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Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

1970
Comedy, Drama
1h 49m
Your probable score
Avg Percentile 46.55% from 451 total ratings

Ratings & Reviews

(451)
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Rated 16 Apr 2018
70
53rd
Hang cool , Teddy Bear. Roger Ebert: the man loved tits!
Rated 26 Mar 2013
55
32nd
An all girl rock band in LA during the swinging 60's fall prey to the sex & drugs lifestyle. I can't decide which was dumber; the impossibly naive and perky hippy chicks, the dude who kept refusing to sleep with a porn star, or the gore-soaked but completely out of nowhere tranny-with-a-sword finale. Features plenty of topless pneumatic babes, but the soundtrack is laden with goofy 60's pop tunes. Plus there's a really retarded lecture about love overdubbed at the end.
Rated 13 Mar 2017
78
75th
An amusing exploitation drenched sex comedy in a better sense of the genre. Clever enough writing & a strangely appropriate hysterical tone but gets a little bit bogged down in the cheap soapy parts of the satire. There's a consistent psychedelic 60s craze to it though and considering it's now over 45 years old I'd say the comedy has aged relatively well. It's not any kind of masterwork but is enjoyably all in with its playful sardonic satire. Overall a better musical about LA than La La Land.
Rated 23 Dec 2009
70
75th
Meyer and Ebert made a good movie which by all rights should be awful. A mildly satirical sexploitation soap opera about hippies. It culminates in a wink to the Manson killings, a victim of which was Sharon Tate who appeared in the original Valley of the Dolls. Pam Grier debuts. The film honestly delights in 60's culture, the sexual revolution, drugs and rock'n'roll, but its utterly hilarious epilogue variously preaches to each character or declares that they deserved what they got.
Rated 13 Sep 2007
5
3rd
Even all the T&A cannot save this steaming turd. All the salacious imagery is merely flashed for brief moments between all the garbage dialogue and horrifically bad musical interludes. You will find much better acting, more gripping storylines, and less ear-bleeding soundtracks on a straight up porno.
Rated 05 Jun 2008
65
25th
I don't particularly like this movie, but I can't truly hate it either. Funny, but not hilarious. Crazy, but not interesting. Well-made, but not impressively so. Bad acting, but not too bad. As a satire, perhaps it would help if I was more familiar with the source material. On the other hand, I've never seen Zero Hour and yet Airplane! is still a riot to me. I do admire Meyer's enthusiasm for his work, but like Godard, he doesn't make ME enthusiastic about it.
Rated 18 Apr 2009
88
90th
I expected a 'so bad it's good' film, but this is so much more. The acting is the only thing below par and even that's not too bad. The writing is brilliant, full of innuendo, high and low brow references and constantly funny. The cinematography is surprisingly good, there's a lot of creativity in some of the shots and they're edited together really well too. The most amazing thing is that it works not only as a satire but also as a morality play, all be it a simple one.
Rated 31 Dec 2009
23
12th
Fucking hippies. Five points because Dolly Read is pretty awesome.
Rated 07 Mar 2018
95
93rd
Bombastic, campy, somehow strangely guarded about how self aware it is, nonsensical, endlessly quotable, a wild fucking ride from start to finish
Rated 21 May 2012
10
98th
One of the strangest and most original films to come out of the 70s. Meyer and Ebert's script is absolutely bonkers. Possibly the only good movie ever to made "intentionally badly." Some of the best musical numbers around, as well.
Rated 02 Jun 2007
100
95th
This movie was made by a director whose work I generally despise and in a genre that I hate. You want to call it "trash" except that it's just made too well and in too unique a style. A movie like no other, and overflowing with utterly delirious potency. My brains were totally fried by it
Rated 24 Aug 2008
24
11th
I like camp rather more than the next guy, but I found this movie almost impossible to sit through.
Rated 22 Mar 2009
100
97th
This bids the viewer to "come with the gentle people" on a cross-country odyssey to Hollywood Hell. Like the Jackie Susann campfest _Valley of the Dolls_, _Beyond_ crams its mock-cautionary cinematic canvas with harrowing portraits, presented in Bosch-ian detail, of bright young lives ruined by their sudden immersion in showbiz decadence. Several timeless performances mark this, especially McBroom and ex-Playmates Read and Myers as femme rock combo The Carrie Nations
Rated 23 May 2018
70
56th
"Valley is a common symbol in women's dreams", quoted from Derrida who quotes Freud. Meyer reverses this symbolic structure determined by male gaze/fantasy and empowers these girls as they come-into-age by experiencing their sexual identities.Harris, who is the "manager" of the girls, ends up "crippled" and has to accept that he too is an object of fantasy in the girls' view. A fun movie self-consciously parodying cliche soap-opera romances and attacks the male-gaze. Definitely beyond its time.
