Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

FILM

Russ Meyer unchained, Twenty-Century Fox saved from bankruptcy , Play boy’s “girlnext-door” ruse exposed, Myra Breckinridge for real and Los Angeles personified. Yes, all this and more, in over an hour of cinematic farce that, if it don’t send thrills and chills up your spinal column, will probably at least make you giggle a bit.

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is probably the ultimate skin flick. 20th Century-Fox hired Russ Meyer to save their corporate asses and, if he hasn’t done that kids, he’s at least perfected his stock riff.

Basically, what Meyer has done is to make the world’s only 1970 morality play, stocked with ex-Playmates in a rock and roll band (of sorts) called the Carrie Nations, managed, alternately, by a young dude named Harris, who looks awfully collegiate for rock and roll anyway, and Ronnie “Z-Man” Barsells, “the teen-tycoon of rock”, a faggot, thrower of bizarre orgie/parties and purveyor of loose morals.

Along the way we pick up young Edy Williams (who has since married Meyer, and if you see the flick you’ll have a hard time swallowing that), as the nympho Rolls Royce driver who looks to do it “swinging from chandeliers, standing in canoes” and in various other positions (enough to make the young Harris inquire “Why don’t we do it in bed, hunh? That’d be freaky!”), the lucious Lance Rock who steals Kelly McNamara (played by Dolly Read, who is dating Laugh-In’s Don Martin and if you see the flick you’ll have a hard time swallowing that) for her bread which she is inheriting from Aunt Susan Lake who is an advertising executive with a porno studio (not that the ads she makes are porno, probably) with a lawyer with some outrageous name that I refuse to remember after seeing the flick twice, who has eyes to grab the geldt for himself and to hell with that “hippy whore” Kelly (when he and Kelly go to bed, he also can’t get it up) the heavyweight, bozo boxing champion of the world protrayed by a dude who is Muhammad Ali’s double Roxanne, who is the lesbian who falls in love with Casey Anderson, senator’s daughter, Carrie Nation Guitarist and downer freak/juice head, Z-Man’s butler, who may or may not be an incarnation of Martin Bormann and a bunch of and

Yes, the wide open spaces of Hollywood, where they do it in the bathtub, on the beach, in the Rolls, on floors and giant, kingsized, triple, purplesheeted beds. You name it, we got it right here for ya. This film offers so much for anyone that you can’t believe that anyone would take it seriously and thereby be forced to hate it.

Still, this is still a morality play, an Aristotleian cosmic-cathartic experience that may not get your rocks off but will certainly purge you of something, if only good taste. Cosmic, because in becoming the absolute apogee of bad taste, it emerges as a unique and valid, if unconscious statement of what good American taste really is. I saw Tropic of Cancer and it wasn’t half as far out and there was all this hair and stuff, you even saw a couple of

Well, you don’t get that here, you see a lot of tit and nearly as much nipple, a tad of thigh and a wad of but no nast and no steamy

, no ... you don’t need to though, cause it’s all implied so effectively that even you, hip as you are, may walk away with a . If

you’re really hip and into the right kind of sex, you may even come.

Rather than waste even more words discussing the film’s climax, let us discuss the only other noteworthy aspect of the film... it’s true dedication to gore. The first indication of any funny shit in that direction (aside from a cowardly scene in which Muhammad-Ali-replica/boxing champ runs into Emerson Thorne, Pet’s (she’s the Carrie Nation’s drummer) with his convertible a few times and then dumps him in the flowerbed; they’re all black and the implicit racism is . even more obvious if you see the flick. So is the sexism. So is the absolute lack of respect for the audience. This is truly a must see film for all of us.) is when young Harris, spurned, as we noted before, falls from a thirty-foot rafter onto the floor in front of Kelly, who is at the moment engaged in performing one of the band’s new tunes in front of nationwide tv.

Kelly kisses and squirms her way back into Harris’ paralytic affections, despite the fact that he has knocked up Casey, who goes to Roxanne to find an abortionist and gets the added advantage of a lesbian love affair. As sordidly treated as all the other elements of the film are, this is probably the relationship with any sort of beauty. And that the two are later slaughtered is only indicative of how sick the people who made this film really are .. . and how understanding of our prejudices. (You will probably hate this film, unless your sense of humor is remarkably perverse. Since it probably is anyway, be sure you do see it.)

Lance, spurned by Kelly, winds up in bed with a sneezing old crone with a ton of money whom he deserts with equal rapidity for the affections of the killer Z-Man, who has been after his ass for some time now. Z-Man decides its costume party time invites Roxanne and Casey and whoosh .., into the quintessential Roman orgasmy sequence.

Z-Man (who is want to talk in the tongue of William Shakespearian) outfits his lovely bod in a pur pie-plumed Superwoman outfit,

Lance Rock is privileged to wear only Russ Mever directing a loin cloth as Jungle Lad and Roxanne and Casey are Batman and Robin or something. A wonderful party, with Martin Bormann cum Jeeves wearing his super-Nazi outfit in a fat and pendulous Orson Welles/Alfred Hitchcock (everyone in this films looks like somebody famous; Susan Lakes boyfriend looks like Steve Canyon for example) body, serving dinner, a marvelous mescaline concoction. Trip-y.

Unfortunately, Jungle Lad spurns the affections of Superwoman, who has a momentary memory lapse and refuses to admit to being the spectral Z-Man, and makes the added mistake of laughing at Superwoman’s skinny titties when they’re proffered. Being tied, or should I say bound, hand and foot, there’s not a whole lot he can do when he’s confronted with the sword slashing through his neck. Blood spurts gloriously, as the Velvet Underground might put it, on the carpet. Borman cum Jeeves surprises Z-Ma .. . Superwoman fondling the parted hair of this splendorous head, while Casey, observes all in horror. (Roxanne’s crashed out on downers . . . dolls, if ya remember .. . even if it don’t have anything to do with the original, that’s o.k. because you can see the allegory).

SuperZwoman chases Bormann/Jeeves to the beach and stabs him to death there and then, in quick sequence, sticks a gun in Roxanne’s mouth, which she sucks like it wasn’t just a symbol, wakes her up and shoots her, blood spurting once again, gloriously, picks up a phone and hears Casey phoning the rest of the Carrie Nations who rush to her aid, moments too late as she lays covered in blood, a bullet hole in her forehead, Ronnie Zwoman Barsells is killed in a killer gun struggle with Pet and Kelly and Emerson and what’s left of the paralyzed Harris, with his own gun, that is, right in the middle of one of those grotesque little boobies.

Harris of course is able to work after this traumatic experience, on crutches at least and though Pet has been wounded in the final chase, none of this prevents a triple wedding (Harris/Kelly, Susan Lake/Steve Canyon-replica, Emerson/Pet at the end.

Hilarious? Maybe. For sure, there’s not been a better film made ever and you shouldn’t miss it. It’ll really turn yer stomach. I promise.

The White Swallow