Myra Breckinridge

1970 "Everything you heard about Myra Breckinridge is true."
4.5| 1h34m| R| en| More Info
Released: 24 June 1970 Released
Producted By: 20th Century Fox
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

Myron Breckinridge flies to Europe to get a sex-change operation and is transformed into the beautiful Myra. She travels to Hollywood, meets up with her rich Uncle Buck and, claiming to be Myron's widow, demands money. Instead, Buck gives Myra a job in his acting school. There, Myra meets aspiring actor Rusty and his girlfriend, Mary Ann. With Myra as catalyst, the trio begin to outrageously expand their sexual horizons.

Genre

Drama, Comedy

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Director

Michael Sarne

Production Companies

20th Century Fox

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Myra Breckinridge Audience Reviews

Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!
Clevercell Very disappointing...
BlazeLime Strong and Moving!
Derrick Gibbons An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.
RavenGlamDVDCollector And so it came that RavenGlamDVDCollector put his sights on Raquel Welch, there was ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. and the less I say about that one, the better, there was HANNIE CAULDER, yet another wreck to say the least, but, ooh boy, you couldn't fault Raquel in those two. Blame it on the scripts, not on Raquel. Research led me to the movie with the most unattractive name, MYRA BRECKINRIDGE, and the warning bells went off full blast, but here on IMDb I went for the reviews that said this movie was actually Raquel Welch at her best. So I took the gamble, against my instincts. Did it pay off?Let me tell you that this is a horrendously atrocious piece of junk made out of flotsam. If you are one of those people who enjoy watching really really bad movies, this is the one for you, and you could even have Raquel as your co-pilot if you select her commentary. Then, and only then, would I suggest this train-wreck as a hilarious fun-fest.But if you want to watch anything that could at least be made sense of, avoid this one like the plague.It is a neutered movie, in theme, and as it turned out, an emasculated version of what it was supposed to have been. One explanation seems to be that there was a whole lot of pot-smoking going on. But it's obvious that the theme itself doomed the project. I appreciate that Raquel got the part, but the way it was done, there is just no way this make the tiniest bit of sense.What is wrong with it? Virtually everything! In the first place, not one shred of credibility. Casting Raquel as the product of a sex change operation. No scalpel could produce Raquel Welch from Rex Reed. Yet we are expected to accept that this beautiful, beautiful creature was a man just weeks before, I mean, just because of one incisive cut... The casting of Mae West more than two decades after she retired. Mae West might have been a former sex symbol during the War years, but this was 1970, and she had by then become... Well, unladylike. Let's just say unladylike. I have other descriptions, but if this is to get published, they might not suffice. She would have been excellently suited for a movie titled "Reanimated Corpse Bride" though. I do not have any knowledge of her early movies, but in here, she cannot act, cannot sing, and only makes a queen-sized spectacle of herself with her brash personality. Witty? In that department, I'd have told her not to quit her day job, it's lame, unfunny and only serves to make her a camp old queen. And she blew onto the set, demanding special treatment, never mind Raquel! She needed to be kicked off the set for the good of the movie.The other fatal flaw is those interjected film clips. So this is where DREAM ON was born. Only here, it shouldn't ever have been done. Nonsensical. Intensifies the level of the junk. What actually happened is that during post-production, director Michael Sarne realized they had missed the p(l)ot and tried brightening up the whole mess turning it into a satirical comedy. In my own opinion, only made it a bigger mess underlining their stark realization that they had produced this useless piece of trash.What do I like? Farrah Fawcett shows she is destined to become the idol of every teen boy in America. Raquel's dancing during the opening/closing sequence. The leitmotif fruit 'n' nuts girl. The DVD box cover artwork, the menu artwork. But most of all, the trailer of FATHOM, the Raquel movie I should have bought.As for this, it actually isn't worthy of the 1 I gave it. It's a fitting -2 out of 10 for this gelded movie.In short, the movie that they shouldn't even have bothered to try and make.
bluekarma06 Great groundbreaking movie that was so far ahead of it's time that it was trashed by critics and viewers alike! Perhaps only a handful of us get it! I think for the most part, the movie got across it's point that Hollywood was changing. The world was changing! Using Mae West to show that sex has been the driving force behind movie-making was brilliant! The old film clips are to convey the emotion or response of the viewer and were cleverly used. Most viewers have a limited range of intelligence and miss the point! The movie also was a very good take on the liberal attitudes that were taking over Hollywood at that time. A response to movies like Midnight Cowboy with their anti-heroes. They even mention that in the movie actors like Clark Gable and John Wayne are gone and have been replaced by this new breed of leading males. I think the movie was way ahead of it's time. Just look at what er have now running Hollywierd!
