Since 1959, Russ Meyer has produced and directed sexploitation films well enough to earn him a dubious title: "King of the Skin Flicks." Prior to Meyer, nudie-movie makers relied for subject matter on piously salacious studies of such hackneyed anti-heroines as unhappy nymphomaniacs and remorseful Lesbians. Meyer changed all that by hyping the formula with hokey melodrama and a bawdy sense of humor; more important, he filled the screen with a cascade of cleavage and eclipsed his competitors' sleazy products with skillful cinematography and superior production. As a result, Meyer's films--24 in all--have never failed to earn at least four times their cost. From his very first production, The Immoral Mr. Teas, to such epidermal epics as Mud Honey, Motor Psycho, Eve and the Handyman and Finders Keepers, Lovers Weepers, Meyer proved he could fill almost any downtown theater that doubled as a cheap place to sleep. Then, last year, along came Vixen, which he shot for a shoestring $72,000--and which has thus far grossed more than $6,000,000 in first-run moviehouses. Vixen's success caught the eye of Hollywood's major studios, many of which were--and still are--floundering about for quick bucks to bail them out of near bankruptcy. After seeing the film, 20th Century-Fox's Richard Zanuck said, "If he can produce those values for that kind of money, we need him here." Meyer was signed forth-with to a multipicture contract, and the first of his $2,000,000 productions--huge for him, modest for Fox--is Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, which will reach the screen this fall. A predictably prurient follow-up to the big-box-office potboiler, it traces the rise and fall of The Carrie Nations, an all-girl rock trio. Two members of the group are portrayed by Playmates; 25-year-old Dolly Read graced our centerfold in May 1966 and 20-year-old Cynthia Myers in December 1968. The third is played by Marcia McBroom, a 21-year-old fashion model. After an opening-scene sneak preview of two grisly murders, Valley begins with The Carrie Nations playing at a high school prom. In a motel room after the dance, Kelly MacNamara (Miss Read) decides that the group will split for Los Angeles, where she plans to claim from an aunt a portion of her family's $1,000,000 estate. The aunt, who turns out to be the au courant proprietress of a hip ad agency, takes the girls to a Hollywood version of a Hollywood party, where they're "discovered" by the rock impresario who is always present at such occasions. The girls, of course, immediately achieve national prominence; and, almost as rapidly, they slide in and out of love--and bed--with a procession of male and female partners. Jealousies, both professional and (text concluded on page 128) amorous, involving an assortment of satanic swingers, eventually crescendo in the film's improbable climax: four murders, three weddings and one nearly successful suicide attempt. Like Meyer's other flicks, Valley is a lusty, lightheaded entertainment that offers ample opportunities to watch a number of extravagantly endowed beauties in the throes of polymorphous passion. Meyer boasts, in fact, that his next sex saga--Irving Wallace's The Seven Minutes--will feature twice as many (count'em) acts of intercourse as his long-green Valley. If he makes good on that boast, Meyer could conceivably put Fox back into the black--but he may also drive stag-movie makers out of business.
