Thursday, April 29, 2004
MYRA BRECKINRIDGE
1970
I don't know how a person like me ended up not running across Myra Breckinridge sooner. I had no idea that Beyond the Valley of the Dolls had a twin. In all its fabulous transexual glory, Myra Breckenridge delivers the oddity, perversity and satire of its time...and then some.
Based on the Gore Vidal novel of the same name, film crit Rex Reed plays MYRON Breckinridge, the nephew of a big wig Hollywood head honcho macho cowboy, Uncle Buck Loner Breckinridge (played by John Huston). Embittered by the male sex and machismo gone wild, Myron decides to get a sex change hoping to rid the world of all sexist male pigs. What comes out after the knife cuts is beyond anyone's imagination: Raquel Welch, 1970. Welch is the eye popping transexual MYRA Breckinridge, with all the wit, humor, breeding and ice cold intensions only a bitter homosexual can provide.
Without the junk in the front but with a body and face equipped to launch 10,000 boners, Breckenridge sets out to seduce his/her wealthy uncle, Buck Loner Breckinridge (Huston), along with Buck's preposterous collection of drop out and no talent actors and teach them a lesson. Myra claims that she is Myron's widow and that Myron's Last Will states that she is entitled to HALF of Buck's Hollywood fortune.
Uncle Buck's money and tomfoolery are no match for the sassy and brilliant Breckinridge, who slithers her way into Buck's acting school and starts to teach the students that the wonderful world they live in is just an act. You see, she's content with staying a long time at Uncle Buck's ranch until he is forced to give her what she wants....MONEY. Classic pussy blackmail.
Breckenridge continues to stir trouble in Hollywood paradise and Buck is starting to give in. All the while, Myra teams up with Letcia Van Allen (Mae West), a entertainment Madame who has young studs lined up outside her office for a chance at her casting couch. Together they plan to rid the world of male domination, one forced sexual advance at a time.
What stops the dynamic feminist duo? Myron Breckinridge. Yes, you see there is a moral to this twisted 70's story: Myra's gone too far. And after all her fury and wit, it turns out she's alone with no one to love her. Just like Myron was before the operation. So Myron wants his body back (what's left of it). He wants his life back (what's left of that). "She" has gone too far. So "He" must stop her. The story is about a man who becomes a woman who becomes a man again.
Oh boy. Now it's starting to sound like an obsessive 70s slasher movie premise.
But that's the kind of stuff this movie's all about. The story is told in such a fabulously sureal and stylistic sense. The characters are bold and outrageous, expressing levels of shallowness and cheekiness that is classic 70s. You'll be saying, "What the fuck?!!??" way more than once during this film. Intermingled with the outrageous costumes, zany film graphics, a whole bunch of tits, asses and satirical humor are constant references to past Hollywood hero's and splices of atom bomb stock footage...representing the horror and brilliance of the movie industry. Speaking of horror...Mae West is a living metaphor in this film, looking and acting like the real Leticia Van Allen: a bloated, egocentric, wig wearing over-aged hag who looks like the true washed up transexual.
Those looking for a "good" movie when watching Myra Breckinridge need to look somewhere else. I may be part of this website, but Hollywood snobs don't have a place in Myra Breckinridge's panties. Leave your dicks at the door, gentlemen...Myra Rules.
