Mad Dog Morgan (1976) on Netflix
In 1850s Australia, Irish fortune seeker Daniel Morgan joins the gold rush, then is sent to prison for highway robbery. Freed, he becomes a bushranger with Billy, an Aboriginal man.
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- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb6.1/102,126 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Trailer
Plot summary
Australia in the 1850s. Daniel Morgan, like hundreds of other ex-patriots from the British Isles (he is from Ireland), has come Downunder to seek his fortune. There is a gold rush going on, and Morgan wants to strike it rich. As fate would have it, Morgan soon finds himself on the other side of the law, broke and desperate. A single act of highway robbery gets him 12 years of hard labor. While in prison, he is systematically abused. Upon release, Morgan vows revenge on those who wronged him. With the help of an aborigine named Billy, and a growing legend of audacity, Morgan soon becomes a hero. The locals love him, while the wealthy and powerful fear his influence. They want this outlaw dead or alive, and will stop at nothing to see that their sense of justice is done. But Morgan only wants those to pay for the crimes they have committed, to recognize that he wasn't always a bushranger - he was made into one. It wasn't only his mind that made him bad. It was society that turned him into Mad Dog Morgan.
Cast
- Wallas Eatonas Macpherson
- Liza Lee-Atkinsonas Barmaid
- Elaine Baillieas Farm Girl
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Mad Dog Morgan (1976)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Their first choice Stacy Keach turned it down and Martin Sheen and Jason Miller expressed interest in playing Daniel Morgan, but director Philippe Mora cast Dennis Hopper after flying to Taos, New Mexico and finding him at the end of the runway in tattered Levis, holding a rifle; Hopper's fee was $50,000.
- At the finish of the shoot Hopper rode off in costume, poured a bottle of O.P. rum into the real Morgan's grave, drank one himself, and was arrested and deported the next day with a blood-alcohol reading the judge said meant he should have been clinically dead.
- Mora said Hopper was difficult during the making of the film, constantly imbibing drink and drugs, with every drug dealer and hippie in Australia gravitating to him; even so, he could be very professional, a skilful improviser who gave what Mora called a really extraordinary performance.
- The film's title screen copyright notice got the Roman numerals wrong, reading MCMDXXVI when the D (500) should have been an L (50); under American law that would have invalidated the copyright entirely and placed the film in the public domain, though Australian law had no such requirement.
- Mad Dog Morgan was the last film for actor Bob McDarra, who died ten days after finishing his scenes on the movie.