Rated 04 Aug 2018
90
89th
The smut equivalent of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, so creatively brazen and unassumingly smart it plays the genre and the audience for chumps. The film's editing may just expand the film form. This actually is my happening, and it freaks me out.
Rated 05 Mar 2007
91
89th
De volta à casa de bonecas estreava há 50 anos nos EUA. O ápice do kitsch em forma fílmica e ainda a melhor coisa que o Roger Ebert escreveu na vida porque é MUITO engraçado como pastiche do primeiro filme e meio que é tudo que o último filme do Tarantino poderia ser em termos de Los Angeles de fins dos 60, mas não foi. BlurayRip no MakingOff.
Rated 02 Mar 2008
69
50th
# 614
Rated 09 May 2007
80
59th
If you thought this was a serious film, then congratulations, you've completely missed the point.
Rated 09 Jun 2013
75
35th
So basically.... boobs with key-learnings
Rated 30 Apr 2009
91
70th
Wonderfully crazed satire of the traditional "price of fame" story.
Rated 22 Oct 2009
90
88th
The best film of the 70's?
Rated 28 Jul 2010
55
25th
Pretty insane, all told.
Rated 23 Mar 2009
90
90th
The perfect satire of all the cliches plaguing movies up to 1970. A movie not intended for us to take seriously, and if for some inexplicable reason one decides to do just that then they will be disappointed. Filled with such insanity and energy I constantly had a grin on my face and was even treated to a few hearty belly laughs. This is truly a movie to be watched with your friends on a Saturday night with a cooler of cheap beer.
Rated 14 Aug 2007
26
17th
The funny thing is Roger Ebert had the nerve to critique other people's scripts/films after playing his part in unleashing this abomination on the unsuspecting populace.
Rated 02 Sep 2009
90
86th
You will taste the black sperm of my vengeance! - penned by Roger Ebert himself.
Rated 21 May 2019
7
31st
Great music, I loved the camp dialogue/characters.
Rated 22 Aug 2007
90
64th
so bad, it's good
Rated 30 Nov 2011
71
42nd
#572
Rated 19 Dec 2008
76
52nd
475
Rated 06 May 2012
72
75th
It's not as rewarding as it should be, but Beyond has the benefit of being the most complete and ambitious satire of Hollywood and its films -- the fact that this has been released by Fox still sounds like part of the parody. Ebert's keen, dense script leaves no space for serious dialogues, but it's actually enlightening about those early 1970s days: the generation of free sex, drugs and rock and roll ended just like a calm, reassuring marriage. Meyer's Hollywood is absurd, but somehow precise.
Rated 23 Jul 2018
63
43rd
It felt like there was a lot more going on than there probably actually was
Rated 25 Jan 2011
65
57th
I was surprised at how decent this was, and how the hot women improved it in every conceivable way (except acting ability, but acting ability has always been over-valued).
Rated 12 Apr 2009
67
28th
The final is good; the rest is boring as hell.
Rated 02 Dec 2010
35
90th
"As his overactive jump cuts prove, Meyer directs films as though he's perpetually on the cusp of a fantastic orgasm." - Eric Henderson
Rated 18 Oct 2016
90
91st
After thinking about it, Beyond The Valley of the Dolls is what Valley of the Dolls could've been if it had balls and if Jacqueline Susann hadn't had a stick up her ass
Rated 14 Sep 2012
79
78th
A truly odd filmmaking style makes watching this fast motion soap opera feel like watching a 2 hours long trailer. I can't really put my finger on what is so bizzare about it (maybe the extremly fast pace and the huge amounts of dialog), but it is.
Rated 20 Jul 2013
53
52nd
marvelous film. the flaccid male "lead" keeps trying to sink it but, happily, he never quite does
Rated 13 Jul 2012
80
62nd
I've never seen anything else quite like this, and I mean that as a compliment. Some curious editing choices throughout make it feel like a long trailer. Usually I'd say that's a bad thing, but here it's so obviously intentional that I can't help but be cool with it. This is a silly, bizarre movie, but it's so full of life and sexual energy that it transcends its silliness and becomes something both fascinating and thoroughly entertaining.
