Rating: Summary: Too Much of a Good Thing Can Be Wonderful Review: Sextette is about an international sex symbol on her wedding day (Husband Number 6). Throughout the course of this one day, she and her husband are interrupted for a variety of interviews and interludes (with everyone except each other). I adore this movie (so much so I warped the tape and HAD to buy the DVD). I would only recommend it to a Mae West fan, however. After all, this movie was made for her fans. Therefore, it might be difficult for someone not familiar with her work to understand the magic and inferences. Although it is set in the 70s, there is a scene where she is trying on the different dresses for an upcoming movie. It is a true pleasure to see all those "Diamond Lil-esque" costumes in color. I encourage you to approach the movie in a campy frame of mind. Also, this is an older Mae West. While she is still delivering all her famous lines, due to Alzheimer's, her speech is a bit stilted at times (the dialogue was often being read to her through an earpiece). She is still glamorous, but this is not the face you are used to from her other movies (unless you're only familiar with her appearance in Myra Breckenridge). The technical aspects of the DVD are what caused me to give this movie only 4 stars. There is the perk of chapter selection, but the sound was horrible. My TV was at maximum volume, yet the dialogue was still very soft (good thing I have all the dialogue memorized). Also, it would have been great to have the movie trailer or some other little perk at the end (I guess I've been spoiled by all the DVDs with a million extras at the end). The picture quality was great. Overall, a very good movie, but I'd only recommend purchase of the DVD for West fans thoroughly familiar with the movie.
Rating: Summary: SEXTETTE: Don't Let This Happen To You! Review: That Greta Garbo retired from films in her mid thirties did more to keep her memory and "the mystique" alive than anything else she could have done. That Mae West decided to film "Sextette" in the late Seventies, when she was in her mid eighties, is the flip side of Garbo: the Baby-Jane-Norma-Desmond syndrome descended upon a new world with new values. And to pair West with the young Timothy Dalton and expect the audience to take the romance seriously further complicates this already messy film. Part musical, part comedy, part Grand Guignol, this film should be seen for the five-star lesson it presents: know when to gracefully retire, leaving only the fondest of memories, Garbo-like, captured on film forever.
Rating: Summary: A great star descends into self parady Review: The people who liked this movie seem to have done so in blind devotion to Mae West. Whilst their devotion is understandable hear it is entirely misplaced.An aging West is trying to portray the roles she did in the increasingly distant past in amongst a low grade farce involving former husbands and lovers. An intresting member of the cast is Timothy Dalton playing a British Secret Service agent (basically James Bond) his performance here should have been warning enough that he was never given the role for real. He's an aside though the film stands and falls on Maes performance and that's its biggest flaw she was past her prime and comedic best and rolling out tired gags and lame catchphrases (including the infamous "Come up and see me sometime" line) are no way to remember such a sterling talent
Rating: Summary: Ultimate vehicle for the creator of twentieth century sex. Review: The ultimate vehicle for the woman who defined Sex for four generations. Part of the fun of this cheesy romp is watching Mae's scarcely concealed joy in rolling out her legendary lines (and of course that legendary body). The gleam in her eye as those droll words trip off those mischievous lips is too much. Surprisingly well presented and directed, fans of Richard (all right, Ringo) Starr, Tony Curtis, George Raft, George Hamilton will be delighted by their patsy performances up against inimitable Mae. The takeoff on the Godfather is a scream, as is Mae's delivery of "Happy Birthday (Twenty One)", and "Babyface" to the Jimmy Carter lookalike (Ed Beheler). Mae West always fancied her singing voice, and when the film gives her a chance, she delivers. This film was the cap to her eighty years of performing; and for anyone who simply wants to revel in nostalgia or who delights in the camp of that female who found sex early and played it for all it's worth, do see this film. Max stars.
Rating: Summary: A Memory Review: There isn't much to add to the other comments except this: I attended the premiere of this little opus in Southern California back in the late '70s. Many of the stars, including Mae West, were in attendance. Afterward, making my way through the stunned crowd, I came face to face with Dom DeLuise. I will never forget the look that passed between us.
Rating: Summary: BAD DVD Review: Well, ya get what you pay for! And ten bucks ain't gonna get ya much! Not in this case anyway. Watchable print but faded color and really BAD sound with loud buzz. But if your a West fan you better grab it. It is doubtful that this film will ever be re-stored.
