Cine-Trash

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (Russ Meyer, 1970)
by William Ham

Mr. Meyer has retired himself from the world of film, which is a shame, because his mammary-mad movies are about as hyperbolically hilarious as they, uh, come. He produced dozens of deliberately ridiculous soft-core extravaganzas, but several things set this one apart: a) the title, though misleading at the time, couldn’t be more correct – Russ takes the drugs-sex-and-depravity motif of Jackie Susann’s infamous pulpy soap-op and takes it to heights and depths that easily outstrip (heh) its titular (heh heh) predecessor; b) he managed to rope in 20th-Century Fox to finance/distribute it, to their everlasting shame and regret (and we all know how Fox is synonymous with taste and restraint nowadays); c) the saga of an all-girl rock band on the quick road to fame, overindulgence, and heartbreak couldn’t be more timely; d) it contains one of my favorite performances in all of sin-ema, that of John LaZar as Ronnie “Z-Man” Barzell, a scenery-chomping cross ‘twixt Shakespeare, Spector and Svengali; e) it climaxes (heh heh heh) in an orgy of drugs, role-playing and murder where we learn of one character who doesn’t possess a 40-inch bust (I ain’t tellin’); f) the deadpan “moralistic” voiceover at the end which attempts to excuse everything that came before it is perfection; and g) it was penned by Roger “the fat one” Ebert! Truly every bit the classic, you can catch it on Cinemax intermittently if you stay up late enough or rent it from any enlightened video outlet.

Best line: “You’re a groovy boy. I’d love to strap you on sometime.”