Review of Myra Breckinridge (1970) by Paul F — 28 Jun 2005

I'd been intending to pick up Fox's "Raquel Welch Collection" for a while now, mostly because my knowledge of Welch was pretty limited. She always seemed to me to be the best Russ Meyer actress Meyer got to use, an actress with limited range whose sex symbol status came as much from her strangely distant screen presence as with her amazing looks. The films I've seen so far basically varify impression of her, formed from watching[i] Bedazzled[/i] and [i]Kansas City Bomber[/i], though being an alluring, buxom sex symbol is certainly not meant to be a negative thing.

[i]Myra Breckinridge[/i] is probably the most notorious of her films, and it's the one I was most looking forward to checking out. "Everything you've heard about [i]Myra Breckinridge[/i] is true," the ads for it claimed, and that's a statement just as valid today as it was then. I'd heard Breckinridge was a campy, over-the-top mess of a film, and it certainly is.

Welch actually does a great job in the title role, the transsexual results of the surgery performed by John Carradine on snippy film book author Myron Breckinridge, played by snippy film book author Rex Reed. She takes a trip out to her uncle Buck's theater school in California, planning to take it over from her sleazy cowboy relative, played by John Huston. Her plan, as discussed with her male alter-ago, is "the destruction of the American male in all its particulars," a feat accomplished apparently by sodomizing a male theater student and seducing his girlfriend (Farrah Fawcett).

The supporting cast includes Mae West playing an agent, who shows up randomly and sings two songs, including a cover of "Hard to Handle," which is, indeed, hard to handle. Characters complain about how depraved films today are these days. Little snippets of films from the Fox archives are edited in to comment on the action. Events happen randomly and the plot starts to border on incoherent.

[i]Breckinridge [/i]is often compared to [i]Beyond the Valley of the Dolls[/i], another 1970 Fox escapade in cinematic outrageousness and gender bending, but the main difference between the two is that Breckinridge tries way too hard. BTVOTD is a hyper-paced, deranged soap opera that points its guns straight at social convention just as Breckinridge does, but the actors in [i]BTVOTD[/i] never seem to be over-the-top, at least until the conclusion. Everyone in Breckinridge seems to be trying to outdo the performances of everyone else, from Mae West to Calvin Lockhart as a gay stereotype to John Huston, sputtering about as though he were in a Looney Tunes cartoon. [i] BTVOTD[/i] never feels like self-aware camp, while Breckinridge makes its' methods so obvious you can't possibly take anything the least bit seriously.

Oh, sure, there's fun stuff in [i]Myra Breckinridge[/i], and I'd be lying if I told you I wasn't suckered into its' loony, lurid charms as a bad movie fan. But it certainly is a bad movie--intent on making points that it lacks the capacity to express, filled with actors that seem determined not to share the scene with anyone else--and it's honestly just as confusing and bizarre as actually enjoyable.

On the other hand, [i]Mother, Jugs and Speed[/i] is a pleasant surprise--an entertaining little character comedy-drama with a great cast and a tone that runs the gamut of emotions. Welch plays--guess--Jugs, the dispacher at a small-time ambulance company run by Allen Garfield. The assorted cast of screwballs and cast-offs working there wouldn't look out of place in a [i]Police Academy[/i] rip-off, though they're more about quick schemes, bad ideas and drinking on duty than patient mistreatment.

Bill Cosby is at the top of his form as Mother, who constantly makes wise-ass remarks and frightens packs of nuns with the siren, much to the chagrin of his pot-smoking partner, played by Bruce Davison. Larry Hagman plays the company sleazebag, at one point attempting to have sex with an unconscious patient, Dick Butkus (!) plays another driver and Harvey Keitel stars as the newest member of the crew, a former cop under investigation for drug running that Mother nicknames "Speed.".

There's not really that much in the way of plot, at least not much that can be related without spoiling the turns the film makes. There's some concern about the future of the ambulance company, but essentially the movie settles for simply following these characters around, watching them relate, and showing them doing their job in occasionally funny or dangerous situations. If it weren't for a few extended gags that feel like they were ripped from a silent movie, [i]Mother, Jugs and Speed[/i] would be a great slice-of-life film, like the B-movie version of an Altman movie.

The interplay between the cast is great as well, and Welch even manages to connect with her co-stars most of the time. It's great to see Hagman as a real asshole, Keitel as a likable nice guy and Bill Cosby in his '70s prime, spewing out witty dialogue so nonchalantly it could have easily been an aside. If anything, director Peter Yates tries to do more with the screwball comedy aspect than necessary, as the characters are entertaining enough on their own.

So, basically, [i]Myra Breckinridge[/i] is an over-inflated, self-indulgent, big-budget monstrosity while [i]Mother, Jugs and Speed[/i] is a quieter, underrated little comedy/drama in the tradition of [i]Car Wash[/i], but both have their merits. I've got three more doses of Raquel to go through yet, though, so it may be a long slog through[i] Bandolero[/i].