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. Continue reading
A MODERN MUSKETEER (1917) – This 68-minute film was released on December 30th, 1917, when Douglas Fairbanks was known for his comedies rather than for his later success as cinema’s first swashbuckling superstar. 
I’m not exaggerating when I say that that opening segment provides almost as many thrills and spectacular stunts as the entirety of Doug’s 1921 serious turn as D’Artagnan in 
THOMASINE & BUSHROD (1974) – The Frontierado Holiday is Friday, August 4th this year, so here is another seasonal post – a review of the black western Thomasine & Bushrod. This tale of a pair of outlaw lovers is a nice change of pace since it is set in the fading Wild West of 1911-1915. Automobiles are beginning to show up here and there, making Thomasine & Bushrod a fascinating fusion of “Robin Hood Outlaw” tales bridging both the old west and the later Pretty Boy Floyd era. 
While collecting the money from her most recent success, Thomasine sees a fresh Wanted poster for her old boyfriend J.P. Bushrod, a gunslinging bank robber and rustler portrayed by Max Julien from the previous year’s blaxploitation hit The Mack. 
THE CLONES (1973) – This neglected sci-fi item from the 70s was directed by Lamar Card & Paul Hunt, based on Hunt’s story. The Clones falls into that category of films that I always refer to as “X-Movies” because of the way they put one in mind of the paranoid and conspiratorial air of the best X-Files episodes. 
Gregory Sierra, best known to trivia buffs as “And Gregory Sierra” for the number of times he was credited like that in various television shows and movies, plays Nemo, a government agent tasked to keep the clone project a secret and bring in the escapee. 
THE MAN FROM PAINTED POST (1917) – Here is another Douglas Fairbanks movie from the years before he became the film world’s premier swashbuckler. Unlike the pure comedy of Fairbanks’ 
THE MYSTERY OF THE LEAPING FISH (1916) – Regular readers of Balladeer’s Blog may remember that I’m a geek for Silent Movies. Last week’s look at 
The short’s comedic approach to cocaine, opium and more demonstrates the “anything goes” attitude before film codes were implemented to ban certain content from the big screen. In the pre-internet years, The Mystery of the Leaping Fish was a film that people refused to believe existed until you had them sit down and watch it with you.
THE MARK OF ZORRO (1920) – Douglas Fairbanks digs into his comedic AND acrobatic skills in this first screen adaptation of Johnston McCully’s masked hero of 1820s California (The Curse of Capistrano had just been published the year before and Fairbanks bought the film rights for United Artists.) 
Excellent fight choreography, heroic opposition to tyranny and the rousing, marathon chase and fight scene near the film’s finale make The Mark of Zorro an absolute must-see for anyone curious about silent movies. Nearly every frame of the film is a portrait.
STRAIGHT TO HELL (1987) – For a glib, one sentence review of this movie, how about “Quentin Tarantino minus Quentin Tarantino equals Straight to Hell?” Though this flick came out years before Tarantino’s films it clearly influenced him and to this day it feels like a lost, inferior effort by Quentin. 
Alex threw in some of his stable of regulars from his two earlier films, slapped together a script in three days (co-written by Dick Rude) and used a mere few weeks to make this oddball genre-bender in Spain. 
AMPHIBIAN MAN (1962) – This “mad scientist creates a man capable of living underwater” movie was made in the Soviet Union but frequently appeared in dubbed English on American television decades ago. 
Many online reviewers accuse the makers of The Shape of Water of ripping off this 1962 movie that is based on a 1928 novel. Arguments can be made for that, but it’s important to remember that all sci-fi stories draw from the same general inheritance of tropes. 
ICHTYANDR SALVATOR (Vladimir Korenev) – A young Argentinean man whose scientist father prevented him from dying of a lung disease in childhood by grafting shark gills on to his body. Ichtyandr has been raised and educated in isolation and his father even designed a comical looking underwater suit for our hero to wear, complete with a shark fin. 
PRAY FOR THE WILDCATS (1974) – That’s Wildcats as in the Baja Wildcats, the name given by the villainous Andy Griffith to himself and his fellow over the hill dirt bikers – William Shatner, Marjoe Gortner and Robert Reed! 
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