George Miller hired a real biker gang for ‘Mad Max’
While Mad Max: Fury Road has taken the plaudits in recent years, and the 1981 sequel has, in retrospect, also got its good points, there is still an awful lot to be said for the original 1979 Mad Max, a movie which saw the birth of Mel Gibson’s film career and the advent of a new kind of action film.
Seeing as the film had such a meagre budget, the project had to eschew the hiring of any big-name Hollywood actors, which allowed recent drama school graduate Gibson securing the lead role of Max Rockatansky, even though he only attended the open casting to morally support his friend.
Discussing the small budget, George Miller said: “We had a budget of just $350,000. Byron and I were photocopying scripts and distributing them off the back of my bike. After filming the stunts, we swept the glass off the roads ourselves.” That DIY approach to the stunts was not the only feature of Mad Max’s production designed to keep costs to a minimum, though, as Miller also hired an interesting selection of individuals when it came to extras.
Bike cop Jim Goose and the leader of the biker outfit ‘Toecutter’ were portrayed by small-time Australian actors Steve Bisley and Hugh Keays-Byrne, respectively; the rest of the gang was comprised of a real-life criminal biker organisation.
After Miller listed an advert in a bike shop window, the local Victoria State bike gang, The Vigilantes, stepped forward. The benefit of this was that the gang knew how to ride bikes already and ride them well. ‘Johnny the Boy’ actor Tim Burns later noted: “They all wanted to ride the bikes as fast as possible, as often as possible, by their nature. Their riding was individually and collectively superb.”
Although a few professional stuntmen were hired, several of the film’s stunts were actually performed by The Vigilantes, including the scene towards its opening when Toecutter’s gang get riled up. The Vigilantes were not the only biker gang to be employed by Miller, though, as the Victorian Four Owners Club and The Barbarian Motorcycle Club also put their talents and bikes to the test in the film’s production.
Hugh Keays-Byrne actually got into character for the film by riding 550 miles from Sydney to Melbourne with the rest of the gang dressed in full costume. He later said of the “rehearsal” that it “was a good rehearsal. It was about three days, and we took the coast road. One of the most pre-occupying thoughts I had was not to look like those cowboys in the westerns who are never carrying enough kit to camp where they stopped.”
He continued: “I had enough kit, bags, and that huge axe – all of that had to be slid into the structure of the bike and not fucking kill me!” So while the gang were employed initially to keep the cost of production down, the real impact Miller’s decision had was to create an air of reality about the film that is still evident today.
