Late Night Retro Television Review: Sledge Hammer! 1.3 “Witless”

Posted on August 28, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing SLEDGE HAMMER!, a cop comedy which ran on ABC from 1986 to 1988. The entire series can be found on Prime!

This week, Sledge meets the Maninotes.

Episode 1.3 “Witless”

(Dir by Jackie Cooper, originally aired on October 3rd, 1986)

Upset that crime has fallen in the city due to the insanity of just one cop, Don Phillip Souza (Al Ruscio) announces that he will pay a million dollars to anyone who can bring him Sledge Hammer in a box. When his accountant (Basil Hoffman) points out that a million dollars is a lot of money, Souza explains that he’s running a weekly special.

Fortunately for Sledge, it turns out that the city’s assassins are even dumber than he is. On his way to work, he has several close calls that he fails to notice. A knife is tossed at him but is blocked by his newspaper (which is extra thick because of the addition of several new Zodiac signs). Two hitmen accidentally shoot each other when he leans forward. Sledge spills his poisoned coffee before he can drink it. It’s not until he arrives at work and ends up juggling a lit stick of dynamite in Captain Trunk’s office that he realizes someone is after him.

Captain Trunk orders Hammer to hide out in the country. Unfortunately, the cop driving him explains that he has 12 kids and needs the money both to pay for their school and for a vasectomy. A struggle ends with Hammer getting tossed out of the car. He lands in a field, where he is discovered by farmer Jacob (Lewis Arquette) and his daughter, Isadora (Ann Ryerson).

Jacob and Isadora may ride in a buggy and eschew modern technology, but they’re not Amish. They’re not Mennonites either. Instead, they are Maninotes. Isadora insists that Hammer stay in their farmhouse until he recovers. Jacob insists that he do chores. Sledge milks a cow. Sledge tosses hay. Sledge tries and fails to build a barn.

As you probably already guessed, “Witless” is a parody of the 1985 film Witness. It’s definitely an affectionate parody. It doesn’t make fun of the movie so much as it imagines what would have happened if Harrison Ford’s sensitive and intelligent detective had been replaced by a trigger-happy lunatic. Sledge may be attracted to Isadora, but in the end his true love remains his gun. And when the assassins (led by the Don’s accountant) arrive at the farm, Jacob and Isadora appear with machine guns. When Hammer points out that Maninotes are supposed to be against violence, Jacob shrugs. “It’s the ’80s,” he says.

Eventually, Sledge gets in a box and has himself delivered to the Don so that he can collect the money. When Officer Doreau tells Sledge that he can’t take the money because it’s evidence, Sledge laughs and says that he won’t be pressing charges. Instead, he takes the money and gives it to Jacob and Isadora. Jacob says that he’s going to repair the barn and then buy a Porsche.

This is a hilarious episode, from the sight gags at the start to Sledge’s efforts to help out around the farm. The humor is cheerfully absurd. (At one point, when the accountant is slowly creeping up on Sledge, one of the other assassins walks up and takes his place so the accountant can take a break.) David Rasche plays Sledge with just the right amount of clueless enthusiasm. I laughed throughout. Sledge Hammer may be witless, but he’s also very funny.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Sledge Hammer 1.2 “Hammer Gets Nailed”

Posted on August 21, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the liberal media comes after Sledge Hammer!

Episode 1.2 “Hammer Gets Nailed”

(Dir by Charles Braverman, originally aired on September 26th, 1986)

“HAMMER!” shouts Lt. Trunk as the episode begins.

Trunk is concerned because nosy news reporter Phil Gumm (Ronnie Schell) wants to do a ride along with Sledge Hammer. The Mayor is thinking about laying off a large percentage of the force. (I guess he’s not that grateful to the police for finding his daughter.) If Hammer screws up on camera, that’ll give the Mayor the excuse that he needs. Doreau is assigned to keep Hammer out of trouble.

So, of course, Hammer screws everything up. After forcing a convenience store thief to eat all of the store’s expired food, Hammer gets into a high-speed chase and crashes his car. Phil Gumm ends up with broken arms and a bad attitude. The Mayor promptly starts laying people off …. including Sledge Hammer!

