Australia So Much to See
Broken Hill, New South Wales - Movies, television series and commercials filmed in the Broken Hill area, including Silverton
Broken Hill has many literary connections. Crime writer Arthur Upfield developed a nostalgic association with the city after his first
visit in 1910 and published The Bachelors of Broken Hill in 1958.
Kenneth Cook's 1961 novel Wake in Fright—set in the fictional mining town of Bundanyabba—is a thinly disguised portrait of Broken Hill. Cook based the novel on eccentric ocker characters he befriended in Broken Hill, drawing on their penchant for ritualistic drinking, two-up, hunting and alfa-male mateship. The novel was adapted into a 1971 film of the same name, shot on location in Broken Hill and starring Broken Hill native Chips Rafferty in his final film role. Wake in Fright is now regarded as a seminal film of the Australian New Wave, attracting many more film productions to Broken Hill, Silverton and the surrounding region.
More recently, much of Australian novelist Max Barry's 2013 novel Lexicon was set
in Broken Hill.
Buildings in Silverton were used in movies filmed here, such as the 1886 built Catholic church which appearing in A Town Like Alice.
St Carthage Catholic church, now a private home, pictured at right, beyond one of the friendly Silverton donkeys.
References:
National Film and Sound Archive of Australia
Hollywood comes to Broken Hill
Films of Broken
Hill and Silverton
1936 Silver City – documentary
1953 Barrier Story - movie
1967 Journey out of Darkness – movie starring Konrad Matthaei, Ed Deveraux
and Kamahl
1970 Girl in Australia - movie
1970 Wake in Fright – movie with a cast including Chips Rafferty, who grew up in Broken Hill
1971
The Battle of Broken Hill (Mini-series)
1978 Golden Soak – television mini-series
1981 Mad Max 2 – movie starring Mel Gibson is the
most successful and best known movie filmed in Silverton and the adjacent Mundi Mundi Plains.
1981 Silverton became “Willstown”
for the three part mini-series production of A Town Like Alice starring Helen Morse and Bryan Brown. The verandah added to the
Silverton Hotel for the filming remains.
1982 Hostage - movie
1983 Razorback – movie
1983 The Camel Boy
1983 The Slim Dusty Movie
1984 The Long Way Home - movie
1985 Alice to Nowhere – television movie
1985 Comrades - movie
1986 A Place to Call Home – television
movie
1986 The Blue Lightning – television movie starring Sam Elliott and Rebecca Gilling
1987 As time goes by – movie comedy
1987 Dirtwater
Dynasty (mini-series)
1988 Outback Bound - American television movie
1988 Spirits of the Air: Gremlins of the Clouds
1989 The
Water Trolley – television movie
1990 Ring of Scorpio – television movie
1991 The Flying Doctors – television series
1992 Last Days
of Chez Nous – movie
1993 Reckless Kelly – movie comedy starring Yahoo Serious
1994 The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
– movie starring Hugo Weaving, Guy Pearce and Terence Stamp. Mario's Palace in Broken Hill, now trading as The Palace Hotel, has the
"tack-o-rama" mural featured in The Adventures of Priscilla.
1998 The Missing - movie
1999 The Craic - movie
2000 Mission Impossible
2 – movie starring Tom Cruise
2001 Dirty Deeds – movie starring an Australian cast including Bryan Brown and Toni Collette
2004 Godzilla:
Final War – Japanese movie and cast
2007 December Boys - movie
2008 Cactus – movie which also starred Bryan Brown
2013 Strangerland
– movie starring Nicole Kidman, Hugo Weaving and Guy Pearce
2014 2015 The Code – Television series
2015 Last Cab to Darwin – movie
starring Jacki Weaver and Michael Caton, with the story commencing in Broken Hill
The first film was the 1936 documentary about life in the mining town of Broken Hill. Movies and television productions which
had sequences filmed in the Broken Hill and Silverton area include:
There is a Mad Max Museum in Silverton (below), dedicated to the most well-known movie filmed here; Mad Max 2.
Mad Max memorabilia in the Silverton Hotel pictured at left.