Woodyanders This fetid stinkbomb of a film has a notorious reputation as one of the worst movies to ever ooze its disgusting way onto celluloid. Is it really that bad? Well, yes it is, but it's often so strange and perverse that it ultimately becomes downright mesmerizing in its unapologetic freakishness. Raquel Welch, looking absolutely gorgeous and carrying herself with admirable flair and poise, gives it all she's got as Myra Breckinridge, a ruthless, predatory and venomous femme fatale who tries to nab a sizable inheritance from blustery millionaire acting school dean Buck Loner (an outrageously hammy John Huston) and cheerfully destroys any hapless males and females who get in her lethal way. You see, Myra was originally the preening homosexual Myron (a terrible and insufferably smug performance by popular movie critic Rex Reed) prior to having a successful sex change operation (done by none other than John Carradine!). Director/co-writer Michael Sarne delivers a brutal no-holds-barred satire on Hollywood decadence, libertine permissiveness run insanely amok, and the swingin' early 70's sexual revolution which unmercifully mocks both the stuffy old guard and hip youth culture with equal seething disdain; this fierce in-your-face mean-spiritedness gives the picture a shocking acidic edge that certainly isn't subtle or sophisticated, but still gets the nasty job done in a hilariously vicious way all the same. The hysterically broad acting further enhances the all-out lunacy: an aged, yet spry Mae West is positively sidesplitting as blithely bawdy talent agent Leticia Van Allen (the sequence with West heartily belting out "Hard to Handle" on stage is a total gut-busting riot), Calvin Lockhart camps it up to the ninth degree as fey gay Irving Arnadeus, Farrah Fawcett is a bit too convincing for comfort as giggly bimbo Mary Ann Pringle, Roger Herren likewise does dumb with unnerving conviction as macho stud Rusty Godowski (the scene which depicts Myra joyfully sodomizing Rusty is genuinely sick and startling), and Tom Selleck sans trademark mustache even makes his ignominious film debut as one of Van Allen's handsome and virile boy toys. Moreover, there's also lots of clips from vintage golden oldie 30's features edited into the main narrative throughout; this just throws the picture even more off kilter and hence adds to the bizarrely entrancing train wreck quality of the whole misguided enterprise. Now, this isn't a good film by any conventional standards, but man is this wonderfully wretched abomination a one-of-a-kind piece of remarkably vile and depraved kitsch.
phillindholm THAT'S certainly a strange way to promote a film upon which a great deal rested. And it seems like plain suicide on the part of the studio, given that (1) The feuds between the cast were well known long before the movie's release. (2) The feud between the Producer(Robert Fryer) and Director ( Michael Sarne) was also common knowledge. (3) The cast made no secret of their contempt for the film and made it public at every opportunity, with daily bulletins from the set gleefully reported by gossip columnists everywhere.And (4) The author, Gore Vidal hated it practically from day one. Nevertheless, that tagline just about sums it up. Raquel Welch does give a decent performance as Myra, and she looks lovely besides. John Huston is very funny as Buck Loner, the ex-Cowboy Star who runs a phony acting academy. Mae West, (in her first screen appearance since 1943) naturally rewrote her part to suit herself, and she is great as ''oversexed'' (and that's putting it mildly) ''Talent Agent'' Leticia Van Allen. Still, she must have wondered (after waiting so long for a good vehicle in which to return) how she ever ended up in this mess.Tom Selleck (in his film debut) is one of her ''clients''. John Carradine and Jim Backus, as Doctors, also amble in briefly. Rex Reed as Myron, Farrah Fawcett and Roger Herren, as the victims of Myra/Myron's sexual passion, are neither here nor there. The same goes for the script, which not only fails to focus on the basic plot of the book, but seems to head in at least three different directions at once. Although West's part was originally larger, she was reduced to a cameo role by the time Sarne was through with the editing. And, partly because of this, she seems to be in a different movie. Apparently, at some point, the Producers realized that Mae was going to be the film's big draw, and, unable to replace most of her cut footage, they rushed her back to the set at the end of filming for the second of her two songs, both of which come out of nowhere. The device Sarne used of throwing in old film clips of bygone stars to emphasize whatever points he was making, doesn't work at all. By the time the movie concludes, all a weary spectator can do is wonder what in the hell it was all about. Not surprisingly, just about everyone connected with the production felt the same way, and it died at the box office. A technically flawless DVD includes, (among other extras) separate commentaries from both Welch and Sarne, each of whom have completely opposite opinions of just what went wrong.No doubt it's home video re-release was prompted by a 2001'' Vanity Fair'' piece, which attempted (in great detail) to do the same thing. True, the structure of the novel made a screen adaptation a dubious undertaking, but, with Sarne at the helm of what was obviously a ''troubled'' production, it really never had a chance.