(Gore Vidal's) Myra Breckinridge (1970)

In co-writer/director Michael Sarne's (and 20th Century Fox's) odd, unusual, and controversial cult film - it was one of the biggest box-office bombs ever made. The drag-themed, tasteless, debauched comedy was thought to be the voyeuristic, dreamy hallucinations of a struggling, gay male wishing to be a female siren - the basic theme of the movie was the "coming-out" confessional story of a gay man. The incompetently-made film (it was director Sarne's second feature) told about a New York gay film fanatic/writer named Myron Breckinridge (real-life bisexual film critic Rex Reed) who had a sex change operation (gender reassignment surgery).

Originally rated X, it was the cinematic adaptation of Gore Vidal's 1968 notorious story about a New York gay film fanatic writer and man-hating writer named Myron (Rex Reed), who was then re-named Myra Breckinridge (Raquel Welch) after a sex-change operation in Hollywood. Novelist Gore Vidal, who helped to adapt his own satirical 1968 novel about gender stereotypes and Hollywood into this monstrosity of a film, has since disowned this perverse X-rated (reduced to R) film.

With a budget of $5.38 million, its revenue gross (domestic) was only $3 million, while its total gross (worldwide) was $8.72 million. The unprofitable, unqualified-disaster and embarrassing film disappeared for many decades until it was finally released on video/DVD.

The racy, incoherent, vulgar and irreverent film was unintentionally funny and seriously chastised upon its release, although it was intentionally thought by Fox that it would be popular with hip, young film-going audiences who were flocking to unconventional, liberal films during the permissive sexual/political revolution (of the late 60s/early 70s). The era included such films as the X-rated Best Picture winning Midnight Cowboy (1969), Easy Rider (1969) and M*A*S*H (1970).

Critics (and some of the stars themselves) also derided the film for its gimmickry -- arbitrarily including archival clips from old Fox Studio films to 'comment upon' the action/characters, including Shirley Temple, Loretta Young, Tyrone Power, Peter Lorre, Marilyn Monroe, Carmen Miranda and Laurel and Hardy - and as a result of lawsuits, some of the clips were removed.

