Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970)

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970)

Director: Russ Meyer

Cast: Dolly Read, Cynthia Myers, Marcia McBroom, John Lazar

So wow, a film written by the late, great film critic Roger Ebert?! That’s not the strangest part about Beyond the Valley of the Dolls; the strangest part is that it’s such a violent, sexual film! You’d never guess a film of this nature would come from the mind of the mild mannered Roger Ebert, a man of such quiet demeanor! Yet it did and it’s amazing in my book. I mean, sure it’s what many would call “schlock” or in other terms a “cheap and inferior” film, yet I wouldn’t exactly categorize it as such. I mean, sure it’s got cheesy as hell lines like “you shall taste the black sperm of my vengeance” but dammit, that’s exactly why it’s so watchable! Some probably categorize this one as b-movie schlock because it’s extremely violent and the nudity, I won’t lie, is gratuitous, but then again, the world the film explores was probably that crazy. People probably did dance around naked in parties while doing LSD. Sadly, those who lived through it probably don’t remember enough to confirm it. Still, the whole crazy shebang makes for one trippy movie experience! So, what exactly is so crazy about this movie? What’s it all about?

First off, there was a film called Valley of the Dolls (1967), which is the story about the “rise and fall of three young ladies in show business”. This film was based on a book by author Jacqueline Susann. I’ve never seen that film so I can’t compare the two, but based on the success of that film, the studio wanted to do a sequel. Jacqueline Susann wrote a script which was rejected by the studio, but the contract gave the studio the rights to do their own sequel, so they gave that task to Ebert and Myer who went on to make Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970). Problem is that the resulting film repulsed Jacqueline Susanne so much that she asked 20^th Century Fox to market the film as not being a sequel to Valley of the Dolls. This is why Beyond the Valley of the Dolls opens up with a disclaimer saying that it’s not a sequel to Valley of the Dolls, but that it deals with the same “often times nightmarish world of show business”. Nightmarish is the right term alright. Nightmarish indeed!

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, much like its predecessor also focuses on the rise to fame of three talented young ladies. The three start out like a small band, playing this trippy rock and roll, which to me sounded a lot like The Mommas and the Poppas. The girls end up exploding in the music scene and becoming ultra famous. They suddenly plunge head first into the crazy, drug fueled, sex crazed showbiz world of the sixties. While attending these crazy parties filled with famous stoned out of their minds people, they end up meeting this guy called Ronnie ‘Z-Man’ Barzell, a guy who knows everybody and loves the hippy scene. In fact, during a particularly trippy scene Ronnie says “This is my happening and it freaks me out!” which Mike Myers went on to quote in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997). Suddenly I knew where a lot of Austin Powers came from. Aha! Mike Myers saw this movie for sure! So anyways, Ronnie Barzell ends up making these girls famous. Will they survive the wild and dirty world of showbiz, or will it suck their souls into oblivion?

I was actually blown away by this movie, which I went to see at a public screening; totally unaware of what was awaiting me. I’d never seen a Russ Myer film, so yeah; I popped my Russ Myer cherry with this one. Now I need to see the rest of his repertoire, including one of his most famous films Faster Pussy Cat! Kill! Kill! (1965). I read up a bit on Myers career, and he was seen as a “pornographer” by his detractors, though I think they were merely referring to the sexual and violent nature of his films which were risqué and sexy, but not true blue porn. More accurately, his films are what are commonly known as ‘sexploitation films’, more in line with the types of films that Jean Rollin used to do. This type of films were often times sexy, violent and often times kind of cartoonish. Myers did shoot some centerfolds for Playboy though and he was notoriously fascinated by big breasted women, which would explain all the nudity on Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.   

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is truly a film of its time. It captures that crazy, hippy, drug infused trip that most people were on during that decade. A film like this one cannot be made today, at least not in any sort of commercial way. Not that this movie got it easy when it was first released, actually it was lambasted by critics and slapped with an “X-rating” by the MPAA! It does get pretty violent and gory towards its finale; I was actually kind of shocked at just how violent it got. Also, it plays with the controversial themes of homosexuality, bisexuality and promiscuous sex (read: orgies).The films main character ends up being a frustrated homosexual, which is why the film brought to mind The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), a film that Beyond the Valley of the Dolls has some similarities with. Beyond the Valley of the Dolls went on to become a success for 20^th Century Fox; it made 9 million on a 900,000.00 dollar budget. So X-rating or no, this one actually managed to become a money maker, which is probably why Ebert and Myer reunited once again for Beneath the Valley of the Ultra Vixens (1979), which I will be reviewing soon. I’m extremely curious where they went with that one. But as far as Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) goes, I thought it was extremely entertaining and shocking, it even surprised me with this brilliant thing it did by showing us the whole ending of the film during the films opening credits. The visuals mean nothing to us during the credits. They seem like a bunch of crazy images that aren’t connected to one another. It’s not until we’ve seen the whole film and reach the ending that it hits you like a ton of bricks and it all makes sense! Then it’s like “oh wow!” That bit was brilliant! Highly recommend it if you are in the need of a trippy, sexy, violent film.

