Director: Ken Hughes
Writers: Herbert Baker from a play by Mae West
From: Cult Cinema
International superstar Marlo Manners has just married her sixth husband, Sir Michael, but her previous relationships, some pursued as a spy for the US, keep interfering with their wedding night.
Mae West starring in the adaptation of her play of the same name from… seventeen years earlier. Oh no.
The plot is Marlo Manners (West) has just married her sixth husband, Sir Michael Barrington. Sir Michael is unaware that he is number six (thus forming the titular sextet) and that all of Marlo’s previous husbands and conquests will be in the hotel where the couple is planning to have their honeymoon.
Marlo is in the midst of recording her memoirs when her agent/handler Dom DeLuise comes in. He’s scheduling both her screen test for her next movie as well as the diplomatic work she needs to do because she’s also an undercover agent for the State Department. A peace summit is being held in the hotel and her first husband is the Russian ambassador. He won’t agree to terms unless he has one final meeting with Marlo.
You can probably guess the set-ups and outcomes from here: new husband has to be kept distracted and unaware of prior husbands’ presences, he’s going to encounter them through hilarious misunderstandings, and the tape with Marlo’s memoir will keep slipping out of the hands of those trying to destroy it to suppress the national security secrets it contains. Running gags include Sir Michael giving interviews where, due to his ignorance of American idioms, describes himself as gay, bi, and a frequenter of “’ores.”
In the end, Sir Michael obtains the tape, has it snuck into the peace summit where it is played. Coincidentally, the tape is at the point where Marlo lays out the secrets of every attendee of the summit and they all laugh, finally coming to terms with each other. Turns out Sir Michael is part of the British Secret Service. He’s left, assuming Marlo is involved with one of her other husbands, but she manages to sneak aboard his yacht and they sail off together. THE END.
I feel like all the criticism I have of this movie is going to sound sexist or ageist. However, the problem with the movie is that it’s too old: in content, in humor, and in star. As I noted above, this is based on a stageplay from 1961 but released in 1978—the same year as Animal House and Up in Smoke. The sense of humor and shape of comedy had changed. West’s constant “double” entendres are predictable, not perverse. On top of all that, West can’t deliver the lines with energy or verve.
Granted, she was 85 when the movie came out so there’s a reason she doesn’t have much energy or move around much on screen. She was in a place where she, literally, couldn’t do this stuff anymore, but the problem for the film is that no one else can play that part. The role doesn’t call for a saucy Mae West type, it calls for Mae West.
The movie has a great cast, (check out the IMDB page to see everyone involved) and they do a good job, especially DeLuise, it’s just that this movie’s moment had passed before it was even produced. And that’s unfortunate. This was, however, the first Mae West film I’d ever seen and it was fun to finally understand all the references to her work that are embedded in our pop culture as well as to understand who this “controversial” figure was. I just scanned her Wikipedia page and goddamm, she was badass. This movie, though, just feels kind of pathetic. However, the cast seem genuinely delighted to be in it, sincerely excited to be working alongside the Mae West, so there’s something nice about that. I don’t recommend this movie, but I know I’m going to be looking up her other films. I imagine they’re amazing.
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