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Sextette

Sextette

List Price: $9.95
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: go for it!
Review: I too expected this film to be a total waste of time, but tomy surprise it's a delicious piece of camp, funny and silly and delightfull....not hard to sit through and with a lot of campy hilarious songs.....ANY fan of Mae west will enjoy this and the ones who don't and complain about it being ridiculous and somehow unbelievable have never ever understood the meaning of camp..or do you think Mae was REALLY being a sex symbol in the 30's ...of course not, she was a survivor who made her life out of parody and high camp humor, she understood this, well into her eighties.....and whatever Tony Curtis says(talk about overblown ego's and growing old DISgracefully THERE!)it doesn't look to me as if she was being wheeled around on the set or had problems with her lines.....by the way, I loved her wig, much more than the ridiculous carpet mister Curtis supports these days!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Camp-Fest ala Mae
Review: I'm amazed this many other people have seen this movie! I loved it! Mae in glorious technicolor reviving Diamond Lil is fantastic! The entire movie is hilarious, probably not in the way that Mae intended, but I'm sure she's happy to get a laugh. And the fact she did this at 85 is astounding. This is also the only movie you see her drink alcohol in.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Sextette
Review: If a movie can produce shellshock, its name is SEXTETTE. I was literally stunned when this one ended, unable to move, unable to think much beyond hoping that my television wouldn't hurt me anymore.
What in the blank were they thinking!? Criminy! Fine, adapt Mae West's stage play "Sex" into a cornball, modern-day (1978), quasi-musical. It may have shocked them in 1926, fifty long years ago, and we may be able to milk it as a camp vehicle in 1978. Camp was big in the 70s. Toss in some geriatric actors - George Raft, Walter Pidgeon; miscast some hack actors - George Hamilton, Tony Curtis; throw in a mittful of rock stars - Keith Moon, Ringo Starr, Alice (sans makeup) Cooper; take the bit out of everyone's mouth and roll cameras. They can't act, you say? It's camp, guys! The kids'll eat it up.
But how in the name of blank do you cast 88-year-old Mae West in the lead role of international sex goddess Marlo Manners!? How do you open the movie with her marriage to young-20-something Timothy Dalton? She's old enough to be his great-grandmother's older sister!!!!
The old gal still gets around, you say. Fine. Snails get around, too, and most of them at a decidedly faster pace than Ms. West.
She still shoots good -- !!!! The ONLY reason she doesn't look like a barrel of warm cottage cheese stuffed into a flour sack is because Edith Head designed her gowns. West's make-up is so thick, the lighting so disguising, and the face lifts so numerous she's about as expressive as a kabuki doll mask frozen in a perpetual, buck-toothed grin.
The kids like camp. That may be so, but I suspect the camp audience is loaded with Mae West fans. A forty-year-old Mae West slinging one-liners and sexual innuendoes is one thing; the 90-year-old model doing same is pathetic and more than a little creepy. The quips she swaps with lustful (!?) young groom Dalton as they eagerly anticipate the consummation of their nuptials are simply bizarre. If I were a fan of West's I would have been shocked and saddened.
SEXTETTE is a strange, strange movie.


Rating: 5 stars
Summary: OH MY GAWD
Review: If you have any nostalgia at all for the late '70s in all their cheesy glory, buy this video. This film is amazingly, deliciously, jaw-droppingly bad. Mae West strutting her stuff in her 80s is a mere sidelight compared to the completely over-the-top supporting performances by Tony Curtis, Dom DeLuise and Keith Moon.

Tackiness oozes from every frame of this film, but like much of the mainstream sleaze of the late '70s, it's surprisingly good-natured. Sex is seen as just good clean dumb fun, without the dark, violent and repellent overtones that entered the mainstream with the Reagan era and never left us. This film has much more in common with "Three's Company"-style leering than the mean-spirited crudity of say, "In Living Color".

