Michael Blodgett in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

'Look there. Lance Rocke.  Greek God and part-time actor.  See how well he performs?  His is a special talent.  The golden hair, the bedroom eyes, the firm young body.  These are the tools with which he plies his trade.  All are available for a price.'

Ronnie (Z-Man) Barzell 

Once again actor Michael Blodgett is the object of obsession, this time it's record producer Ronnie (Z-Man) Barzell, (John Lazar) who wants a piece of his firm young body.  I had heard a bit about the 1970 film Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, but had never seen it before.  Not sure how I lived this long without seeing Lance Rocke (Blodgett) tied up and rolling around in his  leopard skin briefs. 

Originally intended as a sequel to the 1967 film Valley of the Dolls, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls was instead revised as a parody of the commercially successful but critically reviled original. Beyond met a similar fate; it was initially panned by critics but became a box office success. The film later developed a cult following in subsequent decades, and earned some critical reappraisal for its satirical and metafictional elements. 

Directed by Russ Meyer and screen written by Roger Ebert, (Siskel & Ebert)  the film follows three girl rockers who come to Hollywood to make it big.  Instead, all they find is sex, drugs and sleaze.  They also find the lovely Lance and the Z-Man which doesn't exactly end that well...

Near the end of the film, Z-Man invites Casey, Roxanne, and Lance to a psychedelic-fueled party at his house. After Z-Man tries to seduce Lance, who spurns him, he reveals that he has breasts and is a female in drag. Z-Man goes on a murderous rampage: he kills Lance with a sword, stabs his servant Otto to death, and shoots Roxanne and Casey, killing them. 

Although I hated the trans and homophobia in the film, I'll cut it just a tiny bit of slack given it was made in 1970.  So many films of the 70's and 80's and even beyond, often  used the tired and dangerous trope of making trans and gay characters the killers and psychopaths  In this case, the eccentric rock producer Z-Man was actually based on real-life producer Phil Spector.  Given that about three decades after the film's release, Spector was convicted of murder, the writers made a good choice..  

The violent ending was not actually in Ebert's original script.  It was inspired and added by the real-life Tate-LaBianca murders perpetrated by members of the Manson Family the year prior.  Sharon Tate was one of the stars of the Original Valley of the Dolls film, so it made sense in a warped sort of way...

Sadly though, Ebert wasn't as creative with the gay characters he created as every gay, lesbian and transsexual character in the film winds up dead by the time the credits role  I was rather annoyed watching the film, it was loud, but visually and sound wise and the dialogue, even for a parody, was badly written.  I given Ebert props only, for taking advantage of Blodgett's reputation of a Hollywood himbo and getting him those leopard skin briefs.  

A nude scene would have been nice, but Blodgett in bondage and leopard skin briefs was hot!  You can download the scene on SendSpace HERE: