The Best of the Worst and The Worst of the Worst.
O.K. Anyone that knows of Russ Myers work (faster, kill, etc) this is a great flick, Well, we know Russ was a Breast man. And the openess of the late 60's & 70's shows in his films. Bad effects, bad acting, and cheesey plots to get people naked. "pizza Delivery" "Did someone call for a Plumber to clean her pipes?" LOL.
Just roll with it,. Show your 17+ year old what we call pornographic for the time,. If you can find a copy in BETA, and a player, like I saw it in '74 or sometime..

HORRIBLE MOVIE!
This movie is horribly written, acted, and directed, and will just plain give you the creeps (and not in a good way like a horror movie--it's just a HORROR, period!). How Roger Ebert was ever hired as a movie critic after writing this piece of garbage is beyond me!

russ meyer fan
if you like russ meyer you'll love this. if you hate him you'll hate this movie too. It just what i expected.

A Blast from the past!
OH how I loved this movie! It's a cult-type of film. I loved their style of dress especially the fake hair and clothes. It was pure silliness, but laughed all the way though it. I especially liked the outtakes at the end. The actors are shown when they are older and talk about the film and the great director as well. Russ Meyer probably had a ball making this movie...Sure the story line is silly, but very entertaining. I highly recommend watching this with your pals on a rainy weekend day along w/a hot toddie...This will probably make it funnier. I loved the little tid-bit sayings too, hilarious. Beauty is obviously wasted on the youth!

Terrible in oh-so-many ways
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is directed by Russ Meyer, and the screenplay was written by Roger Ebert. The film stars Dolly Read, Cynthia Myers, Marcia McBroom, David Gurian, Erica Gavin, John LaZar, Michael Blodgett, Phyllis Davis, Edy Williams, and Harrison Page. Also appearing is the rock group Strawberry Alarm Clock, contributing to the film's soundtrack.

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is not a sequel to Valley of the Dolls, but an X-rated remake. The film follows the girls in a rock band, as they move out to the west coast, and aim to launch a career. Once they arrive, they immediately join forces with an eccentric record producer, and begin releasing albums. As the times progress, there are numerous affairs, wild parties, relationships gone awry, and other tragedies that ensue.

This is an all-around horrible film with very few redeeming qualities. Direction, plots, acting, characters, atmosphere - they're all well below average in this ill-fated Meyer/Ebert collaboration.

Russ Meyer's directional style and pacing are terrible, and often keep the more interesting parts of the story from getting off the ground. Just when you think a scene is going to get interesting, Meyer jumps somewhere else, with other characters. Because of this, some of the more interesting ideas are merely implied and occur off camera.

There are far too many subplots, none of which get the proper emphasis. This could have been the story of the band, their struggle to win over an audience, coping with issues, having difficulties in from within, and so forth. Instead, the band story gets the shaft and comes off as an afterthought. Meyer focuses more on the members of the band and their romantic encounters and affairs. With other subplots, including one of the girls trying to get an inheritance while dealing with the other party's bull-headed lawyer, and another of a shunned love interest paralyzing himself, the movie gets so bogged down that it can't decide which stories it would like to develop. Many of these plots come off as unresolved in the end, with a "tacked on" over-the-top ending used in an attempt to tidy up loose ends. It just doesn't work. Couldn't Meyer have just kept it simple and focused on the band, and their struggles as a group? That would have been both more interesting and easier to follow than all these go-nowhere subplots.

The acting is horrendous and memorable for all the wrong reasons, not helped by the fact that there are too many characters. And every one of them is one-dimensional and stereotypical. The characters are flat, shallow, and uninteresting. Rather than just focusing on the band members, Meyer and Ebert force us to endure tons of characters, none of whom we get the time to bond with. Even with a run time approaching two hours, there's not one truly likable character in the whole lot! The only memorable person in the cast of characters is Z-Man, and I only remembered him so well for his bizarre, off-the-wall performance - NOT because I liked the character by any means.

The whole movie feels extremely dated, reeking of a sixties psychedelic feel from beginning to end. There are plenty of great movies out there, which are obviously products of their era, but don't show it in every scene and ultimately have become timeless because of it. EVERY FRAME of this movie spares no expense at letting you know it was filmed in the psychedelic sixties. The outfits, the hairstyles, the atmosphere, the décor in the rooms.... Even Strawberry Alarm Clock's prominently-featured music adds to the film's dated feel. And while were on the subject.... HOW MANY PSYCHEDELIC PARTY SCENES DO YOU NEED IN ONE MOVIE!?

There's the occasional memorable scene, but nothing that saves this film from being a below-average pile of trash. It's worth checking out if you're curious as to what Roger Ebert did before becoming a famous critic, but don't come in here expecting a masterpiece.... Or even a good movie, for that matter. In Ebert's own immortal words, "how low can a thumb go?" I'm not sure what the answer to that question is, but this film comes dangerously close.

Thumbs down