Jumpsuits & Teleporters

I just watched Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, which is one of three screenplays written by Roger Ebert. What a totally bizarre and non-sequitur film. The dialogue is pretty memorable (“You’re a moonchild,” and in response, “You’re a bitch.”). The cuts between scenes were jagged and quick, which made it even more absurd. All in all, the soundtrack completed the film. Which, by the way, I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy. What a fun movie! I went into without expectations and found it completely entertaining.

Roger Ebert reflects on the cult classic:

And the movie as a whole? I think of it as an essay on our generic expectations. It’s an anthology of stock situations, characters, dialogue, cliches and stereotypes, set to music and manipulated to work as exposition and satire at the same time; it’s cause and effect, a wind-up machine to generate emotions, pure movie without message. The strange thing about the movie is that it continues to play successfully to completely different audiences for different reasons. When Meyer and I were hired a few years later to work on an ill-fated Sex Pistols movie called “Who Killed Bambi?” we were both a little nonplussed, I think, to hear Johnny Rotten explain that he liked “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls” because it was so true to life.