Myra Breckinridge

[Clip from Stowaway]

CHINESE: Do you know any American song?

SHIRLEY TEMPLE: Yes I do! It's called "You've Got to S-M-I-L-E!"

[As said song plays, The Cinema Snob happily strolling in a hotel corridor, when Diamanda Hagan sneaks up from behind him, and touches his shoulder, making him turn around.]

SNOB: Shit! This better be good! You're interrupting my daily Rex Reed impersonation!

HAGAN: Funny... I thought you'd be taller.

SNOB: I thought you'd dress better.

HAGAN: You try dressing well while you're reviewing Slaughtered Vomit Dolls.

SNOB: Well, I dressed pretty fine while I watched Salo.

HAGAN: Where The Dead Go To Die!

SNOB: I don't care about your vacation. Gross-Out. All the blackface ever ...

HAGAN: Bad Biology! Detachable, drug-addicted, sentient penis! Rapes a bunch of women!

SNOB: Pink Flamingos. Singing asshole.

HAGAN:Child Bride.

SNOB: Skinny-dipping kid, huh? I've seen that one too.

[Hagan scratches her neck thinking]

HAGAN: You've ever seen a movie with a horse fucking a bird?

SNOB: [after thinking a while] You win. Wanna watch Myra Breckinridge with me?

HAGAN: Sure thing, shorty!

SNOB: I'm not short! You're just Richard Kiel!

Title card, following by the credits sequence, featuring footage of the movie, and the Snob's font and theme song... covered by the hardcore metal band that sings "Lecher Bitch".

Our reviewers - "Your Host Vincent Dawn - Le Snob de Cinema -" and "Your Hostess Diamanda Hagan - Lecher Bich" are sitting in their hotel bed (Snob, atop some pillows to hide the difference, something that makes Hagan laugh and even measure him with her hands...)

SNOB: If it's good enough for Humphrey Bogart, it's good enough for me. You know, there are there are other reviews I could be gracing my presence with. I heard there is someone called Count Jackula around.

[Footage of Myra Breckinridge]

SNOB (VO): Myra Breckinridge is the first of two godawful movies that Mae West came out of retirement to do. Personally, I think she got bored of being Hollywood royalty and just wanted to roll around in shit for a while.

HAGAN (VO): The other one's Sextette. So if you're interested, just go check out my review.

SNOB (VO): Really? Plugging your other work in the middle of your review? Classy! The least you could do is plug my work, that at least'd be original! This was based on a world-famous book by Gore Vidal, and like Caligula, he hated the end result!

SNOB: So logically, I should will love this... but I won't!

HAGAN (VO): After looking at director Michael Sarne's professional suicide note, we're in the middle of an operating theater as Myron Breckinridge prepares for a sex change operation.

SNOB (VO): This is terrible. The anesthesias don't even use the whip! Those spectators should be in scrubs, and really, is the Stargate from 2001 the best place the best place to perform surgery?

Applause as the doctor enters the room.

SNOB (VO): Although, if you're gonna be operated on by a Carradine, might as well make it John!

DR. JOHN CARRADINE: 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!

Both are shaking their heads in disbelief

HAGAN: I think we need an expert.

SNOB: Agreed.

HAGAN: Minion! Get me Zinnia!

Static, and then a shower where we meet "Your Trans Activist Zinnia Jones - Unhappy 2 b Cameoing - " (the text censoring her breasts), who screams in panic once she sees she's being filmed.

Back in the hotel, Snob is shocked while a smiling Diamanda greets her friend.

HAGAN: Hi Zinnia!

ZINNIA: What the fuck are you doing?

HAGAN : I'm watching Myra Breckrindge and I kinda need an expert.

ZINNIA: OK, you had me when the guy holding the camera had a gun. What do you wanna know?

Footage from the hospital scene again

HAGAN (VO): They're giving a sexual reassignment surgery. Is this normal?

DR. JOHN CARRADINE: 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!

