Mad Max - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[lonnie]

Max's yellow interceptor car, a Ford Falcon XB coupe, was originally a police car from the Australian state of Victoria.

[gabriel]

In New Zealand, the film was given the R18 rating for graphic violence.

[nina]

George 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 too unappealing.

[janice]

Only two original Interceptors were used in the Mad Max movies. The one that was used in this film was modified and reused in all of the interior and close-up car shots in Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981). After filming was over, this Interceptor was bought and restored by Bob Fursenko, and was on display in the "Cars of the Stars Motor Museum" in England. The Cars of the Stars Motor Museum was in the English town of Keswick, Cumbria, and included a collection of celebrity television and film vehicles. On May 8, 2011, the attraction closed, with a message on the museum website stating "...check the website for details of the relocation of the vehicles to a new location shortly..." As of December 2011, all the cars have been sold, except for the original Only Fools and Horses (1981) Reliant van. Another car was built for the chase scenes in the second movie, but that one was destroyed when the script required it to be pushed off the road and blown up. The wreckage used to be viewable at Broken Hill, Australia, but due to thefts it can't be found there any longer. The Planet Hollywood Interceptor is a replica and was never used in any of the films.

[liam]

The only film in the franchise to have the R18 rating in New Zealand.

[beth]

George Miller paid a truck driver fifty dollars to run over the bike at the final scene. However, the truck driver didn't want to damage his rig; thus the crew had to install a shield painted to look like the front of the rig.

[amber]

Bubba Zanetti (Geoff Parry) shoots Max through the kneecap with his Mauser C96 during an ambush. It is because of this injury why Max wears the squeaking makeshift leg brace in the sequels.

[mathew]

The scene at the end with Max chaining Johnny the Boy to a truck about to explode and leaving him a saw to either attempt to saw through the chain or his own limb is similar to a scene from the Watchmen graphic novel where, in a flashback, Walter Kovacs/Rorschach finds a child molester and murderer who butchered a little girl and fed her remains to his dogs. In the graphic novel, Kovacs handcuffs the man to a pipe and leaves him a hand-saw to cut himself loose either through the pipe or the leg. At the same time, Kovacs sets a fire in the man's house and leaves the man to his fate. The only difference in the scene from the Watchmen graphic novel and Mad Max is that Kovacs takes the saw from the man and it is confirmed that he burns to death while Johnny the Boy is not confirmed to have died in the explosion.

[bernard]

George Miller mounted cameras on the cars, to put the audience in the middle of the action.

[frederick]

According to several interviews with George Miller during pre-production period - the original script was a satire on the speed mentality on the road, kids on fast bikes, fast cars, scavenger tow trucks and ambulances, it was more satirical concerning car accidents, the scarcity of car parts and mechanics-looters, while the film is rather a car-action movie on the confrontation between road cops and biker gangs, psychological thriller and revenge story. However, some elements of the original conceive can be seen as the background and setting of the main story. Also in the original script Max has a driving partner named The Dark One, whose initials Max's car still has on right fender in the film.

[ken]

George Miller described the film as "a western in new clothes".

[jessica]

This movie was banned in New Zealand for the scene when Goose is burned alive inside of his vehicle. It mirrored an incident with a real gang not long before the film came out. It was later shown in New Zealand in 1983, after the huge success of the sequel Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981), but only as long as it had an R18 certificate.

[ruby]

Sound engineer Roger Savage would perform the sound mixing in the studio. He worked after finishing his work with Little River Band, and employed timecoding techniques that were unseen in Australian cinema.

[marc]

The "get-out-of-jail-free card" that Goose gives the triker was an on-set joke. Because of the limited budget, the biker gang was an actual biker gang (the Vigilantes), and they had to ride to the set each day in-costume; often with their prop weapons displayed. Since the production company expected them to be pulled over by the local police, each was given a letter explaining the film's peculiar requirements, and asking for law-enforcement's understanding and cooperation.