ME TOO: The Bandy Papers Volume V

Like Me Bandy, You Cissie (1979), this farcical appendage to Bartholomew Bandy's WW I trilogy lacks the wit and bite of his earlier memoirs--but Vol. V's Canadian politics-and-smuggling are at least a slight improvement over Vol. IV's Roaring-Twenties-in-N.Y, hijinks. It's 1923, Bandy is back in Ontario after his brief silent-movie career, and his dreams of manufacturing airplanes are going nowhere. (The Canadian government has $14 available for aviation purchases.) So he's mildly obliging when the local Liberal Party solicits his participation--they're really after his supposed, nonexistent wealth--and somehow, due to a silly mixup, he wins the Party nomination to Parliament. . . instead of the Prime Minister's protÉgÉ. Snubbed by the Party, then, Bandy needs money for his campaign: he's forced to turn smuggler, flying crates of whiskey to the US for seductive Mrs. Talbot at the nearby distillery. After a few narrow escapes from customs men (with help from George, his bizarre old pal from Russia), Bandy does win the election--thanks largely to some self-serving Talbot shenanigans. But, once in Ottawa, Bandy is massively unpopular. The PM (who frequents seances) loathes him, tells him that he's behaving like ""a pushy Jew."" His colleagues ignore him. Nor do things improve when Bandy, acknowledging his own smuggler-past, makes smuggling--especially importing--his major cause, uncovering high-up smuggling connections in Parliament. And finally Bandy will have to flee the country, having been tricked into losing his M.P. status. . . and then framed by his enemies. So-so political satire, more provincial than Bandy's other capers--even if padded out with stale sex-comedy, a bit of scatology, numerous weak puns, and a silly subplot involving Russian George's mission to kill his old pal Bandy.