The Adventures of Barry McKenzie is a 1972 Australian comedy directed by Bruce Beresford, starring Barry Crocker and Barry Humphries, and based on characters created by Humphries for a comic strip in Private Eye magazine. The film tells the story of Barry "Bazza" McKenzie (Crocker), an Australian Lower-Class Lout who travels to the UK with his aunt Edna Everage (Humphries), where he gets drunk, ripped off by sleazy television and record producers and religious charlatans, and insulted by pretentious Upper Class Twits, among other shenanigans.
It was the first Australian production to earn over A$1,000,000 in ticket sales. A sequel, Barry McKenzie Holds His Own, was produced in 1974.
Provides examples of the following tropes:
- The Cameo: The film includes brief appearances by several noted British and Australian comedians and television personalities of the 1970s, including Peter Cook, Spike Milligan, Dick Bentley, and Clive James.
- Cross-Cast Role: Barry Humphries as Aunt Edna. He would later find fame reprising the role in numerous productions in the US and UK.
- Funetik Aksent: The DVD cover spells the word "film" as "fillum."
- Lower-Class Lout: Barry is a caricature of a stereotypical unrefined Australian "ocker," obsessed with beer, sex, and beautiful "sheilas".
- Slobs vs. Snobs: Pretty much the entire point of the film. Barry, a stereotypical Aussie "ocker," travels to the UK, where he moves into the upper-class neighbourhood of Earls Court with his old friend Curly, and clashes with his neighbours.
- Spiritual Antithesis: Could be seen as one to Wake in Fright. Both are Australian productions about conflict between the upper and lower classes, but whereas Wake in Fright plays the premise for drama and/or horror, the Barry McKenzie duology plays it for comedy.
