MYRA BRECKINRIDGE (1970) – LEGENDARILY BAD

MYRA BRECKINRIDGE (1970) – This film is based on the novel by Gore Vidal, who once called director John Waters “the pope of trash.” Well, Gore, Waters never had anything to do with Myra Breckinridge in any of its forms, so you have no room to talk.

This year in which there is no escaping online arguments over Barbie and cinematic depictions of masculinity, femininity, transexuals, garish camp and so much more, it seemed the perfect time for me to review another of the all-time worst movies ever made: Myra Breckinridge. 

First up, a summary of the plot – Myron Breckinridge, played by THE Rex Reed, the famed film critic, is fascinated with Hollywood and is conflicted about his sexuality AND about societal notions of masculinity. Myron believes that the film industry has distorted and perverted masculinity into what would today be called by certain people a “toxic” stew of rabid machismo.

Myron himself, who wants to be a woman, is more into the Hollywood musicals and romances of a bygone era and blames the film industry for providing what he sees as negative role models for young males. Myron has a sex change operation, going in as Rex Reed and coming out as Raquel Welch. No, I’m not kidding.

Next, as Myra Breckinridge instead of Myron, the character goes to Hollywood to work at the acting school run by her uncle – former cowboy star Buck Loner … played by JOHN FREAKING HUSTON! Myra’s plan is to change the way male thespians behave and how men are portrayed in film so that she can destroy the very concept of traditional macho movie heroes forever.

It says a lot that Gore Vidal originally conceived all this as satire, because here in 2023 there are big names in Hollywood who really do mouth such inane sentiments with 100% seriousness while they lecture the rest of us about “toxic masculinity”, etc.

At any rate, Myra’s Uncle Buck fears that she just wants to steal his acting school and half his estate from him. Next come a series of truly bizarre scenes which, while striving to be tongue-in-cheek commentary on the way the media impacts notions of masculinity and femininity, are really just incoherent messes.

Picture a movie combining elements from the work of Ed Wood, John Waters, Doris Wishman, Russ Meyer and Neil Breen, with the Silver Screen inserts of the tv series Dream On.  For seasoning, add huge stars of the past with up-and-coming stars of the future and let it all ferment. Or maybe congeal.

MAE WEST, so far past her glamorous sex-pot days that she seems more mummified than made up, plays talent agent Leticia Van Allen. (Mae’s movie Sextette was even worse than this one.)

JOHN CARRADINE portrays a stoned surgeon in a performance which previews his shambling, unfocused behavior in all of his subsequent 1970s and 1980s film appearances.

TOM SELLECK plays one of Mae’s studs, while FARRAH FAWCETT plays a Hollywood ingenue who beds down with Myra. 

The rest of the menagerie in Myra Breckinridge includes Jim Backus, Toni Basil, Roger Carmel, Kathleen Freeman, Buck Kartalian, George Furth, Thordis Brandt and Joe Pine. One of the screenplay writers was David Giler, who went on to write The Parallax View and Aliens. Really.

We viewers also get treated to dialogue between Myra and her past self Myron who shows up periodically like the Ghost of Humphrey Bogart in Woody Allen’s Play It Again, Sam. And there’s the notorious scene where Raquel as Myra literally pegs a beefcake male called Rusty (Roger Herren) while wearing her cowboy hat and whooping.

(That scene is very “today” when you consider the amount of time that has been spent on the internet by reviewers who can’t find the words to describe exactly what was done to Luke Skywalker, Thor and Indiana Jones in recent years.)

And speaking of notorious scenes, there’s also the one in which Rex Reed as the ghostly Myron fantasizes about Raquel Welch as Myra performing oral sex on him. This film was originally rated X but is now considered R. 

Raquel and Farrah in bed together

Beyond that, many of the scenes could be removed and edited back into the movie just about anywhere else during the running time without making much difference to the overall film.

In all seriousness, Myra Breckinridge is in a whole separate category of badness. ONLY people who love watching out of control cinematic disasters as much as I do should watch this movie.

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