Hammer gets a job as a crossing guard. (He even continues to wear his suit.) However, when a group of terrorists call in a bomb threat, Hammer is the one who heads down to the clock store to try to disarm it. The bomb is ticking. Unfortunately, so is every clock in the store.

“Go Hammer go!” the people watching chant.

“Go bomb go,” Trunk mutters in his office.

Fortunately, Hammer is able to find and disarm the bomb. The store is saved and so is Hammer’s job.

Yay!

This episode wasn’t quite as funny as last week but it still had plenty of laughs. David Rasche delivers his berserk lines with so much earnestness that they actually start to make a strange sort of sense. When Hammer stepped into the store and saw every clock ticking back and forth, I laughed harder than I’ve laughed in a while.

The important thing is that Hammer outsmarted the media.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Sledge Hammer! 1.1 “Under the Gun”

Posted on August 14, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

My friend Pat McCurry introduced me to Sledge Hammer earlier this year. Starring David Rasche as Detective Sledge Hammer, this show was a parody of Dirty Harry and Hunter. Since I’m currently reviewing Hunter on Thursday night, it seems only appropriate to review Sledge Hammer on Friday night!

Episode 1.1 “Under the Gun

(Dir by Martha Coolidge, originally aired on September 23rd, 1986)

“HAMMER!” shouts police Captain Trunk (Harrison Page), “YOU COULDN’T RESIST BLOWING UP A BUILDING ON YOUR WAY TO WORK THIS MORNING, COULD YOU!?”

Captain Trunk yells a lot but that’s just because he’s been put in charge of managing Detective Sledge Hammer (David Rasche), a San Francisco cop who talks to his gun and who is currently on suspension for shooting a robber at a grocery store before then buying some eggs and “those little cocktail weenies.” When asked by a reporter if his response was too violent, Hammer replied that he really needed his groceries.

For the record, Trunk is correct. Hammer did blow up a building on his way to work. There was a sniper on the roof so Hammer pulled a rocket launcher out of the back of his car and took care of the problem.

Despite all of that, the mayor (John Vernon, who previously played San Francisco’s mayor in Dirty Harry) orders that Sledge Hammer be taken off suspension. The Mayor’s daughter, Francie (Judie Aronson), has disappeared. (“She was either kidnapped or she is just very good at hiding.”) The police think that she was taken by the Allied Violent Offence Network (AVON), a terrorist group led by Weird Willy Luxley (D.W. Brown). Weird Willy is so evil that his own parents gave him up for adoption three years before he was born. The Mayor thinks that Sledge Hammer’s unapologetic embrace of violence is the way to go.

Hammer is assigned a partner, Dori Doreau (Anne-Marie Martin), an expert in negotiation and criminal psychology. At first, Hammer is uneasy about working with a woman. But, when he sees her beat up a man with a shotgun, he’s impressed. “That was excessively violent and totally unnecessary. I loved it.” Doreau mentions she was at the top of her class in hand-to-hand combat. “I’d like to fight you sometimes, Doreau,” Hammer replies.

Hammer promises to bring back “the mayor’s daughter, dead or alive.” Reasoning that it’s usually a member of the family who is to blame in cases like this, Hammer arrests and interrogates the Mayor’s wife. That gets Hammer suspended again but it turns out that Hammer was half-right. It wasn’t the Mayor’s wife. Instead, in true Patty Hearst manner, it turns out that Francie Flambo is a member of AVON and she arranged her own kidnapping!

It all leads to a shootout in a warehouse, as these things often do. When AVON makes their ransom demand, Doreau is sent to deliver the money. (She’s actually given a suitcase full of shredded paper.) Sledge Hammer crashes through a skylight and lands on a box, grinning.

“Why are you smiling!?” Weird Willie Luxley demands.

“I’m trigger happy, that’s why!” Hammer replies.

Soon, all of the members of AVON have been subdued and Francie has been arrested. The Mayor offers Doreau a promotion but Doreau refuses to accept it because she feels that Hammer is not being given the recognition that he deserves.

This seems like the start of a beautiful friendship.

