Myra Breckinridge - Mann oder Frau?

Seldom seen since theatrical release in 1970, MYRA BRECKINRIDGE has become a byword for cinematic debacles of legendary proportions. Now at last on DVD in an unexpectedly handsome package, it is as unlikely to win wide audiences today as it was when first released.

Gore Vidal's 1968 bestseller was a darkly satirical statement. Most filmmakers felt that the novel's story, structure, and overall tone would not translate to film, and industry insiders were surprised when 20th Century Fox not only acquired the rights but also hired Vidal to adapt his novel to the screen. But studio executives soon had cold feet: Vidal's adaptations were repeatedly rejected and novice writer-director Michael Sarne was brought in to bring the film to the screen.

Studio executives hoped that Sarne would tap into the youth market they saw as a target for the film, but Sarne proved even more out of synch with the material than the executives themselves. Rewrite upon rewrite followed. The cast, sensing disaster, became increasingly combative. In her DVD commentary, star Raquel Welch says that she seldom had any idea of what Myra's motives were from scene to scene or even within any single scene itself, and that each person involved seemed to be making an entirely different film. In the accompanying "Back Story" documentary, Rex Reed says that MYRA BRECKINRIDGE was a film made by a bunch of people who hid in their dressing rooms while waiting for their lawyers to return their calls.

The accuracy of these comments are demonstrated by the film itself. The basics of Vidal's story are there, but not only has the story been shorn of all broader implications, it seems to have no point in and of itself. Everything runs off in multiple directions, nothing connects, and numerous scenes undercut whatever logic previous scenes might have had. And while director Sarne repeatedly states in his commentary that he wanted to make the film as pure farce, the only laughs generated are accidental.

Chief among these accidents is Mae West. It is true that West is unexpectedly well preserved in appearance and that she had lost none of her way with a one-liner--but there is no getting around the fact that she is in her seventies, and her conviction that she is the still the sexiest trick in shoe leather is extremely unsettling, to say the least. But worse, really, is the fact that West is outside her era. Her efforts to translate herself into a hip and happening persona results in one of the most embarrassing self-caricatures ever seen on film.

The remaining cast is largely wasted. Raquel Welch, a significantly underestimated actress, plays the title role of Myra very much like a Barbie doll on steroids; non-actor Rex Reed is unexpectedly effective in the role of Myron, but the entire role is essentially without point. Only John Huston and cameo players John Carradine, Jim Backus, William Hopper, and Andy Devine emerge relatively unscathed. Yes, it really is the debacle everyone involved in the film feared it would be: fast when it should be slow, slow when it should be fast, relentlessly unfunny from start to finish. It is true that director Sarne does have the occasional inspired idea--as in his use of film clips of everyone from Shirley Temple to Judy Garland to create counterpoint to the action--but by and large, whenever Sarne was presented with a choice of how to do something he seems to have made the wrong one.

The how and why of that is made clear in Sarne's audio commentary. Sarne did not like the novel or, for that matter, the subject matter in general. He did not want to write the screenplay, but he needed the money; he emphatically did not want to direct the film, but he need the money. He makes it very clear that he disliked author Gore Vidal and Rex Reed (at one point he flatly states that Reed "is not a nice person"), and to this day he considers that Vidal and Reed worked in tandem to sabotage the film because he refused to play into their 'homosexual agenda'--which, when you come right down to it, seems to have been their desire that Sarne actually film Vidal's novel rather than his own weirdly imagined take-off on it.

Although he spends a fair amount of commentary time stating that the film is widely liked by the gay community, Sarne never quite seems to understand that the appeal of the film for a gay audience arises from his ridiculously inaccurate depiction of homosexual people. When taken in tandem with the film itself, Sarne emerges as more than a little homophobic--and quite frankly the single worst choice of writers and directors that could have been made for this project.

In addition to the Sarne and Welch commentaries and the making-of documentary, the DVD release includes several trailers and two versions of the film: a "theatrical release" version and a "restored" version. The only difference between the two is that the final scene in the "restored" version has been printed to black and white. The edits made before the film went into general release have not been restored, but the documentary details what they were. The widescreen transfers of both are remarkably good and the sound is quite fine. But to end where I began, this is indeed a film that will most interest film historians, movie buffs, and cult movie fans. I give it three out of five stars for their sake alone, but everyone else should pass it by.

Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer

If you go into this exercise in wretched excess expecting a profound viewing experience, you'll be very upset. Part "Blazing Saddles", part "Love American Style", and part "Candy", this film is a tasteless melange of all that was mediocre about late 1960s filmmaking-- cheesy Bachrach-like score, campy costumes, inept acting, and everyone in search of a plot! That having been said, like a train wreck, it's hard to look away. Although most of the production values in this sleaze-fest are abyssmal, there are occasionally clever comic bits of archival footage inserted for (unsubtle) comic affect. Instead of sitttin' wondrin' why, babe, did they cast Raquel Welch, John Carradine, Farrah Fawcett, and egad, Rex Reed; enjoy the lovely cameo appearance by a young mustache-less Tom Selleck, and annoyingly under-the-top performance by 75 y.o. Mae West. This is what to watch when you've grown tired of singing along with "The Rocky Horror Picture Show"!

Despite disappointing attempts to bring them to the screen, certain novels by their very nature must be considered unfilmable notably 'Catch 22', 'Ulysses' and 'Justine'. To this select group must be added 'Myra Breckinridge'. Reading Michael Sarne's pretentious, self-justifying drivel in which he states what his intentions were when filming Gore Vidal's novel, one can fully understand how he succeeded in bamboozling some not very bright men in suits at 20th Century Fox into believing that he was the man to pull it off.

Reviews on IMDb are now required to be no less than 600 characters which in the case of this opus really stretches one's creativity for there are only so many ways of saying that a film is crap.

When asked by an interviewer whether he had seen it, John Huston replied "thankfully, no", whilst Gore Vidal dismissed it as "a joke" and lamented that it caused sales of the novel to plummet. He once claimed that his proudest achievement was "never having killed anyone." On this occasion he must have been sorely tempted.

As this viewer has now exceeded the requisite number of characters he might as well end with a positive. Although I never thought I'd live to say it, Raquel Welch is really rather good in it.

Quite how this became Hollywood's most famously reviled and ridiculed creation is almost as mysterious as how such a bizarre film was ever made in the first place.

It's the story of a gay film critic knocked unconscious in a car accident who then dreams he has undergone a sex-change operation and been recreated in Raquel Welch's image. I managed to work that much out after two viewings, the first wondering what the hell I was seeing and the second spotting the few clues to the "plotline" that exist between the scenes of insane camp and bizarre sexual acts.

Somehow, through all the confusion and early '70s delirium, I found myself enjoying it. It is a ridiculous mess, but where else are you going to see the legendary John Huston receiving a brutal Swedish massage and Raquel Welch in glorious widescreen, Technicolor Panavision wearing a strap-on and cowgirl outfit ensemble? Not in Legally Blonde, I know that much.

I read "Myra Breckinridge" in 1969 when I was riding a bus from St. Louis to San Antonio, and I fell in love with everything about the book. I saw the movie when it first came out (even though I was not, legally, old enough) and had a blast. This film (I do NOT use that term loosely) had so much going on and not going on between pretty people and not so pretty people who were acting badly and beautifully while doing evil and funny and disgusting and sweet things to each other in the most vicious and caring ways possible, I was overwhelmed by it all. It had more to say in its heaving breast about the cruel and elevated ways in which man treats his fellow man than every Oscar-winning picture since...and all while telling its story in the most absurd and drug-inducing manner possible.

But what adds even more to the meaning of the film is how it destroyed the career of not just its director (who probably deserved it) but also ruined any chance of a career for Roger Herren solely because he played a character who was raped by a woman. Men can play rapists and women can be raped and gang raped and even play lesbians, and they receive Oscars for their performances and no one thinks the worst of them. But let a man get sodomized and suddenly everyone questions his masculinity and ability to relate to the opposite sex. And THAT is where MYRA BRECKINRIDGE stands tall.

Yes, the movie is a smash-up of styles and insane casting choices and baldly ludicrous dialogue and unintentionally funny acting, but so were more recent idiot movies like THE ROCK and TITANIC and SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE, and look how successful they became...and how quickly they will be forgotten. At least MYRA BRECKINRIDGE, the movie (maybe even moreso than the book), worked as a slap in the face of America's sexual dysfunction and hypocrisy...and I believe THAT is what bothers so many people about it. And that is why it remains a movie worth watching,