Ever seen "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls"?
Roger Ebert was a movie critic who was trusted and cherished by many folks nationwide, but something many people don't know about him is that he has one lone screenwriting credit to his name: An X-rated film released in 1970 called "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" (conceived as a dark parody of the Sharon Tate flick).
While it didn't make history or anything, it made enough of a splash at the box office to inspire Russ Meyer (its director) to continue making movies for awhile. HOWEVER...after attempting to watch this film for myself, I can understand why Ebert pretty much stuck to critiquing movies after this thing came out, instead of trying to write his own!
While the comedy writing itself is humorous, Meyers' sloppy direction had the jokes moving at too quick of a pace for me to be able to appreciate them. One of the most important ingredients in comedy is timing - and unfortunately that's something this movie could NOT get right.
On top of this, while I completely understand that this may have been the movie's point about life in LA, literally every single character is either grotesque, obnoxious, shallow or brain-dead beyond belief. To watch characters like these for any longer than ten seconds should be a crime punishable by death!
Finally, the main character is painful to listen to, because despite the movie taking place in the United States and the actress being English, her accent is BEYOND inconsistent in this movie, like she couldn't decide if she was trying to keep her own accent or attempt an American one!
By the halfway mark of the movie's runtime, I had to turn it off. I wouldn't go as far as to call it unwatchable, but it definitely wasn't worth finishing. What a horrible fate to have penned a script only to have it turned into such garbage as this!
While it didn't make history or anything, it made enough of a splash at the box office to inspire Russ Meyer (its director) to continue making movies for awhile. HOWEVER...after attempting to watch this film for myself, I can understand why Ebert pretty much stuck to critiquing movies after this thing came out, instead of trying to write his own!
While the comedy writing itself is humorous, Meyers' sloppy direction had the jokes moving at too quick of a pace for me to be able to appreciate them. One of the most important ingredients in comedy is timing - and unfortunately that's something this movie could NOT get right.
On top of this, while I completely understand that this may have been the movie's point about life in LA, literally every single character is either grotesque, obnoxious, shallow or brain-dead beyond belief. To watch characters like these for any longer than ten seconds should be a crime punishable by death!
Finally, the main character is painful to listen to, because despite the movie taking place in the United States and the actress being English, her accent is BEYOND inconsistent in this movie, like she couldn't decide if she was trying to keep her own accent or attempt an American one!
By the halfway mark of the movie's runtime, I had to turn it off. I wouldn't go as far as to call it unwatchable, but it definitely wasn't worth finishing. What a horrible fate to have penned a script only to have it turned into such garbage as this!
31-35, M
