Michael Sarne – The Magnificent 60s

In 2012, Raquel Welch was accorded a ten-film tribute at the prestigious Film Society of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York and turned up in person to be interviewed on stage prior to various screenings. One of these was Myra Breckenridge (1970). Though interviewer Simon Doonan kicked off proceedings by mistaking her for Ann-Margret (yep). Graceful as our star was, she didn’t storm off the stage.

She admitted she wasn’t first choice for the picture. “I didn’t get a call,” she explained. “I had heard about the movie. I had read the book. The book was absolutely hysterical, so funny, and I thought it was very innovative because it was the first time I had seen somebody like Gore Vidal, who was really a genius, deal with the duality of the nature of both the male and the female. I never saw that before.

*Is that a gun or a are you just pleased to see me?*

“I was interested in how they were going to do this movie and then I heard through the trade that Anne Bancroft (after the success of The Graduate, 1969) had turned it down. So I thought, hmmm, I wonder what they’re going for. A little bird told me to call Dick Zanuck (head of 20^th Century Fox) so I called Dick, who I was in contract with, and asked what kind of actors they were looking for in this role. I was thinking if a guy was going to change his sex and wanted to be like a movie star kind of girl, don’t you think he might want to look like me? And he said, oh my god, that’s a thought, let me talk to David – that was David Brown (later, producer of Jaws, 1975) and I’m sure Helen Gurley Brown (his wife and editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan) got in on it too. And then I did get the call and they asked me to come in and talk to them and they gave me the role.

“I had not seen the script, it’s true. As much as I loved doing Myra, I was kind of disappointed in the outcome of the movie because the narrative never did really string together. It was very disjointed and it didn’t really tell the story of Myron the film critic who was enamored of all the very very strong swashbuckling women of the golden age of film from Joan Crawford to Bette Davis and Myrna Loy.

“He wanted really to be one of those superwomen and I think that’s where the superwomen thing started because it was women then who used to go to the movies. They used to bring the guys to the movies. That was the way it went then more than it does now…The dialog was both male and female and I felt like now I’m playing the girl’s part. Rex Reed is playing Myron and there’s really hardly any relationship between the two. They’re not one person so there’s no idea of the duality and nature. One minute she likes girls and the next minute she likes studs and the older men are just to use and abuse.”

Asked about how she developed her character, Raquel replied: “The real thing – I know this is going to sound very shallow – but Theodora Van Runkle (who had swept to national fame by starting a fashion trend with her outfits for Bonnie and Clyde, 1967) did these beautiful period costumes which did emulate all of the great film stars…I felt these clothes kind of evoked this attitude.

“I did want to meet Mae (West). I did go out and research her and find out all about her and it turned out she had never made a color movie before. I asked for an audience. (In her apartment) I noticed all her furniture was white and also noticed all these 25-watt pink bulbs (to keep the room dim).”

Raquel had observed of movie stars, “There’s a screen persona and a real side. Mae didn’t have a real side. She was wearing a long peignoir and lots of eyelashes. This was noon. She didn’t bring the chimps out (she was rumored to have a menagerie of them…and young men, and neither were in evidence).”

(On set) “The other thing that got to me a little bit was that Mae never worked before 5pm. Also she never really moved by herself. (The limousine that had driven her to the studio) also brought her on to the set. I kissed her hand and one false fingernail fell to the floor and then I thought I’m getting a vibe, I think she’s a man. She refused to appear in the same frame as me. At 77 (Mae’s age) all bets are off and you’re not going to be able to doll it up that much.”

While stars being able to veto a director and perhaps refuse to work with certain other stars was still a perk for the highest-paid movie actors, Welch discovered that Mae West had a very distinctive unheard-of perk. She had costume approval. Van Runkle had designed a Garbo-esque black dress that Raquel was looking forward to wearing. But when it came time for that particular scene she discovered it had been “confiscated….nobody got to wear non-color (West was always dressed in white) except Mae.”

“Very early on (I realized) this isn’t Gore’s book. Nobody’s going to undertsand it…they hired Michael Sarne who’s only claim to fame was Joanna (1969), a visual montage kind of thing and that’s what he did to this movie. The fact that it had dialog was secondary. He used to carry round this little rectangular box and he used to say, I’ve got this little box for you, Raquel.

