RIKKI AND PETE

Australia, 1988, 101 minutes, Colour.
Stephen Kearney, Nina Landis, Bill Hunter, Bruno Lawrence, Bruce Spence, Dorothy Alison.
Directed by Nadia Tass.

Rikki and Pete is the follow-up film to Malcolm by director Nadia Tass and writer David Parker, husband and wife team. Malcolm won Best Film in the 1986 A.F.I. Awards and was a considerable box office success in Australia and overseas. Rikki and Pete is something in the same vein, though the screenplay is rather patchy. Pete is not as engaging as Colin Friels' Malcolm. In fact, comedian Steve Carney seems rather reticent for the type of character he is playing. Nina Landis, on the other hand, is a vigorous Rikki. There is an excellent supporting cast including Bill Hunter, Dorothy Allison, Bruce Spence, Bruno Lawrence.

Rikki and Pete are rich but react against parental expectations and they take to the outback and to mining. There is a mixture of hearty laughs, oddball characters and situations, some more inventions in the Malcolm vein as well as some satire and some point. However, there are many slow and corny patches that one is tempted to overlook. The whole thing is cheerful and cheeky if something of a disappointment after Malcolm.

1. A pleasing Australian comedy? In the tradition of Malcolm? Comic style? Australian style? The work of Nadia Tass and David Parker?

2. The Melbourne settings, the city, affluence; galleries? The contrast with the vast spaces of the Outback, the mining towns, the mines? The musical score and the range of songs?

3. The humour with the range of inventions, the paper-delivering machine, the exhibit at the art gallery, the driller at the mines, the Bentley car become truck? The comic inventiveness?

4. Rikki and Pete as enjoyable characters, audiences identifying with them, observing them? Real/unreal? Comic?

5. The values underlying the film: individuals and expectations, class, wealth and hypocrisies, law and the police, callous attitudes? The life of the miners, honesty, enterprise? Big business and its hypocrisy? Mad religion?
The aborigines?

6. The focus on the Menzies family: their wealth, name? The parents and their influence on their children? Mother and her accident, her good-humoured attitude towards Pete, going out to meet him in the chair, sharing his inventions? Taking his side against their father? The visit to the mining town? The police cars and their catching her? The background to her accident? Resentment? The father and his properness? The eggs at the art show? His denunciation of Pete at table? Ousting Pete? Rikki and her study, her singing in Melbourne and her being ignored? Adam courting her? Pete and his delivering the papers, tying up the cars and watching the police mayhem, his invention, his behaviour at the table? The decision that they should go Outback?

7. The focus on the police, resentment about the accident? With Mrs. Menzies? The officer and his pursuit, being sacked? Following out into the desert, at the petrol pump and his car collapsing, the lift with Holy Joe, his going berserk listening to and singing hymns? Arrival in 6e town, opening Pete's cell, his being knocked out, arrested? The film's mocking the police? The initial car chase, the police bashing the aborigines, Pete on top of the car? The official in Mount Lena as doing his duty but as okay.

8. The picture of the Outback: the vistas, camping out, the man and his wife at the pump and the comment on the flies, Holy Joe stranded in the desert and chasing his car, his preaching? The irony about the comments of opening up the Outback?

9. The portrait of Pete: Rikki looking after him, his job, his driving? the Bentley out, into the desert, petrol, getting the job for Rikki singing, the arrival at Mount Lena, the joke about the boomerang job and his not being black, pretending to expertise and his success in the work, friends with the miners? His room, Flossie, the knife-thrower? His invention for the mine, the Bentley being turned into a truck, his being drunk, seeing the aborigines pushed around, on top of the car and acclaim? In prison, his depression, the possibility of escape, the policeman, Flossie and Rikki coming, his getting out, the happy resolution? Back to Melbourne? Pete and his attitudes towards society, going over the top? Change or not?

10. Rikki and her efficiency, her drive, singing in Melbourne, her going to the mines, her discussion with the manager, work and women, the hostility of the assistant, friendship with Flossie, work in the mine, her getting her own mine, her drilling it, the sale, auctioning it off, her singing in the town and people's response, the ending and back to Melbourne?

11. The sketch of the parents, wealthy, their stances, hypocrisies? Their visit to the north? The scene at the police station? Mr Menzies getting his comeuppance?

12. The sketch of management, arrogance, the manager and his attentions to his women assistants, Flossie going out with him - and the syphilis? Being deceived with the auction? Attitudes to aborigines?

13. The range of miners, Sonny and his attraction towards Rikki, the Swede, their help with the mine, watching, at the nightclub? The happy resolution?

15. The comedy with Holy Joe, his car, his prayer, quoting the Scriptures, singing hymns? George as mad and thinking he was the private detective?

16. The gallery of characters, the styles of comedy, slapstick, timing, visual and verbal humour? Cheeky and larrikin?