Mad Dog Morgan

source: Mad Dog Morgan

Australia, in the 1850s. An Irish man Daniel Morgan starts off as gold-seeking immigrant who turns to robbery and gets sentenced to 12 years prison time. This is where the going gets truly tough and scars his mind. After a couple years he gets released. After befriending an aboriginal named Billy, he becomes a bushranger with an ever-growing bounty looming over his head. The two go out of their way to seek those prominent figures for turning him into what he is and for pushing him to the brink of self-destruction. On his trail is the determined Detective Mainwaring, which puts even more pressure on the cracking mind of Daniel "Mad Dog" Morgan. I heard of the film before, but never had the chance to see it until just recently when I managed to pick myself up a copy of the film. Those who believe this to be a sorely forgotten Australian gem, do make a valid point and I'll be jumping onto the bandwagon too. Cult Aussie director Philippe Mora makes his directorial debut with an interestingly odd, exploratory and rampant curio piece of an Australian bushranger folk legend. It doesn't feel like your basic outlaw movie, as hounding the picture is a socially minded lashing of corrupt power taking away the respectability of a lone and misunderstood figure (Daniel Morgan). We watch the spiralling depiction of a fazed man fighting a society who thinks they are better accustomed and more civilized than him because of his actions against them (but that's far from the case). I didn't think it was going to be as harrowing and potently involving as it was, but this is very much largely thanks to spellbinding method actor Dennis Hopper's (who fell out favour with Hollywood at the time) multi-layered performance as Mad Dog Morgan. His erratic changes in mood (from being placidly polite to passionately quick tempered) are very successfully timed and indeed convincing. One of his best. Leading the way is a strong Australian support cast with their characters getting enough time to shine. David Gulpilil is a good choice as Billy and has a budding rapport that works along with Hopper's character. Frank Thring stands out as the aggressively bull-headed Superintendent Cobham and a poignantly stern Jack Thompson makes the most of his small role as Detective Mainwaring. Also lurking on screen with tip-top (and some quirky) performances are John Hargreaves, Wallace Eaton, Bill Hunter (who chews up the scenery) and Bruce Spence ticks in with a blink and you'll miss it spot. These are very human characters and cast do a fine job in bringing that to the screen. Mora has crafted a roughly violent tale that skews between cheekiness and a spiritual foray in a well up drawn period. The story jauntily breezes by to begin with then falls into some patchy holes when it can drag, but never gets dull or loses its bitingly ironic edge. It seems to be more complex in its character's reactions than the basic narrative lets on. Mora smoothly plays along with his stylish filming techniques and has a gifted eye for short spurts of flair and (at time surreal) images. No more than some of the well mounted photography by Mike Molloy focuses on the vastly stunning backdrop of the untamed Australian wilderness and accompanying the action is an diversely roaring music score that fits right in with the style Mora's going for. "Mad Dog Morgan" is an overlooked Australian rarity of the 70s, which is hard not to be highly fascinated by its boldly rough and evocatively baseless treatment of the stirring material.

If you check the credentials of Philippe Mora you will find he leans towards the outre school of film-making. In terms of cinematic crap he has managed to helm three of the all time greatest duds: THE RETURN OF CAPTAIN INVINCIBLE, SWAMP THING and the never to be forgotten, HOWLING 2 (The jury is still out on HOWLING III: THE MARSUPIALS...its either WORSE than 2 or a camp classic) Whatever, MAD DOG MORGAN (MAD DOG in the US) offers too much to either ignore per se or to slate unmercifully. As a towering portrait of a reasonably obscure bushranger, it is just to disjointed and lacking in sane continuity to be considered a winner. Dennis Hopper's work and intense interpretation of Morgan however is just plain awesome - I consider it amongst his career highlights - up there with BLUE VELVET (are these two characters cosmically related somehow?) The cinematography is sumptuous although on some dvd's I've noticed a strange discoloration towards the center of the screen throughout the print...oddly though it adds rather than detracts. The music is at times jarring and fully inappropriate, then before you can say "Is this one odd flick or not?" you're watching Hopper perched alone in a bar room, musing on his past and telling his would-be seductress - "I only ever knew one woman - my mother...I'm sorry." That scene alone makes the film worth watching. One of those scenes stays with you if you have any compassion whatsoever. Frank Thring still thinks he's playing Herod from KING OF KINGS as the head of Victorian Police. His psychotic demands at the end of the film sicken even his subordinates. Clearly he is closer to an institution even than Morgan! Excellent supporting work from Gulpilil as always. He also plays the film's didgeridoo on the soundtrack. MAD DOG MORHAN is no thinking-person's classic, its not even an especially good film. What it DOES achieve though, is a fairly accurate representation of Australian Bush life from a bygone period. Within its budgetary limitations, insane direction and superior acting, it is a mini-beacon of sorts from the mid seventies. PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK it ain't...but neither does it generate the cringe factor of THE ADVENTURES OF BARRY MACKENZIE. The 4.8 IMDb rating is woefully inadequate and quite absurd. This is a 5.6 (min) to 6.5 (max) if you consider the film rationally by virtue of the sum of its parts.

