Sextette (1978)

User Rating:

2.3/10   

Director:

Ken Hughes

Writers:

Mae West (play)
Herbert Baker (screenplay)

Release Date:

3 March 1978 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Musical | Romance

Tagline:

The Sin-Sational Mae West

Plot:

Marlo Manners is enjoying her honeymoon with Sir Michael Barrington, husband number 6. As luck would have it...

Plot Keywords:

Honeymoon | Hotel | Journalist | One Word Title | Celebrity

Cast

Mae West	...	Marlo Manners / Lady Barrington
Timothy Dalton	...	Sir Michael Barrington
Dom DeLuise	...	Dan Turner
Tony Curtis	...	Alexei Andreyev Karansky
Ringo Starr	...	Laslo Karolny
George Hamilton	...	Vance Norton
Alice Cooper	...	Waiter
Keith Allison	...	Waiter in Alexei's Suite
Rona Barrett	...	Herself
Van McCoy	...	Delegate
Keith Moon	...	Dress Designer
Regis Philbin	...	Himself
Walter Pidgeon	...	Mr. Chambers, the chairman
George Raft	...	Himself
Gil Stratton	...	Himself

Runtime:

91 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:M | Iceland:L | Ireland:PG | UK:PG | USA:PG

Company:

Briggs and Sullivan

Trivia:

This was Mae West's final film. George Raft also appeared with her in her first film Night After Night (1932).

Goofs:

Continuity: Earlier scenes establish the hotel gymnasium is below the lion statue where the tape is. When Barrington recovers the tape from the statue, a street is seen below. However, when he falls he ends up in the gymnasium.

Quotes:

Marlo Manners: A real farmer. He spent his childhood in the wheat, and his marriage in the hay.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "20 to 1: 50 to 01: Great Movie One Liners (#4.10)" (2007)

Soundtrack:

Love Will Keep Us Together

The Reigning Camp Queen!

This is right up there with "Can't Stop the Music" as wonderfully inspired trash. I find it funny that so many people are offended by Mae's appearance and numerous flirtations in this film. These are the same yokels who laugh at Bob Hope or George Burns when they chat up a young babe. It's nice to see the tables turned. Mae is grand - there's no other word for her- and her statue-like appearance (due to God knows how many face lifts and layers of make-up) actually help to accentuate the nature of her cinema icon glory. She always was bigger-than-life.

The plot of this film and the musical numbers are truly terrible, but they're there merely as plot devices for Mae to strut her stuff, and for Timothy Dalton to rack up enough embarrassing moments to cancel out his entire career even if he makes it to Mae's age! This movie always was meant to be camp, since Mae has always been the reigning camp queen, but of course it also tried to pass as real Hollywood entertainment, which means that there's a lot of unintentional humor too. There are tons of witty lines, and it's fun to see this huge gallery of stars (I barely recognized Alice Cooper without his long hair and smeared mascara. He looked like Paul Jabara, which I bet was intentional). I would not recommend seeing this film on an empty stomach, as seeing Timothy Dalton breaking out into "Love Will Keep Us Together" will cause a severely nasty involuntary reaction. But for fans of true camp, this movie is an absolute must see!