Sextette

To truly appreciate "Sextette" one has to truly appreciate Mae West!And to truly appreciate Mae West one must know and understand her life and her persona!Just forget any other Hollywood actress!Mae West stands alone in a class by herself!She is entirely her own creation and spent her lifetime maintaining and nurturing that creation!There exists a few GOOD books about her!And even her autobiography sheds light on HER view of herself and her effect on the world(as she believed it revolved around her!) Mae West was a small,husky,talented,brassy girl from Brooklyn who decided early in life to become a sexy,living legend long before she finally arrived in Hollywood (at age 39) She succeeded at a time when overweight and overaged leading ladies were unheard of!(they still are!) Everything from her golden hair,her hourglass figure,her purring voice and sassy,hip-swinging strut she devoloped through years of self-discipline and self-worship!By the time she became a world-famous movie star she was already in her 40s,wearing wigs,corsetts,wedge-heels,practicing exercises and birth-control devices decades ahead of her time! Which,of course,brings us to "Sextette" Based on a musical play of her own creation it would seem almost inconcievable to have anyone else portray her character!And remember,Mae West WAS her own character!The blond wigs,slinky gowns,diamonds and furs were STILL part of Mae's everyday persona well into her 80s!This was a woman who never had children nor cared for anyone but herself!SHE BELIEVED in her ageless,sexy siren and all that came with it!By all accounts Mae was remarkably agile and well-preserved!It would have been nice to have seen her WITHOUT the gauzy photography and artificial get-up!

SEXTETTE is a throwback to the early years of cinema, where stars were larger than life and films threw in song and dance routines at regular intervals in the name of popular entertainment. It's also a vehicle for elderly starlet Mae West, at the tail-end of her career, playing a man-eater celebrating her wedding to a young toyboy (a visibly embarrassed Timothy Dalton). As the credits rolled, I had no idea what I'd just seen.

Clearly the director is in love with West and the film has been concocted as a tribute to her. But the format is very odd and old fashioned and West's appearance is rather shocking; her age is never mentioned so it's pretty weird to see her trying to play herself some fifty years previously. Often the narrative will break off to feature some filmed insert of West making one of her trademark wisecracks, which is bizarre in itself.

The music is pretty poor although there are endless guest appearances from a wide variety of folk in an attempt to entertain: Tony Curtis, Ringo Starr, George Hamilton, and Alice Cooper all show up here. Overall though, SEXTETTE is a ludicrous film, and I can't help but think that it would have been better to remember West as she was rather than as she is here.

This is right up there with "Can't Stop the Music" as wonderfully inspired trash. I find it funny that so many people are offended by Mae's appearance and numerous flirtations in this film. These are the same yokels who laugh at Bob Hope or George Burns when they chat up a young babe. It's nice to see the tables turned. Mae is grand - there's no other word for her- and her statue-like appearance (due to God knows how many face lifts and layers of make-up) actually help to accentuate the nature of her cinema icon glory. She always was bigger-than-life.

The plot of this film and the musical numbers are truly terrible, but they're there merely as plot devices for Mae to strut her stuff, and for Timothy Dalton to rack up enough embarrassing moments to cancel out his entire career even if he makes it to Mae's age! This movie always was meant to be camp, since Mae has always been the reigning camp queen, but of course it also tried to pass as real Hollywood entertainment, which means that there's a lot of unintentional humor too. There are tons of witty lines, and it's fun to see this huge gallery of stars (I barely recognized Alice Cooper without his long hair and smeared mascara. He looked like Paul Jabara, which I bet was intentional). I would not recommend seeing this film on an empty stomach, as seeing Timothy Dalton breaking out into "Love Will Keep Us Together" will cause a severely nasty involuntary reaction. But for fans of true camp, this movie is an absolute must see!

Antediluvian legend Mae West shuffles about in the feathers and beads of her youth, callomaniacally adoring her petrifying visage in anything that casts a reflection...beneath the golden locks of her enormous and very obvious wig, there must have been at least 15 pounds of Scotch tape and rubber bands straining to reverse the gravitational causatum of many passing decades. An unlikely multitude of men fall over themselves in awe of her bewitching feminine mystique while the very pallid and disoriented looking Ms. West spouts her famed pre-code one-liners as though they were fresh as a spring rose. There's some narrative nonsense in the folds concerning the U.S. government's plan to ease political tensions by enlisting Mae and her irresistible animal prowess.

A tacky, jaw-dropping trainwreck boiling over with callithumpian musical numbers, SEXTETTE is also a treasure trove of unpremeditated humor. Essential viewing for those with a fondness for kitsch, but true-blue fans of Ms. West might opt to cover their eyes and ears. Mae's true age during production remains speculative, as her birth certificate is a thus far unpublished papyrus fragment excavated at Oxyrhynchus.

3.5/10

One of the first Mae West films I ever saw was Myra Brekenridge. The film was OK up to a point but when Miss West enters the auditioning for leading men only.....I was mesmerized. I couldn't believe she was pushing eighty (assuming her birth year was 1890ish). From that point on I was determined to find Sextette. Fortunately, the video store purchased a copy for me. It was a pretty good film the first few times I saw it, but then I began to study it. There were a few scenes I saw that made me pause. It seemed that she had to be cued to say her lines. Usually when a flash bulb went off. For example, the the hotel lobby scene, when she says "well, if it wasn't my wedding night, you'd have a deal". Look for the flash just before the line is said. Another example was during the song "Hooray for Hollywood" It appears that Timothy Dalton has to really tug on her to get her to follow him. After closer examination, I think she sees an opening in the crowd, so she may have thought that was where she was supposed to go. Timothy REALLY tugs on her to get her to follow. Other than that, it is a film that will be cherished by her fans, for whom it was made. Still a good view.