AMC: ‘Myra Breckinridge Backstory (2001) Raquel Welch as Gore Vidal’s Legendary Character’

Source:AMC– The cast of Myra Breckinridge.

Source:The Daily Review 

“This making of special aired in 2001.

This making of special aired in 2001. Don’t watch this if you haven’t seen the movie. It gives the whole storyline away.

This special on model Gia Carangi [1960-1986] aired in 2001. The audio and video is very bad on this one. I’m sorry about that. This copy is all that I have.

Myron Breckinridge flies to Europe to get a sex-change operation and is transformed into the beautiful Myra. She travels to Hollywood, meets up with.

This interview aired in 1990 about an etiquette manual Ms. Barrows had written called Mayflower Manners.” Originally from AMC, but the video has since been deleted or blocked on YouTube.

Source:The Daily Review– Hollywood Goddess Raquel Welch as Myra Breckinridge.

Myra Breckinridge is one of those movies that looks better as it ages, because it was so ahead of its time. I think the makers of the film calculated wrong thinking that this is a 1970 movie probably made in 1969 and that this movie would be perfect for its time in the 1960s and the cultural and sexual revolutions. With young Americans experimenting and trying all sorts of different things even when it came to their sexuality.

But very few people were talking about transgender sexuality and sex changes back then. It was very new and then you throw in all the pornography in the movie (which I personally don’t have a problem with) and it was a tough movie for a lot of people to see which is why it was a financial flop when it came out.

If this movie came out 25-30 years later perhaps even 20 years I think this movie would have been very successful. (Especially on Cinemax) I’ve seen this movie like ten times now and have blogged about it multiple times and it was one of my favorite comedies. I’m laughing through most of this movie with Raquel Welch being at her hottest, sexiest and cutest, all in the same movie.

Raquel was so funny in this movie and this is where you really get to see her sense of humor and great comedic timing. John Huston playing Buck Naked, I mean Buck Loner in this movie a sex starved, or sex addict head of an acting school. (Of all things) Getting blow jobs and sexual massages on the job and trying to run his school at the same time.

And of course you can’t talk about Myra Breckinridge without talking about Mae West. Where she also plays a sex starved star in the movie a man-loving woman who can’t spend more than five seconds with a young stud (Tom Selleck) without making a pass at him. And of course you get to see Mae sing Hard to Handle which was perfect for her and her character in this movie.

And of course Gore Vidal with without his book with the same title this movie isn’t made. (Which might not have been a bad thing) But his great comedic ability and willingness to take big risks is how he writes the book that he did and how this movie gets made. I believe movies are judged by how they look as the years go by and later in history. And Myra Breckinridge to me looks like a great comedy.

 

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Tony Baretta: Myra Breckinridge 1970- A Look at a Straight Man’s World From a Former Man

Source: This piece was originally posted at The New Democrat

Myra Breckinridge may be the best movie that ever flopped at the box office. It lost more than the 1962 New York Mets who lost something like 120 games that season. I don’t believe the movie made a dime. It was too far ahead of its time. If it were made today with the right cast, it would probably be a huge success.

Raquel Welch plays Myra Breckinridge and really makes the movie worth watching all by herself. Watching her, it is very difficult to look at anyone or anything else. She is at her hottest, sexiest, cutest and funniest. She shows the world that she is much more than a hot and sexy babe. She has great wit and stage presence.

Myra is a former gay man who is now a transgender woman. She goes to Hollywood to claim what she believes to be her inheritance. Her uncle, Buck Loner (John Huston), an over-sexed horny bastard, runs an acting school that he inherited from his parents. Myra thinks that he owes her half of it.

Buck has no idea that his nephew, his sister Gertrude’s son, is now a women calling herself Myra Breckinridge. She tells her uncle to pay up or she’s going to a get a lawyer to get what she believes is hers.

To buy time, Buck gives Myra a job on the school faculty. He tries to prove that Myra never married his nephew and that he doesn’t owe her anything. He’s right that she never married his nephew. She is his nephew and she’s now a woman. She has a fake marriage license that keeps her in the game until she can get what she really wants, the five-hundred-thousand dollars that she believes her uncle owes her.

While Myra is trying to get her money, she uses her time at the school to do research on modern young straight men with the goal of dominating them, one day. This movie is hysterical. It has all sorts of funny characters including a gay man who plays the part of the queen perfectly. There’s also a very young, baby-faced, Farah Fawcett who’s actually cuter than Raquel, but not as sexy.
Tony Baretta: Myra Breckinridge 1970 Trailer

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