Myra Breckinridge

The Worst Movies Ever Made Part 6

Ok first I must admit, I do love me a good 1960s trash film now and then, I don't know why, but there is something about the whole almost but not porn thing, completely awesome in its own trashy way. Its like, you know its crap, you don't care that its crap because there is nudity, and in the case of cult classic Myra Breckinridge, Rachel Welch tying a young man to an examination table, violating him with a strap on dildo and making him thank her when she's done. Oh yes, I do love me some 1960s trash films.

Now the thing that really stands out about Myra Breckinridge looks like it would be a hit sexplotation movie, its got trash film legend Mae West who came out of retirement for the movie, its got Rachel Welch fresh off her break out role in One Million B.C, and its got a young woman named Farrah Fawcett, 6 years before she'd become an angel in the employ of a man named Charlie, who sounded alot like John Forsythe, and its also the first on film appearance of the man who would be grow up to live in Higgans' guest house and driving his Ferrari, Tom Selleck, and an acting appearance by soon to be movie critic Rex Reed as Myron Breckinridge. All of this, and being based on a book by Gore Vidal, you would think that this would have just printed 1970 money, but well it didn't, infact Time Magazine said of it "Myra Breckinridge is about as funny as a child molester. It is an insult to intelligence, an affront to sensibility and an abomination to the eye.". Yeah thats right, Time Magazine called a movie based on a book by Gore Vidal "as funny as a child molester..", amazing that.

The plot is actually not that bad, pretty ingenious really. the opening scene shows a man named Myron who is inspired to become a woman by staring at Rachel Welch's One Million B.C poster which was very popular at the time (it also adds a nice breaking the forth wall easter egg to the film though it wasn't in the book), the movie then shows him on the table getting thread for the operation to become a woman, and then next thing you know, he wakes up and is no longer perennial douchebag (and feature movie critic) Rex Reed, but instead is now insanely hot young Rachel Welch, and changes his name to Myra, the film then sets about telling the story of Myra and her life, which i'm pretty sure you can tell involves your normal flair of late 1960s early 1970s depravity, because well thats what happens when you become Rachel Welch, you go out and become a mentally unstable sex fiend, or so i read on the internet anyway. Its really this big blurry mess of sexual imagery that though ment to entice, astound and shock you, really just makes you feel weird inside, and the ending where Myron wakes up on the table and realizes he's not had the operation at all just seems so strange and misplaced. I mean twist endings are a staple of hollywood going back to the early days of silent film, but still, what the hell? It was all a dream. Thats kind of like a big kick in the nuts after being subjected to this seemingly long swirl of nudity, sex and whatever the hell else got tossed in there.

See, though they set out to make sexplotation gold, instead this movie became a text book case in what not to do when making a film in that vain, and what not to do, ofcourse is, completely destroy the story and only take the sexual scenes from the book its based on while filling in the rest with your own idea of what it should have been. A movie can not survive on just sex scenes, thats why there is atleast a minute or talking through out every porn movie, and atleast 5 or so minutes of bad comedy in every single sex comedy thats out these days, they all learned from this horrible attempt at movie making. In a sense its the Uwe Boll of trash films.

So I'd say, if you are a lover of trash film of the grindhouse era, or just love really bad movies, I'd say give this insane toss back in time a look, if not, i'd stay very very far away from it.


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Laz