Rated 15 Mar 2011
6
57th
I can't help but be enamored by the simple charm and silliness of it all.
Rated 14 Aug 2007
56
31st
It really depends on how you look at this movie. When I first saw it, I thought it was one of the dumbest movies that I'd ever seen. I'm not sure if this movie is to be taken seriously or not (especially because of the ending and the Z Man character). If you're looking for something odd, then hit this up.
Rated 19 Jan 2013
90
40th
Nothing wrong with a bit of campy, trashy, psychedelic fun
Rated 15 Jan 2010
73
46th
541
Rated 28 Dec 2007
72
53rd
A camp classic that is rather hilarious...And written by Roger Ebert
Rated 23 Dec 2019
20
4th
About an hour longer than it needed to be so I zoned out. It was like a softcore porn trying to be a serious satire. Tons of gorgeous era women. Good music. WTF was the point of the judgmental moral message about each character's fate? Fav scene: "She was living in a single room with 3 other individuals. 1 of them was a male, and the other 2, well the other 2 were females...I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to learn that all 4 of them habitually smoked marijuana cigarettes... reefers."
Rated 14 Aug 2007
70
15th
Wild and weird - not a lot of it makes sense, but it's fun to watch for a while.
Rated 10 Apr 2009
0
15th
The skinflick director's first film for a major studio, with positively no connection to _Valley of the Dolls_, is not explicitly pornographic but pussyfoots around with as many general excesses as can be crammed into two hours. If taken as high camp it provides a laugh or two, but is chiefly notable as marking a major studio's deepest dip into muddy waters.
Rated 06 Mar 2011
78
88th
A truly odd filmmaking style makes watching this fast motion soap opera feel like watching a 2 hours long trailer. I can't really put my finger on what is so bizzare about it (maybe the extremly fast pace and the huge amounts of dialog), but it is.
Rated 10 Sep 2016
71
75th
This film lacks a knight of faith
Rated 16 Sep 2013
60
24th
Roger (fuckin') Ebert wrote the script for this! Now I admire him even more :)
Rated 10 Jun 2018
65
62nd
Adam West's Batman meets Soap Opera in this completely absurd but strangely watchable film.
Rated 14 Dec 2018
61
46th
Weird movie. I find myself chuckling at so many unintentional parts and not the supposed funny bits. I would not say it's my favorite Meyer as I prefer his more risque flicks.
Rated 29 Oct 2019
60
35th
I wanted to give up on this movie so many times. The story seems completely incompetent, the actors don't know how to deliver their dialogue, and all the naked busty women, while I appreciate, was pure excess and sleaze. Then the guy in the nazi uniform shows up and the movie goes off the rails. The ending does a lot to save the rest of the movie, but it still isn't great. It's messy and unfocused with no real message other than potentially mocking hippie movies.
Rated 19 Jun 2021
75
41st
The middle moments are good with Grace Paley-esque scene setting, but the beginning and end try too hard to be outre.
Rated 28 Sep 2021
2
6th
Both points are for Casey's unbelievable hotness. No points for anything else.
Rated 28 Sep 2021
40
5th
There's a lot of hand-wringing that Hollywood is now simply pumping out endless sequels (or "reinterpretations" like Ghostbusters with girls or Footloose with Facebook friends). But what about the independent movie-makers? After watching this, I'm a bit more in favor of those mindless remakes. The writing is passably good (er, thanks, Ebert?) and the zany ending makes it almost worth watching, but it doesn't hold up to the "it's not porn, it's art!" assertion.
Rated 09 Jul 2022
38
23rd
If you told me Roger Ebert wrote a screenplay, "Beyond the Valley" of the Dolls would not be my guess. This film is a weird drama with a couple of cringy scenes.
Rated 09 Jul 2023
66
32nd
Perhaps most notable (at least with some) for being critic Roger Ebert's only time writing a screenplay, this is a unique and interesting but ultimately disappointing film. While it's never boring, it doesn't seem to be quite sure what it wants to actually be. It's not funny enough to totally be a comedy or satire, not dramatic enough to be a melodrama, not quite campy enough to be a camp masterpiece, and not quite sexy enough to be a sex comedy, though it's all of those to some degree.

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