Alvin Rides Again

Plot

Alvin Purple is unable to hold down a job because of his appeal to women. He and his friend Spike help a team of women cricketers win a match by playing in drag, and decide to spend their share of the prize money in a casino. Alvin discovers he is identical in appearance to gangster Balls McGee. When Balls is killed, Alvin is forced to take his place.

Cast

Production

Tim Burstall said neither he, Alan Hopgood or Graeme Blundell were particularly interested in making a sequel to Alvin Purple but the film was so successful, Hexagon Productions wanted a follow up. Blundell wanted to avoid being typecast so a story was created which gave him a chance to play a double role. Burstall, who claims he wrote most of the script with Al Finney, says that:

When it came to the crunch, Blundell failed to differentiate between paying Balls and playing Alvin pretending to be Balls. In my view, the film fails for precisely that reason, i.e. Alvin is lost.

Release

Alvin Rides Again was the recipient of some more controversy when it was released but was only rated M. It did not perform as well as its predecessor but still grossed $600,000 by the end of 1977 and ended up taking $1,880,000 at the box office in Australia, which is equivalent to $12,690,000 in 2009 dollars.

John D. Lamond, who worked on the film's release, thought the filmmakers made a mistake making it "less sexy, because they didn’t want to lose any potential audience... So the second one wasn’t rated R and it flopped, fell on its arse after the first month."

Home media

Alvin Rides Again was released on DVD by Umbrella Entertainment in April 2011. The DVD is compatible with region codes 2 and 4 and includes special features such as the theatrical trailer, picture gallery and interviews with Tim Burstall, Alan Hopgood and Robin Copping.