Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

source: Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

When it comes to cult movies, anything goes. And 'BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS' (BTVOTD) is a great example of such a movie. It's a non-musical musical. It came out 5 years before ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW, which to many is the ultimate cult movie. But like ROCKY HORROR, BTVOTD is an experience for an acquired taste. I guess you have to be of a certain mindset that I'm not part of in order to enjoy it. Personally, I thought it was boring. Very long. Interminable. The editing was mind numbing. Surprisingly, the entire fleshy cast was remarkably ugly and unappealing. Some of the music was sometimes pretty good but it didn't jibe much because the group is made of three members and one can hear trumpets and violins during the songs, with no trumpeter or violinist to be seen anywhere near the girls. Stupid camp acting. The main actress' British accent can be heard several times throughout the movie. The film is a parody of a parody. Every word of dialogue is enunciated like an expletive. "This is my party and I'm freaking out!!!" After hearing the unknown actors scream their dialogue for an almost never ending 2 hours, I needed some Tylenol. Reviewing BTVOTD is almost pointless because the movie is a parody of itself. You don't know if the producers were serious or not in their attempt to create shear lunacy. But the one really ugly aspect that sticks out from this ugly film, whether it's done intentionally or not and for whichever reason, is the blunt homophobia. Anyone who was gay or lesbian was either evil, creepy or insane, and in the end, dead. Personally, BTVOTD left me cold. I love "it's so bad it's good" movies (see my review of LEGEND OF LYLAH CLARE) but this one was dull because it already knew from the get go that they were in a bad flick and they (Meyer, Ebert, cast of unknowns) had more fun of making fun of themselves than the viewer will ever have fun making fun of the movie itself. And in my book, this goes against everything amusing of watching a truly 'it's so bad it's good' movie like LYLAH CLARE or PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. Personally, I prefer something like POINT OF TERROR, which is exactly like BTVOTD but it's not overbaked and hard to digest as this Russ Meyer's opus.

This film was written by Roger Ebert. He is the "movie review" guy. Its like seeing Simon Cowell singing in the shower. This guy bashed "A clockwork orange" for its "ultra violence". He should bash his own film for the some kinds of reasons. This film according to some is a classic and has a cult following. This might be true in which case you might enjoy it. Anyways giving this film 1 is my way of reacting to say Simon Cowell singing. Even if he is half decent, shows promise, has some ability. Your gana go straight for the jugular. Its only human. So with that said, Roger, stick to reviewing films and not contributing to them.

I saw this movie more than ten years ago, and I remember next to nothing about it, besides coming away with the certain feeling that I had just seen one of the worst travesties ever committed to film. And bear in mind, folks - I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP - this film was co-written by none other than Roger Ebert, a man who dares to tell us which films are worth watching and which are not! If you absolutely must see this one, grab the popcorn and as much soda and other junk food as you can handle, and get yourself ready to mercilessly mock it with a slew of insults. Prepare for this waste of time by watching a lot of "Mystery Science Theater 3000". That way you can practice your insult skills along with the pros. After watching (and insulting) the movie itself, have something good to watch on hand so you can flush this garbage from your brain. Personally, I recommend another round of "MST3K". Continue scrubbing your brain until you feel clean again. And that's all I have to say about that.

"Harris, make love to me!" "Where? Here?" "NO! IN L.A.!" A 60s all-girl rock band decides to get in the van and head to Los Angeles to try to make it big. And they find it is super easy, and they make connections fast, but fame and fortune comes at an expense. Although it claims to be unrelated, this is basically "Valley of the Dolls" made fun and trashy. Yes, this is the movie that is infamous for being written by Roger Ebert. Yes, this is a bad movie with appalling editing. Yes, this is tasteless schlock. But, it is tasteless schlock at its best. Even though the lead cast is comprised of (very lovely) Playboy pin-ups and models that look stoned half the time, they do a great job at portraying immediately corrupted innocents. I actually really enjoy the 60s soul garage music (even though none of the actresses actually played or sang, whoever played and sang for The Carrie Nations sounded damn good--the soundtrack has recently been released to CD, which I plan on picking up and playing at my next trashy dance party). I can watch this movie over and over again, and the unforgettable drug-soaked finale never ceases to shock me. But I really could do without the moralizing voice-over at the end. It makes me question whether or not the filmmakers were really serious about the psychotranny, abortion-pushing lesbian, and other disturbing colorful characters. My Rating: 8/10.

This flick had a budget too big for its own good. What would have been a cheapo stream-lined sleazefest became a turgid cesspool of ham-handed irony, over-addled "wit", and banal social commentary. The result stems from a very rare circumstance in Hollywood: over-generosity. The leash placed on Russ Meyer and Gene Siskel was overly long - the studio must have been in shock after hauling in this pair. This colossal waste of celluloid is the worst motion picture I have ever chanced to witness. Unlike the many exploitation flicks of that era, including the rest of Russ Meyer's work, it cannot even rank as compellingly bad, like "Barbarella" or "Kitten With A Whip". "Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls" is so egregiously awful that it becomes an arrogant, insulting, irritating piece of trash. Normally I would recommend viewing a film that would merit such a strong claim, which would serve to bolster the statement. But being a kind and merciful warthog, I recommend the opposite: Miss this one.

