Movie review - "Barry McKenzie Holds His Own" (1974) ***

Reg Grundy is one of Australia's most successful showbiz entrepreneurs so it's a shame he hasn't dabbled more in filmmaking. He stumped up the cash for this film, a follow up to the ocker classic. 

This one has more of a "movie" plot - Edna is kidnapped by Transylvanians who think she's Queen Elizabeth II - but it's a movie movie plot, i.e. inherently silly one. Although the first Barry was episodic, it was based on a situation that was roughly realistic, i.e. an Aussie abroad in England. So it had a reality, a more solid foundation that this one. For instance, Barry and his mates are rooted in some kind of reality, whereas all the vampires aren't. You kind of wish for a plot they'd just have Barry do the tour of Europe, so he could have made fun of Germans, Italians, Greeks, etc. (You could have thrown in the Transyvlania stuff at the end if you'd really needed to.) 

But after starting the film hilariously in Paris the filmmakers flee back to the comfort and security of England, which we already saw in the first film, and then go on to Transylvania, which is funny, but not super funny because Australia doesn't have much of a connection with Transylvania.

The film is full of moments of brilliance, though: the opening spiel by Australia's Minister for Culture (holding a book, Venomous Toads of Australia), the expat commie Aussie (Dick Bentley), Ed Devereaux as Australia's high commissioner (in shorts and drinking fosters - Barry has more friends in this one), Clive James as a beer swilling film critic, Nell Campbell as a dancer on the Moulin Rogue (she later became Little Nell of Rocky Horror Picture Show fame), and Humphries lines are consistently dazzling.

Umbrella Entertainment did a typically brilliant DVD package - audio commentary from Barry Crocker, a good interview with Barry Humphries, trailers, a 50 minute 1974 doco done, as was the style at the time, by a pompous up himself reporter with too much hair and tight pants ("I'm reporting about a film and I'm on television - let's be superior"). In his interview Humphries claims that a producer ripped off his idea for a third Barry (i.e. Barry goes to America) for Crocodile Dundee, as if the fish out of water concept isn't the oldest one in Australian film comedy (eg Dad and Dave Come to Town): also McKenzie is an urban creature (though Humphries says his idea was to start with Bazza in the outback - which I think would have been strange), and based on his track record Humphries would have been totally withering of Americans and American culture, whereas the secret to the success of the Hogan movies lay in the underlying affection between Australian and America.

Apparently this made a profit - why no third? Well, Australia's preference for ocker sex comedies only lasted a short time - the first half of the 70s, really (it lasted a bit longer in England but here the pressure to end the genre earlier was greater due to the fact government money was involved - could you defend public money being spent on Alvin Purple?); like England, though, we got sick of it and there was a "period" backlash - out went bare breasts and lechery, in came long skirts and adaptations of coming of age novels (there were sporadic attempts to revive the genre, eg The Journalist, Pacific Banana, but they didn't last).