This is the other movie that 20th/Fox didn't know what to do with (along with ROCKY HORROR). It was released in the early years of VHS on the old Magnetic Video-brand; however, that was a horrendous pan-and-scan of a compressed 'Scope image...totally unwatchable, and I'm not even talking about the plotlines! Thank the queer gods that 20th/Fox is finally releasing this print widescreen on DVD.
I loved the book when I read it in high school. But when I first saw the movie in a theatre back then, I thought it was a complete hack-job. I had a complete reversal of opinion after seeing it a few months ago on Fox Movie Channel: MYRA is a camp masterpiece, and I believe Michael Sarne knew exactly what he was doing when he directed the movie. He alone seemed to know that there is no way you can take any of this seriously (Gore Vidal & others should have just gotten over themselves instead of bringing lawsuits).
The movie has suffered more because of when it was made than by anything actually in the movie itself. Originally an X- rating (which I saw), it's now an R; but there isn't anything to see that is remotely scandalous - even Myra's "rape" of Rusty is more comic and does not have any explicity scenes. The original X was based on subject matter: homosexuality, lesbianism, transexuality...extremely taboo subjects in the early-70s. By today's standards, the movie's a a tame-R.
Huston's scene-chewing is awesome, West in anything is a guilty-pleasure, Carradine is always a laugh, and even Rex Reed's aloof Myron is a joy to behold.
BTW, this is a great one for movie-parties!

Gore Vidal’s hilariously funny satiric novel was more or less transferred to the silver screen with a good deal of the story intact, but thanks to the hopeless mess made of the screenplay by the director, Michael Sarne, none of it makes a great deal of sense. Still, the film has lots going for it. I believe it was unmercifully and unfairly savaged by the critics as much for its revolutionary queer message as for its failures as a narrative. Myra is not only a transsexual (remember that Myra was filmed only a few years after sex-change operations usually made headlines) but her self-proclaimed mission is to “realign the sexes” by turning macho heterosexual boys into homosexuals - her way of saving the world from over-population. No wonder the critics ran from the theatres, covering their crotches as they fled! Myra is shrewd, witty, beautiful, talented, intelligent AND she is a woman who used to be a man – in short, she was everything that queer / transgender people were NOT supposed to be in 1970. I happen to think that Raquel Welch gave the comic performance of her (early) career in this movie. Sarne had the presence of mind to insert old film clips as a running commentary on the plot (signifying Myra’s obsession with classic films) and that portion of his vision was sheer genius. The film clips work just fine, providing many of the laughs. Each time a perfectly innocent old film clip was used as a commentary to the high jinks in this movie, it usually yielded an extremely funny but admittedly tasteless moment. For instance, then President Richard Nixon reportedly had the studio delete a clip showing Shirley Temple milking a goat and getting sprayed in the face with milk. What’s so bad about that? Well, it’s shown in a scene where Myron is having a masturbatory fantasy that Myra is performing fellatio on him (in the movie, Myron frequently substitutes for or has conversations with Myra – to remind us that they are the same person). But so what? The tasteless sexual jokes are half the fun, and they are generally a little classier than say, Pink Flamingos. Gore Vidal reportedly sued to have his name removed from the credits, but a good deal of his dialogue and lots of his satire is still intact. Despite all the bad things you can say about this picture, I felt that the spirit of Vidal’s book runs through every frame. Farrah Fawcett is so young she is practically unrecognizable, and the young manly hunk who plays Rusty (what ever happened to Roger Herren, anyway?) is dreamy enough to justify sitting through this curiosity. Myra / Myron is such a queer revolutionary that the film seems way before its time, and in some ways, still does. A 77 year-old Mae West had lost none of her famous timing, but the director reportedly cut about 20 minutes of her scenes. I recall reading a rumor at the time that Sarne was incensed when he overheard a studio boss’s remark that Fox was banking on Mae West’s name to bring in the audience, and who the hell ever heard of Michael Sarne anyway? I vividly recall a television reviewer remarking that Mae West had the only really funny lines in the picture, and that it was worth seeing for her appearance alone (she reportedly wrote her own portion of the screenplay). Her quip to the cowboy after he answers her question, “How tall are you without your horse?” is not only the funniest moment in the picture, it’s classic Mae at her best. The reported feud between Mae West and Raquel Welch made interesting items in the gossip columns of 1970, with Welch accusing West of making her own mini-movie within a movie (she did) and Mae retorting, “Rachel? She's a sweet thing – she has a scene or two in the picture, I believe”. Mae got top billing, despite Raquel playing the lead character, which couldn’t have made Raquel very happy, I’m sure. Some of the cameos are funny in themselves –Myron’s surgeon is played by John Carradine, who counsels Myron, “Are you sure you wouldn’t like circumcision? It’d be cheaper” and Mae West’s first conquest in the picture is a practically pubescent Tom Selleck. She plays an actor’s agent – for men only – who auditions all of her clients on the four-poster bed in her office. Mae and Tom trade a few very funny lines – she dismisses him from her office / boudoir with the comment, “You’ve impressed me immensely – I’ll keep you in mind for a summer replacement. NEXT!” I was a 16 year-old gay man when this movie opened, and I not only appreciated her conquest, I envied her attitude. And Rex Reed, a leading film critic of the sixties and seventies, proved (as Myron) that no matter what kind of critic you are, it doesn’t mean you can act. As far as I know, he never did another picture, unless you count his one line, two-second cameo in Superman: The Movie, eight years later. Myra Breckinridge is pure camp – wait until you see Mae West singing Otis Redding’s HARD TO HANDLE, flanked by a chorus line of handsome African American studs in tuxedos. Why is a talent agent singing in a nightclub? Who cares – trust me, it’s pure camp. John Huston as Uncle Buck is perfect casting, and if you bother to spend a few hours reading the novel before you screen the film, the movie will make much more sense and be far more enjoyable. The scene where Myra rapes Rusty in the infirmary was, in the book, one of the most erotic descriptions of a sex act I have ever read in a non-pornographic novel. I loved this movie when it came out – despite its shortcomings – and I expect to love it all the more on DVD. I’ve been waiting for a DVD of this movie since the day I acquired a DVD player. Thank you Fox!