Sextette
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Movie Reviews of Sextette
Movie Review: MAE WEST: THE GREATEST STAR!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
Nobody, but NOBODY could ever top Mae West! She was just as fantastic in her last movie Sextette as she always was. She was absolutely amazing regardless of the age-prejudiced attacks some so-called "critics" have written.
For one thing, there is NO OTHER movie star in history that endured the way Mae did. She is witty, sexy and as frisky as ever in Sextette. Ringo Starr told TV Guide concerning Mae's performance in Sextette, "the minute she opened her mouth I knew I didn't' have a dog's chance...she is so fan-bloody-tastic that she just wipes us out!"
It is well past time for the "critics" to give it a rest. It is time to stop trying to outdo Rex Reed in viciousness. It is also time to stop discriminating against someone because of the person's age.
The GREAT Mae West was still the Queen of Sex when she made Sextette, and she always will be!!! She is still the Eighth Wonder of the World!!!
Mae West was still the greatest star in the history of the world when she made this movie. I find the nasty, error-filled comments of so-called "critics" here that relentlessly attack this film (and the disgusting comments) offensive in the extreme! ALL (every single one) of the ruthless attacks against this film here are age prejudiced criticisms that have absolutely not merit. The attacks all say the same tired things, over and over. They attack Miss West because (and only because) of her age. And the fact is, they have all the so-called facts wrong to the maximum degree!
This film is truly entertaining, well made, well filmed and very campy and funny. This is exactly what this film set out to do too.
The constant attacks against this film try to imply that Mae was playing a part of a "young hottie" when in fact the film makes it VERY PLAIN that she is a LEGENDARY film star from the golden age of Hollywood.
The attacks state trashy urban legends (hidden earpieces force-feeding lines, wigs, cosmetic surgery, etc.) and all these things have been brought to truthful light at Wikipedia.com.
IT IS TIME for truthful, honest, non age-prejudiced reviews....and here it IS! First of all this film is truly amazing due to the fact that Miss West delivered an INCREDIBLE and AMAZING performance in this film, especially considering her age!
Mae West never had a face lift or cosmetic surgery of any kind in her life and that is an established fact! Comments saying she slurred her speech, was grossly overweight, did not know what she was doing are completely untrue and most importantly completely UNFAIR! Any time you have people attacking someone because of their age you better think twice before you believe it!
The fact is that Mae West in Sextette, was AMAZINGLY like her former self in her old movies! ALL the astonishing and legendary mannerisms are here right in this film! Mae was not overweight, was not "lifted" and was not "senile" when she made this film. This film could have NEVER been made if the lies that are posted here were true.
Now let me say this...NO, this film is not "Gone With The Wind" and no one ever thought it was. But the fact is that this movie is an entertaining feature especially for a last film for a super mega star. When it comes to SUPER MEGA STAR status, well, NOBODY in the history of film can compete with the legendary Mae West! It is inhumane and cruel to allow the ruthless comments here with distorted facts attacking this film. If you do not like a film, well that is one thing and that is fine, but to ruthlessly attack a person, saying horrendous things about another human being is unjust, cruel and just PLAIN NOT FAIR!
Mae West was and remains the GREATEST star in the history of the world. She is the ONLY star in history to have her name listed in Webster's Dictionary. She saved Paramount Pictures from bankruptcy, she was the highest paid woman in the world at one time, and NOBODY can deny that her personality was unlike anything ever before of since! Let us give Mae credit for an ASTONISHING and AMAZING performance in a final film! Let us give her credit for an amazing performance for a performer at the age she was in this film. What about looking at all that instead of hateful, cruel, ruthless and unfair attacks? When I read some of these terrible reviews and the incredibly ruthless things that are said I just have to wonder what kind of nasty so-called human being would even post such comments. That is what is sick in the extreme!
I give this farewell performance by the invincible Mae West 5 stars for her INCREDIBLE, praise-worthy performance and I say God Bless you Mae West for showing us all that age does NOT matter!
Movie Review: SEXTETTE separates true worshipers of heinous cinema from the fainthearted!!
Summary: 5 Stars
The good news is that this is one of the most frightening horror movies ever made. The bad news is that it was supposed to be a musical comedy. (Bad comedies are painful, bad musicals are worse, and combining the two, then adding in liberal sexual innuendo involving an eighty-five year old former sexpot is agony.) But Sextette is never boring. It can't be...there's virtually a new TERROR around every corner!
This unbelievably misguided project from director Ken Hughes and screenwriter Herbert Baker takes Mae West's 1926 play SEX and reimagines it as a romance between the 85-year old West and 32-year old Timothy Dalton. And while Mae and her latest hubbie (future James Bond star, Dalton) lounge around their palatial honeymoon suite, Mae reminisces about her past conquests while a roster of escapees from the Hollywood Squares stumble through.