Rating: 4 out of 5  

   

Brain Damage (1988)

Brain Damage (1988)

Director: Frank Henenlotter

Cast: Rick Hearst

Frank Henenlotter films have a couple of distinguishing factors about them: they are sexually charged films starring freaks who are frustrated individuals; socially dysfunctional in one way or another. The main characters in Henenlotter’s films are often times social outcasts who have been dealt an ugly card by life. For example, in Basket Case (1982) the main character is a guy who's born with a deformed twin brother stuck to his chest! In Bad Biology (2008), one character has a monstrous penis that can only be controlled with drugs and another character has a vagina with seven clits! And in the film I’ll be reviewing today, the main character is addicted to a drug that is administered to him by a talking worm! Welcome my friends, to the freakish world of Frank Henenlotter films!

Brain Damage is all about Brian, a young man who one night gets a visit from a worm named Aylmer. I call it a worm, but others have described it as a slug, a turd, a talking brain; all of which are correct. So anyhow, Aylmer is a creature that sticks to your neck and injects this hallucinogenic blue liquid into your brain that gives you an incredible high. Problem is that once you get a taste of Aylmer’s juice, you are hooked for life! Ah, but there’s a catch, you also have to feed Aylmer, if you don’t feed him, he won’t give you the blue liquid. The real problem is that Aylmer only eats human brains! So if you want to get high, you have to find Aylmer a victim! Will Brian start killing off people in order to get high? Can he ever stop?

So as you can probably surmise, this film is all about drug addiction. I’ve seen films like this one before,  cautionary tales about drug addiction. Brain Damage brought to mind films like Requiem for a Dream (2000) and Trainspotting (1996), films that are meant to show you the horrors of drug addiction. The difference is that Brain Damage tells its tale through the filter of b-movie magic, with a talking slug as an allegory for drugs. Imagine if Heroin or Crack could suddenly personify themselves and talk to you, this is what you’re going to see in Brain Damage. The film is crystal clear with what it wants to say, and even though it is about a talking turd, the message it sets out to give is a very truthful one. Brain Damage goes step by step through the kind of things that you can expect to go through if you ever became addicted to hard drugs like say, heroin. Brain Damage depicts the alienation, the euphoria, the obsession and the degeneration that follows. Brian goes through it all to the point where the blue liquid is the only thing that matters, going as far as not caring about anything in life, family, relationships, nothing matters except the next high. 

What is awesome about this movie is how Aylmer, the talking slug, personifies drugs and talks to Brian telling him things like “I own you know, you are mine” “I want you to beg for it now” and “Let’s see who cracks first”, I think that was just a brilliant idea because it shows us exactly how drugs end up dominating your life, taking over it. Aylmer tells Brian “This is the start of your new life Brian, a life full of colors, music, lights and euphoria, a life without pain, or hurt or suffering” I think this is with a doubt Frank Henenlotter’s best film because not only does it give us entertaining visuals, and gross out moments to boot, it also has something to say. Since it is a film about drugs, it also speaks about the big attraction that drugs have. Why exactly is it that people crave them even though they are obviously harmful to their bodies and lives? This is something that the film also explores because whenever Brian takes a bit of the blue liquid, we get to see what he sees, and this is when the film goes on these visual trips. Brian obviously enjoys the enhanced state that the blue liquid puts him in, colors are more intense, life is amplified somehow and he wants that all the time. Every time Brian takes the blue liquid, the film goes on these visual trips that are one of the highlights of the film.

But what would a Henenlotter film be without some gory, gross out moments right? Brain Damage goes all out in this department, we get some of the grossest, most shocking moments on any Henenlotter film, and that’s saying a lot! There is one scene that was so graphic and shocking that some of the crew members actually walked out of the set as it was being filmed! You’ll know it when you see it, but it involves fellatio, that’s all I’m saying! On the downside of things, the acting is sometimes not the best, but I guess that goes fine with the whole b-movie vibe, honestly I don’t mind bad acting in this kind of thing, it makes the film more entertaining somehow. And some of the lines on this movie, wow, they’ll have you rolling! Here’s an example, at one point, Brian goes on a killing spree but doesn’t remember what happened and Aylmer fills him in on what happened, then he tells Aylmer: “You ate her brain?!” followed by “Is she DEAD?”

So what we got here my friends is an anti-drug film that explores every single aspect of drug addiction, through the lense of a gory, graphic, loud b-movie. I love it how this kind of film can go deep, as opposed to what a lot of people think of b-movies, which is they are tripe, banal things. Well, most of the time they are, but in Brain Damage’s case, I say b-movies can be deep and profound without losing what makes them b-movies. So hurray for Brain Damage, undoubtedly Frank Henenlotter’s best film.

Rating: 4 out of 5   

Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959)

Title:  Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959)

Director: Edward Wood Jr.

