De Volta ao Vale das Bonecas

One of the all-time great cult films, BVD is an energetic, imaginative parody of Valley of the Dolls and other such dippy Hollywood melodramas. Our three lusty, busty heroines are the members of an all-girl pop group. From one trailer: "Dolly Read is Kelly, the singer. Cynthia Myers is Casey, the swinger. Marcia McBroom is Pet, the soul sister." Whoa! Anyway, our trio of sexy supervixens move out to Hollywood, get discovered immediately, and are thrown into a whirlpool of pill addiction, alcoholism, lesbianism, abortions, depression, double crosses, crippling injuries, lots of violence, and lots of sex. All of this is played with a deceptively straight face, with the wild comedy arising from the ludicrousness of the soap-opera situations. One particularly sudsy moment is even accompanied by swelling daytime-TV organ music! There are obvious jokes, which are spirited and very funny, and even some sly references to Valley of the Dolls (a character named Miriam, the Warwick Court Apartments). The ending has to be seen to be believed, and even then....

The acting is very good (though Dolly Read's natural British and fake American accents are openly battling throughout), with top prizes taken by John LaZar as freaked-out record mogul Z-Man and Edy Williams as voracious porno queen Ashley St. Ives. The women, sporting big hair and thick false eyelashes, are all incredibly beautiful, and Russ Meyer lovingly captures them in neon-bright color. The editing and camerawork are fast-paced and super-stylish, as usual with Meyer. The soundtrack is excellent.

A groovy, sexy, X-rated look at L.A. back when it was cool!

Trivia: The reason this X seems so mild is because it was intended for an R! Meyer did prepare a more explicit version, but when this tamer cut was X'd, Fox elected to distribute it instead of the racier print. The video box says NC-17 because Fox has a policy against never releasing an X-rated tape. Of course, an X in 1970 did mean 17 and over, whereas it now means 18 and over. HUGE chasm there!

Venerable film critic and writer Roger Ebert, penned Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls. It's basically a spoof, of the 1967 film, Valley Of The Dolls. The plot of this movie revolves around a female rock group, that pursues their dreams of stardom in the Hollywood jungle of ambitious hopefuls.

All the characters are beautiful looking, particularly the drop-dead gorgeous women in the band. They do have an old toothless women in the film, who hangs-out at a party with the beautiful people. She's the comic relief, in an already hilariously campy film.

There's lots of sleazy, over-the-top sex, ravenous opportunists, drug addicts, and overall flash-n-trash scenes. Ebert was obviously milking the satirical element of the film, to the hilt. The humor in all of this, works throughout most of the movie. But when the film veers towards bloody violence in the latter part of it, it's very jarring to the viewer. The brutal violence winds-up spoiling the fun, comic tone of this movie.

For the most part, this film is an amusing send-up of The Valley Of The Dolls. But the violence in this film, winds-up deflating the wacky, tongue-in-cheek premise of the movie. This film would've worked much better, if the brutal, gory violence was left out of it.

Russ Meyer's most lavish production is still jaw dropping, and still beyond comparison. BTVOTD is the ultimate camp film that, unlike Valley of the Dolls, is knowingly campy, deliberately absurd, never comes down to earth, and achieves a non stop contact high. Beyond description, it must be seen to be believed. A rapid fire, mind-rending parody of virtually every genre and cliché squeezed into a 2 hour film which hasn't aged a bit and has seen its reputation grow since its initial release in 1970. The songs, dialog, direction, editing, music, and acting all provide endless amazement every time I see it. In the 30 plus years since its release nothing else comes close to the experience of this film. Even more than The Rocky Horror Picture Show, BEYOND is a true audience film with so many lines and scenes that viewers have memorized. BEYOND is and was ahead of its time, and remains essential viewing.

Ever since I showed interest and sympathy for the more bizarre efforts in cult cinema, people have been recommending me to check out the oeuvre by director Russ Meyer. This peculiar director and scriptwriter is often named the maestro of American Cult cinema.Unfortunately, his movies are pretty hard to find (at least where I'm from) and they rarely ever receive a decent release on DVD. After finally having purchased Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, I can fully second the statement that Russ Meyer truly is one of a kind and certainly a director to check out entirely. Perhaps the weirdest thing about this film is that it was co-written by the respected and Pulitzer price-winning critic Roger Ebert! This - usually - very harsh critic joins the Meyer-madness here gladly.

I doubt Meyer's typical style will appeal to many people but for the more developed cult-fans, his colorful tale of 'Hollywood Vixens' is a true joy to observe! You might as well call it the definition of cult! It has everything: from bizarre and extremely eccentric characters over subtle (and less subtle) humor to explicit violence, sexual images and drug abuse. Wild parties are thrown in this film and offensive orgies are held.you can't imagine it yourself wild enough and Meyer adds it to his movie. Some of the biggest taboos are taken care of here shamelessly, like Nazis, drag queens, lesbians, unfaithful behavior and even abortion!! Keeping in mind this film was shot in 1970, this is a pretty remarkable achievement to say the least. BTVOTD also has a terrific soundtrack and pretty likeable acting performances. The leading girls do a pretty good job in making themselves believable, even though they're rather inexperienced. Needless to say they're stunning beauties in the first place.Especially Cynthia Meyers in the role of Casey! She's a true cult-Goddess and a wet dream for many men.yours truly included. BTVOTD ends with a truly absurd and explosive finale that easily can be considered as one of the weirdest twists in cinema history ever! Yet, I'm very careful in recommending this film to a large public. chances are that you'll be very disgusted by this movie or even loath it terrible. Therefore, I only recommend it if you're used to seeing quite an amount of weirdness already and you're not too quickly offended.

This film is a necessity for anyone with a sense of humor.

Anyone who doesn't think it was intentionally funny needs to sit back and groove baby. Some of the dialog seems to have been influenced by Dragnet '69 (which by the way is a much dirtier sounding title than BVD), The only other example of such painfully "hip" dialog. The use of Wonder Woman, and Robin the Boy Wonder at the end was too cool for words.

See it now!!!