(first posted 9/8/2017) In the recent Australian Falcon tribute post there were a couple of comments about the Falcon’s movie and TV roles, starting with the obvious; the Interceptor Special from the Mad Max movies. This was one of the most iconic movie vehicles ever, and nearly as much a character in the film as any of the actors. Looking at Falcons on the big and small screen there are some prominent cases and some that are a little more obscure, so let’s have a look at some of them…
Do I need to say much about the Mad Max Interceptor? Perhaps yes, as there are probably a few misconceptions about the car still. The car started in real life as a repossessed 1973 Ford XB Falcon GT hardtop, one of just 891 built. With the addition of a “Concorde” fibreglass front end styled by Peter Arcadipane, who went on to design Mercedes-Benz, a fake supercharger, some Zoomie-style side pipes and the giant tyres that the rear flanks were designed to hold, it had some real screen presence.
The budget of the first film was so tight that the hero car was given to the mechanics that built it to settle the bill, so the producers had to buy the car back for the second Mad Max film. This was filmed in the NSW outback near Broken Hill, with some fairly major changes such as a pair of huge fuel tanks in the back.
The car was destroyed in the final car chase, but it is not beyond the realms of possibility that Max somehow returned from the land of the north and rebuilt the Interceptor, which is one explanation for how he ended up driving it in Mad Max: Fury Road.
I don’t think I should entirely ignore the other Pursuit cars from Mad Max, as they are also iconic enough as to have inspired people to build replicas. There were a pair of former HWP XB Falcons that would also have been powered by 351 Cleveland V8s, plus an ex-taxi XA Falcon that would have been a 6-cyl.
They played a part in some pretty impressive stunts, back when stuntmen earned their money and computers did not have graphics on their screens. The above shot is the car that crashed into the Mazda Bongo van and then through the caravan – where Charlie copped a saucepan to the throat.
Another GT Falcon hardtop, this time an XA featured in the gang-money-delivery-gone-wrong movie Two Hands (1999) as the ride of gang leader “Hando”, played by Bryan Brown. The movie is perhaps more important as Heath Ledger’s break-out role that set him on course for Hollywood. The XA played a suitably menacing presence in the film, stalking Ledger and co-star Rose Byrne as they ran. The car is still around in essentially the same form as in the movie (with a new registration number), with the main change from stock being a blacked-out grille.
Running On Empty dates from 1982 and could be compared to Two Lane Blacktop, with a couple of mates doing a bit of street racing, a country road trip, more street racing, another road trip and yet more street racing. The movie is as hokey as you might expect for a low-budget film with a pop star in the lead role, but a bit of good clean fun overall. The XY GT Falcon is the main car, including being completely rebuilt after it is destroyed (oops, spoiler! Not in the shot above either), but the other main cars, a Hemi Challenger and blown 55 Chevy are not bad either.
Wolf Creek (2005) is an outback serial-killer horror movie that has an XD Falcon station wagon as the victim’s car, and is well-cast as a typical backpacker-mobile.
The Hard Word (2002) was a heist film where a gang led by Guy Pearce rob the bookies after the Melbourne Cup, one of the richest horse races in the world and “the race that stops the nation”. The gang use a mid-1990s Falcon wagon in the course of the robbery and getaway.
There was another XA Falcon GT, this time a sedan, driven by the character Simmo in the film Chopper (2000), that gave Eric Bana his break. The car played a fairly minor role in the telling of the story of one of Australia’s most infamous criminals; the name Chopper refers to what he did to his ears.
Perhaps one of the most insignificant movie cars, but one that played a fairly integral role in its movie, it was the Falcon in Road To Nhill (1997). You’ve probably never heard of the film that featured some confusion about the location of a group of lawn bowlers who have crashed their car, and now that you’ve heard the plot outline I doubt you will feel the need to see it.
The 1967-69 children’s tv show Skippy that featured a remarkably intelligent and resourceful kangaroo also featured a couple of Falcon station wagons that were driven by Ranger Mike, the one above (XR) and the next model (XT).
The much-loved soap/drama A Country Practice, about a small country hospital and its surrounding community, ran for 13 years and 1,058 episodes. One of the main characters was plumber Bob Hatfield (Gordon Piper) who drove an old 1969-70 XW Falcon ute and got into numerous scrapes with his mate Cookie the cook at the local pub (hotel) in their schemes.
