This uneven film is taken from the novel by Gore Vidal. This book is an amusing story about sexual transformation, but despite an all-star cast, the film is a dismal failure. Myra (Raquel Welch) undergoes a sex change operation by two doctors (John Carradine and Jim Backus) and becomes a man (Rex Reed). This alone is enough to qualify as a horror film. Leticia (Mae West) is the lecherous theatrical agent who scouts talent at the acting school of Buck Loner (John Huston). West makes her first film appearance in 26 years. Farrah Fawcett play Mary Ann, who stirs the lesbian fantasies of Myra, and Tom Selleck is one of Leticia's serviceable studs. Myra makes love with Rusty (Roger Herren), his first amorous experience. Andy Devine, Calvin Lockhart, Roger C. Carmel and Kathleen Freeman also appear in this film. The thin plot find Myra seeking out Buck for an inheritance from a distant relative. William Hopper appears as a pot smoking judge. It would be decades before British director Michael Sarne would be given an assignment after this disaster. After appearing as an actor in a 1967 film, he went 25 years until his next film role, qualifying him as a true Hollywood enigma.
![The Cookout [WS]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0031398168294_p0_v3_s90x140.jpg "The Cookout [WS]")
