BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS
A film review by Ken Johnson
Copyright 1993 Ken Johnson
1:49, NC-17, Drama/Comedy, 1970 Director: Russ Meyer Cast: Dolly Read, Cynthia Myers, Marcia McBroom, John LaZar, Michael Blodgett, Edy Williams, Charles Napier
This film shows three rock singers, Dolly Read, Cynthia Myers, and Marcia McBroom, who go to L.A. and start to make it big. They run into many problems on the fast track and try to make it through them successfully.
BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (the sequel to VALLEY OF THE DOLLS by name only) has just been re-released on CBS/FOX Home Video (now just called FOX Video I believe) and may be showing up in your local video store. This black comedy is worth seeing, if you can take weird dark films. On a scale of zero to five I give BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS a four (with reservations). BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS is rated NC-17 for female nudity, adult situations, explicit language, and violence.
The biggest problem with BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS is that it is rather slow in some places and probably could have been cut by half an hour. Other than that, the story, which was written by Russ Meyer and film critic Roger Ebert, is well written. On of the best things about this film is that it doesn't conform with Hollywood standards, which is probably what earned it the NC-17 rating. The ending to the film is very well done and leaves the viewer with a satisfied feeling.
The actors and actresses are normal B grade film actors. They don't have a lot of talent, yet they are not horrible. In some ways though, they make the film better than if it had a higher grade cast. Because the film is about the lower class talent, it fits better, I feel, to have a lower class cast.
-------- Ken Johnson blj@mithrandir.cs.unh.edu
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