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Barry McKenzie Holds His Own
Barry McKenzie Holds His Own
	Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Bruce Beresford
Written by	Bruce Beresford; Barry Humphries
Produced by	Bruce Beresford
Starring	Barry Crocker; Barry Humphries; Donald Pleasence; Dick Bentley
Cinematography	Don McAlpine
Edited by	William Anderson
Music by	Peter Best
Production; company	Reg Grundy Productions
Distributed by	Roadshow (Australia)
Release date	12 December 1974;
Running time	93 minutes
Country	Australia
Language	English
Budget	A$450,000
Box office	A$1,407,000 (Australia)

Barry McKenzie Holds His Own is a 1974 Australian comedy film directed by Bruce Beresford and starring Barry Crocker, Barry Humphries and Donald Pleasence.^[2] It was written by Beresford and Humphries.

It was a sequel to the 1972 Australian comedy film The Adventures of Barry McKenzie.

The then Prime Minister of Australia, Gough Whitlam, along with his wife Margaret Whitlam, made cameo appearances as themselves.^[3]

Barry Humphries contended that Barry McKenzie was an inspiration for the later film Crocodile Dundee.^[4]

Plot

The film continues directly where The Adventures of Barry McKenzie ended with Barry McKenzie and his aunt Edna returning home to Australia from England.

During the flight two henchmen of Count Plasma (a Dracula-type Minister of Culture from the People's Republic of Transylvania) mistake Edna for the Queen of the United Kingdom and kidnap her during their brief stopover in Paris, believing that she will draw tourists to their country.

It is then up to Barry, his identical twin brother the Reverend Kevin McKenzie, his Parisian expatriate Aussie friend "Col the Frog" and his other expatriate mates in France and England to head a team of Australian agents to be parachuted into Transylvania and rescue Edna.

Barry and Edna return home to Australia and are greeted by Gough Whitlam and his wife. Whitlam makes Edna a dame.

Cast

Barry Crocker as Barry McKenzie / Kevin McKenzie
Barry Humphries as Senator Douglas Manton / Edna Everage / Meyer de Lamphrey / buck-toothed Englishman
Donald Pleasence as Count Plasma
Dick Bentley as Col 'The Frog' Lucas
Ed Devereaux as Sir Alec Ferguson
Roy Kinnear as Bishop of Paris
Don Spencer as quizmaster
Frank Windsor as police sergeant
Derek Guyler as police constable
Arthur English as cockney spiv
Desmond Tester as Marcel Escargot
John Le Mesurier as Robert Crowther
Tommy Trinder as Arthur McKenzie
Chantal Contouri as Zizi
Clive James as Paddy

Production

Bruce Beresford wanted to make a film of the 1910 novel The Getting of Wisdom by Henry Handel Richardson but was unable to raise finance. Barry McKenzie Holds His Own was entirely funded by Reg Grundy.^[5] Shooting began in February 1974. Most of the film was shot on location in England, Wales and Paris, with some studio scenes shot in London. Edna's home movie footage was shot at Palm Beach, Sydney, in December 1973. British unions constantly objected to Australian cast and crew working in Britain.^[1]

Reception

Box office

Barry McKenzie Holds His Own grossed $1,407,000 at the box office in Australia.^[6]

Critical

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Barry McKenzie is basically the Englishman, Irishman and Scotsman joke extended to include every possible racial and sexual stereotype, in every permutation of cultural collision and with all mythical characteristics reduced to their lowest common denominator. The strength of this version of the joke is the grotesque wealth of the argot which Humphries has invented for his colonial Candide, a slang so relentless in its vulgarity that it is impossible now to judge to what extent he invented or merely recreated it. ... The humour is diverted sufficiently from McKenzie's sexual quest to allow satire to emerge more strongly than in the first film. The introduction by the Minister of Culture (Humphries himself), and the Monty Pythonish Migration Game in which possible English emigrants are quizzed to see if they have suitably pro-Aussie, anti-Pommie attitudes, display a sharpness not found in The Adventures of Barry McKenzie and suggest that there is still room for development and improvement if the series proves to be a continuing one."^[7]

Filmink wrote that "while the first film used a plot with at least some origins in true experience (i.e. an Aussie abroad in London), the second one used a plot based on the movies (i.e vampire films) and dealt with things that didn’t really have resonance with Australia (e.g., Transylvania). If Bazza 2 focused on, say, Bazza backpacking through Europe, I think it would’ve been just as big a hit."^[8]

References

^ ^a ^b Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper, Australian Film 1900–1977: A Guide to Feature Film Production, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998 p283
^ "Barry McKenzie Holds His Own". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 10 May 2024.
^ Stephens, Tony (14 November 2005). "Historian laments the loss of '70s larrikins who could hold their own". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 12 March 2009.
^ Barry Humphries (2003). Barry Humphries Gives Us the Good Oil (included as an extra on the Barry McKenzie Holds His Own DVD) (DVD). Australia: Umbrella Entertainment.
^ David Stratton, The Last New Wave: The Australian Film Revival, Angus & Robertson, 1980 p46
^ "Film Victoria - Australian Films at the Australian Box Office" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 February 2011. Retrieved 20 October 2010.
^ "Barry McKenzie Holds His Own". The Monthly Film Bulletin. 42 (492): 128. 1 January 1975 – via ProQuest.
^ Vagg, Stephen (23 April 2023). "Barry Humphries – The First Proper Film Star of the Australian Revival". Filmink.