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Mad Max

Mad Max is an Australian science fiction film starring Mel Gibson as Max Rockatansky. Released in 1979, it was directed by George Miller, and written by James McCausland with Miller and producer Byron Kennedy.

The film is set in a semi-post-apocalyptic Australian outback. The beginning of the film only hints that the story takes place "a few years from now", and the reasons behind this future are never fully explained, although the sequel, Mad Max 2, (known in the U.S. as The Road Warrior), finally explains this film's backstory.

A police officer, Max (Mel Gibson), is charged with controlling the constant lawlessness on the streets of the outback. Tired of his endless job, he quits the police force and settles down with his family. One day, a street gang pursues Max, his wife, and son. With their motorcycles, they run over the wife and son, severely crushing them to death. After this, Max decides to turn vigilante, and without the authority of his former police force, he illegally steals a police car and seeks revenge against the gang that murdered his family. He does them in, and by the end of the picture he is a loner, racing the streets for no reason at all.

Whilst in residency at a Melbourne hospital, Dr. George Miller meet amateur film maker Byron Kennedy at a summer film school in 1971. The duo went on produce the short film Violence in the Cinema, Part 1, which was screened at number of film festivals and won several awards.

Eight years later the duo created Mad Max, with the assistance of first time screen writer James McGausland. George Miller was an M.D. in Australia who worked in the Emergency Room of a hospital, who had seen many of the injuries and deaths of the type depicted in the movie, and felt that the audience would not believe such things were happening today, so he decided to write the story instead as a post-nuclear holocaust.

The film was shot over a period of twelve weeks, between December 1978 and February 1979, just outside Melbourne. Many of the car chase scenes for the original Mad Max were filmed near the town of Lara, just north of Geelong (Victoria, Australia). It was shot with a widescreen anamorphic lens, making it the first Australian film to do so.

Due to the film's low budget, the post-production was done in Miller's house, with George editing the film in the kitchen and Byron Kennedy editing the sound in the lounge room.

The film achieved incredible success, holding a record in Guiness Book of Records as the highest profit-to-cost ratio of a motion picture, and only losing the record in 2000 to the The Blair Witch Project. The film was totally financed independently and had a reported budget of $300,000 AUD - of which $15000 was paid to Mel Gibson for his performance - and went on to earn $100 million world wide. The film was awarded four Australian Film Institute Awards in 1979.

When the film was first released in America, all the voices, including that of Mel Gibson's character, were dubbed with US accents at the behest of the distributor, American International Pictures, for fear that audiences would not take warmly to actors speaking entirely with Australian accents. The only exception was the singer in the Sugartown Cabaret, played by Robina Chaffey. The original Australian dialogue track was finally released in the U.S. in 2000 in a limited theatrical reissue by MGM, the film's current rights holders (it has since been released domestically on video).

Two sequels followed, Mad Max 2, and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, while a fourth movie, Mad Max 4: Fury Road, is in hiatus. Some consider Mad Max 2 to be a retreatment of the original premise, using similar themes, characters and images, rather than a true sequel.

Due to the film's low budget, all the vehicles in the film were just existing vehicles of that era modified. The yellow pursuit cars were originally used as police cars.

Max's yellow Interceptor, is a 1973 Ford Falcon GT Coupe with a 300bhp 351C V-8 engine, customised with the front end of a Ford Fairmont and other modifications. Likewise the black Interceptor was a standard production Ford XB Falcon Hardtop, sold in Australia from December 1973 to August 1976, modified by the film's art director Jon Dowding.

Of the motor cycles that appear in the film 14 were donated by Kawasaki, and a local Victorian motor cycle gang, The Vigilantes, appear as members of Toecutter's Gang. By the end of filming, 14 vehicles had been destroyed as a result of all the stunts.

The Good Guys:

Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson): MFP officer, very adept, self-controlled the main character

Jim Goose: MFP officer, relatively adept but wild, gets burned nearly to death by the toecutter

Roop: MFP officer, somewhat inept and argumentative

Charlie: MFP officer, somewhat inept and argumentative

The Bad Guys (the biker gang members):

Mad Max •Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior •Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome •Mad Max 4: Fury Road

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