Sextette (1978)

SEXTETTE  (1978)  ¢ 1/2

    D: Ken Hughes

    Mae West, Timothy Dalton, Tony Curtis,

    Dom DeLouise, Ringo Starr, George Hamilton,

    Walter Pidgeon, George Raft, Regis Philbin,
    Alice Cooper, Keith Moon, Rona Barrett

A famous actress with an anachronistic wardrobe and a familiar purr in her voice checks into a London hotel for her honeymoon, but the demands of stardom and the attentions of numerous men conspire to keep her away from the bridal suite. Like some other legendarily godawful films, Mae West's last movie isn't necessarily as bad as its reputation. But it's still pretty bad. West was 83 when she made it, and multiple takes and some artful editing were required to cover for her inability to hit her marks and remember her lines. For all that, she pretty much pulls it off. She might look like some drag queen's grandmother, but she's still Mae West, the grand dame of sexual innuendo, inviting the boys to come up and see her sometime. It's an act nobody else could get away with. Beyond that, the picture's a mess, a jumble of campy cameos, ghastly musical numbers and gags that just don't fly. A geriatric curtain call for a cultural icon who maybe stayed in the game too long, but couldn't do or be anything else.