17 June 1970 (USA)
Russ Meyer
Dolly Read ... Kelly Mac Namara
Cynthia Myers ... Casey Anderson
Marcia McBroom ... Petronella Danforth
John Lazar ... Ronnie 'Z-Man' Barzell
Michael Blodgett ... Lance Rocke
David Gurian ... Harris Allsworth
Okay yours truly has to admit a mistake. Being a sixties buff, I kept hearing about a movie called, Valley of the Dolls. I did a search for it and found this movie. Oh, I thought, the movie is called Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. So I bought it. I'm not sure when but I did at one point realize I had bought the wrong movie. This movie is the product of Porn-guy Russ Meyer, and film critic Roger Ebert. So you know you're in for a trip. This movie is supposed to be a satire of the 60s, so it's not really meant to be taken seriously. However, it is really hard to tell whether I like this movie or not because it is like a mixed bag. It's got a little bit of everything. Or maybe it tries to be everything and ends up being nothing. The making of documentary that comes with this DVD calls it something like, A musical, cult, love story, horror, thriller, sex movie. Or something like that. The main character's last name is McNamara. I wonder if this is supposed to be some kind of joke. Think about it like, if a movie that was made today was a character with the last name of Rumsfeld.
Anyway, I'm going to do the Good, the Bad, and the ugly type of review. Okay so...
The Good: The music is very good and without it I don't know if I could handle it. The only problem is there isn't really enough of it. The girl's group only does about five songs. Strawberry Alarm clock does a couple songs too. The girl's group is like the Rock flowers. Do you remember those dolls from the early 70s called the Rock flowers? Of course you don't only yours truly knows random trivia like that. Anyway, the Rock flowers were three girls. Two white, one black, and they were supposedly rock stars and each came with a record with a couple songs on it. The girl's group in this movie is also two white, one black. Also, this movie is filled with nudity. We see a lot of breasts. They are plump and delectable so that helps prevent you from pressing the stop button on your remote.
The Bad: The movie has a very weak plot, and it doesn't really take itself seriously. It keeps going from serious to outright silly. In the end one character breaks his back and is rolling around in a wheelchair, but this is like, supposed to be funny. The movie gets so silly towards the end that it's like the director played a trick on us, got us interested in some plot that wasn't really there, and said, haha just kidding there is no plot.
The Ugly: There's quite a bit of gay in this movie. Now, I'm no homophobe. Ok, who am I trying to kid? Of course I am. But there is this one character that is outrageously gay and in the end it turns out he is a woman(?) so I guess she wasn't gay just...very manly. I don't know this movie can just get silly at parts.
So like I said. There's a lot going on in this movie so there is probably something for everyone. But if you don't like the 60s you will not like it at all.