The first episode of Sledge Hammer may be 40 years old but it’s still feels relevant and the laughs still feel earned. As played by David Rasche, Sledge Hammer is the perfect parody of every unapologetically violent action hero. Though there are hints of attraction between him and Doreau, the episode makes it pretty clear that Hammer’s true love is for his gun. At the same time, there’s something rather refreshing about Hammer’s total and complete lack of angst. As I watched this episode, it occurred to me that Hammer would probably get as annoyed with Daniel Craig’s self-pitying version of James Bond as I do.

This pilot was enjoyable and funny 26 minutes of pure entertainment. I look forward to reviewing the rest of the series!

The Films of 2025: Magazine Dreams (dir by Elijah Bynum)

Posted on December 27, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Remember Magazine Dreams?

Though Magazine Dreams did not get a brief theatrical release until 2025, the film first made an impression two years earlier. At the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, Magazine Dreams was one of the most buzzed about entries. A film about a mentally unbalanced body-building fanatic, the film starred Jonathan Majors. Majors was on top of the world at that time. Not only was he being groomed to be the new center of the Marvel Cinematic Universe but he was also just a few months away from playing the antagonist in the highly anticipated Creed III. The U.S. Army was using Majors in recruitment commercials. Both Magazine Dreams and Majors’s performance were lauded at Sundance. Some critics started to say that Majors had, at the very least, an Oscar nomination in his future.

Then, on March 25th, 2023, Jonathan Majors was arrested and charged with assaulting his ex-girlfriend. Several other women came forward and said that they had also been abused physically and emotionally by Majors. The Army stopped airing his commercials. Marvel announced that Majors would no longer be appearing in their films and that the storyline around his character would simply be abandoned. (Indeed, the fallout over Majors’s arrest was so much a problem for Marvel that they eventually resorted to bringing back Robert Downey, Jr. to try to staunch the bleeding.) Creed III took on a whole new meaning as the relatively likable Michael B. Jordan beat the hell out of Jonathan Majors’s snarling ex-con.

As for Magazine Dreams, it fell into limbo. Fox Searchlight had acquired the film at Sundance and had given it an Oscar-friendly December release date. After Majors’s arrest, Searchlight removed the film from its schedule and, eventually, the rights were sold back to the film’s producers. Eventually, Briarcliff Entertainment released the film on March 21st, 2025. The film made barely a million at the box office.

With all of the behind the scenes drama, it’s tempting to overlook the most important question. Was the film itself any good?

It’s …. okay. Jonathan Majors plays Killian Maddox, a grocery store worker who, as a child, was traumatized by the murder-suicide of his mother and father. Maddox is obsessed with body building. He studies body building magazines the way that some people study ancient texts. One gets the impression that Maddox feels that having the perfect body will make up for all of the imperfections in his life. He shoots steroids. He uploads painfully earnest videos to YouTube. He doesn’t know how to express his emotions, allowing his anger to come out at inappropriate times. He wants to connect with someone but he doesn’t know how to do it.

To the film’s credit, it understands just how intimidating Killian Maddox can be. A scene in which Maddox confronts the nephew of his boss initially seems as if it’s going to be about Maddox standing up for himself but instead becomes increasingly disturbing as Maddox upsets the man’s family. Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver was obviously an influence on the film but Magazine Dreams doesn’t have that film’s wit or its subversive edge. There are scenes that work. The scene where a bloody Killian Maddox tries to compete despite being seriously injured is effective, even if it does owe a debt to Whiplash. Another scene, in which Killian reads the trolling comments that have been left on one of his YouTube videos, actually does make you feel a bit of sympathy for him. Ultimately, though, the film is so downbeat and unpleasant that you start to wonder why it was made in the first place. Was Killian Maddox really so interesting a character that the audience needed to spend two hours with him? Is there really anything to be learned from Killian Maddox and his experiences?

As for Jonathan Majors, he gives a believable performance. He was a good actor, even if he couldn’t quite make Killian Maddox into a truly compelling character.

Icarus File No. 24: Express to Terror (dir by Dan Curtis)

Posted on October 1, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The year was 1979 and Fred Silverman, the president of NBC, had an idea.

How about a television series in which each week’s episode would depict a different group of passengers going on a trip? The passengers would all be dealing with their own stories, some of which would be dramatic and some of which would be humorous. With any luck, some of them might even fall in love over the course of their journey!