And I haven't even mentioned the musical numbers! Timothy Dalton and Mae sing "Love Will Keep Us Together" (yep, the cheesy Captain & Tennille hit) as a duet. I'm not sure if "sing" is the right word, but it will suffice. Dom DeLuise sings "Honey Pie" (the Lennon/McCartney gem), tap dances atop a grand piano, and briefly dons matador garb when the tune lurches into a Spanish style. Alice Cooper trys his hand at some disco stylings. If that's not enough to get you to buy this video, I give up!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Mae West deserves 5 stars for giving her all for her fans.
Review: Mae was very ill when she made this. Her diabetes was very out-of-control and she was aging at an alarming rate. Even so, friends of mine who do not know her age guessed that she was in her 50's. They were quite suprised to find out she was over 85! She planned to do this movie right after Myra Brekenridge but got sidelined. She looked great the clips of Myra Breckenridge that were shown on the Biography channel. (I have never seen Myra Brekenridge - apparently Tom Selleck, Farrah Fawcett, and Raquel Welch will not allow it to be sold on the video market). She was very wealthy (owning many parcels of prime California real estate). Only when she realized that she didn't have much time left did she decide to do one last movie for her fans - she was beautiful in some scenes- especially the entry in the wedding gown, bedroom scenes, and the clothing try-outs for an 'upcoming Marlo Manners movie' ( she wanted to show her Diamond Lil characters one more time in Color for her fans). Mae within one year of this movie had begun having the beginnings of Alzheimer's disease. She recognized only old acquaintances, she had to have her lines read to her through an earpiece, just before reciting them, through out the filming. She was even left standing in a elevator for several hours - after the set was shut down (she had to walk down a hall, say a line and hit a button-- this scene took many retakes to get all the actions in the correct order, when it was finally done they rapped the set and left - finally someone remembered Mae and rescued her from the elevator.) My favorite scene is her meeting with George Raft in the elevator. A definite chemistry was still there. Its fitting that he was in her first and last movie. The only part of the movie I feel should have been cut was the Dom DeLouise solo song - absolutely ridiculous. Mae insisted on having the end of the movie changed - where she sang 'Next, Next' with Alice Cooper. Originally, the producers wanted her to sing a sad song lamenting loosing her new husband. Mae said NO - she was going to show a self-confident image which is what her fans wanted- and get her husband back ---- and she did. One additional thing, Mae had a stroke three months before she died at 87. She was unable to talk - but did enjoy watching her movies until her death. She was given the last rights by a priest - and thru out her life she was known to give her car to Nuns whenever she saw them in need of transportation, then buy herself a new one. She took care of her Mom, Dad, brother and sister Beverly -providing them a private ranch. Her sister Beverly only lived a year after Mae- but she was left quite well off.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Mae West Still Had "It" After Eighty
Review: Mae West at 80-plus is worth ten dingabat sexpots in theirtwenties. This wonderful talent only made 12 movies but was recentlynamed by the American Film Institute the #15 female star of alltime!!! Like everyone, I admire the sexy "young" Mae of the 30's (she was already 40ish then!!) but I find the Mae of the 1970's a very courageous and fascinating figure. Here was a gal who threw the finger to the smallminded of many people right to the very end!! She is quite funny in this at times and sings very well considering her age. This is a star the likes of whom we will never see again.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Legendary Mae West still the Queen of Sex!
Review: Mae West still delivers in this amusing, under-rated comedy. Sextette has been unfairly attacked by some age-prejudiced critics, but the fact of the matter is, this film is not bad at all. The Legendary West is extraordinary in this film as always and looks great. When Timothy Dalton says, "After all, I am British--stiff upper lip," magnificent Mae looks him over, stares at his crotch, and says in that sexy voice, "Well...you gotta start somewhere." She is an American Institution and as Dick Cavette and Rona Barrett have said, "the 8th wonder of the world.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: She's Done Herself Wrong
Review: 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.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Mae goes West !
Review: Oh dear - she should have seen it coming - but alas when ageing sex siren Mae West made this debacle , she was one very ill advised lady (!) which is a pity,as,had she made the movie eight years earlier,at the time of "Myra Breckenridge",she would probably have pulled it off,or at least made a better stab at it . It would still have been a "camp-fest" , but not the "night of the living dead" which resulted , when an admittedly legendary , but nevertheless octagenarian lady was teamed up with countless hordes of "lustful admirers" decades younger than she ! Despite this , there are one or two glimpses of our darling old Mae , For example ;Dom De Luise catches Mae coming out of the Gym "Hiya Marlo (Manners) what've you been doin ?" "Oh ,woikin out with the boys !" counters Mae with a customary twinkle in her voice - momentarily recapturing "my old flame" The songs , however , are dire in the extreme , and that is even for a diehard Mae West fan like myself . If you're feeling brave - watch "Sextette" - but don't say you haven't been warned !!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: File under "What Were They Thinking?"
Review: 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!


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