Myra Breckinridge

REVIEW
“Where are my tits? Where are my tits?!” Multiply the critical scorn heaped upon such contemporary Hollywood disasters as Battlefield Earth and Gigli by about a hundred and you have some idea of the critical reception that greeted the notorious Myra Breckinridge upon its 1970 release: “about as funny as a child molester,” raved Time, while New York gushed, “(the) creation of an infant smearing about in its own excrement.” Over three decades later, however, and Myra - one of Hollywood’s more desperate attempts to embrace youth counterculture of the era and flaunt taboos (see also Otto Preminger’s LSD comedy Skidoo) – is receiving a certain degree of critical reappraisal, and this new DVD should assist with the film’s rehabilitation. But is such reconsideration a worthwhile endeavor? Yes and no. Much of the film’s hostile reception upon original release is undoubtedly rooted in critical reaction to Myra’s then-X-rated scandalous content, and director Michael Sarne’s irreverent treatment of the Gore Vidal source material: the story of a gay film critic (the ghastly Rex Reed) transsexualized into a diva (Raquel Welch) who then attempts to seize control of an acting school run by her/his uncle (legendary director John Huston), Myra not only features an infamous strap-on rape sequence and assorted other cine-sexual transgressions, but Sarne intercuts classic Hollywood film clips of such icons as Shirley Temple and Laurel and Hardy into the mix as intertextual commentary on the old Hollywood (here represented by top-billed Mae West, contributing an extended musical number that represents a cringe-inducing highlight) colliding with new filmic permissiveness. So far, so amusing, and the film’s playful bending of gender and narrative has aged quite well. Less successful is the wildly uneven tone, which gives the impression that the production was every bit as chaotic as had been reported at the time (a notion reaffirmed by the recollections of Sarne and Welch on the DVD’s commentary tracks) – and also that Sarne largely misinterpreted Vidal’s novel. Far from the worst film ever made, Myra is also not necessarily a neglected masterpiece. It is, however, a frequently astonishing and adventurous representation of an experimental period in Hollywood filmmaking, a film that will likely even astonish today’s jaded audiences. Recommended.