The recent release of "Mad Dog Morgan" on Troma DVD is disappointing.This appears to be a censored print for television viewing. Some of the more violent scenes have been edited and portions of the colorful language have been removed. Anyone who viewed the film uncut will be mad as hell at this toxic DVD version. "Mad Dog Morgan" deserves to be released on DVD in the original theatrical cut. However, even as released on DVD, the film is still one of the better depictions of bushranger life in nineteenth century Australia. After having toured the Old Melbourne Gaol, with death masks of convicts on display, it is "Mad Dog Morgan" that comes to mind.

I have no idea what the budget was for this film, but it has low budget written all over it from frame one. The establishing shot is about as good as any of the cinematography gets for the remainder of the film. As the hero approaches the stage coach and wanders aimlessly away into the gaining foreground, it sets the pattern and the standard for the rambling, disjointed grab bag of scenes to follow. As usual in Australian historic films, the old cultural cringe sets in early. Any English characters, especially characters in authority, are either moronic animals, or outrageously portrayed elitists and silly arsed over enunciating buffoons. The real men of heroic heart and courage are either Irish or "Australian" bush men. This is the kind of thinking that allows us to make Ned Kelly, a man who clearly had a problem with authority and the rule of law, who killed policemen, and who almost derailed a train, which almost certainly would have made him the country's first mass murderer, a celebrated folk hero. This film is a string of seemingly hurriedly invented action, gratuitous violence, bluster and bullshit. That it is what I suggest it is, is a shame. The basis of a good story and the makings of a classic film are clearly within it, but they are lost in clouded plot ideas and confused direction, further hindered by surface acting and cultural cringe.

I was moved to write something after reading with dismay comments from others that this was a fair depiction of Morgan... it wasn't. Daniel Morgan was not named "Mad Dog" for no reason. He was a murderous rapist, and anyone with the interest to research the matter will agree. On one occasion Morgan joined forces with "Gentleman" Ben Hall to rob a large, well guarded, and very wealthy homestead, but when Morgan attempted to rape one of the women, Hall intervened and the two came to blows, Hall stood his ground and it almost became a gunfight. Hall took control and ordered Morgan off the property, threatening to shoot Morgan on the spot if he didn't go. Morgan may well have been a victim of a corrupt and autocratic Colonial Rule, but so was Hall, and he never mistreated his victims, other than to take their valuables. Hall never robbed or disrespected women, in fact male victims upon being "baled up" would quickly put all their money and valuables into the women's purses, knowing that Hall would never commit any bad act against a woman. Hall countered by begging forgiveness, but "could the dear lady please remove all the men's belongings from her purse?" His manner was so gracious and flattering they would usually blush and comply. Mad Dog was entirely the opposite, a brutal and violent psychopath, and to glorify Morgan is simply fictitious sensationalism designed to garner applause for what is essentially a very bad movie. I thought Hopper did not take the role seriously and it seems he felt his reputation was all that was required for the payday. The movie was completely disjointed and came across as a series of unconnected one-act plays. I gave it 3/10 purely for the beautiful Australian backdrop, but ONLY 3 because it was so poorly shot.

The previous reviewer, who complained of the historical inaccuracy of the film, somewhat missed the point. While the film may not be true to the original Morgan's personal story, it is certainly true of the conflict between legal authorities and outlaws throughout the English speaking countries during the 19th Century. The Governor at the end asks for Morgan's scrotum to be used as a tobacco pouch; I don't know if this happened to Morgan - but it happened to Nat Turner. Jesse James' corpse went on tour briefly as a carnival attraction before his family intervened; so did the bodies of Bonnie and Clyde in the 1930s. In Canada, one Indian outlaw was so feared, they used cannon to get at him in his last house rather than face him with small arms. Public hangings came to a halt in Great Britain because the crowd got raucously drunk and lecherous after-wards. The fact is, outlaws became legend because government agencies and private interests, as well as the perversity of the general public, made them so. Like Bonnie and Clyde, part of the function of this film - which is really more a 'docudrama' than an adventure film or simply another crime film - is recording what was said of Morgan once he became infamous. Of course most of it was lies - people want their fifteen minutes of fame, even if it's just for bumping into an well-known outlaw. That said, this film suffers from two major problems. First its low budget - it is clear from certain set-pieces that the film had high ambitions.. It is unfortunately clear, from the quality of the film-stock used (and its unevenness) and the awkward uniforms of the provincial police, that there just wasn't enough money to fulfill those ambitions. The second major failing is that the lead is given over to Dennis Hopper, a 'cult' actor of very limited range. He simply isn't up to it. His dialect is terrible, and he utterly lacks either the panache of a flamboyant outlaw, or the angst of a socially driven one. In fact we end the film not knowing much about Morgan, which makes all the broad lies about him believable. And that's a weakness - he needs to be a factual counterpoint to his own legend. Hopper cannot give us this, it's beyond his capabilities. Nonetheless, its an interesting film to watch, even as merely a curio. It was a risky film to make; Australian film industry had not yet attained 'world-class' status, and the strictly Australian subject-matter is certainly interesting. There is also some interesting cinematography, and the story has an odd draw to it even if its promise is never fully realized. Not a classic, but hardly the disaster some have remarked it as.

