Mad Max is a 1979 Australian dystopian action film directed by George Miller in his directorial debut, who co-wrote the screenplay with James McCausland, based on a story by Miller and Byron Kennedy. Mel Gibson stars as "Mad" Max Rockatansky, a police officer turned vigilante in a dystopian near-future Australia in the midst of societal collapse. Joanne Samuel, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Steve Bisley, Tim Burns and Roger Ward also appear in supporting roles.
Principal photography for Mad Max took place in and around Melbourne and lasted for six weeks. The film initially received a polarised reception upon its release in April 1979, although it won four AACTA Awards. Filmed on a budget of A$400,000, it earned more than US$100 million worldwide in gross revenue and set a Guinness record for most profitable film. The success of Mad Max has been credited for further opening the global market to Australian New Wave films.
Mad Max became the first in the series, giving rise to three sequels: Mad Max 2 (1981), Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) and Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). A spin-off film titled Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga was released in 2024.
Plot
A dystopian near-future Australia is facing a breakdown of civil order primarily owing to widespread oil shortages and ecocide. The berserk motorbike gang member Crawford "Nightrider" Montazano kills a rookie officer of the poorly funded Main Force Patrol (MFP)—one of the last remaining law enforcement agencies—and escapes with his girlfriend in a Pursuit Special. Nightrider is able to elude the MFP until the organisation's top pursuit man Max Rockatansky manages to steer him into a roadblock, resulting in a fiery crash that kills both Nightrider and his girlfriend.
At the MFP garage, Max is shown his new police car: a specially built V8-powered and supercharged black Pursuit Special. A conversation between Max's superior Captain Fred "Fifi" Macaffee and Police commissioner Labatouche reveals the Pursuit Special was authorised to bribe Max, who is becoming weary of police work, into staying on the force. Nightrider's motorbike gang, which is led by Toecutter and Bubba Zanetti, run riot in a town, vandalising property, stealing fuel and terrorising the populace. A young couple attempts to escape, but the gang destroys their car and assaults them. Max and fellow officer Jim "Goose" Rains arrest Toecutter's young protégé Johnny the Boy at the scene. No witnesses appear in court and Johnny is deemed mentally unfit to stand trial. Against Goose's furious objections, Johnny is released into Bubba's custody.
While Goose visits a nightclub in the city that night, Johnny sabotages his police motorbike, causing it to lock up at high speed the next day and launch Goose off the road. Dazed but uninjured, Goose borrows a ute to haul his bike back to MFP headquarters. On the way, Johnny throws a brake drum through his windscreen and Goose crashes again. Toecutter urges and forces a reluctant Johnny to throw a match into the wreck of the ute, burning Goose alive. After seeing Goose's charred body in the hospital ICU, Max informs Fifi that he is resigning from the MFP to save what is left of his sanity. Fifi convinces him to take some time off before committing to his decision, so Max goes on a trip in his panel van with his wife Jessie and infant son "Sprog" (Australian slang for a child). When they stop to fix the spare tyre, Jessie takes Sprog to get ice cream and is accosted by Toecutter and his gang. She escapes and the family hides on a remote farm owned by an elderly friend, May Swaisey.
The gang continues pursuing Jessie through the woods, capturing Sprog while Max is out looking for them. May helps Jessie free the boy and the trio escapes in the station wagon, which then breaks down. Jessie grabs Sprog and runs down the road until the gang simply runs them over. Sprog is killed instantly, while a comatose Jessie is held in the ICU, in critical condition. Driven into a rage by the attack on his family, Max dons his police uniform and takes the black Pursuit Special, without authorisation, to pursue and eliminate the gang members. He kills several of them before being caught in a trap set by Toecutter, Bubba and Johnny; Bubba shoots Max in the leg and drives over his arm. Max is then able to shoot Bubba, in return, with a sawn-off shotgun. Toecutter and Johnny ride off; Max staggers to his car and chases Toecutter, whom he forces into the path of an approaching semi-trailer, killing him.
Finally, Max finds Johnny at the scene of a car wreck, stealing the boots of the deceased driver. He argues he is not to blame in the deaths of Max's family, but Max handcuffs Johnny's foot to the overturned vehicle and creates a crude time-delay fuse using leaking petroleum and Johnny's own cigarette lighter. He gives Johnny a hacksaw, saying Johnny can either try to saw through the handcuffs in time to escape or take the quicker route of sawing through his own ankle. Max leaves Johnny to make his choice and drives away, with the vehicle blowing up in the distance.
