– Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is the movie for the weekend. In this section every Saturday or Sunday Celluloid Dimension picks a movie for the weekend. The selections are preferably underrated movies or neglected movies that we think should get more attention. Have fun with these recommendations. –
Directed by Russ Meyer
Written by Roger Ebert
Starring:
- Dolly Read as Kelly MacNamara
- Cynthia Myers as Casey Anderson
- Marcia McBroom as Petronella Danforth
- John LaZar as Ronnie “Z-Man” Barzell
- Michael Blodgett as Lance Rocke
- David Gurian as Harris Allsworth
- Edy Williams as Ashley St. Ives
- Erica Gavin as Roxanne
Rating: 
Filmmaking achieving pretty much the same stimulating effects of a recreational drug and countercultural ecstasy as an infallible means of rendering camp art as the ultimate metafictional vehicle for plotting a sociological satire on Hollywood decadence meets laid-back Hippie buffoonery. Though it is pop frippery through and through, cinema’s most famous tit fetishist Russ Meyer grasps with uncanny documentary accuracy the American cultural “free love” zeitgeist, fashioning its roaring musicality, funky hysteria and outrageous promiscuity as the hottest and most influential mainstream sexploitation feature in film history. It is also an indulgent excuse to film a gaudy parade of busty playboy starlets and eccentric actors from Meyer’s gang in an exceptionally pointless but still sublime picturesque jamboree as the setting for a heady tabloid melodrama.
The breezy flick is about the groovy rock band Kelly Affair made up of three sultry chicks (Dolly Read, Cynthia Myers, Marcia McBroom). The hard-partying trio travel to the faux promised La La Land. Once there they run into all sorts of licentious antics. Dolly Read is lovely as the airy leading lady in this widescreen pin up chic opera. Edy Williams as the histrionic nymphomaniac is unfailingly funny. Yet it’s the euphoric, sleazy prose of Roger Ebert’s script that adds verbal vivacity and effusive theatricality to the raunchy gala of sappy characters interacting in the most lunatic topsy turvy affairs. And Russ Meyer’s kitschy style of framing this cheesy musical as a gleefully trance-like hippie fest only to wrap it up as a hip Shakespearean tragedy à la Charles Manson reveals in its celebration of counterculture also many of its most corrosive effects. Boasting one of the most idiosyncratic cutting patterns of 70’s American cinema, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is one of the most captivating portrayals of American pop culture turned into meaningful melodrama. Funny and grotesquely sensuous, but at its core, terrifying.