There's the always-confused Ringo Starr as a Stroheim-like director; leather-skinned George Hamilton as a pinstriped gangster; Alice Cooper in a permed `Barry Manilow-style' wig and tuxedo; Keith Moon as a foppy fashion designer; plus Dom DeLuise, George Raft, Regis Philbin, Rona Barrett -- the list of has-beens and never-will-be's goes on and on ...and on! Meanwhile, the viewer gets to grind their teeth at the loose excuse for a plot, in which the U.S. government begs Mae to spend a night with one of her ex's, a Russian bigwig (Tony Curtis), in order to save diplomatic relations.
But the show really belongs to its octogenarian leading lady, (who at this point in her life must have been giving her corset-maker hazard pay), in her final and most astounding screen role. The most bizarre thing about Sextette is that it pretends that its star is still in her twenties! and has her firing off racy double-entendres that will make every viewer nauseous with their quasi-necrophilic implications. The star is filmed in such soft-focus that one can barely make out her face. She shambles across the sets like she's about to fall over, and when she recites trademark zingers like, "I'm the girl who works at Paramount all day and Fox all night," (Say it out loud), she seems to have forgotten what they mean. The most horrifying exchange comes when she caresses her breasts provocatively, causing Dalton to embrace her and break into an ear-melting rendition of "Love Will Keep Us Together."
YES! Just when you think it's as cheesy as it could ever possibly get, the entire cast breaks into song and dance, and you remember it's also a freaking musical! You haven't lived until you've heard Dom DeLuise creaking out a cover of the Beatles' "Honey Pie"? Other low lights have West crooning "Happy Birthday" while pawing a 21-year-old youth in a gym full of Olympic bodybuilders and lip-synching another standard to which she appears to have forgotten the words. And we'll bet you thought AT LONG LAST LOVE was interminable!...
The whole mess ends with West singing "Babyface" (astonishingly, she's referring to herself) and sneaking onto Dalton's yacht for a really sick-making seduction scene. We'd like to tell you that the movie has a happy ending, (if having sex with an eighty-five year-old woman qualifies as "happy") but the viewer's side of the experience is something far less pleasant.
Sextette is a jaw-droppingly Bad Move We Love that separates true worshipers of heinous cinema from the fainthearted. It is defiantly one for the record books, and most certainly not recommended for viewing on an empty stomach.
Movie Review: Absolute Masterpiece of Camp
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie can only be appreciated as the true masterpiece of camp it undoubtedly is.
Mae West is delightful. True courage was needed to impersonate the courtesan character that was her trademark, at the age she did, and still get away with stealing the show. For all the other stars that are here are just background for Mae's antics and famous one-liners.
My favorite scene in the movie is when she is trying out an entire new wardrobe for a new movie, each gown more lavish, exagerated and madder in design than the last, and in the midst of it she caresses a mink coat and says "If you want to catch a fox you have to get up early in the morning, but you've got to stay up late to get a mink", so true to form and fabulous.
The movie was intended as a camp fest, and it is! There are wonderful musical numbers with dancing hotel attendants that are a wonderful record of gay chorus line dancing of the seventies. The Gym scene is also a wonderful record of early steroid treatments, post-liberation gay body aesthetics and the adaptation of the Farah Fawcett hairdo to men styles, a phenomenon of kitsch that has not been studied properly, as the influence of Fawcett into new frontiers of the ridiculous and tacky has not been explored as it deserves. We really need an extensive documentary just to make sense of that hair style and how it is connected with women's hair loss in the 80's and 90's
For those who complain about the film's quality: I actually found this film to be uncannily avant-garde: It points to the future of Hollywood which is now our present, where this quality/style of directing, vapid, meaningless dialogue, and the ridiculousness of the situations is now the rule rather than the exception, but most often without any comic relief. In other words, we have been seeing variations of this movie for the last 30 years, usually starring an anorexic blonde without any of the sexiness, pizzaz or style of Mae West and certainly without that extra push towards the outer realms of true camp that Mae West can give this one.
There is also one other area, overlooked by all reviewers here, where this movie is totally ahead of its time: Mae West looks far younger than her 85 years, and her weight proportions are pretty much the same as when she was younger, but the women her age nowdays ALL over America have this look now. The restorations of plastic surgery, the implants of botox and other substances have finally accomplished an entire population that looks like she does in this movie. We can all recognize her slightly Chinese eyes, her intensely dyed hair and reconstructed cheek bones and mouth from the women who lunch in New York, in other words she was the archetype of a new race of women between 40 and death that has taken over the national landscape and is rapidly becoming the standard rather than the exception. From this perspective Mae west can be studied as an anthropological phenomenon that has helped form a new "improved" image of women and feminine beauty with no expiration date in sight. Some of the latest samples of this scientifically improved beauty can be examined every morning amongst the anchorwomen in tv channels all over the country, sporting these features on an even younger generation, but with the additional bigger, whiter teeth that are a trademark of our time.
A must-see for Mae West fans, but also for all those involved in theater and movie costumes and design, scholars of camp aesthetics, visual culture, plastic surgery and body modification.
Movie Review: Marlo, remember that week and a half when you were a widow?
