Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
Cast Reunion
from McFarland Publisher's Movie Talk from the Front Lines
by Michael Dare
Russ Meyer died September 18, 2004 but his films live on, one in particular...
Ten years later, through a startling twist of fate, I accidentally became a film critic for the L.A. Weekly, where my assignments were invariably B movies. After seeing and writing about thousands of B's, I kept coming back to Russ Meyer's films as the epitome of exploitation. I concluded that Beyond the Valley of the Dolls was unquestionably the best B movie ever made, the one against which all others must be compared. Some classic B's, such as Plan 9 from Outer Space, are fun because they are clearly the work of an idiot who thinks he's a genius. Others, like Amazon Women on the Moon, are fun because they are deliberately camp. What puts Beyond the Valley of the Dolls in a league of its own is the way it miraculously straddles the line. There's no way to tell whether the filmmaker is in on the joke until you actually meet Russ Meyer and see the twinkle in his eye.
It was 1970, and I had just moved to New York City to be an actor when someone in my class at the Lee Strasberg Institute invited me to a preview of a new movie. It was the first time I had ever been to an advance screening, and the theater was large and packed. When the film began, the audience started laughing, and they never stopped until the film ended, whereupon they immediately jumped to their feet in hysterical applause. But then it turned out the film was not really over, and they all went back to their seats for the first of innumerable codas, whooping and hollering in the most outrageous reaction to a film I had ever seen.
It was a most baffling encounter, and I could not figure it out for years afterward. I knew I was laughing too, but I could not tell if we were laughing AT the picture or WITH it. To this day, I'm not really sure if it's a comedy, but it unquestionably cracks me up. It is simultaneously the best and the worst movie ever made, and that screening is still one of the most exhilarating experiences I've ever had in a movie theater. The film was Russ Meyer's Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.
The Original Trailer
When I was voted in as a member of the Los Angeles Film Critic's Association, it was not that I had any particular desire to hang out in a crowded room with a gaggle of hatchet men and women, but you take what you can get. Actually, they're a fun bunch, and I was attracted to a series of screenings that the association was doing in conjunction with the UCLA Film and Television Archives, in which a member/critic showed a film with the movie makers present and then discussed the film afterward with the audience.
While other critics salivated over the prospect of getting Martin Scorcese to discuss The Last Temptation of Christ, I daydreamed about seeing Beyond the Valley of the Dolls again on a big screen. I called Russ Meyer and he bragged about a perfect 35MM print he had. He agreed to let us show it and to personally attend the discussion. I called Edy Williams, one of the unforgettable stars of the film ("I'd like to strap you on some time."), and she also agreed to attend.
I had no idea if film critic/screenwriter Roger Ebert considered Beyond the Valley of the Dolls a highlight or an embarrassment in his career, so I was delighted when he agreed to fly in from Chicago to attend the screening. My cup runneth over when I was miraculously able to gather the entire living cast as well, including novelist Michael Blodgett, Charles Napier, Dolly Read, David Gurian, and John LaZar, whose performance as Z Man ("This is my happening and it freaks me out.") is a genuine marvel that ruined his career. It was a fun reunion, since many of them had not seen each other in 20 years.
This turned out to be one of the most popular screenings in the Critic's Choice series, and more than 200 people were turned away at the door. The Voyager Company shot the discussion as a documentary to be included on the letterboxed laserdisc for their prestigious Criterion Collection. It never came out because 20th Century Fox refused permission, despite Mr. Meyer's approval, despite the fact that it wasn't available in any other format, and despite the fact they had no plans to release it themselves. Were they embarrassed about it? I can't imagine why, unless they've got something against transsexual superheroes who run around beheading Nazi manservants and guys dressed like Tarzan.Here's a transcription of the discussion after the film...
July 12, 1990
John LaZar, David Gurian, Dolly Read, Charles Napier,
Roger Ebert, Michael Blodgett, Edy Williams, Russ MeyerMichael Dare: I can't possibly explain why this is one of my favorite movies of all time. There's no excuse for it. I can't say it's a best movie ever made, but it's certainly one of my favorites.
For the Los Angeles Film Critic's Association to pay tribute to this film is sort of like the National Wine Critic's Association paying tribute to Boone's Farm. First of all, I'd like to ask Russ Meyer how on earth he convinced 20th Century Fox to let him make this movie.
