Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Myra Breckinridge: A Review



MYRA BRECKINRIDGE

There is something to be said about a film where after watching for about an hour one has absolutely no idea of what the plot actually IS. What is to be said is that it's stupid, insulting, crass, grotesque, and flat-out bad. With Myra Breckinridge and Caligula, it's amazing to me that Gore Vidal (or as I lovingly call him, BORE BANAL) is considered one of the great intellectuals of all time. Now, in fairness to BORE BANAL, I've never read any of his works, and he has condemned both Myra Breckinridge and Caligula, but judging from these two, I might change my views on book burning.

Let's see if I can give a quick summary of the film itself as shown. Myron Breckinridge (film critic Rex Reed) gets a sex change operation and become Myra Breckinridge (Raquel Welch). Myra goes to Hollywood to the acting school of Buck Loner (John Huston) and presents herself as Myron's widow so as to get half of the school which belongs to their shared family. Loner, who lusts after Myra, won't give it to her (no pun intended). Myra meets acting students Rusty Godowski (Roger Herren) and his girlfriend, Mary Anne (Farah Fawcett), whom she has developed fixations on (debatable if they're strictly sexual). Somewhere in this mix, we have talent agent/"big-time recording artist" Leticia Van Allen (Mae West), who uses her agency as a virtual male harem for her own pleasures, one of whom includes a nameless stud played by future Magnum, P.I. Tom Selleck. All right, once you stop laughing at the casting, let's move on.

Actually, I can't move on because somehow this story gets tangled up in itself. We have plot elements that involve Myra dropping her drawers to prove she's Myron and a female-to-male rape scene. Maybe everyone involved in this endeavor, starting from BORE BANAL down to director/co-writer Michael Sarne (co-writing with David Giler) all the way through to Welch, Reed, and Huston (I image the 76-year-old West was just thrilled about being in her first film in 26 years and didn't care what was going on) thought they were all being clever and daring. What they were en masse was clueless about how all this was coming together (metaphorically) because Myra Breckinridge really falls apart almost from the get-go and never fully recovers. It isn't satire, it isn't witty, it isn't fun. What it is, is, well, awful.

So many times every person's acting was so broad you think they were either A.) untalented (which I know that Huston, Welch, and West aren't, Reed being another story), or B.) not trying to act but giving parodies of acting (which might be the case, I don't know). How could Huston have THOUGHT he was in a serious movie when he was required to speak in a super-broad Southern/Texan accent, a gigantic cowboy hat like the ones you get at state fairs, and spurs. SPURS! HE WALKED AROUND IN SPURS! You can't take that kind of character seriously, and while that might have been the case even in a comedy you have to have some grounds in reality. There is an endless cutting between scenes that have little to no relation to each other, as when Myra and Buck are discussing the future of the acting school between scenes of what's going on outside in the school's garden, including a gardener getting shot by an arrow. It gives Myra Breckinridge this schizophrenic feeling that makes the whole thing tumble.

There were so many things that were dumb and pointless throughout the film. In fact, the words "dumb" and "pointless" appeared often in my notes for Myra Breckinridge. Throughout the film, the personas of Myron and Myra switch on screen, sometimes sharing the screen, sometimes not, but it makes it confusing at times, especially when there is a strong suggestion of masturbation: one isn't sure if it's Myra or Myron who is masturbating, and frankly, the idea of seeing Rex Reed get it on with himself is almost as grotesque as seeing Mae West belt out Hard to Handle while with a cavalcade of men dubbed "The Van Allen Dancers". What does THAT have to do with anything? I mean, really, what does that have to do with ANYTHING related to a movie with no story to begin with?

I also have several questions about the story (or what passes for a story). Why does Myron go through all these machinations of trying to convince Buck that he is really Myra, Myron's widow? Will his/her rights to inherit change when he/she changed sexes? If Myra went through a complete sex change operation, why will dropping her panties on Uncle Buck's desk (he would be Uncle Buck, wouldn't he) prove she's really Myron Breckinridge? How will attempting to seduce Mary Ann and Rusty prove Myra's gotten revenge on both sexes?

THE NEXT PARAGRAPH CONTAINS SPOILERS. BE FOREWARNED.
Seduce is too gentle a word for it. One of the things Myra Breckinridge is known for is for Myra raping Rusty. It isn't funny. It isn't clever. It is sick. Sick, Sick, Sick. Rape committed by a man on a woman has never, to my knowledge, been a source of comedy. I doubt it's funnier when a woman does it. Another famous aspect of the film is the inclusion of film clips to punch up the visual jokes, but by including Laurel and Hardy appearing to comment or make light of forced anal sexual penetration of a man who has been tied up not only takes their work completely out of context, but is a smear on their work and their own reputations.
END OF THE SPOILERS.
When one thinks on things, Myra Breckinridge doesn't make any real sense. At the end, we see Myron run Myra down with his car, but when we go to see the victim, we see it's Myron. Does this mean Myron ran over Myron? Where's the logic? Well, when you start and end your film with Myron and Myra doing a little soft-shoe I guess logic isn't what one looks for in Myra Breckinridge.

In the end, Myra Breckinridge reminds me of people who think they are clever and witty but who are really tasteless and don't know when they are being crass. BORE BANAL at work indeed. Huston's reputation survived it, but it took Raquel Welch decades to overcome this debacle. As for Rex Reed, maybe he got some good material out of it. I know I didn't. However, I do wonder if sometimes, in the dead of night, both Rex Reed and/or Gore Vidal ask themselves, "Where are my tits?"


No comments:

Post a Comment

Views are always welcome, but I would ask that no vulgarity be used. Any posts that contain foul language or are bigoted in any way will not be posted.
Thank you.