BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS

Sunday, September 3 & Friday, September 8 | Having made a name for himself as the “King of the Nudies,” sexploitation master Russ Meyer was given a substantial budget by Twentieth Century-Fox to direct a sequel to one of their biggest hits: Mark Robson’s 1967 VALLEY OF THE DOLLS. With a script written by Roger Ebert, Meyer’s film is a satirical, psychedelic cautionary tale about three young female musicians who head to Hollywood determined to make it big, but are instead pulled into a sleazy world of sex and drugs. BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS was given an X rating by the MPAA (reclassified as NC-17 in 1990) and Grace Kelly, who was a member of Fox’s board of directors, lobbied to have Meyer’s contract to the studio terminated. Critics branded Meyers a “pornographer” and Jacqueline Susann, author of Valley of the Dolls sued Fox—and posthumously won—for damaging her reputation with the film because it “employs total nudity and is scandalous of content.” Disney purchased Fox and their entire library of films in 2019, but has yet to make BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS available on Disney+.

Contra/Banned Series: As a disturbing wave of bans—on books, on bodies, on identities—continues to sweep across the United States, the Film Center declares: get your censorship off our cinema. With Contra/Banned, we present 10 films that have experienced, in varying absurd degrees, their own bans and outcries, their own protests and regulations. The films of Contra/Banned are at times subversive, controversial, taboo, provocative, and shocking. Sounds like a good time at the movies to us. View full series.

The Film Center is ADA accessible. This presentation will be projected without open captions. The theater is hearing-loop equipped. For accessibility requests, please email filmcenter@saic.edu