ZINNIA: Honestly, it's kind of blatant to be mentioning that.

DR. JOHN CARRADINE: How about circumcision? It’d be cheaper!

MYRA: Come on, come on, come on! Let's get it over with! Myra’s waiting!

ZINNIA: With all that hair and stubble, I'd assume they're doing an appendictomy rather than a "cut-it-off-tomy".

HAGAN: I felt this smelled a bit fishy. Thanks!

ZINNIA: [flipping the bird] Fuck you!

[static as Zinnia is cut off]

HAGAN: She's useful.

[Snob wipes his face in disbelief and puts his hand in his mouth]

HAGAN: I said she's useful.

SNOB: She had a dick!

HAGAN: Yes, Snob. Try to keep up!

DR. JOHN CARRADINE: Well, wish me luck! I’ve never done one of these before!

Clip from Asterix in Britain, with Julius Caesar getting a flying map covering him up.

CAESAR: We're off to a great start!

As “You Gotta S-M-I-L-E to be H-A-Double-P-Y” plays, a pair of white loafers stroll down the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Mae West’s credit appears as an animated signature, and the white loafers do a little soft shoe over Ann Miller’s star and continue on. As the title "Gore Vidal's Myra Breckrinridge" is on the screen, Myron dressed in a white suit, white pants, and white tie, turns to a window and his reflection is that of Raquel Welch in the role of Myra. Myra’s wearing a frilly white dress as she does a little dance of her own.

HAGAN (VO): You wanna know how people in musicals look like to the rest of the world? Now you can.

As Myron strolls some, he eventually becomes Myra doing a twirling, Sound of Music-esque dance routine.

HAGAN (VO): My God, it's Spider-Man 3 all over again! Just reverse the colors!

Once Shirley Temple's song ends, she's applauded - and Myron is still dancing.

SNOB: Movie, one does not applaud oneself. It's vulgar

Myra and Myron shuffle off arm in arm, as the director credits appear.

HAGAN (VO): True story: Michael Sarne wanted to take his name off the movie. But as Alan Smithee hadn't been invented yet, the only name he could use was Michael Sarne, so he didn't bother.

Suddenly, there’s a flash of yellow, and we cut to atomic test footage.

MYRA: I am Myra Breckinridge!

Followed by a clip of Raquel Welch in...

HAGAN (VO): No, that's One Million B.C.. Less than 10 minutes in, they're already mixing up the Raquel Welch fantasy movies. One of the first rules of moviemaking is "don't remind us of a better movie in the middle of your movie!" The best possible result is that we keep watching, but we're pissed off we're not watching something better!

HAGAN: And this film is [extends hand] 5% made of better films!

SNOB: If this movie was put on YouTube, the makers of Grizzly 2 would threaten to sue in minutes!

A car entering the Buck Loner Academy as "Minuetto" plays.

HAGAN (VO): And now it's time for Bum Reviews with Chester A. Bum... tonight's review, Up the Academy. SNOB (VO): Myron's had his sex change and become Myra. Her uncle is a former movie star called Buck Loner who owns an acting school where they employ people to act like stroke victims.

Guy doing a weird performance: The trrrrreeee!

SNOB (VO): Myra's arrived, posing as Myron’s widow, to convince him to give her half the school, even though it's legally half Myron's anyway.

SNOB: Call me rich, white and insane, I committed several types of fraud to get my own money too!

Myra enters a room, Buck dressed as a cowboy hat as he sits on a fake horse

BUCK: Howdy-doo. Come on right in.

SNOB (VO): Buck is played by John Huston - yes, that John Huston. I don't know what's the bigger irony: this guy being one of the most celebrated directors in American history, or that Myron's actor Rex Reed's day job is a film critic!

BUCK: What's your name, darlin'?

MYRA: Myra Breckinridge.

BUCK:That’s mighty long for—

We instantly cut to more random atomic test footage, wherein an old army barracks is blown apart.

HAGAN: Myra Breckinridge, a name more destructive than an atom bomb. So many careers were destroyed by it!