I found Hopper's acting pretty good. He is a method actor, and was trying to play a madman. I'm not quite sure how familiar he was with Australia, in the extras, he refers to Aboriginals as "Aboriginaries". While probably most of the movie portrays events that happened, Morgan in real life was not so nice. It captures the essence of Mad Morgans life, but changes things to make him more endearing. In fact he was racist to Chinese miners, the film shows him as being sympathetic. He didn't have a lifelong Aboriginal friend....and he was never called "Mad Dog" Morgan. He was cruel at times, forcing a woman to walk into a fire at one point, however he was liked by locals, and did force overseers to pay the workers more and hand out cheques. The acting was pretty good. Probably one of the best things about this movie is that it features some of the best Australian actors at the time - Jack Thompson, Frank Thring, Bill Hunter, JOhn Haregreaves and Graeme Blundell. Cinematography was good too, nice use of the Australian bush.

CONTAINS SOME SPOILERS Once again, Dennis Hopper gives an over-the-top performance as Daniel Morgan, the infamous outlaw of the the 1860s. MAD DOG (as the film was also known) is highly evocative of the colonial era: frontier lands with few townships but individual homesteads, extreme parochialism and an uneasy relationship between free settlers and ex-convicts. The dirge begins on the NSW Goldfields where our Irish protagonist falls out with his fellow diggers and seeks company with the out-cast Chinese instead. Whilst smoking opium in a Joss House, a group of aggrieved and racist miners beset Morgan and his compatriots; burning the house to the ground. Morgan runs to the bush and becomes a highwayman: eventually being sentenced to the gaols. As the magistrate reveals, severe sentences are necessary to build the colony's roads. In gaol, Morgan is brutalized and maltreated by both guards and fellow prisoners. Upon his release, he finds himself in old ways and later makes an aboriginal companion. The duo continue to harass (mostly) the squatters and large-lot landowners along the Riverina in New South Wales and Victoria. Morgan is eventually shot and killed by a loose coalition of police officers and privateers. The authorities generally are portrayed as equally corrupt and invidious as Morgan. The bulk of the police-force, for instance, are recently released prisoners or prison-wardens looking for easy money. The Governor of Victoria (played deliciously by Frank Thring) subscribes to the belief that a mastermind criminal like Morgan must have "the physical attributes of a gorilla" and a "throw-back to primitive man" - forgetting his own monolithic presence and bulging forehead. Australia is presented as the penal colony it really was: "a melting pot of racial, social, and economic tensions" - and so film is quite a macarabe and episodic one. While evocative of the mood, a far amount of artistic license has been taken in the history. Surprisingly absent from MAD DOG MORGAN are accounts of sadist and barbaric acts committed by Morgan, including the ungentlemenly murder of two policemen shot in the back. Looking back, MAD DOG MORGAN contains a guest-list of Australian actors which now can be somewhat distracting (Yes, that is Alf Stewart from "HOME AND AWAY" as the Scottish Telegraphist.)

This movie is typical Australian because the landscape has its part of the scenes, it is a protagonist. It is similar to the American Midwest but at the same time it is so different because there is more variety. It is in the most hot parts of Australia that Daniel Morgan will be rescued by a bush-man. He became a horse-thief, element in the story which is not explained well because he already had left prison for three years. We only see the developing of his character at the end of the movie when he invites himself into the family Mcpherson. Why did he become a bandit? He does not lack courage but will he be caught alive? His life in the wilderness is only slightly developed with his bush-comrade who saved his life; the beginning of the story shows him confronted with Australian justice which had no equity at all. The prison system will almost kill him morally. In a scene in a tavern he confesses to a woman that he only knew one women in his life: his mother.