PCA Retro Review/Event Board Special: Hollywood Egyptian Theatre Screens “Valley of the Dolls” and “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls” Sept. 1st, 2010

Join John LaZar and Dolly Read for a once in a lifetime "feaked out happening" as Hollywood's Egyptian Theatre does a back to back screening of "Valley of the Dolls" and "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls"!

Do you live in the Los Angeles area?  You looking for a freaked out happening?  Well on Wednesday September 1^st the historic Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard is featuring a double feature screening of two  camp classics, Valley of the Dolls (1967) and one of my personal all time favorite films, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970), in their continuing series celebrating the 75^th Anniversary of 20^th Century Fox Studios!  This special night of sex, drugs, music and debauchery will be hosted by none other then Ronnie “Z-Man” Barzell himself, John LaZar along with special guests Dolly Read, who played Beyond the Valley of the Doll’s central character Kelly McNamara, and Beyond the Valley of the Doll’s law student straight man Harrison Page!

Patty Duke, Sharon Tate and Barbara Parkins camp it up in "Valley of the Dolls" (1967)

Based on the notorious novel by author Jacqueline Susann, Valley of the Dolls was released by 20^th Century Fox a year after the book’s publication.  Starring Patty Duke, Sharon Tate, Barbara Parkins and Susan Hayward, Valley of the Dolls has become one of the most beloved over the top unintentionally funny films of all time.  Valley of the Dolls tells about the rise and fall of three women from the New York theatre scene – Neely O’Hara, played by Patty Duke, who is a young and spunky breakout starlet who gets tangled in an rivalry with aging Broadway diva Helen Lawson, played by Susan Hayward; Anne Welles, a New England debutante who enters the world of fashion, only to find herself unable to deal with the pressure and reverting to drugs as a way to cope; and Jennifer North, played by Sharon Tate, who is a model who is unable to break away from her good looks and be respected for her other attributes.  Through their personal melodramas, the three women find that fame has a price, leading them to a dark road of drugs and other desperate acts in order to maintain and survive.  In the end one woman finds redemption, one madness and one death. 

Patty Duke reaches for her "dolls" as Neely O'Hara in once of the strangest performances of her career

Directed by Mark Robson, Valley of the Dolls has a strange surreal quality to it, primarily due to the fact that all the actors over act to the highest extreme.  Furthermore, in many cases art was imitating life in Valley of the Dolls.  The part of Helen Lawson was originally intended to be played by Judy Garland, who was fired from the film due to her own problems with drugs and alcohol.  Before leaving Garland stole her wardrobe and was seen wearing her Valley of the Dolls costumes in later stage shows.  Meanwhile, child protégé Patty Duke was having her own battle with alcohol and drugs at the time of filming.  Finally, Sharon Tate, who had her own personal hang ups about not being taken seriously by directors and producers due to her sex symbol status, was virtually reliving her own reality in the role of Jennifer North.  Tragically, just as Tate’s character would meet her tragic demise in the film, Tate would meet her demise two years later at the hands of the Manson Family.

Rightfully panned by critics during its release, Valley of the Dolls was still a box office success and has become a much loved guilty pleasure to film fans world wide.  However the best, and the strangest, was yet to come.

With the success of Valley of the Dolls, 20^th Century Fox wanted a sequel.  However, when Susann refused to provide a second story Fox studios did the unexpected by giving pornographer Russ Meyer full reign to do whatever he wanted as long as he produced a sequel in the same vein of the first tilm.  Instead of doing another serious drama, Meyer decided that his version of Dolls would be a parody of the first and he hired the most unlikeliest of cohorts, famed film critic Roger Ebert, to collaborate on a script with him.  Taking every single taboo they could possibly think of, including sex, drugs, rock n’ roll, extortion, lesbians, orgies, paraplegics, suicide, abortion, road rage, Nazis, transsexuality, bondage, decapitation, porn stars and much much more, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls was born.  Learning of it’s conception, Suzann immediately set her lawyers on 20^th Century Fox, forcing the studio to put a disclaimer at the beginning of the film separating it from Valley of the Dolls, and having the studio put the slogan “This is not a sequel.  There has never been anything like it” in all the advertising.  However, the slogan described Beyond the Valley of the Dolls exactly and the film is a colorful and fast paced masterpiece of erotic fun! 

