Barry McKenzie Holds His Own

Release date:

1974 Australia

Running time:

93' (cover 95') - Source: VHS PAL

Rating:

UK: 18; US: NR

Main Crew:

Director: Bruce Beresford (Paradise Road 1997; Driving Miss Daisy 1989)
Producer: Reg Grundy Productions
Score: Peter Best
Writer: Barry Humphries / Bruce Beresford
Director of photography: Donald McAlpine

Cast:

Summary:

Returning from London to Sydney, the self-confessed megastar Dame Edna Everage (Barry Humphries) and her hapless nephew Barry McKenzie (Barry Crocker) stop over to sample the delights of Paris.
Unknown to them, Dame Edna has been mistaken for the Queen of England by two Transylvanian hitmen, who who kidnap and deliver her to the sinister Count Plasma (Donald Pleasance), who is keen to boost his country's tourist industry.
After a chance meeting with his long lost twin brother Kev the Rev (also played by Barry Crocker), to whom Holy Orders means the last round of "Fosters", Barry and a retinue of ex-patriot Australians set about rescuing the Dame in distress.
The excitement brews until, after a hiccup or two where our heroes are "thrown up" against seemingly impossible odds, they manage to keep it up right to the climax, narrowly avoiding a sticky end.

Note:

- Following the big success of "The Adventures Of Barry McKenzie" (1972), the film (based on the popular comic strip character, originally called Buster Thompson, written by Barry Humphries, in the British satirical magazine "Private Eye") is billed as the only film in Australian with English subtitles, because the slang was hardly understandable for non-Australian viewers.
- The voice of Four-Eyes Fenton (Michael Newman) was replaced by that of pre-Hollywood director Bruce Beresford himself (who went on to make the Oscar-winner "Driving Miss Daisy"), who confessed that he was embarrassed by the film, and that he was unable to get work after making it, and feared his directing career had come to an end.
- In the course of the film there are numerous sight gags and sub plots most of which are either racist, sexist or both, and would not be tolerated if it were filmed today.
- Australia's then Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and his wife, Margaret, appear as themselves in a short scene at the end of the movie. Barry Humphries knew someone who lived in the Lodge (the Prime Minister's official residence), who arranged it.

Our Ranking

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