I joined this site and I'm writing this review at 4:30a.m. in the vain hope to break the hype and enlighten those reasonable movie goers who have good taste in movies with the truth about this hour and forty minute waste of time. I've heard a lot of great things about this movie so then it should be needless to say I had "great expectations" (yes, the literary pun was intended) for this film. Those people who rave about this film should drop down on their knees and pray that I never meet them in real life. Russ Meyers tackles a lot of mature societal issues relevant to the rapidly changing fads of the '70s ranging from the taboo such as lesbianism to the defilement of youth through the abuse of vices such as drugs and loveless sex. This movie is full of moral motifs wrapped up in the form of a raunchy '70s unfit for TV soap opera and social satire which is meant to be presented to you in a shocking, confusingly bizarre and thought provoking way. The overall predominant theme is the corruption of naive youth with the glitter of fame and loss of innocence when one becomes lost in the power hungry and hypocritical social circles of the elite. Given the right atmosphere and the proper culmination of artistic cinema elements this could have been a milestone in cinematography. Meyers fails horribly in doing this. The overall crude and unskilled depiction of the most insubstantial, totally retarded, poorly scripted and paper thin characters, the only exception being John Laza's remarkable performance as Z-man, shows how much of an untalented schmuck Meyers truly was. I spit on his grave. All the characters, once again except Z-man, lack the plausibility of believable human behavior in real social scenarios. I've never met people in real life as absurd and disgustingly idiotic as the ones in this film; if I did I'd probably shoot them. How can I take the mature metaphors in this film seriously when the whole attitude of the film and the demeanor of the character portrayal is just as immature as the absurdity of the characters and their ridiculous and wholly unbelievable behavior? Lazar being the only saving grace in the way of acting isn't enough to redeem this trash, but Meyers doesn't deserve any credit for haphazardly coming across the actor extraordinaire. I even had the pleasure of watching the unreleased and racier edit of this "X-rated" film; while it helped slightly with my viewing enjoyment being more graphic it didn't help my standing with the film any. This movie went downhill for me the moment Kelly (the main character) too easily became corrupted with glamor of fame after earning a small bit of recognition. After her group, the Kelly affair (later to become the Carrie nation), does one song and gains a tiny bit of popularity and she is already consumed in her self centered world too quickly turning her back on her boyfriend/manager. I sat there mouth agape thinking, "that's ALL it took? One freaking successful performance?" Which brings me to the point of too much of the film was a corny '70s music video with the band performing too many songs in such a short period of time. Not that the music was bad per say, but way overdone making this seem more like a filmed musical as opposed to an actual movie. There's so much more I could say, but I'm out of character space. Not recommended unless you enjoy abhorrent, untalented and completely ridiculous garbage. I know mentally handicap children who could've done a better job.

One of the all-time great cult films, BVD is an energetic, imaginative parody of Valley of the Dolls and other such dippy Hollywood melodramas. Our three lusty, busty heroines are the members of an all-girl pop group. From one trailer: "Dolly Read is Kelly, the singer. Cynthia Myers is Casey, the swinger. Marcia McBroom is Pet, the soul sister." Whoa! Anyway, our trio of sexy supervixens move out to Hollywood, get discovered immediately, and are thrown into a whirlpool of pill addiction, alcoholism, lesbianism, abortions, depression, double crosses, crippling injuries, lots of violence, and lots of sex. All of this is played with a deceptively straight face, with the wild comedy arising from the ludicrousness of the soap-opera situations. One particularly sudsy moment is even accompanied by swelling daytime-TV organ music! There are obvious jokes, which are spirited and very funny, and even some sly references to Valley of the Dolls (a character named Miriam, the Warwick Court Apartments). The ending has to be seen to be believed, and even then.... The acting is very good (though Dolly Read's natural British and fake American accents are openly battling throughout), with top prizes taken by John LaZar as freaked-out record mogul Z-Man and Edy Williams as voracious porno queen Ashley St. Ives. The women, sporting big hair and thick false eyelashes, are all incredibly beautiful, and Russ Meyer lovingly captures them in neon-bright color. The editing and camerawork are fast-paced and super-stylish, as usual with Meyer. The soundtrack is excellent. A groovy, sexy, X-rated look at L.A. back when it was cool! Trivia: The reason this X seems so mild is because it was intended for an R! Meyer did prepare a more explicit version, but when this tamer cut was X'd, Fox elected to distribute it instead of the racier print. The video box says NC-17 because Fox has a policy against never releasing an X-rated tape. Of course, an X in 1970 did mean 17 and over, whereas it now means 18 and over. HUGE chasm there!

Venerable film critic and writer Roger Ebert, penned Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls. It's basically a spoof, of the 1967 film, Valley Of The Dolls. The plot of this movie revolves around a female rock group, that pursues their dreams of stardom in the Hollywood jungle of ambitious hopefuls. All the characters are beautiful looking, particularly the drop-dead gorgeous women in the band. They do have an old toothless women in the film, who hangs-out at a party with the beautiful people. She's the comic relief, in an already hilariously campy film. There's lots of sleazy, over-the-top sex, ravenous opportunists, drug addicts, and overall flash-n-trash scenes. Ebert was obviously milking the satirical element of the film, to the hilt. The humor in all of this, works throughout most of the movie. But when the film veers towards bloody violence in the latter part of it, it's very jarring to the viewer. The brutal violence winds-up spoiling the fun, comic tone of this movie. For the most part, this film is an amusing send-up of The Valley Of The Dolls. But the violence in this film, winds-up deflating the wacky, tongue-in-cheek premise of the movie. This film would've worked much better, if the brutal, gory violence was left out of it.

I freakin love this film! It has everything you could want, hot amazons, camp, melodrama, dancing, cool music, orgies, and some classic lines. Either you get it or you don't, even though the script makes no sense. Z man is awesome and creepy, ashley st ives is on fire, and the carrie nations rock in that dopey pill popping late 60's acid pop style. The question is why has russ meyer never released it on DVD? Come on dude this and faster pussycat kill kill are films that the people need to see. A cut above 90% of the Hollywood recycled crap and remade TV junk they throw at you. To be honest if someone remade this flick I would see it. I also love the fact that they completely went in the opposite direction of the original, which I cant even remember if i have seen.