Gerry Sont (best known in Australia for the television soap, Waterloo Station) plays the virginal Melvin, who works as a teenage car-wash attendant.
He is irresistibly attractive to women but cannot understand why – as he does not realise he is the son of Alvin Purple – and has grown up deathly afraid of women.
Melvin becomes friendly with a Greek usherette, Gloria (Lenita Psillakis), who rescues him from marauding women and becomes his well-meaning girlfriend.
Eventually, a reunion of the Purple clan takes place where all is revealed.
Graeme Blundell reprises his Alvin persona, now sadly middle-aged and burnt out, working as a singer in a purple jumpsuit on the Club circuit, singing schmaltzy ballads to his adoring women fans.
In thankless support roles, Tina Bursill as crusading 60 Minutes-style reporter Dee Tanner and David Argue as her bumbling cameraman, are teamed as comedy relief as they set out to reveal that Alvin is being exploited by his seedy manager Burnbaum (Jon Finlayson) and that he is the long-lost father of Melvin.
The humour is curiously old-fashioned and replete with poofter jokes and sexual sniggering of the Benny Hill variety, the only topicality being a dubious gag reference to the emerging AIDS epidemic.
Before the movie’s release, three cuts were ordered by the censors – the offending material contained nudity and a simulation of oral sex. What remained in the final cut was innocuous enough to ensure a brief theatrical run and public indifference.
Melvin Simpson Gerry Sont
Gloria
Lenita Psillakis
Burnbaum
Jon Finlayson
Dee Tanner
Tina Bursill
Cameraman
David Argue
Mrs Giannis
Arianthe Calani Mr Simpson
Col McEwan
Mrs Simpson
Abigail
Alvin Purple
Graeme Blundell
Matron
Patsy Martin
Miss Fosdyke
Marianne Collopy
Bullo
Steve Bastoni
Ferret
Greg Stroud
Streaky
David Beresh
Director John Eastway
Video
Related Posts
Sylvania Waters 1 9 9 2 (Australia) 12 x 30 minute episodes In the fly-on-the-wall tradition of his earlier programme, The Family, producer…
Dynasty 1 9 7 0 - 1 9 7 1 (Australia) 23 x 60 minute episodes Not to be confused with the…
Waterloo Station 1 9 8 2 - 1 9 8 3 (Australia) 30 x 60 minute episodes This early 80s Australian soap was…
Future Schlock (1984) Set in the dystopian future of 21st Century Melbourne (Australia), this low-budget mating of Mad Max and The Rocky Horror Picture Show…
Midnite Spares (1983) Steve Hall (James Laurie) is a sprint car driver from Queensland who travels to Sydney and faces off with a…
Tea Ladies, The 1 9 7 8 (Australia) 8 x 30 minute episodes This short-lived Australian comedy series from ATV-0 was set in Parliament…
Purple Rain (1984) In July 1984, the movie Purple Rain opened in the US and Britain. Its soundtrack album sold a million copies in the…
Abigail Abigail became the undisputed Number One female sex symbol in Australia during the 1970s, primarily as a result of her…
Melvin Simpson
Mr Simpson 