Russ Meyer: Well, I think Roger said it. He said they put the nuts in charge of the asylum. The man that gave us our shot - or there were two men - Abe Burrows, an Obie playwright, and Darryl Zanuck. And they'd seen an earlier film that was making a few bucks in New York, and they couldn't get a print because we were booked into about 190 theaters. And at that time that was a lot of theaters for an independent film.
So they had to go to a theater that was local to them, and it happened to be a stroke house down on 42nd Street. So the two big people went there and saw the film and supposedly, Burrows said, "Well, if a klutz like that can make a film that successfully and that attractive for $69,000, you ought to throw him a bone." So that's how it really began.
I went over to Fox and met the son, Richard Zanuck, and he gave me five thousand bucks. And by that time I had become quite friendly with Roger. We thought a lot about the same kind of ladies, anyway. We had a little bit in common. I respected the fact that he was much younger than myself and could put a certain amount of input into the picture that I couldn't by myself.
Fortunately, not for some people, but the Manson murders had come along at that time, so I was able to incorporate that as a basis for the ending of the film. Zanuck himself in a long cablegram that he sent me from Cannes after Roger finished this marvelous treatment said, "I think it's a little tough, that whole aspect of utilizing the Manson killings, but I'm sure you'll use good taste when you do present it."
Roger then completed the script, and it was one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life to work under circumstances where, heretofore, I'd only worked with a crew of five, and now I had about 55. A lot of Indians to do your bidding. And I shall never forget it. It was an experience that was probably the most rewarding period of my life. That's a long speech for me.
Dare: Mr. Ebert, what was the specific assignment that you were given here? Did you have guidelines?
Roger Ebert: A camp, rock 'n' roll, horror, exploitation musical. I had been a fan of Russ's work since The Immoral Mr. Teas, which played for two and a half years at the Illini Theater in my hometown - providing people with someplace to go during final exam week and in-between too. It was a long run.
And I had seen all of Russ's movies subsequent to that, including Motor Psycho!, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, Mud Honey!, Lorna, Mondo Topless, and Eve and the Handyman, and the others.
And so when the Wall Street Journal ran a front-page article about him, "A Tribute to King Lear," written by the reporter with a marvelous name of Stephen Lovelady, I wrote a letter to the editor of the WSJ saying that I thought it was about time that Russ Meyer was acknowledged as an original filmmaker. And as a very good filmmaker.
In times to come, and years to come, and into the next century, Russ Meyer's films will be seen as art in the same sense as Andy Warhol's work and Al Capp's work - popular art of a very particular and original and unique nature.
Just recently I put myself way out on a limb. I saw Wild at Heart, David Lynch's new film, at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Palm d'Or, the grand prize of the Cannes Film Festival. And it sounded a little bit strange to be writing these words, but I felt to be honest to myself that I had to say that "there was nothing in Wild at Heart that Beyond the Valley of the Dolls didn't do better twenty years earlier."
When it was mentioned earlier that this movie was part of postmodernism, it seems to me that the only true postmodernist works are those which were made before anybody knew that they were postmodernist - because, you see, once you know what you're doing, you're not doing it anymore. How can you set out to be postmodernist? At that point it's too late. You're premodernist again.
And this movie is exactly what it is, an extremely original and unique film. There's not another movie like it, as far as I know. I wish there were. So, after I wrote the letter to the WSJ, Russ wrote me a letter, and the next time he was in Chicago we had dinner, and then when I came out here we had dinner again, and we eventually became friendly.
When 20th Century Fox offered him to opportunity to produce Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, which at that point was only a title, he called me up and offered me the job, and I took it. I came out here.
He tried to get me to stay at the Sunset Retirement Home. He felt it would be very quite there, and I'd get more work done. I wound up at the Sunset Marquis, but I quickly became aware of Russ's theories about writing, which was that it was much the same activity as typing.
We were supplied with a suite of offices at 20th. We had a secretary named June in the middle, and at the left was Russ, and on the right was me. He insisted that the doors be kept open so that he could hear if the typewriter was going, and if there was ever a moment when there wasn't any typing going on, I would hear [Shouts.] "What's the matter?"And that's as far as I got transcribing. More later.
Emulsional Problems