"BVD's" stars Dolly Read, Marcia McBloom and Cynthia Myers as The Carrie Nations

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls focuses on the journey of an all girl rock n’ roll band made up of lead singer Kelly McNamara, played by Dolly Read, bassist Casey Anderson, played by Cynthia Meyer and drummer Pet Danforth, played by Macia McBroom, who travel with their manager, and Kelly’s lover, Harris Allsworth to Los Angeles in search of fame, fortune, and Kelly’s long lost Aunt Susan.  When Susan introduces Kelly to record producer extraordinaire, the bizarre Ronnie “Z-Man” Barzell, a power struggle between Z-Man and the jilted Harris begins as Z-Man takes the reigns of the group, renaming them The Carrie Nations, and turns them into stars.  As the three girls find love in Los Angeles, they discover that walking to close to excess will bring their own down falls.  The ending results in a drug induced orgy and massacre, as secrets are revealed and lives are lost in one of the strangest film endings ever.

Assembling a young and exciting cast of Hollywood swingers and Playboy models, Russ Meyer created a surreal vision of 1960’s Los Angeles hipster culture.  Dolly Read and John LaZar are the ying and yang that hold the film together, with Dolly being the focus character and LaZar being the puppet master that plays all of the characters off of one another.  Beyond the Valley of the Dolls also features Michael Blodgett as male gold digger Lance Rocke, Edy Williams as outrageous porn star Ashley St. Ives, Erica Gavin as lesbian fashion designer Roxanne, Harrison Page as straight man law student Emerson Thorne, Phyllis Davis as sweet and innocent Susan Lake, Charles Napier as square jawed business man Baxter Wolfe and James Inglehart as angry boxer Randy Black. 

Valley of the Dolls and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls are camp masterpieces of extraordinary quality and have a rich history.  If you are in the Los Angles area don’t dare miss the opportunity to see both of these films in the historical Egyptian Theatre with three very special guests:

Dolly Read – Although she had a relatively short acting career in Hollywood, British beauty Dolly Read is most famous for her appearance as Playboy’s May Playmate of the Month in 1966.  However, with her wide eyed enthusiasm and wholesome good looks, Read beautifully brought Beyond the Valley of the Dolls heroine Kelly McNamara, a young girl who gets torn between love, greed, opportunity and the personal agendas of three men, to life in an unforgettable performance.   Marrying comedian Dick Martin in 1974, Read spent most of the 1970’s appearing as a celebrity contestant on a number of game shows, most notably Match Game, before retiring from show business in the early 1980s. 

John LaZar – As the unforgettable Ronnie “Z-Man” Barzell, John LaZar gave a performance of a lifetime in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, and became the glue that held the film together.  A classically trained actor from San Francisco, LaZar worked with Russ Meyer again in Supervixen (1975) and found further success in Roger Corman’s Death Stalker II (1987) and as Dr. Fez on the short lived cable series Click.  Currently LaZar is appearing in Alex Horwitz’s award winning horror short Alice Jacobs is Dead. 

Harrison Page – As one of the only untainted characters from Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, the handsome wide smiled Harrison Page brought a certain morality to a film full of seedy characters and taboo topics.  Making his film debut in Russ Meyer’s classic Vixen! (1968), hailed as the first true pornography film, Harrison Page has had a long and successful career as a character actor in Hollywood, appearing in dozens of television favorites, including regular roles on Gimme a Break, Benson, Sledge Hammer, Ally McBeal, ER and JAG.   For more on Harrison Page check out is web-site at http://www.harrisonpage.com.

Believe me friends when I say that I wish I was in Los Angeles for this event.   This is a one night only opportunity that gets way at 7 pm at the historical Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood.  I wish I could be there.  If you can don’t dare miss it or you shall drink the black sperm of my vengence!