Sightlines · reception
How Beyond the Valley of the Dolls was received
1970 · Russ Meyer · Beyond the Valley of the Dolls on Sightlines
The arc
Savaged by critics on release in 1970 (Fox executives were reportedly horrified by their own X-rated studio picture), it's since been fully rehabilitated as one of the great camp artifacts of Hollywood — John Waters famously called it, 'beyond a doubt, the best movie ever made,' and Criterion gave it a release in 2016.
What’s debated
The eternal fan debate: is it a knowing, razor-sharp satire that's fully in on the joke, or glorious trash that became a masterpiece by accident — and does the distinction even matter?
Its footprint
'This is my happening and it freaks me out!' escaped the film entirely — Mike Myers lifted it for Austin Powers — and Z-Man's dialogue gets quoted wholesale in reviews and lists to this day.
Where it stands
A cornerstone of the camp/cult canon and a reliable Letterboxd five-star-with-a-screaming-review favorite — the studio-made midnight movie par excellence.
Did you know? The screenplay was written by film critic Roger Ebert — decades before his Pulitzer, he co-wrote this X-rated Fox production with Russ Meyer, and Jacqueline Susann's displeasure led to an opening disclaimer clarifying it was not a sequel to Valley of the Dolls.