A handsome young Australian with a moustache and a head of curly hair knocked at my office door and introduced himself as Roger Donaldson. He had been living in New Zealand since 1965, an escapee from conscription into the Australian Army deployed in Vietnam, and now wanting to make a movie of my novel Smith’s Dream. He had engaged the actor Sam Neill, who was on the brink of giving up acting; and of the cinematographer Michael Seresin. These three would go on to make such distinguished careers for themselves it’s not too much to say each in his own way became famous —rich and famous; not because of Sleeping Dogs, as Smith’s Dream became in the movie version, but it gave them each their start. Ian Mune was to act in it and to be one of two script-writers.
There was a contract which committed the film-makers to paying $5,000 for the option, which I was split 75:25 with the publisher Longman Paul. I was also promised 2.5% of all receipts for overseas releases and any video or electronic returns. My $3,750 share of the initial option was all I ever received, but that seemed a lot at the time, and I was astonished then, and thereafter, at the energy, practicality, confidence and general good sense Roger brought to the business of movie making. Sleeping Dogs, looked back at now, seems a creaky old product, not well scripted, unsubtle, overblown, but it was a first—the first New Zealand commercial movie filmed in 35mm and the first to have international release.
I signed up, agreeing that Roger go ahead, not really expecting to hear more, and flew off at the end of 1976 with the family to London, where from time to time letters from friends and newspaper clippings kept me aware that the project was in fact happening at great speed.
We arrived back in August 1977, just in time to see the first private screening of Sleeping Dogs at a small theatrette in the Civic cinema, just ahead of public release. I was struck early on in the movie by how well it worked by contrasts, juxtaposing the calmness and beauty of the Coromandel scenes and the violence in the streets of Auckland. But as the movie went on what I am now able to think of as Roger Donaldson’s (and also Ian Mune’s, as one of the script-writers) characteristic faults began to show: overstatement, melodrama, and a casualness about plausibility. I remain an admirer of Donaldson for his practicality, his charm and refusal to be stopped by obstacles (who else could have persuaded the New Zealand Air Force to provide fighter planes and aerial attacks at no cost?) and when asked at the time, I spoke only positively and admiringly of what he had done. But I did regret especially the script and the loss of any political subtlety or depth. Ian’s idea of theatrical riches did not seem to relate to language so much as to volume. It was as if, when finding himself at a loss for where to go to next, he had a character get very angry and shout, “You bast-ard!” Ian had also written a very long death for himself, which involved an exceedingly protracted downhill roll.
A New Zealand feature film was a rare event and Sleeping Dogs showed all over New Zealand to full houses. Sam Neill’s movie career was launched; so was Roger’s, who would follow with Smash Palace, starring Bruno Lawrence. The paperback of Smith’s Dream was released yet again with, on the cover, a still from the movie of Sam and Ian up to their waists in a cold stream; and it seemed for some years almost every secondary school child in the country studied the novel, and usually the film with it.
News came that Roger and Ian would be taking Sleeping Dogs to the Cannes Film Festival and its local success continued. I received thundering messages of congratulation from far left groups (including one from the Marxist Leninist Workers Party) who saw Smith’s Dream as a forecast of where capitalism was taking us—into fascism and the American way—a view which was in turn promoted by the behaviour of Rob Muldoon, elected prime minister in 1975.
Muldoon was politically unscrupulous. His use of the language could be impressive, but the eloquence and fluency which came naturally to him was mostly overlooked because the strongest impression his speeches made was their uncompromising abrasiveness and aggression. Many people were alarmed and there were calls to talkback radio referring to Smith’s Dream and saying the character of Volkner, who takes control of the country and calls in the Americans to help against freedom fighters in the hills, was based on, or meant to be, Muldoon.
Towards the end of 1978, there was a visit to New Zealand by the West German president Walter Scheel, and the University of Auckland decided to confer an honorary doctorate on him. The event was in the grounds and gardens of Old Government House, and when the speech was over, our chancellor, Henry Cooper, introduced Kay and me to Muldoon, who said at once, looking at me, “Oh, so you’re that one, are you?” He was thinking of Smith’s Dream—and more particularly of the movie. “They were saying it was about me,” he said.
He explained that he never went to the movies these days—his presence drew too much attention —but he’d felt he had to arrange for a private showing of Sleeping Dogs so he could check on why this was being said about it and about him.
I explained that he was not so well known, and was in fact in the Opposition, when I was writing the book. Muldoon hoisted his cheek scar and uttered his famous mirthless laugh. “Uhk, uhk, uhk…”
Another person who did not normally go to the cinema was Frank Sargeson. Movies never figured in his conversation, and my guess is that if he had been to one since the old silent screen days, it might have been during World War II. But he came with me to see Sleeping Dogs. He looked stunned afterwards and had nothing to say. He might have thought it was awful—and just as movie making, I suppose it was; but I suspect if I’d asked what he thought, he would have said, “Buggered if I know, Karl.” It’s the occasion that stays with me, like a little piece of our literary history.
Taken with kind permission from You Have A Lot to Lose: A Memoir 1956-1986 by CK Stead (Auckland University Press, 2020).
