Good Sense, Innocence, Cripplin' Mankind

There could be no groovier, cornier or more nonsensical movie than the one I just saw. Even better, outdoors.

Seeing 1970 California through the lens of director Russ "King Leer" Meyer and screenwriter (!) Roger Ebert was the gift that just kept giving.

Mind you, when I set up my chair in the field across from Lamplighter, all I knew was the name of the movie: "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls." Since I'd only seen the original "Valley of the Dolls (wherein I'd learned that "dolls" were drugs) for the first time in 2011, I naturally assumed it was a sequel, expecting it to be as campy as the original.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

This was a movie that began by disavowing any connection to the original (author Jacqueline Susann must have had a great legal team) in the opening credits and then went on to prove why it had been given an X rating back in 1970. So. Much. Sex and violence.

And so much self-consciously hip vernacular.

Don't bogart the joint.
This is my happening and it freaks me out.
Cause I'm the ballsiest cat you ever did meet.
I dig, man. You're on an ego trip.

It was one of those movies that tried to show that it "got" the youth movement except it completely didn't.

The evil financial manager refers to the three girls in the band as hippie freaks, except he's referring to girls who wear evening gowns and have big, teased hair and lots of make-up. So not hippie chick-like at all.

In true '70s fashion, it was off-the-charts politically incorrect. Z-Man's manservant is a uniformed Nazi. A guy rapes a girl after she passes out on drugs. A lesbian couple is referred to as "not evil but evil comes of their relationship."

Ouch.

And don't get me started on the three girl band that is the focus of the story. During the many shots of them performing on guitar, bass and drums, we repeatedly hear horns and keyboards and more background vocals than could be possible with three girls.

With so many freaky parties and clubs depicted, there was no shortage of awkward, off-beat dancing, either.

What was fun, though, was seeing a real band, the Strawberry Alarm Clock, perform at Z-Man's party. I remember seeing them play that same song - "Incense and Peppermints" - on "Laugh-In" as a child and how far out the musicians seemed.

Then there was the whole hilariously-rendered sexual revolution aspect to the movie.

A porn star tells the innocent young man, "You're a groovy boy. I'd like to strap you on sometime." When he gets tired of having sex with her in so many odd places - a Rolls Royce, a canoe, the beach, a closet - he begs to do it in a bed and she calls him a fag.

Pet, the black girl in the band, meets a nice (black, of course) law student and falls for him. On a date out in the country, she chides him for kissing her instead of hitting the books. "I'll study tomorrow. Now I feel like making love," he says and then they run through dappled sunlit fields in slow motion.

Just like on shampoo commercials except to her band's corny song.

There was so much to laugh at, especially with an audience with no idea of 1970 cultural mores. "I want it, I need it, I love it when a beautiful woman licks between my toes." Yes, kids, this would have been risque back then.

When our heroine Kelly wants to convince the financial guy to give her more money, she gets him high and then takes him to bed. Reaching under the blanket, she inquires sweetly, "Porter, really, you wear your underwear to bed?" Inconceivable for 1970.

And, of course, since we're beyond the valley, drugs are rampant.

You want a downer?
The principal's supposed to hit me with a coupla caps of acid.
What you need is grass or a downer or something.
I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to learn that all four of them habitually smoke marijuana cigarettes...reefers!

That's right, it was still grass in 1970.

I guess liquor's considered pretty square.
Same as grass. Depends on how you use it.

Meyer and Ebert left no hot button stone unturned in this flick: lesbianism, abortion, decapitation, Nazism, generation gap, cross-dressing, disability humor, open relationships, suicide attempts, fetishes, drug dependency. It was pretty wonderful.

Not gonna lie. I totally dug it. No ego trip. Thanks for the groovy trip, Movie Club Richmond.