Sextette
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Dom DeLuise, Mae West, Ringo Starr, Timothy Dalton, Tony CurtisDVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 91 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2000-11-07
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Rhino Theatrical
Movie Reviews of Sextette
Movie Review: 5 Stars for Unintended Humor
Summary: 5 Stars
I think Rex Reed was correct when, in his initial review of this movie, he opined that its only value was perhaps "as a training film for retired French wh----". Ahh, the acting.... the songs.... the placement of the songs in the movie .....they all stink....... and seem to be the product of an adolescent mind with a wicked sense of humor. Take a quasi-lifelike Miss West, terribly overweight, age-inappropriate hair and garb, speech slurred, with an expressionless face similar to those seen hovering above bedpans across America, and then.... watch a room full of men jumping to their feet.....to sing "Babyface" to her. At better than 80, there is no part of a baby's anatomy that Miss West resembled, let alone its face. The only commonality there is that both wore diapers.
Miss West aged poorly - not only in the physical sense, but in spirit. More accurately, she mummified, perhaps because she could not let go of the notion that she, and she alone, at any age, could be the only femme-fatale in a movie. She behaved shamefully offscreen toward Raquel Welch in Myra Breckinridge; in Sextette, she is allowed to strut her stuff without competition. The only problem is that her "stuff" hangs about two feet lower than it did in her heyday, and because of her excessive weight, she looks as swollen and shapeless as a tick. This, from a woman often quoted as saying, "Cultivate your curves - they may be dangerous, but they won't be avoided." The audience is asked to believe that every man in the movie is attempting to get into her knickers, including a Timothy Dalton (who is probably younger than one of Miss West's ratty wigs). And what IS with those stringy hang-dog wigs, anyway? In her old movies, she was always beautifully coiffed - bobbed and in glossy finger waves.
Those reviewers who assume that any criticism of this movie comes exclusively from folks who are unfamiliar with or unappreciative of Miss West in her early days are wrong. I've seen all of her (earlier) movies, even have a very rare photograph of Miss West (her hair in smart brunette finger waves, since she had not yet decided to go blond) being arrested at the Bronx Opera House for leud public behavior (alluding to sex verbally while on stage). Her week in jail was more valuable for its publicity than it was punitive. However, this reviewer is saddened to see a movie that makes it as obvious as a poke in the eye that Miss West could not make the transition from center of attention-femme-fatale to more realistic roles -a la Joan Blondell, Marilyn Maxwell, Betty Grable.
Some of the reviewers of this movie seem to regard Miss West's willingness to demonstrate [that her ego can triumph over complete physical decay] as some sort of show of good sportsmanship. To this reviewer, it seems only a tad less desperate an act than self-immolation.
After her heyday, I understand it was an unhappy, Norma Desmond-like life for Miss West, constantly trying to shut out the world around her, with its upcoming stars, the inevitable generation after generation of serious actors, all of whom Mae dubbed as talentless. In the course of the few interviews she granted, there appeared to be an unhappy truce between Miss West and reality, with such unhealthy signs as her contending that no movies of value had been made since she stopped acting in them. This, from a successful ex-vaudvillian who could push the envelope, always playing the same wisecracking broad, but beyond that one role, had no interest or real acting ability. Yes, her movies were popular and breezy, and did save Paramount from bankruptcy. She was a genious at creating illusion...throughout her career, a short, slightly chubby woman, she wore a corset, and always a gown with a long train that provided the illusion of height and statuesque presence. The only time she stepped out of those amazing costumes was in one unfortunate movie in which she played a lion trainer, and her short, thick legs and heavy thighs did not benefit from exposure. And so it was back to the streamlining gowns that she wore so well and to a career in which she continued to fascinate moviegoers.
But that was 50 years ago. This reviewer likes as much as the next person to be fascinated by people who don't appear to age like the rest of us common folk a la Sophia Loren or Catherine DeNeuve. But as for Miss West looking good for her age, take any reasonably healthy 80 year old nursing home patient (male or female), provide relentless cosmetic surgery, top it off with a large helping of botox, then set atop them a stringy blonde age-inappropriate wig, and you would have the same result as Miss West in Sextette - an odd-looking creature who vaguely resembles Bert Lahr in The Wizard of Oz.
Was this movie a golden moment for Miss West? I suppose she was lucky in that she wanted to film this ancient vanity piece, and found enough people willing to make it happen. Of course, a few changes had to be made in the screenplay to bring it up to date - stagecoaches replaced by automobiles, references to the world being flat had to be edited out, etc. In Miss West's little world, with lines being fed to her through a wire, I guess it might have been analagous to Norma Desmond's "Big Closeup" in which Gloria Swanson has a psychotic break and descends into the depths of madness. Miss West's lines were so slurred that it sounded as if the wire were connected below, rather than above her waist.
Other reviewers here have reported that Miss West passed away shortly after this film was released. I wonder if the cause of death was listed as "embarrassment" or perhaps "wire chafe".
If this movie has one redeeming quality, it lies in teaching us by negative example to let the world in as we get older, and try, as difficult as it may be, to embrace new approaches and ideas (and the younger generations that provide such challenge). I've occasionally had a hankering to trot out a Shakespear-esque play I wrote when I was 16, in which I play all the characters. But 35 years later, I'm saavy enough to know that I no longer look good in leotards, and, like many men my age, although I have an ample though uninvited bosom able to fill any bustiere, this is a sight to which no audience should be subjected.
If I could wish one thing for Miss West (since she did provide me with much entertainment and laughter in the early days), it would be that through the years of her life following her popularity, she'd learned to be more generous with other upcoming performers, and therefore have the ability to get pleasure from situations other than those in which she was the mandatory center of attention.
Summary of Sextette
Studio: Wea-des Moines Video Release Date: 12/05/2000 Run time: 91 minutes Rating: PgSimilar DVD Movies
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