The Adventures of Barry McKenzie

A hit at the time but now better categorised as an Australian cult film. The humour is broad, unsubtle and, in the final scene where a BBC studio fire is extinguished by urinating on it, crude. Contains just about every cliche about the traditional Australian pilgrimage to 'the old country', and every cliche about those rapacious, stuck up, whinging, Tory Brits. Would be acceptable to the British because of its strong cast of well known actors, and to Australians of that generation, who can 'get' the humour. Americans -- forget it. The language and jokes are in the Australian dialect of English and as such will be unintelligible.

I'm trying to - and failing spectacularly - to think of a British - or U.S. - equivalent of the titular Barry MacKenzie and his so-called 'adventures'. After being 'required' to leave his native Down Under, young Barry Crocker (MacKenzie), with his Aunt Dame Edna Everage, jet to a fog-bound and freezing Britain (via Hong Kong, where he stocks up on high import duty luxury goods).

Nicely ripping off our UK stereotypes, we see their black cab motor past Stonehenge and then up the M3, to London. Not sure, geographically where the airport was, but as Bruce Beresford's popular filmed version of the comic-strip character that ran in Private Eye never seems to follow logic or reason, this doesn't matter an iota.

From the above over-charging cabbie, who cites windscreen-wiper depreciation and conversation as chargeable extras, the 'hotel' is no better. More sketch-lead than story, it's sporadic, in turns the best, grubbiest Aussie slang and humour but also tedious, lame and stupid.

It's still quite a tonic though, in these days of political correctness, reminding us of our faults as a nation, even if they're obvious targets and during probably our least salubrious decade. Dame Edna, oddly, looks much less feminine than 'she' does now, her voice still not having found its niche and wavers between warbling, mannish falsetto and a sore- throat sufferer. Barry Humphries (Dame Edna, of course) does better as the creepy psychiatrist who interviews Barry, after he suffers a bump on the head and ends up in hospital, but soon discharges him due to being just too much troublesome!

Peter Cook is a wasted opportunity, only appearing as an unfunny TV exec ten minutes before the end and a young Joan Bakewell as the resulting late night's arts programme interviewer/presenter, who gets the blunt end of MacKenzie's subtleties....

Meanwhile, the constantly running joke about 'tubes' (tinnies) of Fosters is a refreshing one, too.

It ranges between 7/10 to two, so five overall is a fair compromise, though on a good day, it could reach 6.

My DVD was part of the 12 disc boxed set, Australian Cinema Collection, to which I gently refer to with my review title.

This film was a stylistic, cultural and commercial breakthrough, the first hugely profitable Australian film in decades, and the start of the revival of the Australian film industry. The humour was utterly non-PC and outrageously crude for its day. At last the hideous ocker in England was portrayed on film in all his drunken ribald glory.

However time has not been kind to it. Some of the individual jokes are still hysterically funny, such as Spike Milligan's introduction to the hotel, the Indian aphrodisiacs, and Delamphrey's attempts at psychoanalysis. Other jokes have worn thin though having been adopted by the culture at large (e.g. the largely invented Australian slang) or use of similar jokes by other comedians. Much of the humour doesn't go beyond simply using the crude invented slang in conversation. Today it isn't particularly outrageous or funny. The purportedly stereotypical depictions of English snobbery and Australian crudity are too extreme and grotesque even for a comedy, and further detract from the effectiveness of the comedy.

Another major flaw is structural. "The Adventures of Barry Mackenzie" and its main character is based on a series of self-contained comic strips. A movie on the other hand is built around scenes of protracted dialogue, development within a scene, and development of the narrative across scenes. Indeed Humphries himself has stated he didn't believe his comic strips could be adapted for film for this very reason. As a result the film is highly episodic, with some very tendentious, unfunny and laboured links written to string the episodes together. This isn't helped by the fact that Humphries is essentially a solo performer whose stock-in-trade is the self-contained one-liner. He usually has a relatively brief setup (if any) leading to his jokes in stage performances. In consequence the dialogue is often stilted and unnatural, clumsily and unfunnily targetted towards the recitation of slang expressions or the delivery of some other self-contained comic idea. I don't normally criticise comedies for flaws in structure or logic because they are essentially vehicles for jokes, but in this case these flaws are distractingly obvious and jarring, and the jokes aren't funny enough to prevent the viewer noticing.

Still, the funniest of the jokes are classics, and overall it remains enjoyable. The sequel is funnier though, perhaps because it resolves (but only partially) some of the original's flaws.

On a historical note, the opening shot shows the Hegarty's private mini-ferry approaching the Luna Park pontoon wharf, which many Sydneysiders would fondly remember but neither of which now exist.

Yes, this is a movie, I would think, that only Australians can fully understand and probably only Australians that have been to England. But even Australians might not fully appreciate the depths of Humphrey's genius that is on display here. To make off with the idea that it is just a coarse movie about a drunken Australian virgin, albeit with some considerable charm, armed with a bookcase full of Australianisms to stick it up the Poms is to miss the gold that is really on offer. Look deeply enough and you can see what Barry Humphries was really thinking about Australia and England at the time, as well as a lot of other matters such as the entertainment industry, the police and Asian immigrants. It is very dated now, so people not born til the 80s will be struggling to understand the subtle references. Look past the obvious if you can. This is a rare gem, made for the few. Enjoy!

This film is probably one of the most grotesque I have ever had to watch. But it is also a masterpiece of writing and comic genius. Barry Crocker is brilliant as the naive Barry McKenzie, whilst Barry Humphries is superb as Edna Everidge.

There is also excellent support from the likes of Peter Cook, Dick Bentley, Dennis Price and William Rushton- actors and comedians who did what they did well.

An all-round classic: should be made compulsary viewing!