Customer Reviews

Barry McKenzie Holds His Own [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.0 Import - Australia ]

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Funny Australian horror comedy mixes vulgar with tragic and vampires freely travel round the globe besides rather asexual Barry and his dress-crossing aunty Edna Everage.

Nice views of Paris and usual for this set of movies sarcastic attitude towards Australia-boarding outer world makes viewing easy and story laughable.

Much better than usual this guy's stories are, see, for instance
The Adventures of Barry Mckenzie

Well burn at the stake you heretics because Bazza and Dame Edna certainly would have been doing the dance of the flaming a***holes had this piece of iconic Aussie pisstake been screened at your local Hoyts today.

Nothing is sacred as racism, sexism, immigration, pommies and sheilas are all taken for a ride through Paris and Transylvania by Bazza and crew trying to rescue Dame Edna from the evil clutches of Count Plasma, a vampire with a taste for royal blood - Dame Ednas' that is, who is mistaken by the counts' agents for Queen Elizabeth.

When Bazza isn't sinking tinnies, trying to shag sheilas or otherwise take the piss out of poms,the movie was a courageous piece of irreverency with it's own sense of adventure.

Released in the 1970's when Australians were a nieve lot still tied to British apron strings, "Bazza Holds His Own" was at once crass, vulgar with all the panache of a B grade 8 millimetre video outing patched together by a collection of football yobbos from Frankston and yet presented a sublimely self deprecating take on the Australian persona as much as it was perceived by ourselves as how we believed it was perceived by other people overseas.

The Australian movie industry hadn't really found its feet and certainly hadn't beguiled Hollywood as it has today - there were no successful overseas aussie stars like the Russell Crowes or Mel Gibsons', Guy Pearces' or Kate Blanchetts'. The best we had managed was Chips Rafferty and the late great Michael Pate. (Sorry Chips you were a bonza bloke too).

Not that the film was about anything else other than a step into the intellectual rainforest that is the brilliantly parochial aussie mind of Barry Humphries and the still virgin director Bruce Beresford.

A saw the movie as a teenager many years ago and positively pissed my pants - it is really funny but I wonder if you have to be an aussie to catch on?

The sight gags would do the septics proud - in your face and so obvious the undeveloped brain of a foetus would catch on - for example, take Bazza on the top of the Eiffel Tower - he's had a few too many Fosters, doesn't cope with heights very well and makes a dash for the rail just as Barry humphries is looking up - you get the drift.

Call me a purile adolescent with all the sophistication of large cow pat but even now I am pissing myself with laughter just remembering that scene.

Considering the movie was done on a budget of several slabs of beer and a couple of tickets to the next Carlton V Collingwood bloodbath you have to admire Humphries for taking such a punt a second time after the first Bazza McKenzie flick made a few bob.

Even the Aussie PM of the day, Gough Whitlam makes a cameo. When interviewed about why he appeared in the film, he told the journo with a deadpan face, "We've all had to hold our own and I know I certainly have!".

If you want an insight into where the Australian psyche was headed from the 1970's onwards and how gloriously frank and fresh our penchant for self deprecation is then do yourself a favour and get this movie and don't forget - the Gladioli's are still available in the foyer today.

Kooee Cobber

I saw this in New York City the day it was released in the early 80's after Bruce Beresford's (the director of BMHHO) serious films became known in the States.

My mate John & I got there early because we knew there'd be lines (Yank for queues) for such a piece of art. There were exactly 3 people in the cinema - me and my mate and an Aussie ex-pat who sat in the middle of the front row in the empty cinema. As soon as the first lines of dialogue were spoken the ex-pat's body creased itself into paroxyms as he was unable to control his laughter. He spent most of the film curled up on the floor.

'Schindler's List' this ain't. But as an example of irreverent 'larrikin' humor it's superb. Bazza and Four Eyes Fenton picking their way through the dog turd strewn London pavements is a lovely scene. Amazingly politically incorrect. And starring renowned adult educator Michael Newman (author of 'Teaching Defiance') as Four Eyes Fenton (http://www.amazon.com/Teaching-Defiance-Strategies-Educators-Jossey-Bass/dp/0787985562/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326654414&sr=1-1).