Cast: Bela Lugosi, Vampira, Tor Johnson

Review:

“You are interested in the unknown…the mysterious. The unexplainable. That is why you are here...” with these ominous words, Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space opens, inviting us to enter into his imagination, deep into the cheesy recesses of b-movie territory. Some films are known for being bad; their call to fame is the fact that they are terrible films, i.e. badly written, acted and produced. This is the case with Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space. Though of course  depending on who you ask; some will hail it as the best example of how NOT to make a film, while others will tell you it’s silly, campy, fun. I finally had the chance to see it after years and years of having it on my must watch list; and yeah, it’s a bad film, but it’s not without its charm. There are all kinds of mistakes left and right, every five seconds you can either see a boom mike pop up somewhere, an actor reading the script from his lap or the strings can be seen on the miniature flying saucers, but again, this is part of what makes Plan 9 from Outer Space such a fun film. 

Story revolves around a group of alien invaders who want to destroy the earth because they fear that the humans will create a doomsday device that can destroy the entirely galaxy, so in order to prevent this from happening, they put ‘Plan 9’ in motion. Plan 9 consists in resurrecting the dead so they can take over the earth and annihilate mankind and their destructive inclinations. These aliens are trying to protect the universe from us, so in a way, these aliens are benevolent in nature; just not towards us humans.

I gotta hand it to Ed Wood, the guy had his heart in the right place. He might not have had millions of dollars to make his movies, but it’s obvious that he had the creativity and the energy, the drive. He had a creative wealth of ideas. Here was a guy who was always writing, directing or producing something. You just get the feeling that he simply needed more money to put his ideas across in a better fashion, but that passion for telling stories was always there. He might not have been much of a filmmaker; but the guy wrote like a mad man! He didn’t write masterpieces either, but the crazy ideas would never stop coming. I personally think he was better as a writer of cheap sci-fi b movies and novels than at directing films. He produced and wrote many more films like Orgy of the Dead (1965) and The Bride of the Beast (1958), he even made some soft core porn! But it was Plan 9 from Outer Space which would go down in history as “the worst film ever made”. To be honest, I think calling Plan 9 worst movie ever is a bit harsh; there are far worse contenders for this title out there in movie land.

I won’t lie to you, yeah Plan 9 is badly produced and directed, not a second  goes by that you don’t see some incomprehensible image that has nothing to do with the film, a goof, a boom mike, a false wall moving, sometimes this kind of thing just makes me bust a gut laughing. For example in some scenes, Wood would mix scenes shots during the day in exteriors with scenes shot in a set, with a pitch black background, it’s moments like these that you begin to question his abilities as a filmmaker. There’s this other scene where a bunch of people are coming out of a crypt, because they were burying a friend, and it’s the smallest crypt I’ve ever seen! And if it’s not the stock footage of Russian military tanks (which are supposed to be American) that makes you laugh, then it’s the totally inane dialog. Now here’s where the real fun of the movie lies for me; that crazy ‘written in five minutes’ dialog! The film opens up with a psychic telling us that “future events will affect us in the future!” and he ends every sentence by calling the audience “my friends” about five times in less than a minute….now that’s some funny shit right there my friends!  My favorite is a dialog between two characters in which one tells the other “This is the most fantastic story I’ve ever heard!”  and the other guy says “And every word of it is true too” and the other guy replies “That’s the fantastic part of it!” Like I said, the dialog is hilarious stuff.

Obviously not Bela Lugosi! 

Ed Wood was a huge fan of the old Universal Monster movies, one of his favorites being Dracula (1931) which is the reason why he ended up using Lugosi in Plan 9. I’m sure Wood also wanted to have a star on his movie to pull in an audience and Lugosi with his vast experience certainly had that star power. This was Bela Lugosis’s final film, he doesn’t do much in it, in fact, he doesn’t even talk. Lugosi’s role in this film functions like a silent film. He simply weeps for his dead wife, who by the way according to the film was ‘Vampira’ and then he dies, off camera, only to be reborn as a zombie wearing the same exact attire he wore for Universal’s Dracula! I bet Ed Wood must’ve gotten a special kind of thrill having Lugosi in his full Dracula regalia on his film. In a strange twist of fate, I think there’s some sort of poetic justice that Lugosi dressed up as Dracula for his last performance on film. After all, Dracula was his most recognized role. About Lugosi’s participation in the film, it’s hilarious how Wood simply shot a bunch of random stuff with Lugosi, and then somehow found a way to squeeze it into Plan 9. Even funnier is that when he couldn’t use Lugosi, he would use this actor who would cover his face with the Dracula cape, to hide the fact that it wasn’t Lugosi! At the end of the day, the daftness of the production makes it endearing to watch. You get the feeling that everyone involved knew they were making a crappy movie, but they did it anyways. Or maybe it was all part of Ed Wood’s desire to spoof big budget sci-fi films? Maybe he did it all on purpose and the film is exactly what he wanted it to be? Watch the film and judge for yourself, but one thing I can assure you, you won’t be bored for a second, it’s a funny ride every step of the way. 

  

Rating: 2 out of 5