One of the oldest and most dependable of storytelling formulas is the Fish Out of Water storyline, which entails taking a character out of his natural habitat and placing him somewhere altogether different. The Fish Out of Water (or “FOW”) formula has been around for centuries, and has been a popular one for movies almost since their beginning. But the heyday for cinematic FOW comedies was the mid-to-late eighties, following the release of the 1984 blockbuster Beverly Hills Cop, one of the quintessential Fish Out of Water movies. From there, the formula caught fire in Hollywood, and studios applied it to movies of all sorts, from the fourth Star Trek movie (which placed the Enterprise crew in 20th Century San Francisco) to an Arnold Schwarzenegger family movie. But in my estimation, perhaps the purest distillation of the formula can be found in the surprise 1986 hit, “Crocodile” Dundee.

What made ”Crocodile” Dundee a hit?: In the mid-eighties, there was an upswing in American interest in Australia. With international tourism at an all-time high, more and more people wanted to jet off to exciting new locales, and Australia was ideal for their purposes- beautiful, distant, home to a wide variety of environments, and (perhaps more importantly) English-speaking. Fueling interest were a series of commercials made by the Australian Tourist Commission for American audiences, which starred a former day laborer-turned-popular Australian television personality named Paul Hogan, who invited viewers to come “Down Under” for their next vacation.

At the time of its American release, ”Crocodile” Dundee was already a huge hit in Australia, due in large part to Hogan’s television popularity. But the film’s success in the States owed less to Hogan’s TV-commercial ubiquity than to good, old fashioned word of mouth. ”Crocodile” Dundee- due in no small part to Hogan’s good-natured performance- ended up grossing nearly ten times its opening-weekend take of $8 million, a figure that’s almost unheard of nowadays. In addition, the Aussie craze kicked into overdrive, with Down Under tourism increasing by more than 40% after the film’s release, one of the biggest movie-inspired tourism spikes to happen to any foreign country pre-Lord of the Rings.

What happened?: ”Crocodile” Dundee was a pop-culture sensation and propelled its leading man to big-screen stardom, but by the end of the 1980s, the ardor had cooled. 1988 saw the release of a sequel, but while it was also a hit, it was of subpar quality and didn’t linger in the memory like the first film did. By the time 1990 saw the release of Hogan’s first non-Dundee leading man role in Almost An Angel, the once-hot star (who was by that time upwards of fifty years old) was looking like a one-trick pony, playing leathery, twinkly-eyed charmers who use their wits to get them out of tight spots. Hogan had ceased to be the scrappy underdog whose easy smile won over audiences in the first film, and his subsequent star vehicles- the quasi-Western Lightning Jack, a big-screen remake of Flipper- failed to set the box office on fire. Following the turn of the millennium, Hogan returned once more to the role that made him famous, in the misguided Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles.

Does ”Crocodile” Dundee still work?: When I first made my list of potential Yesterday’s Hits back in December, one of the first movies that sprung to mind was this one. However, I was sort of dreading the idea of watching it again, in part because for years it seemed to me like the epitome of eighties formula fare, to say nothing of the bad taste left in my mouth by the terrible sequels. But while I wasn’t exactly wrong about the film’s narrative, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed myself during ”Crocodile” Dundee. More than two decades later, the movie still has a lot of charm and good cheer.

Which is not to say that it doesn’t have its problems as well. To begin with, there’s no real chemistry between Hogan and leading lady Linda Kozlowski. This seems odd, since the two later married in real life, but they just don’t click onscreen, and as such the film’s final scene doesn’t work nearly as well as it should. In addition, the movie trades almost entirely in clichés, from the stereotyped portrayal of Kozlowski’s editor/fiancé (Mark Blum) as a snob who takes every opportunity to expose Dundee as a bumpkin (for his part, Dundee socks him in the face) to the Tarzan/Jane dynamic of the Hogan/Kozlowski relationship. In the latter case, the movie even makes this explicit in a dialogue exchange, which is almost never a good idea, and certainly isn’t one here. Also, as with many other eighties blockbusters there’s an undercurrent of gay-panic humor that didn’t wash well with me- it’s not blatant, but there was enough of it to be somewhat troubling.

But while the movie traffics in formula, I was surprised by how pared-down the storytelling is. The first 45 minutes or so of the movie show Hogan taking Kozlowski on a guided tour of the outback, and demonstrate the character’s skills on his home turf. Then the action moves to New York, where Dundee navigates the city with a combination of outback survival skills and friendliness. There’s a refreshing lack of gratuitous subplots, something that marred the film’s sequels. Instead, the plot becomes almost imperceptible, so that even if we notice the formula at work, we barely mind. One major constant of the FOW storyline is that the protagonist’s nature tends to make him surprisingly well-suited to his new environment, and in ”Crocodile” Dundee, this happens almost instantaneously. Yet the character’s personality and skills have been well-established enough that I bought it completely.

Rather than leaning heavily on narrative, ”Crocodile” Dundee takes its cue from its hero. Much of Mick J. “Crocodile” Dundee’s success in New York is predicated as much on his innocent good nature as it is on his innate street-smarts. Rather than closing himself off from those around him like many city-dwellers tend to do, Dundee walks right up and makes friends, and with his easygoing smile and “no worries” demeanor, Hogan’s performance sets the tone for the rest of the film. Sure, ”Crocodile” Dundee may lack the narrative tension that’s found in most films of this sort, but I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. ”Crocodile” Dundee has no lofty goals beyond providing a couple hours of genial entertainment, and on those grounds it still gets the job done.