Dinah East

This movie was extremely well done. The story is told using a great many flashbacks. I don't usually like flashbacks, but in this film they are well done, and more to the point, they work.

Recommended.

First, this movie has nothing AT ALL to do with Mae West. It is not even a veiled story of her life, and she did NOT "force the studio to pull it out of distribution and burn all the copies." Whoever made up that tale was an idiot. The East/West surname coincidence is ONLY a coincidence. You might as well say that East of Eden is about Mae West as say it about this movie. It's just stupid. This movie owes more to A Star Is Born than to anything involving Mae West.

Second, this movie also is not meant to be campy or any of the other dumb adjectives people try to apply to it. Maybe campy people see themselves in it, but that's in THEM, not in the movie.

True: it was made with very little money and with no talent AT ALL, anywhere, either before or behind the camera. But it was made with a huge amount of heart, and its sincerity, its openness and generosity of spirit are what make Dinah East well worth watching.

This is a love story about two misfits, and despite all its flaws it is sweet and moving and honest. It's not a joke. Laugh at if you want to, but if you do you're depriving yourself of something a lot better than a good laugh.

But if you do want to watch it, be VERY DILIGENT about which of the two DVD releases you buy. The DVD most earlier reviewers saw is a semi-pirated 2006 release of ABOMINABLE quality in a chopped-off 3:2 full-screen (old TV) format, almost surely copied from a VHS tape released briefly in the 1980s.

It has a rather dull cover, with a photo of Diana East at the bottom and "A superstar actress is really a man... Hollywood's strangest story! DIANA EAST" at the top. That is the DVD you DO NOT want to buy. It's nearly unwatchable. Amazon in the US says it's currently unavailable, and let's hope it stays that way. But Amazon in the UK still sells that version; and it is the version the large American DVD-by-mail renter has, so don't bother putting it in your queue.

There is a MUCH better 2010 DVD from Kit Parker Films, distributed in the US by VCI Entertainment and possibly other distributors in other markets. It has remastered video and audio and is in the original 16:9 wide-screen format. It has a more modern, glitzier cover, with "UN-CUT THEATRICAL VERSION" in a black banner across the top and "KIT PARKER FILMS" in a black banner across the bottom. That is the DVD you MUST buy if you want to see this movie. Amazon sometimes groups the two very different versions (and their reviews) together, so you have to be diligent about buying the right one.

This movie was totally before its time..A great adaptation of what Hollywood was like way back then, when there were limited acting parts for men ...A very early Tootsie!!! Can't wait for it to be available on video and or dvd!!

This is not a particularly good, but certainly interesting artifact from the early 70's. I won't rehash plot too much, but it was obviously "gay interest" with a trans lead,(Andy Warhol hanger-on Ultra Violet), which was very unusual at the time. There is also a lot of gay male interest and nudity, which was much less common then than it is now. There is also a LOT of lesbianism and female nudity, which was definitely NOT unusual at the time, including the young-looking Kitty Carl ("Carhops") and Susan Romen ("Weekend with the Babysitter"), who in 1970 may not just have been young LOOKING. I guess you can say it has something for everybody as far as exploitation goes. But it is kind of a weak story that is all over the place without being as memorably awful as similar fare of the time like the bigger-budgeted "Myra Breckenridge" or "Sextette".

I saw this movie and thoroughly enjoyed it, however few today seem to know anything about it. Ever since I have had a VCR, I have looked for it on video and now I would like to have it on DVD. I am sure there would be a market for it if someone would release it!