Rating: Summary: WHo Said Life ENDS After 80? Review: When most people over 80 are locked in old age homes, or sitting on a chair 24/7, or layin in bed all day living their final years, In SEXTETTE, Mae West proved that "Life Doesnt END after 80!" Although in most parts she looked and walked and talked like is she was a zombified embalmed corpse, she looked like she was enjoying herself. The movie is stupid and silly, but it is amazing to watch Mae in her 80's, with all those heavy costumes strugglin thru her lines. Above all, the movie is just 'silly fun'. You'll enjoy it.
Rating: Summary: Train wreck of a film that can now be called CULT! Review: Why oh why would anyone green light this film? I can only imagine that Mae West must have put up the money for the film, because it just doesn't make sense!
Mae West was never an accomplished dramatic actress. She was a sex kitten - even a provacateur way ahead of her time - in mostly sexual comedies of the 1930's and 1940's. At that, West was tops.
In Sextette, West chose to resurrect a script she had written for production back in the 1930's. It is the same script some 40 years later. While that in and of itself is not a bad thing -West stars as the sex kitten once again! That is not good. The film is full of her famous inuendo (which is great), but it is also full of her famous inuendo uttered by her at the tender age of 150.
Honestly, Mae West couldn't look worse! She is shot through so much gauze that she actually looks plastic at times. The director has mentioned that she couldn't remember her lines, so they shot her by herself and fed her lines through a device in her ear. She just repeated the lines as only she could.
That her costumes and her gait are the same some 40 years later is less a testament to the film and her abilities than it is to the sad nature of her career. In an interview some years ago, a friend of hers noted that Mae West had long ago lost any semblance of who Mae West the woman was and only knew how to be "Mae West: Sex Kitten". It wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that she was in her late 80's when she appeared in this film (in fact she died less than two years after the film was released).
The film is a quaint little sexual farce built inside a very light piece of intrigue. The whole of the film hinges on West and it is West that you pay the price of admission to see. However, to see Timothy Dalton play West's much younger husband is really icky. George Hamilton and Dom Deluise also appear in large parts.
It's a bizarre little film, that truly is a train wreck, but one worth the price of admission. However, if you are a Mae West lover, it is a sad footnote to a delightful career.
Rating: Summary: I AM BAFFLED Review: Yes, baffled as to why so many people on the web have reviewed this film with such hostility and sadistic glee. It seems the biggest complaints against this movie is that #1)Mae West was in her eighties when she made it. Not one reviewer can honestly say that she looked more than in her late fifties in Sextette. Remember that she was in her forties at the height of her career, not a huge discrepancy. #2)Her waistline doesn't exist. Not only is that an exaggeration, but she was never slender to begin with, so her extra pounds should come as no surprise. #3) The script is bad. Well it's only bad if you're comparing it to Citizen Kane. This is supposed to be fun, vain silliness, and it is. Mae West and Dom Deluise are hilarious, and Timothy Dalton, Ringo Starr, and Tony Curtis really seem to be enjoying themselves and giving it their all. I loved all the cameos; the chemistry amongst the entire cast is magic, surprising when one considers that West reportedly disliked most of the choices. Yes, the duet was corny and ridiculous, but funny (even if the humor was unintentional). The only problem I can name with this film is the language in the kitchen scene, it will be insulting to certain ethnic people. Although it's really no more un-PC than the depiction of the giggling, submissive, broken-English-speaking Black maids in her earlier films. What I find disturbing is that reviewers have more of a problem with West's age than the off-color "humor" against foreigners in the kitchen scene. Once I saw this film a second time, the script actually made a lot more sense and was more intricate than I first realized. Believe me, when I, a Mae West fan, ordered this tape I thought I was going to be seeing one of the most boring, stupid, wastes-of-times in Hollywood's 100 year history. Thankfully, i was disappointed! The best part is that Sextette doesn't take itself seriously and doesn't expect its viewers to, either. It assumes its audience is intelligent enough to know camp when it sees it. Several of us do recognize it and appreciate this. Too bad there's the rest out there. BTW, tf this film is still unbearable, I suggest She Done Him Wrong. West is almost fifty years younger, for you agists out there, and her waistline has to be about twenty inches round, lol. But don't expect the script to be any less flamboyant.
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