Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is a 1970 American satirical[6][7] musical melodrama film starring Dolly Read, Cynthia Myers, Marcia McBroom, Phyllis Davis, John LaZar, Michael Blodgett, Erica Gavin, and David Gurian.

The four travel to Los Angeles to find Kelly's estranged aunt, Susan Lake, heiress to a family fortune.

Undeterred, Susan introduces the Kelly Affair to a flamboyant, well-connected rock producer, Ronnie "Z-Man" Barzell, who coaxes them into an impromptu performance at one of his outrageous parties (after a set by the real-life band Strawberry Alarm Clock).

The band is so well-received that Z-Man becomes their svengali manager, changing their name to the Carrie Nations and starting a long-simmering feud with Harris.

Casey, distraught at getting pregnant and wary of men's foibles, has a lesbian affair with fashion designer Roxanne, who pressures her to have an abortion.

Their fairy-tale romance frays when Pet sleeps with Randy Black, a violent prize fighter who beats up Emerson and tries to run him down with a car.

Upset at being pushed to the sidelines, Harris attempts suicide by leaping from the rafters of a sound stage during a television appearance by the band.

Responding to a desperate phone call Casey made shortly before her death, Kelly, Harris, Pet, and Emerson arrive at Z-Man's house to subdue him.

[16] Neither of them had read the novel, but they watched the 1967 film and used the same formula: "Three young girls come to Hollywood, find fame and fortune, are threatened by sex, violence, and drugs, and either do or do not win redemption", according to Ebert.

[17] He later added: "We would include some of the sensational elements of the original story- homosexuality, crippling diseases, characters based on 'real' people, events out of recent headlines - but, again, with flat-out exaggeration".

[18] The script was not only a spoof of the original film but also, in Ebert's words, "a satire of Hollywood conventions, genres, situations, dialogue, characters, and success formulas, heavily overlaid with such shocking violence that some critics didn't know whether the movie 'knew' it was a comedy".

[10] Ebert said the plot was derived in collaboration "by creating characters and then working out situations to cover the range of exploitable content we wanted in the film.

There had to be music, mod clothes, black characters, violence, romantic love, soap opera situations, behind-the-scenes intrigue, fantastic sets, lesbians, orgies, drugs and (eventually) an ending that tied everything together".

[18] Meyer's intention was for the film to "simultaneously be a satire, a serious melodrama, a rock musical, a comedy, a violent exploitation picture, a skin flick, and a moralistic expose (so soon after the Sharon Tate murders) of what the opening crawl called 'the oft-times nightmarish world of Show Business'".

Some of the actors asked me whether their dialogue wasn't supposed to be humorous, but Meyer discussed it so seriously with them that they hesitated to risk offending him by voicing such a suggestion.

[17] Because the film was put together so quickly, some plot decisions, such as the character Z-Man being revealed as a woman in drag,[30] were made on the spot, without the chance to align previous already-shot scenes with the new development.

It's an anthology of stock situations, characters, dialogue, clichés and stereotypes, set to music and manipulated to work as exposition and satire at the same time; it's cause and effect, a wind-up machine to generate emotions, pure movie without message.

Phillips adapted Paul Dukas' The Sorcerer's Apprentice for the psychedelic scene at Z-Man's house near the film's end.

However, on the 2003/4 Beyond the Valley of the Dolls CD, there are the original film versions, with Lynn Carey and Barbara "Sandi" Robison as bonus tracks.

The CD, from the labels: Soundtrack Classics - SCL 1408 and Harkit Records - HRKCD 8032, is missing the song "Once I Had Love", which is mentioned in the credits but not heard in the film itself.

The six songs, initially sung by Lynn Carey and Barbara Robison, are: "Find It", "In the Long Run", "Sweet Talkin' Candyman", "Come with the Gentle People", "Look On Up At the Bottom", and "Once I Had Love".

"Incense and Peppermints", some incidental music, and the Strawberry Alarm Clock's Hammond organ instrumental "Toy Boy" are missing from all soundtrack releases.

Meyer's response to the original X rating was to attempt to re-edit the film to insert more nudity and sex, but Fox wanted to get the movie released quickly and would not give him the time.

20th Century Fox re-released it on the second disc of the four-disc variety feature pack, Studio Classics: Set 9, which also includes All About Eve, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, and Valley of the Dolls, on May 4, 2010.

[40] Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times panned the film as "a treat for the emotionally retarded, sexually inadequate and dimwitted.

[42] Mike Wallington of The Monthly Film Bulletin called it "corny, moralising, guileless, and visually about as appealing as a Christmas wrapper.

The critical consensus reads: "Confidently campy and played with groovy conviction, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is an exuberant expression of both the hilarity and terror that comes with free love".

[48][49] Despite an X rating and a modest budget of $900,000,[3] Beyond the Valley of the Dolls grossed ten times that amount in the U.S. market,[5] qualifying it as a hit for Fox.