Myra Breckinridge (1970)

Apart from a couple of movies, I have pretty much finished with the 60's era of terrible, terrible cinema now and find myself drifting into the 70's - a pivotal time in history as borne out of the swinging 60's came a more socially progressive society with greater political awareness and a desire for greater female liberation culminating in the rise, at the end of the decade with Britain's first female Prime Minister and arguably one of the worst Prime Ministers the country has ever endured. Arguably. But Political affiliation aside, the 70's really began to feel like a turning point for female liberation. There was still, and is still, a lot of work to be done but I feel like the 70's was really the time where movies extremely gradually started to see female actresses as something more beyond sex appeal which dovetails quite nicely into the subject matter for today's movie pick: Myra Breckinridge. A comedy movie about a transgender actress who attempts to inject feminism into Hollywood. I'm aware that it's the cinematic adaption of a book, but on paper It's almost a direct insult to be honest. A punch in the stomach to female liberation as if to say: this is what we really think about your liberation movement. And similarly it drew fiercely negative criticism from critics with the phrases "tasteless," and "artless," being bandied around pretty handily, and earning itself a spot on the list of Worst Movies Ever Made. You should know in advance that I am pro trans rights and pro trans choice going into this, so expect my reaction to be roughly in line with that after I get done.

"You realise once we cut it off it won't grow back?" - is literally the opening line of dialogue in this movie and after a slightly odd opening scene detailing the uhh... circumstances that lead to Myra Breckinridge coming into the world, we are introduced to the eponymous heroine (Raquel Welch) who in her opening monologue announces her intention to seize control of her Uncle's acting school. Arriving at said acting school she immediately introduces herself to Uncle Buck Loner (John Huston) as the widow of Myron Breckinridge (Rex Reed) her identity before transitioning and announces her intention to collect $500,000 claiming that half of the acting school was left to her in "Myron's" will. After some bargaining and posturing, Myra wrangles her way into a position at the school, slightly against the duress of Uncle Buck. The movie cuts between Myra / Myron being portrayed by their respective actors swapping and switching interchangeably throughout the film, which at first was a little confusing to me until I realised what was going on... but as Myra begins to make herself at home in the school, Buck instructs his lawyers to look into the validity of Myra's claim to the estate and as Myra begins taking classes she does a fine job of alienating the students and turning them against her and the school. Following that we have a scene with both Myra and Myron sharing the screen this time, servicing as portrayal of her inner monologue but ending with her... effectively... giving oral sex to herself... but it serves to show Myra's deepening obsession with 2 of her students; Rusty (Roger Herren) and Mary Ann (Farah Fawcett - ha! as if!). Interspersed throughout the movie so far are so scenes I struggle to make sense of that effectively involve a lady named Leticia Van Allen (Mae West) - a rampant nymphomaniac, later revealed to be a movie agent essentially taking eligible up and coming bachelor stars into her office and having a go with them, from what I can gather... but we have another one of those scenes where a very stereotypical Italian man professes his undying love for her, before we are back with Myra and Uncle Buck proceeds to produce a document declaring that Myron was never married to anyone "in the United States" which Myra counters with a document confirming they were married in Mexico. Later, inviting Rusty into her, well, office I guess, Myra proceeds to take advantage of him convincing him to take his shirt off before pressing him against a wall and bearing his arse. Arriving at the school is Lady Van Allen, scouting for potential new talent, and Myra seizes the opportunity to present herself to her and ostensibly to also introduce her to Rusty who only that morning was arrested for breach of parole. Calling in a favour with a Judge, Leticia Van Allen, and vicariously Myra, negotiate Rusty's release and after visiting a Van Allen performance, during which Rusty comes out with derogatory remarks about homosexuals, Rusty and Myra go back to the school where Myra - under the pretence of carrying out a physical examination of Rusty's problematic back whilst blackmailing him with reporting his reluctance to co-operate to the Judge, manipulates Rusty into voluntarily letting her tie him to a table with his pants unfastened and explaining that there is no such thing as manhood, proceeds to take advantage of him and anally rape him with a strap on. Obviously deeply traumatised by the experience, Rusty proceeds to disappear, breaking up with Mary Ann in the process, and when Mary Ann turns to Myra as a shoulder to cry on Myra sees seducing her as the final deconstruction of Rusty's manhood, at first lending herself as the supportive mother figure. Meanwhile, drafting in a Lawyer to fight his case, Uncle Buck seeks to discredit the marriage certificate but Myra confirms that a reputable witness to their wedding can testify that the 2 were married but even when she drafts in her Dentist to testify on her behalf, further evidence emerges that Myron's death certificate doesn't exist so in a final masterstroke, Myra reveals she is infact Myron and has undergone a sexual transition causing Uncle Buck to almost pass out in shock. In the closing few scenes, despite Myra's attempts to seduce Mary Ann, she is met with reluctance every time, with Mary Ann confessing as they get closer that "if only you were a man." and in a bizarre closing scene Myron mows down Myra in a car, and Myron awakes in the hospital realising that he was in fact in a car accident and hasn't undergone gender reassignment surgery...

