Although Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (****) hit cinemas in summer 1970, it is a pivotal Sixties film as it depicts the era in terminal crash-and-burn mode. Cashing in on but not a sequel to Valley of the Dolls, it caught the female pop-group trio the Kelly Affair’s assimilation into and corruption by Hollywood. Renamed the Carrie Nations, they consume drugs, have ill-advised sexual liaisons and sell records by the bucketful. Good-natured singer Kelly MacNamara (Dolly Read) side-lines her boyfriend – their manager – to purse an affair with a money grubbing beefcake.
Characters vampirically feed off each other. Exploitation and venality are rife. Romance is also in the air. At the centre of the head-spinning whirl is nutty impresario Ronnie "Z-Man" Barzell (John LaZar) who pulls strings and acts weirder and weirder. There’s nudity, a porn star, an abortion, a lesbian scene and great music. It all culminates in violence.
This pop-art blend of cynicism, exploitation and satire was the first film auteur exploitation director Russ Meyer made under a deal with 20th Century Fox which brought him to the mainstream. It is essential, bizarre, intermittently funny and a good entry point into his world as it features the tropes colouring all his films. No doubt Meyer and 20th Century Fox looked the other way if the subject of the Manson Family’s killings of 1969 were brought up in relation to the film’s explosive climax which was supposedly inspired by the atrocities.
The Seven Minutes (**) was the second and last film Meyer made for 20th Century Fox. A courtroom drama posited as a plea for free speech, it adapts an Irving Wallace book hinging on the premise that a rapist was driven to it by a book in the sights of an anti-smut group. Political machinations, cod psychology, scapegoating and a heavily telegraphed reveal are dumped in the lumpy mix. It is overlong, talky and Meyer’s trademark constant-cutting does not work in this context. Moreover, in seeking to be righteous, it is no fun. Despite the book getting a clean bill of health in the court, the fate of the rapist and his accomplice are not addressed at all, leaving a bad taste. Neither Meyer nor the studio seemed concerned with the rape (seen repeatedly in flashback). It is not hard to see why this was the director's swansong with the studio.
Both are released to home cinema concurrently as separate packages (they formed a now sold-out, limited-edition single Blu-ray package earlier this year). Beyond the Valley of the Dolls comes on stand-alone Blu-ray for the first time and is stuffed with the extras ported over from the 2006 double-DVD package. If anyone has not already seen the film, this is a must. The unnecessary The Seven Minutes is on DVD only and has two extras: the trailer and a cable TV interview with Meyer and Yvette Vickers (who he had photographed as a model) which is not germane to the film.