Summary: 5 Stars
Sextette tells the story of Marlo Manners, played by Mae West, who is in London to marry her sixth husband. Sir Michael Barrington, played so ably by Timothy Dalton, will be Marlo's sixth husband. Oh yes, they do get married--but after the wedding ceremony the press, Marlo's Hollywood agent Dan Turner and a cast of what seems like thousands all pester Marlo and Michael. They will not leave them alone to enjoy their wedding night. The plot is indeed thin and rather silly; but Sextette keeps your attention with its campy qualities and outlandish scenarios. The subplots poke fun at whirlwind courtships and Hollywood itself--excellent!
Before the wedding night can begin, Marlo faces pressure to wine and dine a Russian diplomat so that he can have one last fling with her in exchange for his "yes" vote on an international accord. Of course, this subplot couldn't stop at that--this Russian diplomat would have to be one of Marlo's five ex husbands, too! Marlo's obligations don't end there--she must do screen tests in her honeymoon suite directed by another ex played wonderfully by Ringo Starr. Sir Michael Barrington also has a burden; he must prove to the public that he likes women after there is an honest misunderstanding during a television interview Sir Michael gives to Rona Barrett. To complicate matters even further, people hunt to find Marlo's memoirs tape which goes missing; this could harm Marlo's image if the press were to capture it.
The subplots explore whirlwind courtships and the divorces that are obtained even faster than the courtships ever were. At one point Marlo's agent asks her if she remembered "that week and a half when (she) was a widow." Marlo remembers--and she did mourn the loss of her husband, too. Sure, she played the piano to forget her pain--but "only the black keys."
The cinematography shines strongest in the opening scenes when the wedding procession arrives at the hotel; and the scenes filmed on top of the hotel are well done, too. The choreography of every scene in the hotel gymnasium and the international summit reflects careful planning, too. The song and dance numbers are particularly well choreographed.
There are a few songs in this movie although I can't call it a "true-blue" musical. Marlo sings a rendition of "Happy Birthday, Sweet Sixteen" to a young athlete training in the hotel gymnasium. "Hooray For Hollywood" and "Love Will Keep Us Together" show forethought as well. Unfortunately, most of the other songs are cute but forgettable.
There are numerous cameos to spice up the film even further: Look for George Hamilton who has a brief role as one of Marlo's ex husbands; a young Regis Philbin playing himself at the very beginning of the movie; Alice Cooper as a waiter and Rona Barrett playing herself as a television news reporter.
The DVD does not come with any extras. This disappoints me but it is a minor flaw.
I agree with the reviewer who writes that if you like Mae West you'll love Sextette. Fans of campy movies with razor thin plots will also enjoy this movie. This was Mae West's final film. Nevertheless, in Sextette Mae still did what she always did best--delivering punchy one line double-entendres and shimmying all over the screen as self-confident as ever.
Hooray for Hollywood!
Movie Review: WE CAME UP TO SEE MAE AND IT WAS GRAND!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
Mae West is one of the most brilliant talents ever to grace the Silver Screen and single-handedly saved a major studio from going under in the depression era in the early thirties! Legendary movies that are total classics make Mae one of the greatest ever top female Superstars...in her 80's Mae West once again treated us to a view of the legend and many found pleasure in this fun movie that once again gives us a chance to have a view of the classic and very legendary Mae West! God forbid anyone or any of us age...Mae was never conventional having started her motion picture career in her forties and continued the following decades doing various stage and recording projects so it wasn't surprising that Mae West would do yet another motion picture once again in her eigthies!!! Mae was still very entertaining and had the thrill of going to the preview of this delightful movie in 1978 in Westwood California & had a strong feeling Mae West would attend. A line formed & arriving early we were the red velvet ropes and soon a red carpet rolled out and media came from everywhere equiped with boom mikes that started curbside and lined the red carpet! Up came a shining limousine and out came a sparkling and radiant Mae West with a strapping guys in tuxedos on each arm...Mae in person looked magnificent and the crowd went wild...she strutted up the red carpet and stopped at each interviewer and popped off witty and very funny one liners that had everyone cracking up! Mae West looked gorgeous and we gave her a standing ovation inside of the theatre when it was announced over the PA that she was in attendance then a spotlight lit her up...luckily seated a few rows in front of Maem, got to look directly at her and give her a big smile and let out a few Bravo's...Mae was beaming and it was a magical event never to forget! Find it very sad some strangely put down her last effort to entertain and everyone loved this "over the top" entertaining movie on that great afternoon in Westwood and still do! Recently watched Sextette with a friend and we laughed and loved every moment of the Magic Of Mae West with a fun cast of amusing characters including a wonderful performance by Dom Deluise...watch how Mae lights up when George Raft appears on screen with her! Those who think that life is perfect and legends never age...get over it and get a reality check. Thank you Mae West for your genius and sharing your incredible and wonderous gifts for some seventy-plus years and for the support that you warmly gave the Gay Community at a time when few would even get close...the best in the West left behind a treasure chest of classics for us to savor and enjoy!!! If you love Mae then grab this while you can as cult favorites such as Sextette usually have a short release run...BRAVO MAE WEST!