Chips Rafferty made the laconic Australian bushman persuasive through dry humour and an unforced physical presence. We rate him most highly when that familiar steadiness becomes unsettling, as it does in Wake in Fright.
Fi1m perspective
In Wake in Fright (1971), Chips Rafferty's familiar plainness becomes unsettling. As Jock Crawford, he brings a quiet menace to Ted Kotcheff's outback thriller, where an offer of a drink becomes difficult to refuse. We felt cornered by that hospitality, because an ordinary social exchange begins to make refusal seem dangerous. Rafferty needs little display to belong in this company, and the performance makes good use of a manner long associated with straightforward Australian men. We rate him highly here for making that familiar figure troubling without insisting that we notice the acting.
That figure had taken shape in Charles Chauvel's Forty Thousand Horsemen (1940) and found its defining role in Harry Watt's The Overlanders (1946). As Dan McAlpine in the latter, Rafferty gave the laconic bushman a recognisable physical presence: tall, lean and apparently uninterested in impressing anyone. The irreverent humour mattered as much as the toughness. It helped the soldiers, drovers and policemen he often played avoid the solemnity that can make a screen representative of an entire country such hard work to watch.
The limitation was how often he was asked to be that man. His casting as a dramatic lead in Eureka Stockade (1949) drew criticism, a useful qualification to the idea that his natural presence suited everything. Work in British and American productions through the 1950s and 1960s included a supporting part as Quinlan in The Sundowners (1960). Yet a wider working life did not remove the risk of being asked to supply a recognisable Australian and little else. The toughness needed a character behind it.
Kotcheff's film puts that type among men whose friendliness is frightening, and Rafferty's restraint helps make the situation credible. We would start with this final film role before going back to Watt's bushman, rather than treating the later work as an afterthought. Wake in Fright does repeat its lessons about men, a weakness that the strong acting cannot entirely disguise. Its real animal cruelty also needs a firm warning; this is no casual choice for an evening.
Biography
Chips Rafferty, born John William Pilbean Goffage, was an Australian actor. He appeared in films from the late 1930s until his death, often in roles depicting rugged outback or military characters.
His notable credits include Forty Thousand Horsemen (1940), The Overlanders (1946), The Desert Rats (1953), The Sundowners (1960), Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) and Wake in Fright (1971), in which he played Jock Crawford. He also appeared in British and American productions and received an MBE for services to the performing arts.
Rafferty died of a heart attack in Sydney on 27 May 1971, shortly after completing Wake in Fright.