• in the film's opening, New York gay film fanatic/writer Myron Breckinridge (real-life film critic Rex Reed) secretly chose to have a sex change operation (performed by chain-smoking, drugged mad doctor John Carradine) in Copenhagen, Denmark; the surgeon warned: "You realize, once we cut it off, it won't grow back. I mean, it isn't like hair, or fingernails, or toenails, you know"; Myron refused circumcision, and insisted on complete penile removal: "Let's get it over with! Myra's waiting!"; in the background was a whip-cracking, dancing masseuse (Thordis Brandt); after the operation, spectators rose to applaud with a standing ovation
• Myron was transformed into a statuesque, busty, trans-sexual, male-bashing beauty now renamed Myra Breckinridge (Raquel Welch in a self-parodying, charismatic performance); her destiny was to arrive in Hollywood to realign the genders and destroy the boundaries of traditional manhood: "My purpose in coming to Hollywood is the destruction of the American male in all its particulars"
• he/she then appeared at the Hollywood/Westwood acting school-academy of her lecherous uncle Buck Loner (John Huston), a former cowboy star; she insulted his school, where she had seen one of the teachers hugging a tree: ("What you have assembled here are the national dregs, the misfits and neurotics. In short, the f--kups of our culture"); she then stated that she was there to claim her inheritance of $500,000 dollars, asserting that she was the widow of Myron (Buck's nephew): Buck was able to delay her request by offering her a lucrative job as a film history teacher in his acting school (teaching "empathy and posture"), earning $1,000 a month
• throughout the film, Myra conversed with Myron - her ghostly alter-ego or former self of the past, as they debated how she was transforming society with her progressive ideas of femdom (female dominance in society); at one point in the film, Myra kissed Myron and then delivered fellatio to him - while he fantasized a vision of one of the school's students, Mary Ann: ("a typical, fun-loving, California sweetheart") providing him with a selection of delectable food treats including a banana; then Myra vanished and Myron was revealed to be masturbating himself
• Myra became acquainted with two lovers on the acting school campus: young, handsome, aspiring Hollywood acting student-pupil Rusty Godowsky (Roger Herren) and his naively-dumb blonde girlfriend Mary Ann Pringle (Farrah Fawcett in her debut film role before her Charlie's Angels fame); she described her thoughts about the couple:
  • "In my posture class, I was particularly struck by one of the students, a boy with a Polish name. From a certain unevenly rounded thickness at the crotch of his blue jeans, it is safe to assume that he is - marvelously hung. Unfortunately, he's hot for an extremely pretty girl with long blonde hair. Dyed. Beautiful legs and breasts. Reminiscent of Lupe Velez. She is mentally retarded. He is probably just as stupid, but fortunately, has the good sense not to talk too much. When he does, however, he puts on a hillbilly accent that is so authentic that I almost melt in my drawers"
• Myra was upset that Mary Ann's only true desire was to get married and have four children; Myra chided her for her ignorance about the population explosion, and was worried about how the couple were following traditional gender norms
• in one of the film's most infamous scenes (a bi-sexual seduction scene), domineering, star-spangled pattern bikini-wearing Myra conducted a sham physical exam on an infirmary examination table, upon her hapless de-pantsed patient - Rusty Godowsky, Mary Ann Pringle's boyfriend; Myra told her subject as she put on a large strap-on dildo, that she must destroy the last bastion of manhood that had to be broken down:
  • "I shall ball you, Rusty...I won't kill you Rusty, I'll just educate you, you and the rest of America. Must be demonstrated to you practically, that there is no such thing as manhood. It died with Burt Lancaster in Vera Cruz. Your manhood was taken by Errol Flynn and Clark Gable! I am only going to supply you with the finishing touches."
• the outrageous, emasculating sodomy-dildo rape scene was complete with intercut shots of various stars from Myra's obsessed fascination with the Golden Age of Hollywood (Gary Cooper, Marilyn Monroe - in her famous pin-up pose, Clark Gable, etc.), bucking broncho-riding, the assault of a fortress with a large wooden battering ram, clips from a Laurel and Hardy film, a shot of the Hoover Dam collapsing, an image of Myra on a flowery swing spouting: "Hooray for Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. Uncle Sam, here I come," the cresting over the top of a roller-coaster, the tune "Love is a Many Splendored Thing", and an H-bomb explosion
• one of Buck Loner's Hollywood friends was the aging, double-entendre-spouting, sex-craving talent agent-scout Leticia Van Allen (campy 77 year old Mae West caricaturing herself) who was obsessed with seducing hunky males and creating a "stable of studs" - she divulged many one-liners: (i.e., "Well, the end of another busy day. I can't wait till I get back to bed. If that don't work, I'll try to sleep"); she ushered one attractive male Stud (Tom Selleck) into her office-bedroom (with satiny-silk curtains, a four-poster bed and ostrich feathers) for a casting session; she also interviewed a cowboy who mentioned that his height was 6 foot 7 inches - she quipped: "Well, never mind the six feet, and let's talk about the seven inches"
• after Myra's assault on Rusty, she sent him for talent-scout advice to Leticia, while Myra made sexual advances of her own on Mary Ann; she told Myron: ("But having raped Rusty's manhood, I must now complete the cycle and seduce his girl. Only then will my victory be complete. Thus exerting power over both sexes and, indeed, over life itself")
• during Myra's extended time at the school, Buck was investigating her claims to his estate's inheritance; he discovered that Myron never died (there was no death certificate); Myra admitted that she had been falsifying the truth
• in the film's most publicized scene, the transformed trans-sexual Myra jumped up on top of a table for a skirts-up revelation before the horrified Buck; she exhibited herself to him without panties to prove that she had a sex-change operation; she admitted that she was Myron - Buck's nephew: ("Gentlemen. I am Myron Breckinridge! Uncle Buck, your fag nephew became your niece two years ago in Copenhagen and is now free as a bird and happy in being the most extraordinary woman in the world!"); Buck was aghast: "That's the ball game" - his response indicated that Myron had retained his testes
• as Myra attempted to bed down Mary Ann in a lesbian seduction scene, she was hesitant: "And I really do love you as you are. I even like it when you touch me. Up to a point. I don't know. I just can't let myself go. That's the way I am"; she added:: "If only there was some man like you. I'd really fall, I would. But not like this. If only you were a man..."
• in the film's black-and-white twist-ending ("It was all a dream"), Myron ran down Myra (himself!) with his car; then, he awakened from his dream in the hospital (treated for a car accident) attended by nurse Mary Ann, where he had fantasized the whole scenario of the gender surgery and his transformation into Myra Breckinridge; he had obsessed on the picture of Raquel Welch on the cover of his bedside magazine - and used her as his inspiration-model for the dream sequence; in the film's last lines of dialogue (voice-over), Myron pledged: "I'll turn around and I'll come back. You wouldn't understand the way I feel about Mary Ann. That she's Donald Duck straws and Pepsodent toothpaste"