Touch the Sun – Top Enders

Clip 2: ‘Wake up, ya mongrel’

2 min 3 sec

Taken from the TV program Touch the Sun – Top Enders (1988)

Original title classification G – this clip chosen to be G

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Availability of the complete title

Please be aware that this clip may contain the names, images and voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who may now be deceased.

Curator’s clip description

Alice (Bennendine Woods) is hitchhiking and a ute stops to pick her up. When she sees classmate Mick (Donald Dale) already in the car, she reluctantly gets in. The driver is drunk, tired and driving erratically. When he refuses Alice’s offer to drive Mick and Alice get out.

Curator’s notes

Again this scene breaks all the rules. Drink driving, hitchhiking and no seatbelts all add up to a total disregard for safety but the strong-minded Alice is not prepared to put up with it. This scene really captures the larrikin frontier nature of life in the outback that is so different to city living down south. I particularly love the driver’s response to Alice’s offer to drive – there is no problem at all with her being a kid, it’s because she’s a ‘shelia’!

Annemaree O'Brien, curator

australian screen