How can a sex farce starring Raquel Welch at her peak voluptuousness be so dull?This is like a porn flick with the porn edited out. An endless stream of set pieces that go nowhere. Myron Breckinridge (film critic Rex Reed) has an implausible sex change and re-emerges as gorgeous Myra (Welch). She blackmails her goofy
uncle (director John Huston, embarrassing himself with an awful Slim Pickens impression) into giving her a faculty post at his bogus acting school/commune and, there, sets upon her vengeful quest to destroy the mythos of the American male. Or something.That's about where the plot's momentum grinds to a stop. Mae West creaks in with her dinosaur act, portraying an agent who's fixated on having sex with men a third of her age (including a young, moustache-less Tom Selleck). It's as if she's in her own separate movie. She probably agreed to appear on condition that she have top billing and be allowed to lead a song-and-dance number. And we're forced to sit through it. She and Welch have just one scene together, and their faces never appear in the same frame. Meanwhile, ingenue Farrah Fawcett also enters the story, pokes out her nipples everywhere yet still can't make the film interesting. Even a bedroom scene with Welch doesn't pay off. How is that possible?Repeated mentions of "balling" date the script, and further star cameos from Jim Backus, John Carradine and Andy Devine add nothing. The insertion of vintage movie clips (lots of Laurel and Hardy) mostly just pad out the running time and, in the end, the greatest pleasures are simply Welch's stylish costumes and game willingness to debase herself with references to orgasms, urine specimens and "motherfuckers." And, oh yes, there's her notorious anal-rape sequence. (Hint: She's not the one being raped.)What was the point of Toni Basil repeatedly turning up, just to chew gum like some stereotyped teen delinquent?
June 26, 2011
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