MYRA:I'm the widow of your late nephew Myron, and I’ve come to collect half a million dollars.

At this, we get a random clip from Jesse James starring Tyrone Power. A gunman creeps up behind Tyrone, who gets shot and collapses to the floor, and we cut to Myra while the camera shakes.

HAGAN (VO): This movie inserts clips of other movies onto itself. Sometimes to comment on the action, sometimes to make a joke about it, and sometimes because the director's ADHD.

HAGAN: In short, this movie might have invented sampling! SNOB: And may God have mercy on its soul! HAGAN: No, I won't! [frowns, while Snob looks in disbelief]

More of Myra talking.

HAGAN (VO): You know, for a filme that trivializes rape as much as this one does, being made by people who gave no consent in the ways they'd reinterpret their scenes rather apt.

Myron in a gallon cowboy hat.

SNOB (VO): While the disembodied ghost of Myron watches, Myra and Buck make an arrangement. Myra will get a job teaching at the school... [a black man next to Buck] and Jaye Davison will get back in training for his role in Stargate.

A clip of Marlene Dietrich in Seven Sinners, dressed like a Navy captain and singing “The Man’s in the Navy”.

HAGAN (VO): Oh, movie, order me a Marlene Dietrich-agram. It's no Lipps Scott-agram, but thank you!

Myra’s class, she’s dressed as a Navy captain, just like Marlene Dietrich.

MYRA: During the decade between 1935 and 1945, no unimportant film was made in the United States!

HAGAN: Liar! Liar! Child Bride!

SNOB: No, that movie is quite important. If he hadn't been made, we wouldn't be able to ask the question "why the hell does Child Bride exist?" [she nods her head, in approval]

Two guys in cowboy hats as they practice sliding a mug of beer back and forth across a bar. One guy is a little too engrossed in his newspaper, causing him to miss the glass. This is immediately followed by the loud foleyed-in noise of glass breaking.

SNOB (VO): Wow, I think this was filmed in planet California!

Myron and the black guy.

HAGAN (VO): Oh, so you know, sometimes Myra's played by Rex Reed, as Myron. Don't fucking look at me to explain it!

MYRON: Is your name really Irving? and Irving proudly announces, :IRVING: Irving Amadeus!

MYRON: That’s a Jewish name!

IRVING: Yes, I know. I used to be Jewish before being transmogrified...

HAGAN (VO): It is a lot like that movie Watermelon Man, but much, much gayer!

There’s an acting class in an auditorium, and a bed is up on stage. :TEACHER: For today's class on cinema lovemaking!

SNOB (VO): It's ironic that this movie failed its own class on Cinema Sex Scenes!

HAGAN (VO): Eh, a little bit like Cheap, then.

Buck in an oversized hat saddling his horse

SNOB (VO): There's the only person not be embarrassed in this movie. HAGAN (VO): John Huston? SNOB (VO): No, the horse! John Huston, what?! HAGAN (VO): He was getting pretty old. He was probably thinking they were filming The African Queen. SNOB (VO): Either way, he's a third too small for his hat.

A close-up of Myra's lips with "Science Fiction Double Feature" dubbed over. A guy next to a pre-fame Farrah Fawcett is watching.

RUSTY: I didn’t understand one word you said, but whatever it was I'm right with ya!

HAGAN (VO): That's Rusty.Myra plans to rape him to demonstrate something... about stuff. Surely the book gave her something resembling a point? It's just a pity the director couldn't give her a reason why, and underplays it with just a "queers are funny" vibe. SNOB (VO): So Myra, having taste, doesn't think much of the drugged out weirdos passing as actors these days!

BUCK: Great bunch of boys here. Of course, you get the occasional weirdo. But greatest bunch of kids in Hollywood.

Guy doing a weird performance: Bread?

MYRA: I'm certain of that. The drivel in their heads... must've been patiently instilled by the faculty.

