Original film or otherwise, though, there’s no getting away from the fact that this film has a rather unusual pedigree. The somewhat distracting opening titles fail to obscure the revelation that Roger Ebert – yes, that Roger Ebert – was the man behind the story and screenplay on Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. Turns out that after giving Meyer a couple of generous reviews, the (rather inexperienced) Ebert was invited to work on the project. Now, as his first outing in such a capacity, there’s no denying that this is original.
Onto the film itself. It’s all about an all-girl band eking out a reasonable living playing live, albeit with one eye on the bright lights of LA. The LA of their dreams is represented to us, by the way, via a montage of landscapes, sheer fabrics – and boobs. Whether this really screams ‘musical success’ is by-the-by, and so Kelly (Dolly Read), Casey (Cynthia Myers) and Petronella (Marcia McBroom), together with manager Harris (David Gurian) head there, soon meeting up with Kelly’s long-lost millionairess Aunt Susan, a trusting soul who works in advertising (?) who immediately offers to give Kelly a huge share of the money, to the horror of her financial adviser – who has a point, let’s be honest. Still, Susan is a well-connected woman about town, and she offers to introduce the gang to all the best parties on the scene. News of the band’s prowess catches the attention of a key party host, Z-Man (John LaZar) and soon the re-named Carrie Nations are on for the big time, all under Z-Man’s watchful eye of course. Sadly, it can’t all be digging it and impromptu performances, even though a lot of it is: relationships suffer, greed kicks in, and the corrupting power of hedonism does its thing.
As a film, I’ll be honest and confess I wanted to like this a lot more than I actually did. It tends towards the dull. The story does head off in a few unexpected directions, and although the film is painfully slow in places, it’ll then suddenly ramp it up with a diversion which is usually in awkward taste: lobbing in material on abortion, murder and disability – well, even taking our rather more guarded times into consideration, it certainly ain’t gonna be for everyone. The film is at its absolute worst when playing with serious ideas in any way, shape or form, and I’ll admit that it tested my patience plenty. That all said, plot clearly isn’t a huge priority for Meyer/Ebert in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, and perhaps I shouldn’t be reading the film as if it is. It’s obviously intended as cartoonish, and aims to be ridiculous. In this it patently succeeds. But satire? Nah. It’s too piecemeal, too conflicted. It goes from po-faced development to oddly innocuous titillation just a touch too much for me (the sex and nudity are lower in the mix than you might think).
Equally, and as ever in Meyer’s work, the script is a blend of baffling and charming. I don’t think Rob Zombie has sampled anything from this film, but I’d bet £5 he may in future; you can alternate, if you wish, between playing ‘hippie cliche bingo’ and laughing at the ‘sexy’ chat-up routines, then go from this to Z-Man and his literary stylings, all against a rather repetitive vision of late 60s parties which feel like the fevered imaginings of a mad uncle (Meyer was nearly fifty at the time the film was made, although Ebert was much younger). It just doesn’t really hang together for me.
Still, despite its freewheeling around, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls would be a delight for lovers of high camp, even more so for people who like their 60s and 70s time capsules good and lurid, and as ever Arrow’s presentation of the film is superb. Meyer fans who want to complete their Blu-ray collections will be pleased to know that his lesser-known film The Seven Minutes is included in this release, as well as the usual array of special features we’ve come to expect.
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is available now on DVD and Blu-Ray from Arrow Video.