Visible Voice Books presents
BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS
1970. 109 minutes. Directed by Russ Meyer.

Throughout the sixties, former WWII/cheesecake photographer Russ Meyer earned millions from paltry investments in low-budget exploitation movies like Vixen, Faster Pussycat Kill Kill and Mudhoney. With confidence in their business acumen shattered by a string of high-profile big-budget disasters like Star and Hello Dolly and unheard-of success by the incomprehensible (to them) success of counterculture pictures like Easy Rider, executives at Twentieth Century Fox lost a little bit of their minds, took a what-the-hell gamble, and handed Meyer a million dollars and creative control to lens a sequel to their schlocky hit Valley Of The Dolls. With pre-Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Roger Ebert on hand as co-writer and a game cast headed with Playboy playmates and sprinkled with members of Meyer’s stock company of actors, they proceeded to create one of the most insane, brilliant and ludicrous films ever released by a major Hollywood studio. Critically reviled at the time (New Yorker critic Penelope Gilliatt infamously proclaimed it a sign of the major studios’ descent into pornography), it is now considered one of the best, most influential movies of the seventies. Meyer himself considered it his masterpiece.

Free admission. Projected from DVD. BYOB.