A Jumble of Stereotypes

Bedfellows don’t come much stranger than Joe/Josephine and Jerry/ Daphne in Billy Wilder’s classic 1959 comedy, Some Like It Hot. On the run from mobsters, the characters played by Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon don drag and take refuge in an all-girl band, sharing beds, submerging stereotypes and sending sexual expectations out to sea. Has there been a more subversive ending than when Jerry/Daphne and his millionaire admirer Osgood sail off into uncharted waters? “Uh, I’m a man,” Jerry says, ripping off his wig. “Well,” Osgood replies, “nobody’s perfect.”

It’s a sweet sentiment, which is echoed in the closing moments of the new Australian film Strange Bedfellows. On the stage at a country firemen’s ball, sexagenarian mechanic Ralph Williams (Michael Caton) professes his love for local projectionist Vince Hopgood (Paul Hogan). Whether it’s more than platonic he refuses to tell. Judge us as people first, he says. To the other townsfolk of Yackandandah, he and Vince have been sending out mixed messages. Hitherto heterosexual, a widower and divorc respectively, they’ve shacked up together and been spied draping their lounge room in rainbow flags and befriending the local hairdresser, with whom they perform a passable Peter Alleninspired dance routine. Most of this has been for the benefit of a visiting tax inspector (Pete Postlethwaite), who is investigating their claim to be a couple, and for the benefits the hard-up Vince hopes to reap.

All of this might have lent Strange Bedfellows complexity and subtlety. Instead, it just gives the quintessentially blokey star of Crocodile Dundee the chance to camp it up; Hoges in hotpants! How does a comic pitch this potentially lively fall so dead in the water? It’s tempting to blame young writer-director Dean Murphy. He has a sunny knack for observing gossip ricochet around a country town, but he lacks the worldly insight and satirical snap of a Wilder. When Vince and Ralph are instructed how to walk the talk (“Marilyn Monroe crossed with a bit of penguin”), it’s like watching out-takes from In & Out and The Birdcage; later, when Postlethwaite’s pit-bull-faced inspector comes to town, it’s a gay Green Card.

One senses that the real captain of the ship is Paul Hogan. It’s 18 years since the launch of his Crocodile Dundee franchise, which brought more than $600 million in box office receipts. And while the world has changed since then, Hogan’s persona has remained stubbornly the same. Strange Bedfellows is an attempt to tweak that image. “I reckon it’s all in the mannerisms,” his Vince tells Ralph. “If we can learn half a dozen of them, we’ll be home and hosed.” Part of the problem is that Hogan’s face spends most of the film in a tight scowl. And when he attempts to adopt Vince’s new moves, it’s as though his body has gone into toxic shock. All that’s conveyed is his extreme discomfort.

In an interview with chat-show host Andrew Denton last year, Hogan confessed his disdain for acting. “It’s a rather childish pursuit,” he said. “‘I pretend I’m someone, and I’m, you know … really good at pretending.’ And I don’t sort of get on with people who polish their craft and go to the edge of the envelope and take it a bit too seriously.” Watching Strange Bedfellows, you wish he’d pretend a bit more – loosen up and have some fun. Because his eyes are beginning to lose their twinkle.