Eldergays, tell me about the original release of "Sextette"

She was about 84 when she made that movie.

It did not open in most theaters. Very limited release. I remember reading about it and wanting to go see it because I liked Ringo and Keith Moon. But it never opened anywhere near where I lived,

I think the studio tried to bury it... like a cat does to its poop --- because it was so bad.

What a cast!

I saw it when it first came out, thinking it was going to be a big hoot!

All I could ever remember about it was the difficulty in understanding Miss West, as her clackers seemed to be a bit short on the Sea Bond.

Did a banana-monster poop on her head?

Did Mae finally reveal that her real name was Manny, and that she had an enormous schwanzstucker?

Her heyday had actually been 40 years ago, but she seemed like something that belonged to a previous century, not a previous generation.

She's been forgotten for a reason.

Nobody cared then, nobody cares now.

Mae West...she was one fugly bitch...Come up and fuck me sometime...no thanks!

Here's the full movie if anyone wants to watch.

R10 f&f

Ok, that didn't work. Try this link.

No one saw it...it was just too sad.

Ive seen parts of it on YouTube and I think Timothy Dalton should have been given a medal for playing his role with a straight face.

Vicious NYT review at the link.

I remember another review that was reprinted in Mae's biography that described her as something like "an elderly sheep slathered in pink makeup and forced to walk on its frail hind legs."

"Love Will Keep Us Together":

Timothy Dalton was really hot!

[quote] like "an elderly sheep slathered in pink makeup and forced to walk on its frail hind legs."

That is cruel, but unfortunately, an exact description of her in this film.

I'm the gal who works at Paramount all day, and Fox all night---and you bitches can go Fox yourselves!

Did she ever appear in a film where her legs were visible? I only recall seeing clips from her movies where she is always wearing a gown, never showing her legs and showing little to no cleavage. Her outfits were tight, but covered her up.

R20 apparently she was very short and wore huge platform shoes to make up for it. Her dresses were long to cover up her shimmy.

R21 5'O"

Tim Selleck made his movie debut in sextette, but I'm too lazy to go looking for the clip.

She mostly appeared in films set in the 1890s and early 1900s.

Tom Selleck made his film debut in [italic]Myra Breckenridge[/italic] (another vehicle for the antediluvian Mae).

I've only seen a few clips of Sextette on Youtube, and that was enough. It really was sad; Mae West was SO old and decrepit and was attempting to portray a sexy young woman. Just creepy and strange to watch.

That NYTimes review was just cruel.

Mae was old in Breckenridge, but she's a lot quicker than she was in Sextette -- in body movement and in delivering her lines. Those eight years made a difference.

Big hug [R15]! The reviews were scathing, and among the most entertaining things about this movie. They practically wrote themselves.

If it ever comes out in 4K, they'll need to reclassify it as an NC-17 horror film. That is one over-the-top 'N' hill blob of Hollywood yesteryear that NO ONE needs to see in high definition.

I love this movie to death.

have not seen it

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Anyone wanna address the rumor that she was a man in drag?

Did any of our eldergays meet her, when they were young and hot?

I think she's tremendous!

I read that Mae was so senile at the time, at least 84 and probably older, she had no ability to memorize lines anymore, and they had to feed to them to her through an earpiece. And occasionally the earpiece would get inference with other broadcasts, like radio traffic reports, and she'd just mindlessly repeat whatever she heard in the earpiece.

[quote]I read that Mae was so senile at the time, at least 84 and probably older, she had no ability to memorize lines anymore, and they had to feed to them to her through an earpiece. And occasionally the earpiece would get inference with other broadcasts, like radio traffic reports, and she'd just mindlessly repeat whatever she heard in the earpiece.

That's amazing <3 More details plz, eldergays.

I wish Dolly had been able to make the biopic she has said she wanted to about Mae West. Now she is too old to play West in her prime. Dolly’s body around the time she did The Best Little Whorehouse would have been the perfect time for her to have made the picture.

Rex Reed wrote that she "looks like something they found in the basement of a pyramid" in reviewing Sextette. Now that's cruel and very funny too. Two friends and I went opening day to a cinema on 2nd Avnue and 63rd anticipating a camp fest and even smoking copious amount of weed in the rear mezz provoked only groans from us until we got up and walked out.

In the biography, Mae West, by George Eells and Stanley Musgrove there are two pictures of her showing her legs; one from the 30s(?) captioned "rare (and obviously retouched) cheesecake photo violates Mae's belief that what you don't show is more tantalizing than what you do"--it looks like she's wearing plaform shoes made out of metal plane wings; and another one of her in a dress and textured stockings "on the set of Robert Wise's STAR, a curious Julie Andrews seems more intent upon checking out Mae than Mae Julie". You got to see it to believe how incredulous Julie is checking out Mae's plaform shoes.

Ed Beheler as Jimmy Carter

My parents look us kids to see it at the Long Beach drive in theater. I thought it was gross as a 10 year old, I'll have to give it another go.

Such a classic R16. Love the change in the line "Young and beautiful, but someday your looks will be gone" changed to "...your looks will NEVER be gone". Being kind to the elderly, it was the right thing to do.

My favorite line of Mae’s is “ i’m the girl who works at Paramount all Day and Fox all night“

Mae was supposedly pretty in the 1920s when she was a Broadway star, but by the 1930s she was in her 40s and her looks had faded. She's sublime in her 30s films, but not because she's a great looker (though she is quite curvy and wears tight clothes), but because she's so funny and she acts so sexy.

I've never enjoyed 'Sextette" (despite its craziness and Timothy Dalton's gorgeousness in it) because she's so humiliated by how she appears vs. how the characters react to her.

So some of the stories here about her earpiece are just urban legends:

[quote] Sextette became the source of several urban legends. One such persistent rumor is that Mae West, who was 84, could not remember any of her lines and had to wear a concealed earpiece under her wig to have her lines fed to her. Tony Curtis later commented that West could not hear well, and thus required the earpiece. Creatively rewriting the story for dramatic effect, in an episode of the program The Dame Edna Experience, he said that because of the frequency of her earpiece she accidentally picked up police radio frequencies, and at one point mistakenly stated "There's a 608!"

[quote] In reality, West wore an earpiece so director Ken Hughes could feed her lines. Hughes had rewritten most of the dialogue because he and West both felt the script was weak. As a result, West had no time to study the script to memorize her lines. Hughes repeatedly debunked the urban legend that West's earpiece picked up police signals and that West repeated them.

[quote] Director Ken Hughes did later state that with hearing loss, West was unable to take direction, which caused problems in filming. Hughes recalls one incident involving a scene of West in an elevator which took an entire day to film. After the scene was finished, Hughes wrapped production for the day. West was not within hearing range to hear Hughes's call to wrap and remained in the closed elevator for half an hour before being let out.

[quote] Timothy Dalton had mixed feelings about the film, but complimented West. "I admired her nerve, and enjoyed working with her - I was even interviewed by Rona Barrett in the picture! It was a real stretch for me, and, frankly, after making love to a woman in her mid-80s, I knew I could handle any assignment!"

From the first time I saw her, in an episode of 'Mr Ed', I found her terrifying.

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