One thing that American Cinema consistently falls short on is the ability to combine slapstick with relatively explicit sex.  The British have done it for years.  And Australia’s contribution to the “S & S” genre with Girl Toy is no less a sexy, briskly paced jab at politics, religion and social values with some clever comedy.

It seems that young Melvin Simpson (Gerry Sont) has the preternatural ability for attracting women.  He’s attacked, accosted, manhandled and has his clothes torn off – much like his legendary, biological father, the famous Alvin Purple.  Alvin (Graeme Blundell) is the Aussie film equivalent of Tom Jones – a randy, picaresque sexual gadabout of The Outback, so to speak. Only Melvin is unaware of his genes, and is confused and intimidated by all this feminine attention.  Through the pain and suffering, he, nevertheless, remains a virgin.  The Purple connection aside, the virginity issue makes for even more a means of pursuit when a Greek girl (Lenita Psillakis), who looks like Maria Shriver on loan from NBC, takes a fancy to Melvin.  She consistently harps on her old world values and adores Melvin for that reason.

In the meantime, famous father Alvin is being marketed, sold, commercialized, whored and distributed by a quick buck manager. When a tenacious TV reporter discovers Melvin to be the long lost heir to the Purple sex legacy, the manager realizes it’s time to capitalize on younger blood.  Face it. Alvin has become a washed out sex junkie.  Only the son’s tentativeness and intact flower will never sell. In a brilliant takeoff of A Clockwork Orange, Melvin is subjected to the same behavioral modification as was Malcolm McDowell, using the Ludovico Technique.  Where McDowell is transformed from thug to a wimp, the attempt here is to render Melvin into a blithering sex maniac by having jump wires plugged into his erogenous zones while a beautiful blonde does a striptease.

Like A Clockwork Orange, the film gets into some heady posturing on freedom of choice, but consistently underscores the more cerebral aspects with the proverbial naked girl jumping out of the closet.  Girl Toy is softcore at its best and funniest.