate acts of retaliation by a sadistic police superintendent, Cobham.

Background

Financed jointly by private investors and the Australian Film Commission. The $450,000 production was shot entirely on location around the New South Wales-Victorian border.

Mad Dog Morgan screened at the Cannes Film Festival in May 1976 and won an award there for the best Western. Screenings followed in Australia at the Sydney and Melbourne Film Festivals in June and a commercial premiere release at Greater Union's Pitt Centre in Sydney in July.

'Always underrated in its day, perhaps because of its violence, but Gulpilil is impressive and it's a very evocative historical reconstruction, and an important contribution to bushranging folklore.' – Andrew Pike

Preservation

The 35mm original picture negative, final mix and printing components are preserved in the National Screen and Sound Archive. The new print will be processed from the original negative and the sound will be remastered to Dolby SR Digital.