Beyond the Valley of the Dolls - provide spoilers

you should see the film through to the end, the last scene (in which a portentious narrator moralises about the events in the film) is one of the funniest things ever.
― DV (dirtyvicar), Thursday, June 3, 2004 7:11 AM (thirteen years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

As mentioned by DV, the bit with the portentious narrator, who intones a kind of moral lesson for each character is the best bit.
― Pashmina (Pashmina), Thursday, June 3, 2004 7:20 AM (thirteen years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

came here to say this, i just watched this and i couldn't stop laughing at the end

When Siskel gave his buddy's movie a big thumbs down:

https://ew.com/article/1993/05/21/beyond-valley-dolls/

(I'd likely rate it a letter grade higher, but I'm not a big fan, either)

Many of the actresses, including Edy Williams (who became Meyer’s wife shortly after the film’s release), look like hard-as-nails female impersonators. The only pleasant face and body belong to former Playboy Playmate Dolly Read, who would later marry Dick Martin of Laugh-In fame.

don't know if I've ever read Siskel before, was he generally a mega-creep?

Yes, and not much of a fan of movies in general, either.

I remember reading that review when EW published it.

Ugh

The sequence near the end where they all drink drugs at Z-Man's pad is sooo like K Anger circa Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome.

this movie is super goofy and i love it
"in the long run" is a genuinely good song!

Yes, love that song. The critic who said the women in the film, with one exception, look like 'hard-as-nails female impersonators' - er, Cynthia Myers and Marcia McBroom, what?

seriously that was such a stupid comment i didn't bother
also rude

One would think John Simon would have come down hard on the female cast, but in fact what he said at the time was, "Except for one freak, all the women, even the walk-ons, are gorgeous, or, rather, what Meyer considers to be so."

Setting aside the ickiness of Siskel's "female impersonators" comment for a second, is it ok to criticize the physical appearance of a film performer when the film is (at least partially) erotic in nature? I don't have an answer, mind you--just putting it out there.

Is it OK to define women by who they married years after the film you're reviewing?

WAIT, WHAT?!?!?

Z-Man was trans. I had literally never thought for a second, that that ending was anything other than Z-Man coming out as trans. That Z-Man's new breasts were evidence of transitioning, and "call me Supergirl" was how she wanted to be known as a trans woman?

I've just read on Wikipedia, a quote from the author that Z-Man was intended to be read as a (presumably) cis woman who was living in male drag? No. No, no, no. That's not a reading that ever even dawned on me, it seemed so obvious that Z-Man was trans.

Granted the first time I saw it, back in the early 90s, was with Bill Basinski (who my friends used to call Z-Man, on account of his parties). So I'm not surprised that in such a queer setting, we gave it such a queer reading. But I'm just really surprised because... no... *really*? A cis woman in drag? Noooo, I always thought of that as a trans character. What cis nonsense is this, that she wasn't trans.

I'm with you on your interpretation

Yeah I’m baffled at any bon-trans interpretation

Non-trans

Let us know if there’s a citation better than “The requested page "/nine/frame_bvd.html" could not be found.”

Z-Man cannot be bound by petty earthly notions of cis, trans & drag imo

Setting aside the ickiness of Siskel's "female impersonators" comment for a second, is it ok to criticize the physical appearance of a film performer when the film is (at least partially) erotic in nature? I don't have an answer, mind you--just putting it out there.

― Maria Edgelord (cryptosicko), Saturday, November 9, 2019 12:56 PM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Of course it's ok to critique the physical appearance of film actors, in any film, why wouldn't it be

I've just read on Wikipedia, a quote from the author that Z-Man was intended to be read as a (presumably) cis woman who was living in male drag? No. No, no, no. That's not a reading that ever even dawned on me, it seemed so obvious that Z-Man was trans.

The other 80% of the paragraph outside the parentheses is about the mutability of readings, and how the author and his co-author's intentions are literally unable to be derived from viewing due to the nature of the authorship.

A cis woman in drag? Noooo, I always thought of that as a trans character. What cis nonsense is this, that she wasn't trans.

He also goes on to use a trans* descriptor, even if the one he used in either 1970 or 1980 might not have been the one he was using by 2013, and apply the pronoun that is most respectful to that (one afternoon on one day in) 1970 conception of the character.

My understanding was that they were running out of budget and time, and brainstormed an ending.

I know the two films have nothing to do with each other, but I'm not going to start a thread on the first one...I'm reading Steven Rebello's Dolls! Dolls! Dolls!: Deep Inside Valley of the Dolls, the Most Beloved Bad Book and Movie of All Time, so I thought I'd better look at the film again (saw it once a long time ago). It's not irresistibly bad. Patty Duke provides much of the camp, but mostly it's just slow and disjointed and boring. The weirdest thing for me is that the foundation of the film is supposed to be this great friendship between the three women, but they must have skipped that part when adapting the book--they seem to go from not knowing each other to some vague implication that they're lifelong friends who are always checking up on each other. Not sure if having Martin Milner play a press agent is supposed to be an inside joke going back to Sweet Smell of Success. Never knew Barbara Parkins is Canadian (and still alive).

Valley of the Dolls is perhaps the most inert "camp classic" of all time.

Meant to mention Richard Dreyfuss! One scene near the end, about 30 seconds, just like in The Graduate.

https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_fit,f_auto,fl_lossy,q_auto,w_728/v1555909368/shape/mentalfloss/dreyfuss_0.png?itok=Is_XdFLH