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Trivia / Sextette

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  • Awesome, Dear Boy: Alice Cooper said in a later interview that he, Keith Moon and Ringo Starr all knew what a terrible trainwreck the movie was, but wanted to do a movie with Mae West just to say they did. Since it ended up being her final film before she passed away, they at least had the foresight to make that decision while she was still alive.
  • Box Office Bomb: Budget, $7 million. Box office, $51,000. One of two films Mae West made after coming out of retirement, with Myra Breckinridge being the other, this adaptation of her play was also her final film. Part of the film's lack of appeal was presenting the far past her prime West as a memetic sex goddess surrounded by much younger men (including Timothy Dalton, her on-screen husband, who regards this as an embarrassment).
  • Creator Backlash: Timothy Dalton is pretty ashamed of this one, quite a rarity for him as he says he has good opinions and memories of almost everything he's done with just a couple exceptions.
  • Cut Song: Ian Whitcomb wrote the song "She's Back Again", to be performed when Marlo arrives at the hotel, but it was ultimately replaced with "Hooray for Hollywood". He wrote another, "How Miss West Won World Peace", for the conference scene, which to his disappointment was taken out in favor of "Baby Face".
  • Dawson Casting: It's painfully obvious that 84-year-old Mae West is trying to pass herself off as someone about half a century younger. Though even this crew couldn't bring themselves to keep the line "Someday your looks will be gone" from "Love Will Keep Us Together," changing it to "Your looks will never be gone" (and demolishing the song's message in the process). They also had to change "Happy Birthday, Sweet Sixteen" to "Happy Birthday, Twenty-One" for obvious reasons.
  • Fake Russian: Tony Curtis playing every Russian stereotype in the book.
  • Non-Singing Voice: Timothy Dalton has said he's "pretty sure" his voice was dubbed while singing "Love Will Keep Us Together," though he did practice for quite a while to make it sound good.
  • Troubled Production: Mostly due to Mae West's incredible age and out-of-control vanity and meddling (see below for more examples). Director Ken Hughes even found the original script so awful that he attempted to do on-set revisions for every scene just before shooting, and West, whether unable to quickly learn her new lines for the day or just senile, was instead fed them through an earpiece.note 
  • Wag the Director: Mae West had a huge amount of creative control on the film.
    • She outright vetoed the casting of Cesar Romero and only very reluctantly allowed Tony Curtis to be cast. Her complaint? She thought they were too old to play her former husband... even though Romero was 14 years younger than West, and Curtis was 32 years younger than her.
    • Alice Cooper recorded the piano ballad "No Time for Tears" for his scene in the film, but it was rejected by West, who stated her character would never cry over the loss of a man. The song was ultimately replaced with the peppy disco number "Next Next".
    • An interview with longtime admirer and collaborator Ian Whitcomb reveals an ever darker side of this — while West was consulting with a costumer on what dresses she wanted, she pointed to an old publicity photo featuring a former co-star of hers and declared she wanted not just an identical gown, but for him to be in the film as well. The costumer hesitantly replied that he'd been dead for over 20 years.
    • West couldn't understand why she looked so old in the dailies, and subsequently, more and more soft focus and lighting was used on her til they may as well have slathered Vaseline on the lens.
  • What Could Have Been:

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