Product: Sextette (1978)
Rating: 2.0
She's Done Herself Wrong
Mae West was seriously considered for the role of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. After watching this film, it's easier to understand why she was Billy Wilder's first choice.This film has to be the first commercial venture of a star losing all touch with reality. Mae doesn't do anything she hasn't done before, and she does it as she always did, but she's living in a world where time and space no longer exist.She's in her eighties. She wears false fingernails and a gaudy array of wigs. Her waistline is non-existent. Her face is sagging and her voice is cracking. She exhibits all the usual attributes of a senior citizen. But the producer, the director, and her co-stars have apparently decided to give the old lady one last charitable send off, and she must have gone to her grave happy. But any discerning viewer has to see it as documented evidence of a great star who's lost all touch with reality and could be considered clinically insane.