Product: Sextette (1978)
Rating: 3.0
File under "What Were They Thinking?"
Ok, a lot of reviewers seem to love this film, and I must say I enjoyed watching it too...but only due to the constant jaw-dropping horror and surprise I experienced during this unfathomable exercise in "entertainment."The plot...well, simply it doesn't matter. Suffice to say that Mae West must be well over 80, but she plays a Hollywood sex bomb who has just married for the 6th time. She is greeted by a level of hysteria on arrival in London that rivals the second coming (albeit on a budget). Her new husband is a young Timothy Dalton, long before his James Bond years. The married couple book into a posh London hotel and there are plenty of "laughs" to follow as their planned night of wedded bliss is constantly interrupted by various capers and intruding ex husbands. My reaction to this was..."Thank God for that"! The notion of an 80+ year old woman fighting off the attention of all these 30 something young suitors is plain ridiculous. Its sooo obvious that Mae (game though she is throughout) is simply way too old to make this role believeable. She can barely walk, and her acting consists of little more than creaking around in tight, figure hugging gowns and feathers (mmm...), patting her platinum curls and reading out vulgar double-entendres in answer to any query from a male member of the cast. I don't think she had a single line in the whole film that a) wasn't dirty, and b) contributed something to the plot!If you can suspend your disbelief about this situation long enough to concentrate on the rest of the film, you'll be blown away by the sheer ineptitude of it, not least of all the musical numbers. At one point, all the staff and guests in Mae's London hotel lobby suddenly break into "Hooray For Hollywood" as she checks in...so wrong, and for so many reasons! Then later, Mae and Dalton enjoy a (barely) sung duet of "Love Will Keep Us Together", and there are many more just as bad. Mae has a few brief solo numbers of her own, and its obvious that she didn't have the energy (or the voice) to pull them off, but they are here all the same. Its all so pitiful and there isn't a shred of irony about it. Some reviewers say the film is tongue in cheek, and is not taking itself seriously. I disagree. The film is obviously intended to be a tribute to the curvaceous charms of its star..it's just 40 years too late! But I'm glad, because the amount of laughs you'll get from watching it are doubled for this very reason. There are loads more howlers that I don't have the space to even go into, but nothing matches the bare-faced inappropriateness of the central issue. So do Mae and Tim ever get it together for a night of passion...? If the idea doesn't turn your stomach, get this DVD and find out!