Inspired by the terrific documentary Not Quite Hollywood (now available on DVD in the UK, but sadly, not in the U.S.), the Screengrab is proud to present Ozsploitation!, our own survey of the golden age of Australian drive-in movies. Pop a tube, throw another shrimp on the barbie and try not to chunder.
The bushranger movie is the Australian equivalent of the American western, and the earliest such films date back at least to 1906’s The Story of the Kelly Gang, which is considered by many to be the world’s first feature film. (It runs about 60 minutes, if you want to nitpick.) It’s true that there aren’t quite as many classic Australian bushranger movies as classic American westerns, and it’s also true that most of them turn out to be about Ned Kelly. But let’s at least give them credit for longevity.
Mad Dog Morgan is a bushranger movie from the Ozsploitation era that turns out not to be about Ned Kelly. Instead it’s about Dan Morgan, who was never known as Mad Dog Morgan and, as it happens, wasn’t even really named Dan Morgan. Born John Fuller in 1830, this Irish-Australian horse thief, mean drunk and all-around desperado would churn through such aliases as John Smith, Sydney Native and Down the River Jack before settling on the name that became legend. Or if not quite legend, at least a Dennis Hopper movie from the mid-70s.
Director Phillipe Mora, whose work I’ve encountered before in the form of Howling III: The Marsupials, brings a short attention span to the early scenes of Mad Dog Morgan, in which the titular character fails at gold mining, is arrested for armed robbery, serves hard time in chains, is released back into the wild and goes on a crime spree with the assistance of his Aboriginal sidekick Billy (David Gulpilil of Walkabout and The Last Wave). It wouldn’t surprise me to learn there’s a three-hour version of Mad Dog Morgan somewhere, and that Mora turned in this version under duress; the edits and scene transitions often seem abrupt and arbitrary to me, although it would be equally unsurprising to learn that this is a stylistic choice meant to convey an impressionistic, kaleidoscopic approach to Morgan’s story. Either way, it sure got on my nerves.
I could never quite get a handle on how the movie regards its central character, which may have something to do with the fact that Morgan is played by Dennis Hopper at the peak of his drug-fueled wild and crazy period. Boasting a now-you-hear-it, now-you-don’t Irish accent and an impressive array of weird beards, Hopper often comes across more like a crazed hippie on an extended LSD binge than an outlaw who could manage to keep himself alive in the bush, let alone terrorize half of Victoria and New South Wales. It’s not an uninteresting take on the material, to be sure, but overall I think Mad Dog Morgan is best viewed in 1976, which unfortunately is no longer an option.
Previously on Ozsploitation:
High Rolling in a Hot Corvette
Dead End Drive-In