“It was sad fun, I didn’t want to make a movie that didn’t make any sense. I thought we were going to make something that was revolutonary. I did think it was kind of a landmark that said it’s very likely that world culture will change from this point on.”

You can catch this interview and another one discussing The Three Musketeers on Youtube.

Proof that time can be kind to even the unholiest of unholy messes. Previously only appreciated/mocked for its camp values, the thin story this has to tell suddenly carries contemporary weight. Not so much the transgender elements but now revealed as the first picture to bring the MeToo agenda to light.

While it’s still terrible, with a tendency towards the really really obvious and, when that doesn’t work, bombard the audience with a That’s Entertainment smorgasbord of sexual innuendo. In fairness, even in those more feminist-awakening times, you probably still had to batter the viewer over the head to get them to accept any of the points being made.

*Candy-striped oufit pure invention of the poster designer*.

The first, while theoretically in a theoretical twist tranposed to the female, was the sexual predator, closely followed by the notion that every woman wanted “it”, regardless of them expressing otherwise. Even the dumbest cinemagoer could not have failed to see that putting an exclusively male casting couch at the disposal of Hollywood agent Leticia (Mae West) was actually a clever way of showing just how the movie business at its worst worked, though in reverse, the females queuing up (apparently) for the kind of sexual transaction that could give them a shot at stardom.

That it’s Myra (Raquel Welch) herself who spends most of the movie degrading men (anal rape anyone?), and women indiscriminately (I’m surprised the posters didn’t scream “Raquel Goes Lesbian”), it’s again just a play on what went on in the virtually exclusive male enclave of Hollywood. Just as pointedly it points the finger at the way Hollywood has destroyed the American Dream, snaring thousands of hopefuls who spend fortunes, whittle away their lives and prostitute themselves (and still do) in the vain hope that taking acting lessons for an eternity will somehow provide them with a talent they weren’t born with.

The narrative – what narrative? – concerns Myron (Rex Reed) having a sex-change operation to become the aforesaid Myra and then claiming an inheritance, on exceptionally spurious grounds, from her kinky uncle Buck (John Huston). And trying to part hunk wannabe Rusty (Roger Herren) from his wannabe girlfriend (Farrah Fawcett, the Major came later). You might argue that the continuous loitering presence of Myron is a distraction but occasionally it’s welcome as the movie runs out of punchbags.

And in case you didn’t get the message in what passes for dialog, Myra takes to just delivering straightforward lectures on the male-dominant Hollywood that posited the notion that women were there for the taking if you were just male enough to take them and that any women who showed the slightest ounce of onscreen intelligence and the ability to swat away predatory males was just a predatory male in disguise.

Nobody comes out of this with any dignity and though it destroyed the career of director Michael Sarne (Joanna, 1969) and Roger Herren, John Huston (The Cardinal, 1963) was inclined to self-indulgence on-screen if not restrained by a strong director, while Farrah Fawcett and, in a bit part, Tom Selleck survived to become television legends. The less said about wooden Rex Reed the better.

Quite where this left Raquel Welch is anyone’s guess. While she held the narrative together in convincing fashion, as an actress she wasn’t provided with enough material beyond the sensational to convince as a dramatic actress of anything more than middling caliber. Yet, it was an incredibly brave career decision. The contemporary likes of Joanne Woodward, Jane Fonda, Maggie Smith et al would have balked at the thinness of the material, and would have run a mile from expressing themselves in such sexual terms, despite probably recognizing what the movie was attempting to achieve.

It needed someone larger than life to play the part and, possibly with higher expectations than seemed plausible, the bold Raquel stepped up to plate. Perhaps the element that appeared most to her was that she took revenge on Rusty because (shock, horror) he didn’t fancy her at a time when she was presented as the most fanciable woman on the planet.

So discretion left at the door, blunderbuss in full operational mode, but even now it’s that approach that is wakening the industry up to the sexual misbehavior of many of its to male personnel. What was once top of the so-bad-it’s-good tree is now revealed as not too bad after all, if you swap the phantasmagoria for the stinking reality underneath.

Tag: Michael Sarne

Behind the Scenes: Raquel Welch on “Myra Breckenridge” (1970)

Myra Breckenridge (1970) ***