This is one of the few that have survived, and has been restored very nicely.
Every police show under the sun featured Falcon police cars, which mirrored real life at least from 1965-ish onwards, which was when they also took on a starring role in the police show Homicide, which ran for 12 years (1964-76). Everything from Matlock Police (1971-76) to Blue Heelers (1994-2006) and Rush (2008-11), but in most cases the Falcons were part of the scenery.
The other art-imitates-life role that Falcons can be seen basically everywhere is as a taxi. The 2015 film Last Cab to Darwin is the story of a taxi driver who is told he has terminal cancer and travels to Darwin where euthanasia is legal, and a Falcon station wagon is the titular vehicle.
Perhaps some of the more surprising Falcon appearances were in some big Hollywood blockbusters, as the country became a popular production location in the 1990s and 2000s. Some of these include Jackie Chan’s Mr Nice Guy (1997) which was filmed in Melbourne and surrounds, Mission Impossible II (2000) in Sydney above, the Matrix trilogy (Sydney) and many more.
Falcons often featured in car chases in these movies either in plain sight, or disguised if the film was set elsewhere as is the case with these police cars from Death Race 2 (2010) – note that this was actually shot in South Africa, where Falcons had been exported.
So that is it – I have avoided a couple of execrable ‘car movies’ and I know there will be more movies where the main characters drive a Falcon (or Fairmont or Fairlane), but are there any others I should have included here?
Most images sourced from the Internet Movie Cars Database http://www.imcdb.org/
It’s not really a Falcon, but a Ford P6 LTD found it’s way into the David Bowie “Let’s Dance” video.
I always thought that car was a Chrysler Cordoba but it just didn’t look right.
Me, too! I was befuddled beyond belief when I saw one on the road during my first trip to Australia in 1987. It wasn’t until a petrolhead guy in my tour group told me more about Aussie cars. Ah!
I was in an episode of Country Practice by accident I drove through the set on my way to buy lunch and the didnt edit it out, Gordon Pipers ute was a regular sight in Pitt Town on shooting days as was the cop’s orange coloured XD falcon police car.
That’s hilarious, Bryce! By a similar oddity, my mum ended up in an episode of Prisoner.
I wondered then and now why that cop car was orange; did NSW have such colours?
Plenty of odd coloured Falcon cop cars but they didnt mark them, the beatup Holden van I drove thru the scene in had SA plates it didnt look local I was sure they would edit me out. this was meant to be rural NSW, Outdoor scenes of Home and away were shot on the orchard I worked on, channel 7 had the filming rights for all the Macquarie towns.
Your 15 minutes (seconds?) of fame!
Interesting to note in the series “Homicide”, the first season opening credits used a Studebaker Lark, then a Ford Falcon following by a Holden and Aussie Chrysler Valiant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5WV5Z9EvoA
There’s more photos of this series at http://www.classicaustraliantv.com/homicide.htm
And I spotted a Aussie Falcon ad doing a tribute to the series Homicide.
With the mention of Matlock Police, here a clip showing 2 car chases from the same episode starring a Ford Falcon.
I loved Matlock Police as a little kid, watching those police Valiants screeching about. Even better, the baddies often crashed – what every kid wants. I could then re-enact it all with my Matchbox cars on the couch. Later on (about 84) my sister bought a 74 Valiant in white, three-on-the-tree, just like the show.
All I can say is those drivers on Matlock were bloody brave, for handle, it did not.
Still love the theme tune to this day. It sounds police-y and urgent and serious.
Took forever to hit 60 mph! What kind of a car chase is that?
The Aussie’s are big Studebaker fans. A lot of American Studebakers
and container loads of parts are exported to Australia. They even reproduce some hard to parts ans export them to the US and other places.
I used to do general freight trailer swaps here in NZ checking the manifest off each run usually revealed some small crates of Ford Model A parts to a local parts agent, Car parts move around the planet very easily, I recently bought 3k worth of new parts for my 66 Hillman, new window seals for Rootes cars come from one guy in Australia,
I love the dark maroon GT Falcon XA; it looks like something that would have done well in the states….although it’s probably all the familial styling cues that catch my eyes!! 🙂
Agree with your sentiment about the XA, lovely looking car, the saloon is not too shabby either. hope to catch a ride in one when I visit relations in Oz next year.
