Product: Sextette (1978)
Rating: 5.0
Absolute Masterpiece of Camp
This movie can only be appreciated as the true masterpiece of camp it undoubtedly is.Mae West is delightful. True courage was needed to impersonate the courtesan character that was her trademark, at the age she did, and still get away with stealing the show. For all the other stars that are here are just background for Mae's antics and famous one-liners.My favorite scene in the movie is when she is trying out an entire new wardrobe for a new movie, each gown more lavish, exagerated and madder in design than the last, and in the midst of it she caresses a mink coat and says "If you want to catch a fox you have to get up early in the morning, but you've got to stay up late to get a mink", so true to form and fabulous.The movie was intended as a camp fest, and it is! There are wonderful musical numbers with dancing hotel attendants that are a wonderful record of gay chorus line dancing of the seventies. The Gym scene is also a wonderful record of early steroid treatments, post-liberation gay body aesthetics and the adaptation of the Farah Fawcett hairdo to men styles, a phenomenon of kitsch that has not been studied properly, as the influence of Fawcett into new frontiers of the ridiculous and tacky has not been explored as it deserves. We really need an extensive documentary just to make sense of that hair style and how it is connected with women's hair loss in the 80's and 90'sFor those who complain about the film's quality: I actually found this film to be uncannily avant-garde: It points to the future of Hollywood which is now our present, where this quality/style of directing, vapid, meaningless dialogue, and the ridiculousness of the situations is now the rule rather than the exception, but most often without any comic relief. In other words, we have been seeing variations of this movie for the last 30 years, usually starring an anorexic blonde without any of the sexiness, pizzaz or style of Mae West and certainly without that extra push towards the outer realms of true camp that Mae West can give this one.There is also one other area, overlooked by all reviewers here, where this movie is totally ahead of its time: Mae West looks far younger than her 85 years, and her weight proportions are pretty much the same as when she was younger, but the women her age nowdays ALL over America have this look now. The restorations of plastic surgery, the implants of botox and other substances have finally accomplished an entire population that looks like she does in this movie. We can all recognize her slightly Chinese eyes, her intensely dyed hair and reconstructed cheek bones and mouth from the women who lunch in New York, in other words she was the archetype of a new race of women between 40 and death that has taken over the national landscape and is rapidly becoming the standard rather than the exception. From this perspective Mae west can be studied as an anthropological phenomenon that has helped form a new "improved" image of women and feminine beauty with no expiration date in sight. Some of the latest samples of this scientifically improved beauty can be examined every morning amongst the anchorwomen in tv channels all over the country, sporting these features on an even younger generation, but with the additional bigger, whiter teeth that are a trademark of our time.A must-see for Mae West fans, but also for all those involved in theater and movie costumes and design, scholars of camp aesthetics, visual culture, plastic surgery and body modification.