To keep the audience interested, the show would also feature a cast of regular characters, the crew. Edward Andrews would play the captain, a sensible and by-the-book type. Robert Alda played Doc, the doctor who was also a bon vivant. Patrick Collins was the goofy purser. Nita Talbot played Rose, the perky director of entertainment. Michael DeLano was the bartender who always had the best advice for the passengers….

Does this sound familiar?

If you think that it sounds like Fred Silverman just ripped off The Love Boat …. well, you’re wrong. The Love Boat took place on a boat. Supertrain took place on a train.

At the time that Supertrain went into production, it was the most expensive television production of all time. Before the pilot film was even shot, NBC had spent ten million dollars on the Supertrain sets. Not only was a fake train built but two models were also constructed for the shots of the train moving through the countryside. At the time, the assumption was that the costs would be easily covered by the money that NBC stood to make from broadcasting the 1980 Summer Olympics. Unfortunately, Jimmy Carter decided that the U.S. would be boycotting the Olympics as a way to protest Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan. The only thing that kept NBC from going bankrupt was that the BBC was apparently run by someone even more incompetent than Fred Silverman. The BBC paid $25,oo per episode for the rights to air Supertrain in the UK. Supertrain proved to be such a disaster that the BBC never actually aired the episodes that they had purchased.

1979’s Express to Terror was the pilot to Supertrain. (It was later released in some territories as a stand-alone film.) Directed by horror impresario Dan Curtis (who was also brought in to produce the series), Express to Terror opens with an apparently drunk Keenan Wynn playing the role of railway baron Winfield Root. Winfield loudly announces to a group of nervous investors that he has created ” an atom-powered steam turbine machine capable of crossing this country in 36 hours!” A few months later, Supertrain sets off from New York to Los Angeles.

The main thing that one notices about the train is that it’s incredibly tacky. For all the money that Winfield Root (not to mention NBC) poured into the thing, it looks awful. The cabins are bland and also seem to be constantly shaking as the train rumbles over its tracks. Whereas The Love Boat featured glorious shots of passengers enjoying themselves on an open-air deck, Express to Terror features a lot of shots of passengers trying to squeeze their way through narrow and crowded hallways. There’s a disco car, which sounds like fun but actually looks like a prom being held in a locker room. There’s a swimming pool but you can’t really lay out by it because it’s on a train. Winfield is among the passengers and he continually refers to the train as being “Supertrain” in conversation, which just sounds dumb. “The next person who stops Supertrain,” he announces “will be walking to L.A!”

The main drama features Steve Lawrence as Mike Post, a Hollywood agent with a gambling problem who thinks that someone on the train is trying to kill him. Actually, the assassin is after a different Mike Post (Don Stroud) but that Mike Post is a criminal who, after entering the witness protection program, changed his name to Jack Fisk. The criminal Post is hoping that the agent Post will be killed by mistake. The criminal Mike Post has a girlfriend named Cindy (Char Fontane) who falls in love with the agent Mike Post. Fred Williamson appears as a football player-turned-assassin. George Hamilton plays a Hollywood executive. Don Meredith is the alcoholic best friend of the agent Mike Post. Stella Stevens is on the train as a diva. So is Vicki Lawrence, playing a naive innocent.

Express to Terror tries to mix comedy and drama but it doesn’t really work because the “Good” Mike Post doesn’t really seem to be worth all the trouble. Steve Lawrence gives a mind-numbingly bad performance in the role and, as a result, “Good” Mike Post really isn’t any more sympathetic than “Bad” Mike Post. The main problem is that “Good” Mike Post comes across as being a coward and there’s only so much time that you can watch a coward act cowardly before you lose sympathy for him. Being scared is one thing. Being so dumb that accidentally gets your fingerprints on a knife that’s just been used to kill a man is another thing.

As for the members of the crew — the captain, the doctor, the bartender, and such, they take a back seat to the drama of the two Mike Posts. It’s a bit odd because no one on the train — not even Winfield Root — seems to be that upset by the fact that one of their passengers is murdered while the train is going through a tunnel. You would think that everyone would be worried about the future of Supertrain at that point. A murder is not good for publicity but Winfield Root is oddly unconcerned about it. I swear, light rail people are almost as heartless as bicyclists!

