This movie is so bad it's awful. I'm amazed that screenwriter David Giler actually went on to write good films, like "The Parallax View" and "Aliens." In fact, I'm amazed that he and co-writer/director Michael Sarne - or anyone else connected with this abomination - were ever able to find work in the industry again.
I never read Gore Vidal's novel, so I can't compare that story to what I saw on the screen, but I'm guessing the book was just a tad more coherent. I'm really not sure what the movie was all about, actually. I think it involved a man named Myron (Rex Reed) who had a sex change operation and became Myra (Raquel Welch), who then set out to redefine the rules of gender and sexuality while taking over her uncle's acting school. I think.
Poor Raquel Welch. She was never much of a thespian to begin with, but in this movie, she's saddled with page after page of inane dialogue that she attempts to recite with some kind of strange accent that's a mix between British and Central Park Society Woman. The result is truly embarrassing for the sex goddess. On top of that, she's forced to wear incredibly garish costumes that even Jean Paul Gauthier on LSD would never dream of designing.
John Huston, as Uncle Buck Loner, the owner of a failing acting school that for no discernible reason appears to be set up on an old Western movie back lot, looks and sounds drunk throughout most of the film. Can't say I blame him. To go from directing "The Maltese Falcon" to playing a delusional, 50-gallon-hat-wearing cowboy would make anyone hit the bottle.
Then there's Mae West. Oh, boy. She essentially reprises the oversexed, double-entendre-cracking character that made her famous in the 1930s. Only she's 77 in this movie, and it's just kinda pathetic. To make it worse, she actually tries to sing two songs, and during one tune, she looks like she's either chewing gum or attempting to slip her dentures back into place with her tongue. Her role as the lascivious talent agent Leticia Van Allen makes absolutely no sense in this movie - she barely interacts with the principle cast members, and her character contributes nothing to the plot. She's there for a while, then she's gone.
When you can say that Rex Reed, Farrah Fawcett (looking so young and so gorgeous, by the way), and Roger Herren's naked butt deliver the three best performances in this movie, it should give you a good indication of just how terrible the whole thing is.
Technically, the movie looks and sounds like it was put together by a group of elementary school students. The editing is sloppy, the dialogue looping (and there's a lot of it) is obvious and poorly executed, the camera work is sophomoric, and the music is excruciating (cover your ears when Mae starts belting).
Some say "Myra Breckenridge" is an underrated classic. No way. It's just garbage disguised as an avante garde experiment.
I never read Gore Vidal's novel, so I can't compare that story to what I saw on the screen, but I'm guessing the book was just a tad more coherent. I'm really not sure what the movie was all about, actually. I think it involved a man named Myron (Rex Reed) who had a sex change operation and became Myra (Raquel Welch), who then set out to redefine the rules of gender and sexuality while taking over her uncle's acting school. I think.
Poor Raquel Welch. She was never much of a thespian to begin with, but in this movie, she's saddled with page after page of inane dialogue that she attempts to recite with some kind of strange accent that's a mix between British and Central Park Society Woman. The result is truly embarrassing for the sex goddess. On top of that, she's forced to wear incredibly garish costumes that even Jean Paul Gauthier on LSD would never dream of designing.
John Huston, as Uncle Buck Loner, the owner of a failing acting school that for no discernible reason appears to be set up on an old Western movie back lot, looks and sounds drunk throughout most of the film. Can't say I blame him. To go from directing "The Maltese Falcon" to playing a delusional, 50-gallon-hat-wearing cowboy would make anyone hit the bottle.
Then there's Mae West. Oh, boy. She essentially reprises the oversexed, double-entendre-cracking character that made her famous in the 1930s. Only she's 77 in this movie, and it's just kinda pathetic. To make it worse, she actually tries to sing two songs, and during one tune, she looks like she's either chewing gum or attempting to slip her dentures back into place with her tongue. Her role as the lascivious talent agent Leticia Van Allen makes absolutely no sense in this movie - she barely interacts with the principle cast members, and her character contributes nothing to the plot. She's there for a while, then she's gone.
When you can say that Rex Reed, Farrah Fawcett (looking so young and so gorgeous, by the way), and Roger Herren's naked butt deliver the three best performances in this movie, it should give you a good indication of just how terrible the whole thing is.
Technically, the movie looks and sounds like it was put together by a group of elementary school students. The editing is sloppy, the dialogue looping (and there's a lot of it) is obvious and poorly executed, the camera work is sophomoric, and the music is excruciating (cover your ears when Mae starts belting).
Some say "Myra Breckenridge" is an underrated classic. No way. It's just garbage disguised as an avante garde experiment.