Sexteto (el sexo no tiene edad)

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.

There are only a very few moments of absolute awe which I can recall in my life. What is not reflected in the blurb about this film, and the comments referring to Miss West's embarrassing appearance in this film, is the effect she had on the cast and crew when she entered the set on the Paramount lot. We were in the "gym" waiting to begin shooting, talking and yapping away as actors will do at 7 AM before anything gets going, when the double doors to the set opened, and as each person turned and looked at the lady entering and realized it was Mae West, they fell silent - until you could have heard a pin drop or your heart beating just a bit faster and louder. Miss West may have been a poor shadow of what she had been years before, but she was still Mae West. Incredible as it may seem, at eighty years old she radiated a presence I have felt from very few others. Later on, while shooting a scene with her, and the director was loudly yelling at her through her ear-piece, rather than becoming angry at the rude treatment she was getting, she simply turned to me with that Mae West smile; and in one look she said, "It's okay kid, I'm Mae West, who the hell gives a damn about him." When I looked back at her, somewhat in awe, she winked. Ultimately, she did the take the way she wanted to do it. Maybe the public will never see that scene as I saw it played out, but I will never forget it.

There are two ways to approach this movie: #1, as a film in and of itself. Or #2, as a showcase for Mae West.

As a film, it is mildly amusing in a weird, campy 1970s way. It's got a made-for-television look about it, and appears to have been filmed on a pretty low budget. The plot has to do with a legendary American movie star (West) in London for her marriage and subsequent honeymoon with her current husband (Timothy Dalton). Oh, and this is her sixth marriage, by the way---hence the title of the film.

The story is basically that they are unable to consummate their marriage, because various other men--- including nearly all of her ex-husbands--- keep showing up unexpectedly. The sexual aspect of the story is handled very delicately; you know what the husband wants to do with his wife, but it is never put forth directly, but rather by sort of Victorian-era implication.

If it seems like rather a flimsy story, that's because it is. There isn't much to it; there is some low-key comedy in the guest appearances of the ex-husbands (plus assorted other men, including an entire "American athletic team" whose presence in London is never explained. Perhaps they're training for off-season Olympics). The whole thing is handled as a complete farce--- there isn't one shred of reality in this film, which makes it seem unique in the era in which it was made. It's like a cartoon for grownups, with live actors playing the parts.

The real intent of "Sextette" was to be a cinematic showcase for the legendary Mae West. A lot of people outdid themselves in other reviews to say outrageously nasty things about her (or, in a couple of instances, equally outrageous heaps of praise for her). Maybe the best way to write about her in this movie, is to be a little more realistic and objective.

First of all, it's true that Mae West *was* 85 years old at the time of filming this. I'm not saying that because she looks it (she doesn't). I'm saying it because the whole movie makes such extreme efforts to ignore her age. No, she ISN'T supposed to be 20-something--- come on, people, do the math! Her character was married six times, so she's got to be in her forties at least! But she's definitely not playing "elderly", and this seems to freak a lot of people out. She's playing a healthy, attractive "mature" woman whose sex drive is unabashedly strong. There is no hint in the dialogue, or in the reactions of other men TO the character, that this woman might be very, very old (as is the actress playing her).

Therein lies the problem. 85-year-old Mae West was simply not up to the demands of playing this part. She was aging too rapidly; no, she didn't quite look 85, but in some scenes she did look old for probably the first time in her public life. (Photographs taken throughout the 1970s show her looking remarkably young). Put it this way: just eight years earlier, in 1970, West had played a similar "sexy" part in the movie "Myra Breckinredge". She'd been 77 years old then, and she was in good enough health and spirits to carry it off big-time. West was THE highlight of that earlier film. She was stylish, hip, quick-moving, quick-thinking, and she truly did look around fifty or so.... she looked young enough to make the part believable.

But by the time of "Sextette", she just didn't have it any more. She tried very hard, but her physical and mental limitations strained believability too much. A few basic problems: First of all, her wardrobe and hairstyle (obviously a wig) were decades out-of-date. In "Myra Breckinredge", she had looked hip and stylin'. In "Sextette", she looked like a relic.

Then there was her speech difficulty: no longer able to remember dialogue, West wore an earpiece under her wig (this is true, it's not some tabloid made-up story) to have her lines read to her by the director offstage. She would then repeat the line to the camera. This made her acting seem stilted, unnatural-- and unfunny. When somebody asks her if she's seen Big Ben, and she replies "I don't know.... I never met the gentleman", this line could have gotten a big laugh in better times. But here she "reads" the line as if from a piece of paper (or like she's straining to hear it in her earpiece): I-ne-ver-met-the-gen-tle-man". It sounds robotic, lip-synched, dubbed.

Then there are various technical flaws: her songs, for instance, which WERE lip-synched, weren't lip-synched very well. In "Baby Face", you can clearly see her get off the soundtrack. And "After You've Gone" sounds like it was slightly sped up. The soundtrack is tinny, the photography is blurry (particularly West's scenes; she looks fuzzy and too bright in many instances).

The movie wasn't an entire diaster for her. She does have a few good scenes. When she tells Timothy Dalton "The night is still young", she looks genuinely young herself--- filtered camera lens though it may be--- and she makes the line believable. In the Alice Cooper sequence, she also looks surprisingly young; and when she stands behind Cooper with her hands on his shoulders (as he's playing piano), she seems to be clearly enjoying herself. And a few seconds later, when she stands in the doorway--- her back to the camera--- she gives one last hip-twitch (the final "Mae West" screen moment of her career), and you have to chuckle a bit in good-natured admiration. 85 she may have been, but she was still out there working, still entertaining people in the best way she knew how. There's even a bit of poignance in that moment.

But the problem is, this film was played so strongly as a British farce, it works completely against the premise and the style of the whole movie to be feeling any poignance, or anything but a sense of robust comedy for the actress playing the lead. If you are aware of her BEING a frail elderly woman at any time, then the movie isn't meeting its own agenda. And that's what happens too many times. Except for a few fleeting moments, Mae simply wasn't at her best here. For a much better, funnier look at Mae West in the "later years", see "Myra Breckinredge". She was a hilarious scream in that one.

It's too easy to dismiss SEXTETTE as just another tacky bad movie. It is actually more of a camp classic. Mae West, aged 85 at the time of shooting, may well have been having the last laugh here. She lampoons herself wildly in this incredible film version of her own stage play, involving an actress of a certain age visiting London to star in a new production. Choice dialog: "Miss Manners, what did you think of Big Ben?" "Oh, I don't believe I've met the gentleman". As the film progresses, all pretence at serious production seemingly goes out of the window. Rock stars Alice Cooper, Ringo Starr and Keith Moon make suitably sozzled mid-70s L.A. styled appearances for no good reason, and future James Bond Timothy Dalton hams up no end his role as Mae's youthful beau. And then suddenly, the film becomes a musical. Truly incredible, a must-see for fans of high camp.

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!