I'd done my homework on "Sextette" prior to watching it last night and had eased my way into my slippers and comfy pj's--ready to do my best--as befitting a man who wants to become the Alistair Cooke of trash cinema.

Frankly though, nothing could prepare me for the hallucinatory dogshit that is Mae West's last role. Watching "Sextette" was one of the most unsettling film experiences (make that experiences, period) I've had in recent memory. I should have known better from the outset; what did I expect from a movie that Ringo Starr apparently tried to buy his way out of after one day on the set? That's pre-recovery Starr, incidentally.

"Sextette" features the eighty-three year old West in her last role as "Marlo Manners", a sashaying Hollywood beauty queen that everyone can't help but fall over, even as she is marrying for the sixth time (Timothy Dalton, looking very young and very hapless throughout). The action takes place in a splashy London hotel, where the newlyweds arrive for their honeymoon. What could have been another chapter in the "Nekromantik" movie series skews into a screwball musical comedy which manages to be neither screwy, funny, or musical, intentionally or otherwise.  Well, unless your musical tastes run to Timothy Dalton singing  a Captain & Tenneille song ("Love Will Keep Us Together") or Dom Deluise  snarling his way through The Beatles' "Honey Pie". Even the most jaded "Golden Throats" fan will have a hard time stomaching this one.

The plot revolves around Dalton and West continually being interrupted by various ex-husbands before they can get down to their EWWWWWWWWWWW!!!! consummation of their marriage. Hamilton, Starr and Curtis all show up as husbands fourth, fifth and lover respectively. Also, Marlo is tapped by her manager (Deluise) to save the world. She achieves this by trolloping her way into a meeting of various world heads of state, who just happen to be having some unclearly defined summit in the same hotel. The whole sorry thing is loosely woven around some tape of Marlo's that has all the dope on everyone...it didn't make much sense and why should it? The whole modus operandi around "Sextette" is to get the octogenerian West to mumble out as many her pistol-come-up-and-see-me-sometime-between -the-sheets one liners as humanly possible in the space of 91 shitty minutes.

There is a cadre of "Sextette" fans who frantically claim that any attack on the movie is the result of sexism and ageism, using the argument that if the likes George Burns can be photographed with Playmates that could be his great-granddaughters, why can't West have a little fun? (Check out the always ridiculous "User Comments" section of IMDB). Listen, the idea of Burns porking anyone makes me fucking sick as well. I would never deny any senior citizen an active sex life, I just don't particularly want to think about it.

The worst part about "Sextette" is the fact that it runs three talented people through the meat grinder of Hollywood big-budget worthlessness. West was a great, sexy actress at one point. Why she hadn't bowed out gracefully (and that can be done, look at Theda Bara and Greta Garbo) long before this is a mystery to me. Equally perplexing is Curtis' self-debasement, in his summer camp depiction of "Sexy Alexei". Was he that hard up for roles in '78? And God knows what George Raft was thinking when he decided to sign on.

I rented "Sextette" merely thinking it would be an enjoyable train wreck of a film ala "The Lonely Lady" or perhaps a camp delight like "Can't Stop The Music". Instead, it managed to be the cinematic equivalent of the body cavity checks I had to do at one my jobs: degrading for everyone concerned.

West still looked human--even alluring in a Celia Weston-y sort of way-- in her prior movie, "Myra Breckinbridge". In this one it's hard to tell, given the amount of soft focus they used with her. Xerox a color copy of any pre-1980 porno mag and then run it through the washing machine and you'll get a rough idea of how West is shot in this. Her usual impeccable comic timing is totally off, and in most scenes the only thing that comes through is how confused and doddering she seems. You can justify Bela Lugosi's appearances in Ed Wood films, because by all accounts he just wanted to keep acting no matter what (and needed the dough) but for West, "Sextette" is truly one step beyond....

Besides the dreadful musical numbers and West's disturbing come-ons, you get a helping of unfunny ethnic cheap shots (particularly around Hamilton's Italian mobster character) and lame Gay jokes (odd, given that only drag queens will really appreciate the movie) that make one realize that "political correctness" isn't always such a bad thing.

As for the likes of Cooper, Moon and Starr, I'm sure they were all shitfaced, and they're not really actors anyway. It's hard to feel too sorry for them. Besides which, none of them are onscreen for more than about three minutes.