Of course, the worst thing about Express to Terror is that it promises terror but it doesn’t deliver. When I see a the word “terror” in a film directed by Dan Curtis, I expect a little terror! Other than Steve Lawrence’s overacting, there really wasn’t anything particularly terrifying about Express to Terror.

As for Supertrain, it ran for nine episodes and was promptly canceled. Fred Silverman left NBC and spent the rest of his career as an independent producer. Supertrain’s tracks got too close to the sun and they nearly took down a network.

Previous Icarus Files:

Brad reviews LIONHEART (1990), starring Jean-Claude Van Damme!

Posted on September 2, 2025 by Bradley Crain

As a teenager of the late 80’s, I became a huge fan of Jean-Claude Van Damme when I watched movies like BLOODSPORT (1988), CYBORG (1989), KICKBOXER (1989), and DEATH WARRANT (1990). He really seemed to be going big-time with movies like UNIVERSAL SOLDIER (1992), HARD TARGET (1993) and especially TIMECOP (1994). Unfortunately, through a variety of problems, including a reportedly uncontrollable ego, a seemingly never ending supply of gratuitous butt shots for the ladies, and potential drug issues, his star would begin to wane in the mid-1990’s and he’d soon find his career heading the wrong direction. Through it all though, I’ve always loved Van Damme, and I still like to watch his movies (both new and old) to this day. One of the films that he made in his prime was LIONHEART (1990). I remember renting the movie as soon as it became available at our local video store, and even though I don’t hear it spoken of often these days, it’s always been one of my favorite films of the so-called “Muscles from Brussels!”

LIONHEART stars Van Damme as Lyon Gaultier, a French Foreign Legionnaire who deserts his post in North Africa after finding out that his drug addict brother, who lives in Los Angeles, has been set on fire and is barely clinging to life. Determined to help his brother’s family, Lyon goes AWOL and hops a boat to the United States of America. Unfortunately, Lyon finds himself stranded in New York with no money, until he stumbles across an underground street fight. With the connections of a hustler named Joshua (Harrison Page) and a sexy fight organizer named Cynthia (Deborah Rennard), Lyon’s talent in the ring allows him to make the money he needs to go to L.A. When he finally makes it to the west coast, his brother has passed away, leaving huge medical bills for his wife Helene (Lisa Pelikan) and young daughter, Nicole (Ashley Johnson). Continuing to fight in the underground market in L.A. to provide funds for his sister-in-law, Lyon takes on increasingly dangerous opponents, including the savage Attila (Abdel Qissi) in a high-stakes fight that could settle his family’s financial problems for good… if it doesn’t kill him.

I mentioned earlier that I’m a big fan of LIONHEART. With that said, I can certainly see some flaws in the film. The performances aren’t all great. For example, Deborah Rennard is somewhat ridiculous as the sexy, duplicitous Cynthia. Her character is as cliched as it gets, even if she does look good in her see-through stockings. It’s also too long. Clocking in at almost an hour and fifty minutes, the film is at least twenty minutes too long. There are definitely scenes that could have been trimmed down to make for a more efficient movie. Flaws acknowledged, I watched it again today, and I still love the movie. Directed by Sheldon Lettich (DOUBLE IMPACT), LIONHEART delivers the goods as a badass, fight film with a heart. The action sequences drew me in with Van Damme’s athletic spins and kicks, but it also reminded me of my favorite film of all time, HARD TIMES (1975) starring Charles Bronson. In HARD TIMES, Bronson takes out a cocky bastard with one punch to the face. In LIONHEART, Van Damme takes out a cocky bastard with one punch to the nuts. Both films deliver final showdowns against awesome opponents that deliver brutal and satisfying climaxes to the action. And both films go for real emotion. In HARD TIMES, those relationships are limited to the men in Bronson’s life, but in LIONHEART, Lyon’s relationships with his friend Joshua, as well as his love for his niece and widowed sister-in-law really set the film apart. Van Damme isn’t a great actor at this point in his career, but there’s just something really appealing about his unconditional love for his family. He won me over with his earnest performance, and I was all in when everything comes to a head at the end. It was also fun seeing producer Lawrence Bender (PULP FICTION, ANNA AND THE KING, KILL BILL) cameo in an early fight scene as a doofus with a pony tail who gets his ass handed to him by Van Damme. That’s just fun movie stuff.