One great advantage for me is that they are right hand drive and are supposed to have better handling and braking than American cars. I have owned a number of American cars but their great width and left hand drive make them hard work to drive, and it spoils the fun when your nervous front seat passenger keeps telling me we were about to hit the oncoming car
Could sorely be tempted by one but never seen one in the UK
Width won’t be much of an advantage over a typical midsized American car, the 1966 Falcon was in essence a shortened American Fairlane, and the XA was bulked up a bit from the outgoing XY(which was a retrim of the original 1966/XR body)
I appreciate the Oz car is wide, however my 1969 Jaguar 420g was 6ft 4 ins wide but with right hand drive I had no real problem, at the time I also had 75 Cadillac Eldorado with left hand drive and it was a nightmare.
It was mostly the front seat passenger in the left hand drive cars who complained, my mother even said she did want to ride in them sitting on the right.
I love 1972 and older American cars, but the left hand drive spoils the driving experience for me and its doubtful I will own another one in the UK, if I ever move to a left hand drive country I would definitely have another American car as a hobby
The great bonnet length of the Eldorado was also a problem trying to make a right angle left or right turn on our residential streets, you had to poke a few feet into oncoming traffic just to see if anything was coming. basically it was totally unsuited to our driving conditions.
The dream did not match the reality, not just the driving experience , but also the quality of the Cadillac, the interior felt really cheap and the reason it rode well was they it was excessively and unnecessarily heavy, not any decent suspension setup. The back beam axle was located like a Mk 3 Corrtina !
XAs could be appalling rust buckets my favourite was the XB the restyle made them they still rusted badly but looked better doing it, I went to Valiants because they were better cars.
Oh lord, I can still hear the A Country Practice theme song in my head. My mum watched that a lot when I was a kid. I still remember Cookie.
I might have to check out Two Hands, I’d never heard of it. Just watched the trailer… Heath Ledger sure was a heartthrob. And Rose Byrne is a phenomenal actress, and easily one of my favourite actresses: she can do comedy well (Bridesmaids, Bad Neighbors) but she is also a terrific dramatic actress. That she could hold her own against Glenn Close in Damages is testament to her talent. If you want to binge watch a season of something, watch the first season of that show.
It’s great when the Aussie film and TV industry makes stuff that matches the quality of overseas productions. The Hollowmen and A Place To Call Home are my two favourite Aussie shows and indeed two of my favourite shows ever. No Falcons in the latter though, as it’s set in the 1950s. Our non-Australian curbsiders should check it out for a look at Australia in the 1950s and some genuine classics (not to mention a lot of mystery and intrigue and family drama).
Yes, watch “Two Hands” – it’s up there with “Crooked Business” and “Getting Square” as crime drama with comedy. Quirkily regional fun you just know is true on some level.
I dislike seeing cars destroyed on film and was somewhat anxious when the Falcon was stolen, and then almost cheering at the subsequent grim demise of the thief…hahaha! Lordy, did they make their point!
The depiction of Kings Cross seediness in full sunshine is spot on. Almost triggers homesickness, we lived a block from the fountain from 1990 until about 1996
You forgot the most bizarre Austrian film ever made, one that heavily featured all sorts of cars….https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKrZ8eTcdK4.
A quote from the trailer “one of the most bizarre films ever made”…
I have seen part of The Cars That Ate Paris, not sure I’ve seen the whole thing though.
IMCDB shows one Falcon… (1970-71 XY wagon)
But it is the spikey VW that featured on all the promotions for this film.
A very weird and delightful film made by a terrific director. Peter Weir is one of Australia’s gifts to the world.
And nearly all of his films (Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Truman Show, The Last Wave, etc.) carry forward the element of other worldly strangeness found in Cars that Ate Paris.
I can’t connect Fury Road to the previous Mad Max films, despite my enjoyment of all of them. Personally, I subscribe to wild theory that the feral kid is emulating Max, and I personally base that in part on the details of the interceptor.
