The Incomparable Mae West

[rayray]

Agreed, ClassyCo, that Sextette is a fun-enough romp and far better than Myra Breckinridge. It's a "once every ten years" watch for me. It's watchable in the same way that old 1970s variety/light entertainment shows are watchable: the star delivers camp in buckets, it's got recognisable guests, groan-worthy jokes, and it's over before you know it. Myra Breckinridge is basically unwatchable except when Mae swans on, acting in a different movie than anyone else.

 

[ClassyCo]

Agreed, ClassyCo, that Sextette is a fun-enough romp and far better than Myra Breckinridge. It's a "once every ten years" watch for me. It's watchable in the same way that old 1970s variety/light entertainment shows are watchable: the star delivers camp in buckets, it's got recognisable guests, groan-worthy jokes, and it's over before you know it. Myra Breckinridge is basically unwatchable except when Mae swans on, acting in a different movie than anyone else.

MYRA BRECKINRIDGE is also unwatchable for me. I admit I don't "get" it, and therefore I avoid it. I've watched it twice, as memory serves, and I eventually tossed the DVD into the trash. SEXTETTE, while bad, is more enjoyable and less tacky.

 

[Spooky Owl!]

MYRA BRECKINRIDGE is also unwatchable for me. I admit I don't "get" it, and therefore I avoid it. I've watched it twice, as memory serves, and I eventually tossed the DVD into the trash. SEXTETTE, while bad, is more enjoyable and less tacky.

Oh, yeah. MYRA BRECKINRIDGE was infamous for being awful in a bizarre way (the book, which I never read, was also bizarre -- for the era -- and Gore Vidal says he never watches movie versions of his own books).

 

[Crimson]

See I think I'd consider MYRA BRECKINRIDGE more watchable -- in an aghast, what were they thinking? kind of way -- than SEXTETTE. I assume everyone working on MYRA BRECKINRIDGE was mad on drugs. SEXTETTE is just a sluggish film with an old lady doing quips that were mildly risqué a half century earlier.

 

[ClassyCo]

See I think I'd consider MYRA BRECKINRIDGE more watchable -- in an aghast, what were they thinking? kind of way -- than SEXTETTE. I assume everyone working on MYRA BRECKINRIDGE was mad on drugs. SEXTETTE is just a sluggish film with an old lady doing quips that were mildly risqué a half century earlier.

And I can see your point. And I know there are some that even share your view. For me, it's the vulgarity of MYRA BRECKINRIDGE that's the primary turnoff. I find it very nasty, very crude, and therefore almost impossible to actually enjoy, even in that "so-bad-it's-good" way. SEXTETTE has an impressive cast and it's softer, less flashy and less crude. I can go with that more easily.

 

[Spooky Owl!]

Vulgarity in the '60s -- and '70s -- much like violence, was curiously repulsive. And I'm still not sure quite why. Even after subsequent decades of greater explicitness, there remains a searing yikes factor to the visceral grisliness and gutter trashiness.

Like a used tampon "sunny-side up" (as Joan Rivers once said).

So weird.