“In a scene like this you get a contact-high!”

by Kimberly Lindbergs | June 13, 2006

Categories | News, American Cinema, Musicals

Russ Meyer’s Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) as well as a very nice Special Edition of Mark Robson’s original Valley of the Dolls (1967) both found their way on to DVD today.

In conjunction with the DVD release Retro Crush just published some great interviews with three of the Beyond the Valley of the Dolls stars (Cynthia Myers, John Lazar and Erica Gavin) which are must reads for fans of the film. Members of the cast will also be doing a promotional tour to celebrate the DVD release for the next few weeks and you can find information about the BVD Road Tour dates, locations & times, etc. on Erica Gavin’s Offical Website.

This is the first time Beyond the Valley of the Dolls has been made available on DVD in the US and 20th Century Fox really did a great job on the release! It’s nice to see one of Meyer’s best and most innovative films get the kind of DVD treatment that’s often reserved for more critically acclaimed movies. The new DVD looks and sounds terrific, plus it also comes with loads of great extras such as numerous “making of” documentaries, actor screen tests, six photo galleries and commentary by many of the actors involved with the production as well as additional commentary by screenwriter Roger Ebert.

Film critic Roger Ebert co-wrote three of Russ Meyer’s best films including Up!, Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. Beyond is probably his most well known, as well as his most entertaining attempt at scriptwriting.

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is a sequel in name only to Valley of the Dolls, but it’s also sort of a companion film that exploits similar themes and ideas originally seen in Valley of the Dolls. Beyond tells the story of an all-girl rock band that travels to Hollywood with hopes of making it big. The focus of the movie is on the seedy behind the scenes happenings of the music business instead of the movie business, which was the focus of Valley of the Dolls.

If you enjoy campy melodrama combined with great music, snappy dialogue, stylish late sixties-early seventies fashions and colorful set designs as much as I do, you should grab yourself copies of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and Valley of the Dolls soon!

In the meantime you can enjoy this great “Sweet Talking Candyman” musical clip from Beyond the Valley of the Dolls: