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Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

Play trailer Poster for Beyond the Valley of the Dolls NC-17 Released Jun 17, 1970 1h 49m Comedy LGBTQ+ Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
76% Tomatometer 29 Reviews 72% Popcornmeter 5,000+ Ratings
Three college singers (Dolly Read, Cynthia Myers, Marcia McBroom) join a Hollywood scene of debauchery, drugs and rock 'n' roll.
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Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

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Critics Consensus

Confidently campy and played with groovy conviction, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is an exuberant expression of both the hilarity and terror that comes with free love.

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Critics Reviews

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Variety Staff Variety This trashy, gaudy, sound-stage vulgarity about low life among the high life is as funny as a burning orphanage. Dec 17, 2007 Full Review Kim Newman Empire Magazine Russ Meyer does mainstream, kind of. Rated: 3/5 Feb 14, 2007 Full Review Time Out With his first movie for a major studio, Meyer simply did what he'd been doing for years, only bigger and better. Jun 24, 2006 Full Review Jason Shawhan Nashville Scene By this time, 50 years later (!), the foundation of this kind of film is held near and dear to moviegoers the world over. Sep 10, 2021 Full Review Taylor Baker Drink in the Movies Episode 22: Roma / At Eternity's Gate / Beyond the Valley of the Dolls Rated: 72/100 Sep 3, 2021 Full Review Sean Mulvihill FanboyNation.com Beyond the Valley of the Dolls isn't just a cult movie, it's the greatest cult movie ever made. Rated: 5/5 Nov 1, 2018 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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Stephen C Funny in 1 hour and 49 minutes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Rated 5 out of 5 stars 06/25/25 Full Review Audience Member The late Russ Meyer known for his witty, gritty independent features directs with a large cast of unknowns. Amazingly he actually collaborated with future film critic Robert Ebert having a writing credit. During this period men and women engage in debauchery, drinking, partying, sex, and rock n roll. There’s a lot of free love to go around for everyone involved but there’s probably such a thing as too much as their naive dreams clash with seedy reality of show business. This is total 1970s cinema about a girl band partying non stop and swinging with many people. Trippy, campy, and shows the results of hilarious antics and terror of what free love does. Each decision affects all involved. I won’t lie it was difficult to get a grasp on most of what was going on because the editing is so scattershot. The ending was quite terrifying too. There’s even a horrifying reveal that makes one of the players lose all touch with reality. Full of sex, nudity, bloody violence Meyers says we must all decide what our lives must be, a hand extended to fellow man is a gesture of love, it asks nothing expects nothing but being simply there, if it’s there then there will be gentle steps ahead A true cult flick of its time over 50 years later that’s more than just showing skin but showing how love should be handled by all of us. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 06/17/25 Full Review Shioka O Hugely laughable great trashy camp classic. I didn't expect much before seeing it, and I realised that it's Russ Meyer's. So imaginative and thrilling actually. Not for everyone but for someone who loves groovy 70's cult. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/19/25 Full Review Taylor L "You will drink the black sperm of my vengeance!" It will never stop being funny that Gene Siskel gave this film - written by his famed co-critic Roger Ebert, who together would go on to define film criticism for decades - a score of zero out of four stars. Ebert, already a critic for the Chicago Sun-Times took a five-week hiatus from his role to develop the script, but the film still wound up being highly improvised and was shot cheaply, mostly using existing sets. The actors apparently didn't know what tone they were supposed to use for each scene, whether the film was supposed to be either satirical or sarcastically sincere; this would result in a tone that Ebert himself would describe as "curious". Panned on release (where it received an X-rating), Beyond the Valley of the Dolls only gained recognition as a cult film, thanks to the campy style that director Russ Meyer (who by that point had basically made only porn or at best, sexploitation flicks) brought to the material; basic plot elements of original - young women lured to show business - are preserved, but the melodrama and moral preachiness of the original are flipped on their head with some absurdism. Though legally, the film had no relation to Valley of the Dolls, it didn't stop Fox from getting sued. For Ebert of all people - the stuffy, frequently disparaging critic who never found a loose thread he didn't like to pull - to write a movie this zany certainly is something. All the sexual liberation and fun-loving nature of the swinging '60s that the original film cashed in on with a disapproving finger wag is given a pumped up to loving and frantic excess by Meyer, and it's certainly unique. (3/5) Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/14/23 Full Review Audience Member Roger Eden co-wrote this with the king of cheesy sleaze, Russ Meyer. Did he ever review it? What dreck.. The dialog is campy groovy and like nails scraping on a blackboard. That's on Roger. The rest of it is on Russ. Rated 1 out of 5 stars 02/17/23 Full Review Audience Member Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is a prefect cult with campy humor. a good written story and even more fun than the 1967 movie. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/07/23 Full Review Read all reviews
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

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Movie Info

Synopsis Three college singers (Dolly Read, Cynthia Myers, Marcia McBroom) join a Hollywood scene of debauchery, drugs and rock 'n' roll.
Director
Russ Meyer
Producer
Russ Meyer
Screenwriter
Roger Ebert, Russ Meyer
Distributor
Warner Home Vídeo, Columbia Tristar, 20th Century Fox
Production Co
Twentieth Century Fox
Rating
NC-17
Genre
Comedy, LGBTQ+
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Jun 17, 1970, Original
Release Date (Streaming)
Sep 24, 2013
Runtime
1h 49m
Sound Mix
Mono
Aspect Ratio
Scope (2.35:1)
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