BUCK: Wait a minute. The faculty may be a bunch of Commies and fags-- no offense, lrving-- but they're all eminently qualified.

SNOB: Qualified... I need that on my resume.

HAGAN: It's already there. [shows in paper] Right between "bullfighter" and "voice of Megatron".

SNOB: Right, that was when I was in Bolero!

HAGAN: Huh.

Then it’s back to Myra, Buck, and Buck’s horse, with a close-up on all three of their asses.

HAGAN (VO): Slow zoom on a horse's ass. There's an unsettled joke in there.

A whole host of “Leading Man” types in the waiting room, and they all stand and clear a path as Leticia Van Allen, played by an aging, nearly mummified Mae West.

SNOB (VO): On the other side of the city is Mae West playing Leticia Van Allen, the world's greatest talent agent. And she's selecting men to represent... [pause on the last one] Hoo-hoo! Tom Selleck!

SNOB: Good work, Tom! Get your worse movie out of the way early!

Pre-Fame Tom Selleck heads on in, first taking a moment to straighten his tie.

HAGAN (VO): Everything with Mae West it's basically Sextette. Random songs, over-the-top wardrobe, people claiming she is sexy... everything! But, this was made first. Actually, if you squint, you can imagine this scene as the auditions to Sextette.

LETICIA: Well, I don't care about your credits as long as you're oversexed.

TOM SELLECK: Oh, that's oneof my credits. [a curtain rises revealing...]A bed. I never did see a bed in an office before.

LETICIA: Well, you see, I do a lot of night work sometimes.

Tom drops his suitcase, Leticia her feather boa.

LETICIA: Mmm.

Then we randomly cut to the Laurel and Hardy movie Great Guns. They’re both dressed as soldiers, and Stan is carrying a ridiculously long wooden plank that just stretches on and on through the shot.

SNOB (VO): OK, this clip doesn't even make any sense! You're covering over a sex scene! it's like cutting over to Film Brain after I'm finishing this r...

FILM BRAIN: Oh, piss off!

Leticia spots a cowboy in her waiting room who strikes her fancy.

LETICIA: Oh, hello, cowboy. How tall are you without your horse?

COWBOY: I'm six feet and seven inches.

LETICIA: Well, never mind about the six feet. Let’s talk about the seven inches!

Clip of Futurama.

CALCULON: That was so terrible, I think you gave me cancer!

Myron and Myra

HAGAN (VO); It takes a while, as in 30 minutes to get to it, but the movie eventually explains what Myra is up to. Sort of.

MYRON: Your goal is...

MYRA: My goal is the destruction of the last vestigial traces of traditional manhood.

MYRON: In order to--

MYRA: Realign the sexes--

MYRON: While--

MYRA: Decreasing population--

MYRON: Thus--

MYRA: Increasing human happiness.

MYRON: And--

MYRA: Preparing humanity for its next stage.

MYRON: Bravo.

[Snob is drinking from a plastic cup] HAGAN: And she does this by raping someone.

SNOB: [spits - with a fake-looking CG] Excuse me, it's bad manners to bring up rape when someone's taking a drink.

HAGAN: No, it's not!

[Snob throws his cup on the ground, it makes a loud foley noise, followed by the stock "screaming cat" noise]

Myra kissing Myron all over his face.

MYRA: I just want to make you happy.

She kisses her way down his chest, and then...

SNOB (VO): That's Myra, giving head to Myron?!

HAGAN (VO): Yep.

SNOB (VO): And they're the same person?

HAGAN (VO): Yep.

SNOB (VO): Is this masturbation?

A clip that eventually descends to Myra giving a banana to Myron.

HAGAN (VO): Oh, fuck, I hope so. What I wanna know is... Myra is the real person here. Myron's sort of Tyler Durden in her head. So what the fuck is going on right now? I mean, if it was reverse maybe it could make sense. But what is she doing? Rolling around in bed and sucking a banana? Because that would be a much funnier movie!

Then it’s back to Myron still writhing in pleasure

FARRAH FAWCETT (VO): H is for hot dog!