I find it very very unlikely Max would rebuild it considering it’s destruction, it took a team of people to rebuild it and pull out the dents after it was wrecked and stolen from him in Fury Road itself, Max the loaner after The Road Warrior(Mad Max 2)? No way. At no point in any movie is he presented as being highly skilled at anything else but being a vehicular killer and scavenger, everything he possessed was in a state of disrepair, and every posession was stolen – including the Interceptor itself in Mad Max 1.
Besides that, the Interceptor in Fury Road not only doesn’t look realistically rebuilt from the state we saw it destroyed in The Road Warrior, it doesn’t even fully resemble what it was prior. It looks replicated in a very vague way, the kind of way you’d recall from childhood memory, where the most noticeable details you recall are there – concord nose, blower, roof wing and zoomies – but the smaller subtle details, obscured partially by the wear between the first two films, are noticeably absent – matte black striping, XC Cobra ductail spoiler ends. The filmmakers had a whole lot of reference to how the original looked thanks to the internet so I doubt it was the result of some hasty oversight, but an intentional clue as to who the Max we see really is.
Interesting theory, XR7. The Max from Road Warrior and Thunderdome didn’t strike me either as a guy with a lot of sentimental attachments. His Interceptor is destroyed? He’ll scavenge something else. In fact he did scavenge that off-road bullet thing at the end of Road Warrior (though being so exposed probably wouldn’t have suited him for long) The feral kid, however, did exhibit attachments…the music box. Perhaps the Interceptor in Fury Road did indeed symbolize his attachment to Max. Like I said, interesting theory; one that begs for a marathon.
Goes without mention that the yellow interceptor from Mad Max has one of the most EPIC start up sequences. Go watch it yourself, from 0:29 to 0:35. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKpE-ottdfM translated into Spanish.
I watched Last Cab to Darwin, great movie. Those wagons are almost extinct as taxis. Being increasingly replaced by Camrys
Probably one of my favorite scenes from the movie.
If the interface between the Australian film and auto industries was anything like the US, Ford and Chrysler had MUCH more active product placement programs than GM in the ’50s through ’70s, to the point where when the game shows wanted to give away Caddys in their peak era they had to source through, and plug, a local LA dealership (Casa de Cadillac in Sherman Oaks).
If that was the case in Australia, I’d expect the Falcon (and Valiant)-to-Holden ratio to be somewhat skewed compared to real life.
Thanks for a great article John! Hard to believe the original Mad Max was made on a tight budget. I remember seeing it when it first came out and was blown a way by the experience. I love the maroon GT Falcon!!
Until the Blair Witch Project it held the record for highest box office return to budget ratio, the budget was $350k, apparently they had either $20k or $35k to spend on vehicles for the whole film.
I’ve also read about all sorts of things being begged or borrowed for the film, sometimes without the owners’ knowledge! Things like props & set decoration, such as things being ‘borrowed’ from somewhere on a Friday night, used for filming on the weekend and ‘returned’ Sunday night so hopefully nobody would be the wiser.
The marron GT looks awesomely bad ass!!!!
The first Mad Max movie is in my top 5 car movies of all time.
Australia has only produced television of the low-rent, low-IQ variety, with rare exceptions. (Much better in the sparse film industry, plenty of great work). Two of those exceptions are Sea Change (about ’98), a beautifully written comedy series where I recall the female star drove wagon E39 Bimmer, rare then and now, and Mother and Son, made from about ’83-on. This was notable for the Morris Minor convertible the main character drove (so notable it ended up in the foyer of ABC headquarters for years), and for the fact that it was a properly funny show about a mid-30’s son living with his mum – who has dementia. Apparently, US Tv execs in the land of The Golden Girls (actually not a bad show) were aghast when shown it. Not for here, they said.
Great post, John. Many memories. (Btw, I liked Road to Nhill, eccentric, documentary-like sketch of a Western District aged and disappearing, though I’d agree it ain’t exactly thrilling!)
Superman Returns featured a number of EA and EB Falcons that were dressed as Metropolis Taxis. I saw one up close at Fox Studios when it was being filmed and it even had a fake steering wheel on the right hand side.
Interesting a comment above from 2017 says, “Falcon wagons almost extinct as taxis,.”
The town I lived in until earlier this year has a Falcon wagon still doing taxi duty, it was recently repainted so who knows how long it will be in use, a truly noble beast of burden.