What the hell am I watching is a question I found myself asking... myself... quite a few times during the course of this movie, and I'm sure I've used that line before now. I couldn't even begin to tell you what the tone of this movie was supposed to be? Is it a satirical comedy? Is it a black comedy? Is it even a comedy at all but instead supposing to be a narrative on homosexual opinion and transsexual identity? Probably none of those things to be honest? It felt like it didn't even really know itself to be honest. If this was intending to be the perfect personification of how it feels to be listless, confused, searching painfully for an identity and you succumb to the physical urges your heart desires even though you know in the depths of your brain that what you are doing is wrong, then fuck it knocked that ball out of the park, but that might be giving this movie too much credit.

But I suppose we need to focus on the most controversial part of this movie first. The fact that - in the spirit of comedy - it includes a very obvious, very graphic depiction of a man being sexually assaulted by a woman. It is cloaked in the pretence that Myra is in effect both enacting her revenge fantasy on Rusty whilst at the same time also enacting out her fantasy of crushing the patriarchy but in reality it is still the graphic depiction of a sexual assault, pretty much the lowest common denominator that a movie can sink to. I don't endorse the romanticism or glorification of sexual assault in any context. And it being a man instead of a woman doesn't make it any more right or justified.

Moving on, interspersed throughout the movie were little vignettes, some of them I recognized, some of them not that were intended to serve as visual metaphors to communicate either an emotion or pictorialize events that were happening on screen and I can tell you now that I absolutely hated it. I hate it in any movie to be honest, when it's done subtly then not so much but when they are bare faced upfront with it, it kills it immediately for me. It felt like filler material, like stock footage used to pad out the runtime.

That being said I will confess to being absolutely captivated by Rex Reed. Despite the central focus of the movie being very much Raquel Welch and very much about the female character, Rex Reed absolutely dominated every scene that he was in, and he had a magnetic energy about him that just commanded attention every time. I checked it out and it's a real shame he didn't go on to star in many more movies after this one because on the strength of this movie, even with it's fatal flaws, he had it. And I think there was a real special talent buried beneath the surface that didn't get the chance to shine in this picture.

Regretably I don't have much else positive to say about this. I found it a little bit confusing and poorly paced in the first half, and it wasn't made demonstrably clear to me who some of the characters were until they started to intertwine around the middle period. There was also just alot of not really going anywhere going on, lots of scenes that felt like holding patterns and you could have sewn up the central narrative in about half hour. Even Myra's relationships and obsessions with Rusty and Mary Ann didn't really feel that well explored, maybe in about 2 or 3 scenes and there felt to me like there was a lot of movie that just didn't really do anything to contribute to pushing any kind of message the movie might trying to be deliver. It stunk of a vanity project actually, just messing about shooting scenes for the pure satisfaction of shooting scenes.

Although, I will confess that in a twisted, kind of morbidly curious kind of way I did feel like I was caught by the movie to a degree. It did struggle to hold my interest a bit with the stupid cut-away Hollywood footage shit, but I was slightly fascinated in a - where the fuck are they going to go with this - kind of fashion. And I can't really criticise the movie on an acting front, Rex Reed accounted for the other actors in this movie did a decent job, but it almost felt like this was some kind of really weird art project that got massively out of hand and ended up becoming a movie some how.

I mean, if you're going to put a rape depiction in your movie, you're going to have a bad time. Especially on my blog, so we are already in zero territory on the strength of that alone. Compounding that you had the cut away shit that I hated, the fact that I spent half the movie thinking to myself "what am I watching?!" the fact that the other half of the movie had me morbidly curious as to what depths they were going to sink to next, all of that combined with the fact that it just seemed to meander around for most of the run time, with scene after scene not really doing anything to develop the movie. But and god I think I hate myself a little bit for this, I was genuinely interested. And... maybe even entertained a little bit... I don't think it did anything to reinforce female empowerment or indeed paint the transsexual community in anything other than a derogatory fashion. But I feel buried deep down there was almost a well meaning message about  how it is wrong to discriminate against homosexual and transsexual people. They just did a really shitty job of communicating it, but I can't lambast this movie as being a flaming pile of fucking garbage, because, actually, it wasn't. It was just toneless and... dare I say they got it right: tasteless. And retrospectively still tasteless. But enjoyable? Well, uh, yeah. In a way. 1 out of 5.