Comments on: Myra Breckinridge

Myra Breckinridge

Joe Beese — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 20:30:03 -0800

I am Myra Breckinridge whom no man will ever possess. Clad only in garter belt and one dress shield, I held off the entire elite of the Trobriand Islanders, a race who possess no words for "why" or "because." Wielding a stone axe, I broke the arms, the limbs, the balls (nsfw) of their finest warriors, my beauty blinding them, as it does all men...

Myra Breckinridge (1970) starred Raquel Welch, John Huston, movie reviewer Rex Reed, and - making her first screen appearance in 27 years - Mae West. Also appearing were then-unknowns Farrah Fawcett and Tom Selleck.

By: iamkimiam

iamkimiam — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 20:32:56 -0800

But where is Joel and the robots?

By: Astro Zombie

Astro Zombie — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 20:35:49 -0800

That film is really remarkable for managing to combine all sorts of things that I love -- camp, Mae West, transgressive humor, Raquel Welch, Gore Vidal, Jim Backus, and, believe it or not, a very young Dan Hedaya -- into a film I never, ever want to watch again.

By: George_Spiggott

George_Spiggott — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 20:39:50 -0800

A word to the wise, Joe: before linking to a geocities page, on Metafilter, hit it with CoralCache first. Because when its bandwidth allotment gets exceeded, it's too late to do it then.

By: Joe Beese

Joe Beese — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 20:41:47 -0800

George_Spiggott: "A word to the wise, Joe: before linking to a geocities page, on Metafilter, hit it with CoralCache first." Crap... I meant to put up a "fragile GeoCities link" warning or something. Here's the Google cache.

By: twoleftfeet

twoleftfeet — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 21:11:55 -0800

That "lesbian scene" with Farrah Fawcett seemed really promising, but ended up being about Farrah being upset about a guy. "If only you were a man", she says to Raquel Welch. I've never heard dialog like that in other lesbian scenes, least of all about Raquel Welch.

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 22:06:19 -0800

When I was young I was hospitalized for a severe stomach infection. I'm sure it was really painful but I've long since forgotten the pain. It's good to forget things.

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 23:26:06 -0800

As Gore Vidal notes on the 5-disc Blu-Ray Complete Collector's Edition, some scenes had to be struck from the final print. Pegging Magnum PI was just not the same without his mustache.

By: The Whelk

The Whelk — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 06:29:49 -0800

During filming of Myra Breckinridge, Mae West was almost completely blind. She refused to admit this of course, and had men crawling at her feet to guide her around the set. No, really, a guy was on the floor to guide her around and give her cues. She insisted that they be attractive men. She also engaged in an epic cat-fight with Raquel Welch.

By: The Whelk

The Whelk — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 06:33:25 -0800

Ms. West and her chorus line "A guy that takes his time." Please note the bed. Also, Mae West sings about how much she wants to sleep with Asian guys.

By: The Whelk

The Whelk — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 06:49:11 -0800

Also, that NSFW clip, with Raquel yipping like an excited terrier, is some the best worst moments in all cinema. And I speak as someone who owns a copy of Shark Attack 3: Megalodon. I need to stop talking about bad movies and start getting ready for work. Which neatly sums up my life at this point.

By: spec80

spec80 — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 07:12:41 -0800

A word to the wise, Joe: before linking to a geocities page, on Metafilter, hit it with CoralCache first. I read that as ColdChef first and thought "Holy crap, what DOESN'T he do?"

By: aquafortis

aquafortis — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 09:14:04 -0800

Mixing Freud with popular culture isn't pretty.

By: blucevalo

blucevalo — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 09:34:41 -0800

Gore Vidal: "I was having a meeting with a producer and I said to him, 'Look, I'm tired shitless of your complaints. You don't know what you're talking about. You know marketing, you may know how to make deals, but you don't know how to make movies, and you intrude on other people who are talented and do.' He exploded. 'How can you say that to me?' He was halfway across the room. 'I will hit you!' he said. Then I started toward him and said, 'I am going to throw you out of this window.' And I came at him. We were about three feet apart and he was running toward me and he couldn't stop because of how much he weighed -- he was very heavy. He veered off to the right and ran into a wall. I heard his nose crack against the wall."

By: metagnathous

metagnathous — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 10:02:27 -0800

By: The Whelk

The Whelk — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 11:43:27 -0800

Vidal broke the balls - and outlasted - tiresomely macho brawlers like Norman Mailer: he compared 'The Prisoner of Sex' to 'three days of menstrual flow"; later, when he was knocked to the ground by Mailer, he retorted, still on the floor: 'Words fail Norman Mailer yet again'.

By: Smedleyman

Smedleyman — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 12:15:46 -0800

No way she would have held off the Chateaubriand warriors.

By: KirkJobSluder

KirkJobSluder — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 12:34:06 -0800

Is it reasonable to give Vidal a pass for really ugly prejudice against transexuals on the grounds that it was 40 years ago, and he still is a wonderfully bitter and witty antidote to the stupidity of contemporary political criticism?

By: ZenMasterThis

ZenMasterThis — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:36:30 -0800

Depending on who you ask Welch was either a shy, humble grandmother type deeply traumatized by Welch's indifferent treatment of her or an insane, deluded prima donna who colluded with Sarne in destroying the film. I believe that should have said: "Depending on who you ask West was either a shy..."

By: koeselitz

koeselitz — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 22:44:12 -0800

Astro Zombie: That film is really remarkable for managing to combine all sorts of things that I love -- camp, Mae West, transgressive humor, Raquel Welch, Gore Vidal, Jim Backus, and, believe it or not, a very young Dan Hedaya -- into a film I never, ever want to watch again. AZ, I would rather choose not to believe that one of the things you love is a very young Dan Hedaya.

By: batgrlHG

batgrlHG — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 12:31:04 -0800

Randomly, thanks to this thread (and following random links from here) I learned that Salvador Dalí designed a couch called Mae West Lips. (I'd just seen it in photos, never noticed the name.) Which is a good thing because watching West's film clips from her final years always makes me a bit sad in that she seems to be working so hard at looking young - and there are no close closeups for a reason - seems like such hard work when she should have felt it was ok to grow older. (She hated the Diane Arbus photos of her - though she looks good for 72.) Not that Hollywood/America has ever wanted any female stars to age, ever. I suppose I shouldn't be too sad for her - she certainly seems to be enjoying herself and by all accounts she was always happiest when she had an audience. And yes, I can't watch any of that film without thinking MST3K thoughts. I need a YouTube mod that will make those silhouettes appear on the screen...