If Street Machine’s forerunner magazine, Australian Van Wheels, was a movie, it would undoubtedly be Alvin Rides Again. Born in the same loose and risqué era of Aussie entertainment as that august publication, this 1974 flick is the sequel to the wildly popular Alvin Purple from the previous year, but with a higher dose of car action to qualify it as a proper Fanging Flick.

Sexually exhausted young man Alvin Purple (Graeme Blundell) possesses the enviable first-world problem of being irresistible to women. He struggles to maintain any form of gainful employment, as his work days are constantly interrupted with random rendezvous with members of the fairer sex.

In an act of complete frustration, he moves north with his best mate Spike (Alan Finney) in order to make a fresh start away from his playboy reputation. However, it isn’t long before the whiff of his maleness (and, likely, Brut 33) has every female clamouring for his attentions.

A random interaction with frustrated roadhouse waitress Mae (70s Australian screen siren Abigail) is one of many that will have hetero male viewers envious.

Hitchhiking with a women’s cricket team soon has Alvin again practising his ball work, and it isn’t long before he and Spike are dressed in drag to help the team to a win.

They decide to splurge their share of the cricket prize money at a local casino, where they are befriended by a visiting American mobster, the Skippy-obsessed Balls McGee (also played by Blundell – trust me, it’ll make sense). The pair soon join Balls in his private room to continue the party.

When Balls is accidentally shot dead by one of his cronies, it is up to Alvin to assume his identity and seal a lucrative casino robbery plan with odd-bod local gangster, Fingers (Frank Thring).

Alvin soon hooks up with Fingers’s French starlet, the appropriately named Boobs La Touche (Chantal Contouri) – ironically, one of the only female characters in the whole film not to drop the pipes and run open headers – and the pair attempt to flee their troubled pasts to start a fresh life together.

Their escape won’t be any easy one, though, as crazed German thug Loopy Snieder (Jeff Ashby) won’t rest until the pair are dead and buried.

A wild car chase ensues, with Alvin now piloting the iconic purple VJ Charger and being hotly pursued by Loopy in a Customline hearse. That wallowing Cusso gets the neck of its sidevalve V8 wrung in no uncertain terms, in what must be one of the first and only movie car chases starring a dead-body hauler.

VERDICT: 3/5

I’m not really sure how detailed my verdict of Alvin Rides Again can be in this highly delicate modern world, but let’s just say I enjoyed many of its attributes. It’s fun and raw, although the storyline and aspects of its slapstick humour can be a little cringeworthy and probably lost on a younger audience.

And when I say younger, I definitely mean over 18; the film doesn’t hold back on the frontal nudity, with the odd swinging tockley and more old-school maps of Tassie than your local travel agent.

The latter sight may even shock some of our adult millennial readers who’ve grown up in an era of, er, deforestation.

BREAKDOWN:

Vehicles:

• 1974 Valiant VJ Charger
• 1952 Ford Customline hearse
• 1958 Renault 750
• 1971 Chrysler by Chrysler
• 1973 Datsun 240K
• 1970 Chrysler VG Valiant
• 1972 Ford XA Falcon
• 1969 Toyota Coaster
• 1973 Holden HQ One Tonner

Stars:

• Graeme Blundell
• Alan Finney
• Abigail
• Chantal Contouri
• Gus Mercurio
• Penne Hackforth-Jones
• Frank Thring
• Jeff Ashby
• Noel Ferrier
• Maurie Fields
• Brian Cadd

Director:
David Bilcock
Robin Copping

Action:
Alvin’s sporty Charger is aggressively hunted by a psychopath in a Cusso hearse, pushing both cars to their limits

Plot:
Alvin Purple is back, yet again struggling to hold down a job due to his irresistible appeal to women. He decides to move away in the hope of making a fresh start, only to find himself in more hot water

Available:
DVD, streaming

Cool flick fact:

SM’s very own Paul ‘Gus’ Cronin was snapped as a baby sitting on the bonnet of Alvin’s purple Charger (above) alongside his aunty during the car’s promotional tour in Adelaide.