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Barry McKenzie Holds His Own [1974] A sequel to The Adventures of Barry McKenzie, masterminded by Barry Humphries, who writes and takes a bunch of parts, and Bruce Beresford, who writes and directs. The Humphries who would become a British TV institution may well be as embarrassed by this clod-hopping crudeness as the Beresford who became known mainly for po-faced 'quality' films. It's a parade of puke, poof and pommie jokes with a slim plot: Dame Edna Everage [BH] is mistaken for the Queen by vampire spies Hugo Cretin [Louis Negin] and Modest Imbecile [Paul Humpoletz] and kidnapped to Transylvania for a state visit hosted by the vampire communist Minister of Tourism, Erich Count Plasma [Pleasence looking like Peter Sallis in a Lugosi wig and fangs]. Barry McKenzie [Barry Crocker] and his identical twin Kev the Rev [Crocker] join a team of Aussie commandoes - including a game Clive James, who takes part in the song and dance routines - stage a Where Eagles Dare-style rescue mission. There are some sexcom elements, with minor nudity, but for all his crude talk ["the kids at school used to reckon Kevin had two dongers... he couldn't have got as silly as that playin' with just one"], Barry McKenzie is rather a Puritan hero, appalled to find an Aussie sheila [Little Nell of The Rocky Horror Picture Show] being flogged in a Paris club, turning down a topless Katya Wyeth [Mircalla in Twins of Evil] and coming on to Rhonda Cutforth-Jones [Merdelle Jordine], a black photojournalist ["an abo," he exclaims] who has snapped him nude for a Cosmo-style women's mag, only to jump into her bed and be accused of pooftahood by her boyfriend. Typical dialogue exchanges … Rhonda: "An alarming number of men under twenty-five find themselves virgins." Barry: "Lucky bastards!"… Rhonda: "Christ would have dug the gay scene. Have you ever balled another chick, Mrs Everage." Dame Edna: "I may be old-fashioned, young woman, but lesbianism has always left a nasty taste in my mouth." There are a few almost subtle moments: Pleasence's vampire hosting
a dingy communist-bloc-style tourist film of ugly modern high-rises
which have replaced useless parks, a seam of jokes about Australia's
often-forgotten McCarthy-like anti-Communist crusade. It's kind of dreadful,
but packed full of interesting people and 1970s obsessions [a kung fu
expert Chinese cook]. Horror frills: a vampire impaled on French bread,
a cheery tourist film of Australian beaches with bloody sea monster
attacks, hunchback minion Dorothy [Robert Gillespie], seductive vampire
Clotilde [Nancy Blair], Dame Edna with a tap in her neck being decanted
into a bottle in the vampire's "vein cellar" [Plasma: "the
auto-vamp, a labour-saving contraption... it can suck you dry while
I for example mow the lawn or watch the Cup Final on TV'", a vampire-defying
cross made of cans of Foster's lager which reduces Plasma to a smoking
skeleton, and a Count Yorga ending with Barry's bitten sister-in-law.
That bizarro supporting cast: Aussie icons Dick Bentley ["a commo
sympathiser"] and Ed Devereaux, Arthur English, John le Mesurier,
Roy Kinnear [the Bishop of Paris], Frank Windsor, Deryck Guyler, Tommy
Trinder, Jerrold Wells [who did the tap-in-the-neck bit in Vault of
Horror], film critic Tony Rayns [!];Chantal Contouri [Thirst],
Fiona Richmond. Songs: 'A Raving Ratbag', 'Go and Stick Your Left Eye
in Hot Cocky Shit and Stick Your Head Up a Dead Bear's Bum'. Make-up
by Chris Tucker. First published in this form here. Visit Kim's Official Website at www.johnnyalucard.com
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