Product: Sextette (1978)
Rating: 5.0
Sextette is all in good fun, nothing more
I first bought this movie on VHS many years ago. I have every Mae West film, including the hard to find "The Heats On", which I don't think has ever been out on DVD. So believe me when I tell you, I am a huge fan of Mae West. I have her albums, a doll of her, books on her and a few other rare collectibles.Sextette is by no means "oscar material", but it makes no sense to me at all why so many people insist on bashing Sextette so badly. I must agree with the previous reviewer who said this movie only has a bad storyline if you compare it to Citizen Kane. In other words, taken for what it is, a fun, campy movie, Sextette is great.First off, I read in one of my Mae West books that making Sextette was NOT Mae's idea. She was approached by those who wanted it made and she agreed. They said she had good days when she was "on" and other days where they couldn't get her to remember anything. Other days she thought she was back in the 1930's. However, overall, her performance is wonderful and everyone in the cast was so good, they helped sell her. I don't know how much of that is true about her condition, but assuming it is, she did a great job. The Mae West we all know comes through in many scenes.To truly enjoy Sextette, first off you must suspend reality. Mae does not look like she's in her 80's here. She looks like she's around her late 50's or early 60's. I know a lot of women now in their 50's who don't look half as good as Mae did in this movie. In any case, we are encouraged to believe she is still the Mae West we knew in 1933. Once you forget the details about her age, and once you realize this is a campy 70's movie, you can appreciate that there really is a plot and there is a lot of funny stuff in this film which is well delivered. The performances of Ringo Starr, Dom Deluise, George Hamilton and others are excellent.Why did all these stars want to do this movie? Probably for the same reason true Mae West fans wanted to see it. A tribute to a legend. A woman who never let the system beat her down. A woman who took on Hollywood back when it was truely a man's world. A woman who saved Paramount studios from going bankrupt during the Great Depression. A woman who wrote her own screenplays and Broadway plays when those areas were also male dominated. Mae West was not just a great performer and entertainer, she was a great business woman and a great writer. She was truely ahead of her time.As for the criticisms about her age, I also agree with the previous reviewer who pointed out that Mae was almost 40 when she first came to Hollywood. When she did "I'm No Angel" in 1933 she was 40 and I think she looked great for 40, especially in a day long before anti-oxidants and botox. And as for her shape in Sextette, she sure doesn't look like a young woman, but her body isn't bad at all for her age. She's still got an hourglass shape. They shouldn't have given her a big, fluffy wedding gown in the opening scene, though. She'd have been better off with a tapered gown, but most of her gowns were gorgeous in this film and her dress maker in the movie is hilarious. Compare her shape here to her shape in the 1940 film "My Little Chickadee" with WC Feilds and she doesn't look all that different except for maybe a little more hunch to the shoulders.All in all this movie is a movie for Mae's fans. It gives us one last chance to see her do her thing and give us those fun one-liners that made her so famous. If I had to make any real criticism of this film, it would be that some of the musical numbers were not so fabulous. "Love Will Keep Us Together" was my least favorite, but even the cheesey musical numbers are fun enough to sit through. The creators of this movie did NOT intend this to be a serious musical like "The Sound of Music" or anything of that caliber.The bottom line is to suspend reality and enjoy it for what they intended it to be. A campy, fun tribute to a fabuous Hollywood legend. Nothing more or less than that.