Sex and drugs and rock and roll!! That about sums up BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, a lightning-fast paced Russ Meyer extravaganza covering the end of the decadent 60’s with a BANG… literally! The movie was originally intended to be a sequel to 1967’s soapy and sappy VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, but Meyer and screenwriter Roger Ebert (yes, THAT Roger Ebert!) changed course and concocted this satirical, surrealistic saga that skewers Hollywood, rock music, the sexual revolution, and anything else that got in its way.
Like the original, the story concerns three nubile young ladies trying to make it out in La-La Land (that’s Los Angeles, folks), only this time they’re a Midwestern rock power trio named The Kelly Affair. Kelly (Dolly Read, former Playmate and soon-to-be wife of comedian Dick Martin), Pet (model/actress Marcia McBroom), and Casey (Playmate Cynthia Meyers), along with Kelly’s boyfriend and band manager Harris…
I’ll say this much — Marvel Studios’ latest mega-blockbuster, Doctor Strange, certainly is an amazing feast for the eyes. From the amazing opening fight sequence to the trippy other-dimensional mystical mindscapes peppered throughout the film, director Scott Derrickson (who also co-wrote the script along with John Spaihts and the erudite-sounding C. Robert Cargill) pulls out all the stops to “wow” you and succeeds in his goal admirably. In fact, if there’s ever been a flick that you need to see in 3-DD, Imax, and all that shit, it’s this one.
Here’s the rub, though : if you’ve seen all, some, or even just one of Marvel’s other cinematic products, then you really don’t “need” to see this thing at all.
By all rights, of course, this movie (which only came out two weeks ago, but I’m slapping my “Late To The Party” header on it anyway since most people…
Don’t get me wrong. I love movies, as anyone who has spent any time reading this site should know. I consider both the Alamo Drafthouse and the Dallas Angelika to be a second home. But, even if I didn’t have a degree and I was totally alone in the world and I desperately needed a job, I could never work at either one of them. I would be scared that, if I did, the act of going to the movies would lose its magic. My love of film would be destroyed by the drudgery of employment. (For that same reason, I could also never work in a book store.)
That’s something that I find myself thinking about as I look at Edward Hopper’s New York Movie. As a writer, it’s impossible for me to look at any painting or photograph without immediately trying to turn it into a short story. While the theater’s the audience is sucked into the fantasy of cinema, the usher stands to the side and appears to be lost in thought. Much as I’ve looked at John French Sloan’s Movies, Five Cents and subsequently spent hours considering who the woman in the audience is looking at, New York Movie has inspired me to spend hours wondering what the usher is thinking about while the audience watches the movie. Is she bored or is she sad? Is she thinking about the movie or the audience or about what she’s going to do when she gets off work? Does she like the movie, does she hate the movie, or has she reached the point where she doesn’t even notice the movie?
Edward Hopper’s best known work was Nighthawks, that famous painting of four people in an all-night diner. Hopper’s model for New York Movie‘s usher was his wife, Jo, who posed under a lamp outside of their apartment.
I don’t want to talk about the messy history and battles over this song.
I am taking mvdbase’s word and saying this was released the same year as the single.
The music video makes a great double feature with Herbie Hancock’s Rockit. That one put turntablism at the forefront of the song. This one does the exact opposite by making Melle Mel’s vocals the focus of the song. The visuals are also at opposite ends of the spectrum. Rockit is very experimental and surreal. The Message is very down-to-earth and realistic. It does have some video effects, but it is all focused on the environment in which the character in the song lives. They filmed it in Harlem, New York.
Recently, TCM aired THE BROADWAY MELODY OF 1940, starring Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell. There was plenty of singing and dancing, but one scene in particular caught my eye:
Holy guacamole!! Who was this blonde cutie bouncing balls off her head and juggling plates with aplomb? Well, your Cracked Rear Viewer spared no expense to get to the bottom of this mystery! Her name was Trixie Firschke, and she was known as Queen of the Jugglers. She was born in Hungary in 1920 to a family of circus entertainers, and began learning her craft at the age of 11. Trixie and her family travelled across Europe, playing for capacity crowds and heads of state, including Adolph Hitler, who gave the young girl an autographed box of bon-bons (she later said she found him very scary!). In 1938, the clan moved to America except her mom and sick younger sister. Times…
How long have movies been an important part of life? Well, consider this. The painting above, John French Sloan’s Movies, Five Cents, was painted in 1907! It depicts what most of us, up until a few years ago, would have considered to be a fairly modern scene. A group of people sit in a theater and watch a movie. Well, almost all of them are watching. The center of the painting is the one woman who is not watching the movie but who instead appears to be staring straight at the observer. Is she watching us or has she caught us watching her?
