'Bruce Beresford's a colourful film about an 'innocent abroad' as he blunders his way through the London of the 1970s was panned by the critics but a huge success with audiences. The film became the first Australian movie to make a million dollars, thereby playing a crucial part in the resurgence of the Australian film industry in the early 1970s by demonstrating the commercial viability of local production. It also did very well commercially in London, where it established a record for any Australian film released there.
'Based on Barry Humphries comic-strip character, which appeared in the British satirical magazine Private Eye in the 1960s, the screenplay was written by Humphries and Beresford, the story line deriving from the culture clash between the Australian innocent 'Bazza' McKenzie and the English - from a taxi driver who takes Barry from Heathrow to Earls Court by way of Stonehenge, to the decadent upper classes with their public school fetishes, the swinging scene of pop music promoters and Jesus freaks, and eventually the hallowed halls of BBC television. ' (Publication summary)
'The 1970s in Australia were a time of political, social and artistic foment. Twenty-three years of, as Tony Moore puts it, “grey somnambulist” conservative rule had been overturned by the astonishing Gough Whitlam with the motto “It’s Time”, and “the transgressive values of the late 1960s cultural revolution were going feral in the back blocks”.' (Introduction)
'The 1970s in Australia were a time of political, social and artistic foment. Twenty-three years of, as Tony Moore puts it, “grey somnambulist” conservative rule had been overturned by the astonishing Gough Whitlam with the motto “It’s Time”, and “the transgressive values of the late 1960s cultural revolution were going feral in the back blocks”.' (Introduction)
