Jaw dropping BAAAAAAAD. Embarrassing to watch. Can we say

BOMB! … Not a shred of value or depth. Yuck.

I remember watching “Myra” when it first appeared and could barely sit through it. Most of the audience I watched it with in New York City got up and left. We all knew we had just paid good money to watch one of the most inept, God-Awful messes to ever come from a major studio. You cringe as you watch the mummified remains of Mae West totter around as if she’s a wooden mannequin. Those horrendous one-liners she personally wrote herself make you wince. The very worst? A tall, handsome man says he needs to see her. Mae asks: “How tall are you?” He answers: “Six feet and seven inches.” She tries to roll her eyes, and pat that plastic-looking blonde wig when she croaks: “Forget the six feet. Let’s discuss the seven inches.” Hearty har! Har! Raquel Welch is just as pitiful. She utters every line in this fluting, sing-song cadence without a drop of reality. The take-off on gays is nauseating. The black queen who minces and flutters his eyes is so repulsive you wonder what world he came from. Maybe parody was the theme. This movie is still a bomb from the past that hasn’t improved over time. Ishtar–where are you?

This 1970 movie, based (?) on the novel of the same name by Gore Vidal defies description. First, this film appears to have little in common with Vidal’s novel, as I remember it. I notice on the DVD case that Mr. Vidal “denounced” the film. Why wouldn’t he? The movie is basically plotless. It would have needed a stellar cast to pull this off, but it stars the aging Mae West, Raquel Welch, the film critic Rex Reed and the director John Huston, along with Tom Selleck and Farrah Fawcett, not exactly great actors. Michael Sarne gets credit or the blame for directing and being 1/2 of the writing team responsible for happens here.

There are certainly some funny moments here and indeed the movie may become a cult classic. Mae West plays herself, as do most of the other actors. And she can be mildly funny in a crude Mae West way. If this movie is about sexual identity– and I haven’t the vaguest notion if it is or not, although Rex Reed/Myron may have a sex-change or, according to the director’s commentary, dreams he has one– then surely the irony is not lost on anyone that Ms. West, by the time she made this movie, was the least real “woman” of any of the various and sundry bisexuals, post-op transexuals, whatever, and must be as artificial as any other “woman” in this travesty. Surely nobody believes she looked like that at the end of her work day.

Twentieth Century Fox posts a disclaimer at the beginning of this DVD about the opinions expressed in the commentary that go along with this movie. Both the director and Ms. Welch give their comments although I only watched Mr. Sarne’s. He liked Ms. West and Mr. Huston but has most unkind things to say about Ms. Welch, Mr. Reed and particularly Mr. Vidal 30 years after he dropped this bomb on us. Mr. Sarne rambles on and on about what the movie is all about and what we are to glean from it, what he is trying to do, etc., etc. I must admit that most of his lessons sailed right over my head. Example: he says he only photographs Ms. West wearing white and black– not exactly a true statement but who cares? — because she heretofore had only made black and white movies. Okay! Then he enlightens us on the difference between the British use of “camp” and the U. S. version of “campy.” I suspect this director is homophobic– check out the mincing, lisping African American student–although Mr. Sarne is so ineffectual that it’s difficult to care much.

Vidal’s novel is quite funny and certainly worth reading. I’m not sure a successful movie could ever be made from it. The late John Schlesinger had both the talent and sensivity to have brought this novel to the screen if anyone could have. But he didn’t so we are left with this. So pop in this DVD, grab your chocolates, skip the director’s commentary, and laugh loudly for all the wrong reasons.