A Laurel & Hardy bit, where Oliver Hardy has champagne sprayed in his face.

[While Diamanda grabs a Pixie Stick and sucks it] SNOB: I don't know if I'm suddenly hungry or if I never wanna eat again!

One of Myra’s lectures.

MYRA: Johnny Weissmuller,the zaftig Tarzan... still provides the last word on soft man's relationship to hard environment. And Tarzan and the Amazons, 1945, he was--

STUDENT: Tarzan and the Amazons? You mean you like that?

MYRA:As I've just indicated,it was a masterpiece.

STUDENT: But it's trash.

HAGAN (VO): Hey, look! It's the Snob's dad!

SNOB (VO): Oh, thanks! I knew there was a reason I disowned him!

STUDENT: I mean, it'; not, uh, real.

MYRA: Whatever real means, is that necessarily good? [as a bearded man is shown] Could the real Christ have possessed a fraction of the radiance of H. B. Warner in the first King of Kings...

HAGAN (VO): In case you didn't recognize him, that's the director Michael Sarning, looking like Jesus when she talked about Christ. So I'm filing this with [image of] Bill Zebub and Ron Atkins as directors who played Jesus in their own movies for some reason.

[Image of...] SNOB (VO): Pasolini had his mother play the Virgin Mary in The Gospel According to St. Matthew!

HAGAN: And what the fuck does that have to do with anything?

SNOB: Nothing! I just pretended I gave a crap on what you were talking about!

MYRA: The only contemporary figure we can point to is James Bond... who invariably ends up with a blowtorch aimed at his crotch.

BUCK: Miss Breckinridge.

MYRA: Ah, Uncle Buck.

SNOB (VO): Holy crap, movie. Stop reminding me of better movies I could be watching! It was bad enough when you were talking about the 1940s Tarzan! But at least that was deliberate!

MYRA: What you have assembled here are the national dregs, the misfits and neurotics. In short, the fuck ups of our culture.

HAGAN (VO): Ah, the movie got bored and started taking a piss out of itself and full-on abusing its own cast. I'm not entirely sure we're needed here.

SNOB (VO): You're certainly not needed here!

Cut to a cop pulling over Leticia Van Allen

COP:Hello, Miss Van Allen. I thought this was your car. Anything I can do for you?

LETICIA:Come to think of it, yes. There's a car been following me for quite some time.

COP: Want me to bust him?

LETICIA: No. [gives him a card] Introduce him.

HAGAN (VO): Must take her a small ice age just to get to the fucking shops. Luckily, she has the lifespan of a Galapagos tortoise. Doubly luckily, she's wearing a furry dove cone... on her hair. [Text reading: Cara mia! Thats French.] This Italian guy travelled across the world to meet Mae West and tell her how much he wants to fuck her.

MARIO: You are the reason I come so far from Italy. I could not stand it no more. Ever since I see your pictures...I hear your record... I am in love with you.

HAGAN (VO): And then kinda leaves the film. I'd like to think he was Dr. Sam Beck in an attempts to stop a syphillis outbreak that will kill millions if not trying by making patients here monogamous.

SNOB (VO): Either that, or he has an appointment with the next ex-sex symbol who has "make her feel young and pretty" in her contract!

Myra in a horseriding suit.

HAGAN (VO): Is it just me or is Raquel Welch in a clothes-based war of attrition with Mae West?

SNOB (VO): So Uncle Buck - huh huh - has done some digging, and found no record of Myron getting married to Myra in the whole United States.

BUCK: There's no record of any Myron Breckinridge being married in the whole United States.

MYRA: No record of my marriage to Myron exists in any of the United States... [handing a paper] for the excellent reason that we were married in Mexico. Monterrey.

SNOB: Pay attention to this. There might be a test later on.

A completely naked couple out in the grass, and for no particular reason they go scurrying off.

SNOB (VO): Hey, this couple is looking for a less embarrassing movie to be seen fucking in!