The principle reason for my recent viewing of 'Valley of the Dolls' was a desire to see 'Beyond the Valley of the Dolls' with appropriate context. 'Beyond' is not really a sequel to the original 'Valley', it's more a variation on a theme, famous as Roger Ebert's only screenwriting credit (Ironically he gave 1967's 'Valley' a bad review). Ebert took time off from reviewing for the Chicago Tribune to write this script for a personal friend, producer/director Russ Meyer, then famous as 'The King of the Nudies'.
The late 60's early 70's was a tremendously transitional time for the film business, and a desperate 20th Century Fox took a risk. They had the rights to the title 'Beyond The Valley of the Dolls', having produced the original film version of the Jaqueline Susan novel a few years prior. That film had been a huge hit for them, and they figured name recognition plus some unorthodoxy could be a money maker, and it was, making $9 million off a roughly $2 million budget.
Ebert and Meyer decided to take the basic conceit of the first film, three attractive young women run though the ringer of celebrity, some making it out okay, others not. In this film they are a lady rock group, and the music written for the piece is legit good. The story is all over the place, a hodge podge of conventions, clichés, tropes, and a lot of sex, homo and hetro. It's a wild film, truly bizarre and original. Despite its outlandishness I read one critic comment that the film was simply too smart to be bad, and is a prime example of what I like to call 'high trash'. Most certainly not for everybody, it's quite the cinematic artifact and I'm glade I finally got around to seeing it. **1/2
No comments:
Post a Comment