Thanks for the memories!

How sad is this?

Fantastic!

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

This film is very notable in that it was written in part by Roger Ebert. Yes, THAT Roger Ebert. It should be noted that this film was something he worked on rather early in his career and I think looking back, he doesn't think too highly of it. It does make me wish Ebert had worked on more movies himself, because it would simply be great to watch a movie made by the most famous movie critic. Anyway, this movie itself is just okay. I admit that the plot just seems to wander around for awhile.There's lots of seemingly random scenes of people dancing and singing. This movie is still very '70s and it's starting to make me realize cult films become reflective of the times. There are even some interesting points raised about sexuality. I do kind of find myself rooting for the characters. It's just that it's too wacky to follow that well and not good enough to recommend, but Ebert tried. Now let's see a movie Leonard Maltin worked on! **1/2

My favorite scene in this movie is the scene where the "squares" are watching the girl band at a dance, because there are so many young people and pretty girls wearing frilly frocks in confectionery colors with nicely coiffed hair and beautiful smiles, and the music is fun and the color cinematography is bright and clear. But I am aware that what I am actually admiring is the fresh youthfulness and energy of an era that's captured nicely with good color photography, and the casting of pleasing-looking actors, Playboy models with great figures, talented singers, and so forth. People often use words like"camp" and "satire" indiscriminately, applying it to any retro vehicle that's excessive. But this movie has no meaningful referents, containing as it does a lack of dimensional characters or any ideas or emotions about anything it depicts (a campy movie is always passionate about its subject matter, and a satire is clear about what it is mocking), plus it is also staunchly heterosexual in its sensibilities and status-quo about sexuality. So it's not actually camp or satire, it's more just unfocused gleeful nihilism. It's a Russ Meyer world where women contain none of the feminine complexities they contain in life, and where the characters seem less than the actors portraying them. It ends with a "blow up the world and the film and the plot because nothing matters" sort of ending, which for me sort of sums up the attitude of the movie as a whole to its audience and cancels out some of the previous pleasures of its mise en scène. But for those to whom nihilism equals a rollicking good time, this is the perfect cocktail.

...I think I would have to blame the script more for my lack of interest in this movie. It seems it was intended as a parody of how conservatives view Hollywood. I saw at least one review refer this to the Reefer Madness of the 70s. The difference though is that Reefer Madness was intended to be a serious movie. In this case, even as a parody, to the group who would have such a view about Hollywood, it actually reinforces those views. Perhaps a much better parody would be to include those type of people who have such views in the movie to actually show how those people are being hypocritical or wrong about their views. As the movie stands, you have no empathy for the characters who all turn out to be selfish (well, at least, I am hoping that most people out there have little empathy for the characters)... In my view, for a movie to be successful, you have to have empathy with the protagonist(s). The campiness stylishness is great (if you enjoy that type of thing), but to me, the story and characters provided little interest.

I ran into Russ Meyer once in 1979 at a beer bar in San Diego during a "personal appearance" of then-wife (?) Kitten Natividad doing a bubble bath for a bunch of lecherous sailors (of which I too was one). That evening, as drunk as I was, made more sense than watching this movie sober. Plot? It concerns an all-girl band, The Carrie Nations, coming to LA to make it big. Seems the lead singer is in line for a fat inheritance and what transpires (sex, drugs, homo-hooery, Nazis, crimes against fashion, Manson Family blood lust) surrounds girly-Z-Man Barzel, the eye of the 1970 LA party hurricane. No, it's not a sequel to the also-trashy Valley of the Dolls (itself a wretched money churner also). There's a big fat disclaimer to that effect rolling at the opening credits. Hmmm... okay. This is just about all the plot I could decipher from this mess. I was curious to see the nudity, Phyllis Davis (the hot assistant to Dan Tanna in Vega$), the nudity, the vapid Roger Ebert script, the nudity... errh, I digress. Even a casual viewer will have to agree that Ebert loses all credibility as a film reviewer with this turd on his resume (dig that narration at the end of the film... then the tacked-on epilogue reminiscent of many a Three Stooges short). Okay, I'll admit that Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is not quite as horrendous as Myra Breckenridge (1970 was a wasteland of overblown psychedelic crap involving seemingly credible film reviewers) and there's the added plus of Strawberry Alarm Clock (although all too brief)... and plenty of nudity. But man, is this stupid. Russ Meyer is better judged by Supervixens. Smaller budget= even more nudity. I'm mildly surprised how many people loved this tripe. Incredibly, this was a big hit. That it failed to cement Russ' positon as an A-list director is telling, for soon he'd be back out in the sparsely populated California hinterlands with Haji & the gang doing indie 70's sexplo-boob-a-ramas. I sorta miss the guy.