Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
Twentieth Century Fox | Release Date: June 17, 1970 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
60
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 10 Critic Reviews
Positive:
6
Mixed:
2
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
88
Slant MagazineClayton Dillard
While Roger Ebert’s screenplay contains overt jabs at Hollywood’s culture of exploitation, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls cannot be called anything but sincere regarding its penchant for buxom female anatomy. Read full review
80
SlateJ. Bryan Lowder
The madcap, sexy, borderline-surrealist film is impossible to summarize, but calling it a fast-and-loose Hollywood fantasia on A Midsummer Night’s Dream would not be totally inaccurate. Read full review
80
Time OutStaff (Not Credited)
With his first movie for a major studio, Meyer simply did what he'd been doing for years, only bigger and better. That's to say, he turned the homely story of an all-girl rock band's rise to fame under their transsexual manager into a delirious comedy melodrama, soused in self- parody but spiked with dope, sex and thrills. Read full review
75
TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)
Russ Meyer's Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is an outrageously entertaining cult classic, and probably one of the most bizarre movies ever produced by a major Hollywood studio. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubNoel Murray
Together, Ebert and Meyer produced an unhinged spoof of soapy melodramas and hippie iconography, so over-the-top in its violence and libertine sexuality that no one in 1970 quite knew what to make of it. Read full review
75
Chicago ReaderDave Kehr
It's quite funny at times, and the expert direction is never less than vigorous, though in retrospect it seems to have marked the end of Meyer's most appealing period—his comic spirit was more expansive before he learned the word camp. Read full review
60
EmpireKim Newman
Not a sequel to the bland film of Jacqueline Susann’s trashy best-seller, this is more like a demented remake, alternating modish psychedelia with deliberately square moralising. Read full review
50
The New York TimesVincent Canby
Any movie that Jacqueline Susann thinks would damage her reputation as a writer cannot be all bad. Beyond the Valley of the Dolls isn't—which is not to say it is any good. Read full review
30
VarietyStaff (Not Credited)
This trashy, gaudy, sound-stage vulgarity about low life among the high life is as funny as a burning orphanage. Read full review
25
Entertainment WeeklyGene Siskel
As bad as Ebert’s screenplay is, Meyer’s direction is just as choppy. The film also looks ugly. Read full review
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