The Adventures Of Barry McKenzie (1972)
A sex-hungry Australian (pardon the tautology) gets into all
kinds of trouble on a visit to the Mother Country in a movie which
is funny, crude and tasteless - just like Australians (I'm allowed
to say that because I am one).
Unfortunately the film is poorly
produced, and the combination of bad sound recording and an
abundance of Australian slang ('strine') makes much of the film
unintelligible.
But if you're a fan of Antipodean bad taste (or you ever lived
in the London suburb of Earls Court) you'll love The Adventures
Of Barry McKenzie and the superior 1974 sequel, Barry
McKenzie Holds His Own.
This film - produced by Phillip Adams and adapted for the
screen by Barry Humphries from his popular comic strip character,
Bazza, which appeared in Private Eye - was the first
truly Australian feature for decades.
The critics hated it but the audience turned up in droves to
belly laugh their way through it. They loved its mixture of
slapstick larrikinism, beer-swilling and throwing up or whatever
colourful term you use for the infamous technicolour yawn.
Barrington Bradman Bing McKenzie ("Bazza" to his
mates) inherits $2,000 on the condition that he leaves Australia
for the United Kingdom immediately "to further the cultural
and intellectual traditions of the McKenzie dynasty." And so
begin the adventures of a colonial boy in England.
The Adventures Of Barry McKenzie became the first
Australian movie to make a million dollars. It went on to make
many millions, and it also made the careers of many.
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