How Zany is Sextette (1978)?

Every once in a while, I come across a movie that is so utterly insane that I can’t help but focus in on the zany moments within it.  I’ve come across it a few times through the Sunday “Bad” Movies with things like Batman & Robin, Winter’s Tale, and Science Crazed.  The premise might be crazy, specific scenes and moments might be crazy, performances might be crazy.  Many times, everything about the movie helps to build it to that point of no return where you’re just watching the movie with your jaw dropped the entire time.  This week’s movie, Sextette, was one of those movies.

Sextette is a 1978 movie about Marlo Manners (Mae West), a celebrity who just got married for the sixth time.  She is at a hotel for her honeymoon with husband number six, Sir Michael Barrington (Timothy Dalton).  The honeymoon doesn’t go as planned.  Marlo’s ex-husbands begin showing up, including director Laslo Karolny (Ringo Starr) and Vance Norton (George Hamilton).  With the help of her assistant Dan Turner (Dom DeLuise), Marlo attempts to navigate her present relationship and former relationships through jokes, double entendres, and musical numbers.  That’s right.  Sextette is a musical.

There’s a lot of crazy stuff that goes on during the runtime of Sextette.  It is a movie filled with insane moments and details.  Each and every one helps to make the movie the crazy experience that it is.  Throughout this post, the different quirks will be mentioned and described in order to try and convince all of you how strange the movie actually is.  Not that you need convincing.  If you’ve seen the movie, or are reading this, you likely already know how insane it is.  But I’m going to describe it anyway.

First and foremost, Mae West was 85 when Sextette came out.  We can assume that she was 84 when the movie was being filmed.  This makes the movie quite odd in that every character is sexualizing her.  She is known as a promiscuous celebrity with five ex-husbands and a current husband.  There are rumors of her activities in bed.  And she spews of a never-ending slew of double entendres.  Twenty-five year old me was a little bit irked by this aspect of the movie.  Now, add into this fact that Timothy Dalton was in his early thirties during the filming of the movie.  There’s a fifty year age gap between the two actors playing a couple.  And this age difference is not mentioned once, since Mae West’s age is never mentioned throughout the movie.

Another thing I noticed while watching Sextette was the appearance of many rock musicians in a musical that was notably more disco influenced than the musicians’ normal work.  Ringo Starr has already been mentioned.  Other musicians included Alice Cooper and the drummer of The Who, Keith Moon.  For some reason, the people behind this movie decided that they should cast some famous rock icons to populate their musical.  It didn’t make a lot of sense and seems to simply be a case of stunt casting in an attempt to get people to watch the movie.  It sure made me curious when I saw the names popping up in the opening credits.

Now I’m going to get more specific and talk about certain moments in Sextette that were ridiculous, crazy, insane, or any other number of words that represent how out there the movie was.  This is because, although the parts that made up the movie are interesting to look at, the movie that is actually playing is even more interesting.  There are moments in the movie that stand out among the most ludicrous of the things I’ve seen while doing the Sunday “Bad” Movies.

Until recently, comedies took pleasure in making gay people the butt of jokes.  If someone was gay, or mistakenly thought to be gay, it was a joke.  Sextette was a movie that used this kind of humor.  When a talk show host or news reporter or something is talking about Marlo, Sir Michael Barrington runs to the set in order to put information right.  In doing so, he makes it seem like he is a homosexual in a heterosexual relationship.  This assumed sexual orientation of the character is a running gag through a large chunk of the movie.  In the current day and age, the joke isn’t nearly as tasteful as people thought it was in the past.  It is actually kind of grating when watching it now.

There are a few spy-related jokes surrounding Timothy Dalton’s character as well.  At one point, a character in the movie name drops James Bond.  Dalton had yet to play the iconic cinema character.  It would be another nine years before he appeared on screen as James Bond.  It seems rather fortuitous that they would mention the character, and Timothy Dalton would (spoiler!) turn out to be a spy by the end of the movie.  With nearly a decade between this movie and his debut as Bond, the coincidental jokes are shocking.

Finally, I want to bring up the final moments of the film.  The best way to discuss it is to describe the scene as it was.  Timothy Dalton is on his yacht.  He walks toward the bed only to find Mae West on the bed.  She says, about getting Dalton into bed, “Like Paul Revere said, ‘The British are coming.’”  What she clearly meant in her double entendre way was “The British are cumming” as in Timothy Dalton.  Immediately after uttering this final line, the director cut to a cannon being fired, then the Union Jack, then the end credits.  It was the most offensive, outrageous joke to end the movie on.  My jaw sat on the floor for a few minutes after hearing and seeing that.  I didn’t know how to react, and I’m still not entirely sure how to react.  With the willies, maybe?

Sextette is a movie built on being outrageous.  It’s not a terrible movie by any means.  With a group of people, it could be quite fun to watch.  Alone, I was sitting here wondering what the hell was happening because everything was bonkers.  The whole movie is bonkers from conception to execution.  I guess that makes it a perfect movie for the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  And I’m glad to have included it.

Before I get out of this post, I have to drop off some notes:

• Sextette was suggested by @T_Lawson.
• I mentioned a few movies off the top of the post.  I mentioned Batman & Robin (keeping the streak of it being linked in every post since its own alive), Winter’s Tale (which I’ve covered twice), and Science Crazed.
• There are a few actors in this movie that were featured in past Sunday “Bad” Movies.  Let’s start with Timothy Dalton.  He was in Flash Gordon.
• Dom DeLuise is another actor from Sextette that you may have seen in a previous movie I’ve featured.  He was in Baby Geniuses.
• The great Regis Philbin was in Sextette.  If you want to see more of him, check out Jack and Jill.
• Tony Curtis has strangely been featured twice in the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  Once in Sextette, and once in Roxanne’s Best Christmas Ever.
• Finally, we have Ian Abercrombie who showed up in Sextette.  He was also in The Ice Pirates.
• Have you seen Sextette?  Have you heard of Sextette?  What are your thoughts on the movie, or on your revelation that this movie exists? Does that ending sound as insane as it was when I saw it?  There’s a comments section for you to discuss whatever you want.
• You could also use the comments to suggest a future movie for the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  I’m always looking for movies to put into my schedule.  If you want to suggest outside of the comments, you can always contact me on Twitter.
• Next week’s movie is going to be Zombeavers.  It sounds like my kind of movie.  It sounds exactly like my kind of movie.  When I first heard about it, I knew it was going to make my list.  And now it is time.  I’ll write about it for next week, and hopefully have a better post than this week’s.