Of course, today, things are changing. There are so many new ways to watch movies that it’s hard not to feel that the whole ritual of going down to a theater to see the latest release will soon be as passé as dial-up internet or having a landline phone. Right now, you look at this painting and you marvel at the very idea of being able to see a movie for five cents. In the future, we may find ourselves marveling at the idea of actually leaving the house to watch a film. We may look at this painting and say, “This painting reminds me of what it was like when movie theaters still existed.” And then our children will say, “What’s a painting?”
That’s life.
Til then, I love this painting. Movies, Five Cents is a prime example of the Ashcan School of art. Inspired by socialism and Marxism and all that stuff, The Ashcan School rebelled against both impressionism and academic realism and instead, attempted to capture scenes of real life, especially among the poor. John French Sloan was one of the leading artists in the Aschan School and he remained a fervent socialist for his entire life.
Is there a political subtext to Movies, Five Cents? Honestly, who cares? I’m more interested in trying to figure out what movie they’re watching. It looks romantic!
I was going to save this for Inauguration Day, but I decided to go with it now for two reasons. One is that it is one of my favorite songs and music videos, so I couldn’t wait any longer. The second reason is that I came across a music video where Ric Ocasek of The Cars walks on water while Uncle Sam and others grab at him and he sings the line “Got A Hold On You”. The water being in a pool at Paris Hilton’s family’s estate. That’ll do unless I find something else better.
I don’t have much to say except to watch it. I’ll share a little backstory on it though, courtesy of the book I Want My MTV.
Steve Backer:
“When Living Colour came around, it was a head-scratcher. ‘Cult of Personality’ seems like an obvious hit now, but let’s face it, four black guys doing rock n’ roll wasn’t your everyday thing. The reaction from MTV wasn’t so much resistance as confusion: ‘What do we do with it?”
Vernon Reid, Living Colour:
“When I saw the playback of ‘Cult of Personality,’ I was like, America isn’t ready for this. There’s footage of SS troops, shots of Mussolini. It’s very confrontational.”
Steve Backer:
“The fact is, I got Living Colour on MTV by threatening to withhold a new Michael Jackson video. I called Frank DiLeo, who’d worked at Epic Records and was managing Michael. The ‘Smooth Criminal’ video was about to come out, and we had to decide who’d get the world premiere. I told Frank, ‘I’m having trouble getting Living Colour on MTV. Can I tell them they’re not going to get Michael unless they deal with Living Colour?’ Frank was our former head of promotion. He understood. He said, ‘Do what you gotta do. I’ll back you up.’
So I went to see Abbey, whom I didn’t know well. I was ridiculously nervous. I had Living Colour in one hand and Michael Jackson in the other. Abbey said, ‘Backer, this is not how we do business.’ And I said, ‘It’s exactly how you do business.’ They put ‘Cult of Personality’ into rotation.”
Corey Glover, Living Colour:
“We owe most of our career to Michael Jackson.”
Here is a live performance they gave in the past 10 years or so:
I love the song. I love the music video. I love that they didn’t let them being black keep them from doing rock. We need more artists that don’t let skin color, gender, where they grew up, or any other thing like that keep them from the kind of music they like or might be good at.
If Living Colour is up your alley, then I recommend the album …For the Whole World to See by Death. They’re the all-black proto-punk group that didn’t have their record released in the pre-Ramones 70s simply because they wouldn’t change their name. There’s a documentary about them that I also recommend called A Band Called Death (2012).
Here is their song Politicians In My Eyes that goes along with Cult of Personality:
You can find out about the director of the music video at his website.
Now that you’ve watched Blood Freak, be sure to take part in another great Thanksgiving tradition and spare 18 minutes to learn about the day that Arlo Guthrie was arrested for littering and how that heinous crime later effected his draft status.
On its 50th anniversary, enjoy Alice’s Restaurant Massacree and have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Before you eat all that Thanksgiving turkey, save some room for a real MOVIE turkey about a man who becomes a hopeless pothead, eats some tainted turkey, and winds up turning into a giant turkey craving the blood of stoners! Sound bizarre? You bet your giblets it is! Hosted by YouTube’s “Al Omega”, here’s 1972’s BLOOD FREAK! Gobble, gobble!:
Through the Shattered Lens 
