When 20th Century Fox put the film Myra Breckinridge into production, it needed the film to be a huge success. After Cleopatra nearly bankrupted the studio, its shaky recovery was hurt by the fact that it didn't seem to know what young people wanted to see on the big screen. Myra Breckinridge would change all of that.
However, dissension on the chaotic set threatened to sour public opinion of the film before it had a chance. The biggest problem was that the rumors were all true. Nobody got along with anyone else on the set, sparking John Huston to famously say goodbye to the cast by telling them they'd never cut it together. Mae West and Raquel Welch wouldn't perform together and Rex Reed bad mouthed the film every chance he got. How does one combat such bad publicity? If you're 20th Century Fox, you take out an ad in The Hollywood Reporter with a strange cast portrait and a bizarre slogan- "Think 20th. Togetherness."
Rather than quiet rumors, the picture fanned the flames. It's obvious that Mae and Raquel are barely tolerating each other and why is Charlie Manson sitting amongst them? (That's actually the director, Michael Sarne.) Even weirder, Ms. West looks like a wax figure at Madame Tussaud's museum. This attempt to fix the image problems facing the movie was a complete failure. While it didn't sink 20th Century Fox, it certainly didn't help the studio either. The film became a box office disaster.