Cast
Mel Gibson as Max Rockatansky, a police officer in the Main Force Patrol (MFP) Joanne Samuel as Jessie Rockatansky, Max's wife Hugh Keays-Byrne as Toecutter, the leader of a motorcycle gang Steve Bisley as Jim "Goose" Rains, a member of the MFP's motorcycle unit Tim Burns as Johnny the Boy, a young member of Toecutter's gang Roger Ward as Fred "Fifi" Macaffee, Max's MFP captain David Bracks as Mudguts, a member of Toecutter's gang David Cameron as Underground Mechanic, who builds the V-8 Pursuit Special Robina Chaffey as Singer, who performs at the Sugartown Cabaret Stephen Clark as Sarse, an MFP officer (Scuttle's partner) Reg Evans as Station Master Max Fairchild as Benno, May's large adult son, who has an intellectual disability Sheila Florance as May Swaisey, an old friend of Max Hunter Gibb as Lair, a man with a Chevvy who is attacked by Toecutter's gang Vincent Gil as Crawford "The Nightrider" Montazano, a member of Toecutter's gang Jonathan Hardy as Labatouche, an English-born police commissioner who oversees the MFP Brendan Heath as "Sprog" Rockatansky, Max and Jessie's infant son Paul Johnstone as Cundalini, a member of Toecutter's gang who loses a hand Nick Lathouris as Grease Rat, a mechanic near a beach John Ley as Charlie, a religious MFP officer (Roop's partner) Steve Millichamp as Roop, an MFP officer (Charlie's partner) George Novak as Scuttle, an MFP officer (Sarse's partner) Geoff Parry as Bubba Zanetti, Toecutter's second in command Lulu Pinkus as Nightrider's Girl Kim Sullivan as Girl in Chevvy, who, along with Lair, is attacked by Toecutter's gang Amanda Muggleton as Biker's Moll (uncredited) Lisa Aldenhoven as Nurse Karen Moregold as Radio Dispatcher (uncredited)
Production
Development George Miller was a medical doctor in Sydney, working in a hospital emergency room where he saw many injuries and deaths of the types depicted in the film. He also witnessed many car accidents growing up in rural Queensland and lost at least three friends to accidents as a teenager.Scott Murray & Peter Beilby, "George Miller: Director", Cinema Papers, May–June 1979 p369-371
While in residency at a Sydney hospital, Miller met amateur filmmaker Byron Kennedy at a summer film school in 1971. The two men produced a short film, Violence in the Cinema, Part 1, which was screened at a number of film festivals and won several awards. Eight years later, they produced Mad Max, working with first-time screenwriter James McCausland (who appears early in the film as the bearded man in an apron in front of the diner).
According to Miller, his interest while writing Mad Max was "a silent movie with sound", employing highly kinetic images reminiscent of Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd while the narrative itself was basic and simple. Miller believed that audiences would find his violent story more believable if set in a bleak dystopian future. He knew little about writing a script, but he had read Pauline Kael's essay "Raising Kane" and concluded that most major American scriptwriters, like Herman Mankiewicz and Ben Hecht, were former journalists, so he hired McCausland, the Melbourne finance editor of The Australian, with whom he had previously bonded at a party as a fellow film buff. McCausland was paid roughly $3,500 for about a year's worth of writing.
The basic concept for the film was already established when McCausland was brought on to the project. He worked from a one-page outline prepared by Miller, writing each evening from about 7 pm to midnight. Miller would then arrive at 6 am to confer. McCausland had never written a script before and did no formal or informal study in preparation, other than going repeatedly to the cinema with Miller and discussing the dramatic structure of westerns, road movies, and action films. McCausland described taking the lead in writing the dialogue, while Miller was concerned with giving his thoughts on the narrative context of each part and thinking through the visual beats of how things would unfold on screen. The ornate and hyper-verbal speech of Mad Max's villains, like the manic Nightrider in the opening sequence, which would recur through the subsequent films in the franchise, in this sense stems from McCausland's work, albeit under Miller's instruction.The Kennedy Miller Method: A Half-Century of Australian Screen Production pages 105-107 McCausland drew heavily from his observations of the effects of the 1973 oil crisis on Australian motorists:
Kennedy and Miller first took the film to Graham Burke of Roadshow, who was enthusiastic. The producers felt they would be unable to raise money from the government bodies "because Australian producers were making art films, and the corporations and commissions seemed to endorse them whole-heartedly", according to Kennedy.Peter Beilby & Scott Murray, "Byron Kennedy", Cinema Papers, May–June 1979 p366 They designed a 40-page presentation, circulated it widely, and eventually raised the money. Kennedy and Miller also contributed funds themselves by doing three months of emergency medical calls, with Kennedy driving the car while Miller did the doctoring. Miller claimed the final budget was between $350,000 and $400,000. His brother Bill Miller was an associate producer on the film.
Casting George Miller considered casting an American actor to "get the film seen as widely as possible" and even travelled to Los Angeles, but eventually opted to not do so as "the whole budget would be taken up by a so-called American name." Instead, the cast deliberately featured lesser-known actors, so they did not carry past associations with them. Miller's first choice for the role of Max was the Irish-born James Healey, who at the time worked at a Melbourne abattoir and was seeking a new acting job. Upon reading the script, Healey declined, finding the meager, terse dialogue unappealing.
Casting director Mitch Mathews invited a class of recent National Institute of Dramatic Art graduates to audition for Mad Max, specifically asking a NIDA teacher for "spunky young guys". Among these actors was American-born Mel Gibson, whose audition impressed Miller and Matthews and earned him the role of Max. An apocryphal tale stated that Gibson went to auditions with a beat-up face following a fight, but this has been denied by both Matthews and Miller. Gibson's friend and classmate Steve Bisley, who had worked with him in his only previous screen role, 1976's Summer City, was cast as Max's partner Jim Goose. A classmate of both, Judy Davis, has been said to have auditioned and been passed over, but Miller has declared she was only in Matthews' studio to accompany Gibson and Bisley.