The Official Razzie Movie Guide: Enjoying the Best of Hollywoods Worst by Wilson John

Author:Wilson, John [Wilson, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780446510080
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2007-09-03T07:00:00+00:00

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

(1970/20th Century-Fox) VHS

Who’s to Blame CAST: Dolly Read (Kelly); Cynthia Myers (Casey); Marcia McBroom (Pet); John LaZar (“Z-Man" Barzell); Michael Blodgett (Lance Rocke); David Gurian (Harris); Duncan McLeod (Porter Hall); Charles Napier (Baxter Wolfe); Edy Williams (Ashley St. Ives)

CREW: Directed by Russ Meyer; Screenplay by Roger Ebert; Story by Meyer and Ebert (Yes, that Roger Ebert!)

Rave Reviews

“Weirdly funny and a real curio—rather like a Grandma Moses illustration for a work by the Marquis de Sade."

—John Simon, The New Yorker

“A psychedelic wow that serves up the free love, plunging necklines, androgynous boys, and lusty lezzies of the era with a narcotized abandon." —Michael Musto, Village Voice

“If you’re going to watch it, invite a group of people (at least five) both men and women, grab the popcorn and laugh your head off with this cult classic." —Patrick Brogan, BadMovieNight.com

Plot, What Plot? One of the hardest things to do well is an “intentional" bad film. If you can pull off being deliberately tasteless, clueless, and funny all at once, you’re a master. The most often-cited example of this extremely select genre is Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, which, despite its killer title, is actually just a bad movie. The true best of this genre, complete with nudity, violence, kinky sex, oddball characters, and dippy dialogue to spare, is breast-obsessed director Russ Meyer’s 1970 “sequel" Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. As a lawsuit by Jacqueline Susann forced the film’s print ads to declare, “This is not a sequel—there has never been anything like it!"

Riffing on the three-young-chicks-trying-to-make-it-in-Tinseltown premise of Susann’s original Dolls, Meyer’s film focuses on a three-girl rock band called the Carrie Nations, who hit Hollywood at its hedonistic, head-tripping peak: the end of the Swingin’ ’60s. Almost everyone in this film was either making their screen debut, or would never be seen again in any mainstream movie, or both. And every actor’s rank amateurishness only contributes to it being the wild joyride of a movie that it is. Psychedelic in the extreme, Beyond was written for Meyer by, of all people, now respected film critic Roger Ebert. Together, Meyer and Ebert manage to get into their film elements of almost every movie genre there is, spoofing them all in a way that leaves the audience certain they were in on the joke. This one’s so out there it has to be bad on purpose.

The Carrie Nations consist of Kelly (Dolly Read), Casey (Cynthia Myers), and Pet (Marcia McBroom), two white babes and one black chick, whose music catches the ear of rock impresario (and weirdo extraordinaire) Z-Man Barzell. Before you can say “orgy," these three young innocents find themselves sucked into the sleazy sex-and-drugs scene of the time—lusted after by lesbians, dirty-old-man lawyers, and just about everyone they meet. The band’s manager, Harris (David Gurian) has an affair on the side with porn star Ashley St. Ives (Edy Williams), and everything ends in near-tragedy as he plummets to the stage from the rafters during a TV appearance by the Carrie Nations.

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