La vallée des plaisirs

I don't know why I feel so compelled to write about this movie. I had seen "BVD" a couple of years back and recently rented it again. In one weekend, I watched it three times. I love the color, the music, the whiz-bang editing, the campy dramatics...it would be a true classic if not for one thing: the distasteful, disastrous ending. "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" is soft-core auteur Russ Meyer's drug-drenched, sex-soaked parody of "Valley of the Dolls," the film based on Jacqueline Susann's best-selling novel of the same name. Whereas "Valley of the Dolls" is unintentional camp, "BVD" is intentional camp. It lampoons the southern Californian "scene" in the late '60's by relating the adventures of the three members of a girl band who find fame and fortune in Hollywood. "Sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll" is the main theme here; the secondary theme is "voluptuous, scantily-clad starlets displaying miles of cleavage." (This is, after all, a Russ Meyer film!) Those discriminating viewers seeking insightful social commentary, three-dimensional characters, and plot twists that actually make sense had better look elsewhere. The plot concerns the previously mentioned trio of female rockers and their escapades in La-La Land. Pet, Kelly, Casey, and Harris, the band's manager (and Kelly's boyfriend) make it to Los Angeles after a two-minute montage of them groovily singing their way across the country. Kelly is reunited with her long-lost aunt who takes the girls to a wild, swingin' party at the home of Ronnie Barzell, a rock promoter; Barzell enthusiastically signs the band to a contract after they do an impromptu performance for his guests. All of this miraculously occurs within six hours of their arrival in L.A. (Screw schlepping around town submitting demo tapes; this is the way to become a rock star.) Having achieved overnight fame, our busty, lusty heroines then confront the Dark Side Of Success, finding themselves quickly entangled in various soap opera-ish sub-plots.

The Suff I Liked: The acting: good, not great, but great acting would only detract from a movie like this. As the three female leads, Dolly Read (Kelly), Cynthia Myers (Casey), and Marcia McBroom (Pet), are, if nothing else, energetic and certainly gorgeous to look at. No, they're not accomplished thespians, but then Russ Meyer chose his actresses more for their cup sizes than their emoting skills. The performances I particularly like are those of John LaZar as flamboyant Ronnie "Z-Man" Barzell, Phyllis Davis as Kelly's kindly Aunt Susan, and Edy Williams as, hilariously, oversexed porn star Ashley St. Ives. The music: some great, late-'60's style rock songs. Does anybody out there know if there is a soundtrack available? Meyer's visual flair: This is one of the most colorful, most visually frenetic films that I have ever seen. Meyer will perhaps be remembered more for his abilities as cinematographer and editor than as director. Almost every frame is jammed with vibrant, sharp color and the whole show zooms along at such a feverish pace that you're left breathless.

The Stuff I Didn't Like: As I said before, my problem with this movie is the ending. I won't give it away, except to say that it is repellent, gratuitously violent, and so dark and brutal as to be completely out of sync with the gaudy, campy scenes that precede it.

My suggestion - skip the last 15 minutes or so, and just enjoy the long, riotous bacchanal that comes before.

This movie really tested my patience and I went to see it after Ebert waxed poetic about it in a two page article in the Sun Times. It's not enjoyable camp like Rocky Horror and it really says or adds nothing to the original Valley of the Dolls. It's just dumb and wears thin very quickly.

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.

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.

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!!!