Playing on Amazon Prime as I type, I easily recommend LIONHEART to any person who likes Van Damme or action films of the 80’s and 90’s. It may be as cheesy as hell, but in my opinion, it’s one of the star’s best films.

The Eric Roberts Collection: Raptor (dir by Jim Wynorski)

Posted on April 9, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 2001’s Raptor, Eric Roberts stars as Jim Tanner, the sheriff of a small desert town. When the locals start turning up all shredded to heck, Sheriff Tanner suspects that maybe it was an animal attack. When the sheriff’s daughter (Lorissa McComas) witnesses one of the attacks and goes into a coma as a result, Tanner is determined to get justice, even if it means working with his ex-girlfriend, Barbara (Melissa Brasselle).

It turns out that it’s neither coyotes nor bears that are attacking the folks in the desert. Instead, it’s a bunch of dinosaurs that have been brought back into existence by Dr. Hyde (Corbin Bernsen, wearing a beret), a mad scientist who has a laboratory in a secret government installation. When the army realizes that there’s a bunch of mini-dinosaurs roaming the desert, they send in a special taskforce to take care of the problem.

It’s a pretty simple movie and no one in the cast, Roberts included, really seems to be taking it all that seriously. There a few scenes where Corbin Bernsen looks like he’s about to break out laughing at some of his dialogue. Director Jim Wynorski keeps the action moving and tosses in plenty of blood and a little nudity. If you’ve ever seen any of the other films that Wynorski directed for producer Roger Corman, you’ll know what to expect from Raptor.

The dinosaurs are cute. They’re all obviously puppets and there’s a lot of scenes of them moving quickly through the desert with an intense look in their eyes. Apparently, almost all of the dinosaur footage was lifted from the first three Carnosaur films, which perhaps explains why the film suddenly goes from being about Sheriff Tanner trying to protect his town from the dinosaurs to being about a bunch of soldiers hunting for the dinosaurs in Dr. Hyde’s underground lab. It’s cheap but it’s kind of fun, a timewaster that no one should take seriously.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

A Movie A Day #206: Conflict of Interest (1993, directed by Gary Davis)

Posted on August 2, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Conflict of Interest is a by-the-numbers direct-to-video movie about a tough cop named Mickey who is obsessed with taking down a drug dealer and club owner named Gideon. Mickey is a widower. Years ago, his wife was gunned down in front of him and his son. His son is now a teenager with a motorcycle and a mullet. Gideon hires Mickey’s son to work at one of his clubs and then frames him for murder. Even though his superiors order him to back off, Mickey is determined to clear his son’s name.

Why should you watch Conflict of Interest? How about this:

That’s Judd Nelson, going heavy on the sideburns and eyeliner in the role of Gideon. I am not sure if this movie was filmed before or after the famous “puffy shirt” episode of Seinfeld.

Judd chews up and spits out every piece of scenery that he can get his hands on. Matching Judd step-for-step is Alyssa Milano, who plays Eve. She falls in love with Mickey’s son, even though she is already a member of Gideon’s harem.

Mickey is played by Christopher McDonald, who gets a rare lead role in Conflict of Interest. McDonald may not be a household name but he is one of the great Hey, It’s That Guy actors. Usually, he plays smarmy businessmen and game show hosts. He’s a surprisingly good action hero in Conflict of Interest, though his mustache cannot begin to compete with Judd’s sideburns.

About as dumb as dumb can be, Conflict of Interest is enjoyably ridiculous. Conflict of Interest may have been made in 1993 but it is an 80s film all the way through, the type of movie where almost every chase ends with someone’s car exploding. Even Gideon’s nightclubs are “heavy metal clubs,” which are populated by people who would not have been out of place in Heavy Metal Parking Lot.

And then there’s the Judd power stare:

As we saw in Shattered If Your Kid’s On Drugs, the Judd power stare has the Burt Reynolds seal of approval:

Embracing the Melodrama #26: Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (dir by Russ Meyer)

Posted on July 5, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

THE FILM YOU ARE ABOUT TO SEE IS NOT A SEQUEL TO “VALLEY OF THE DOLLS.” IT IS WHOLLY ORIGINAL AND BEARS NO RELATIONSHIP TO REAL PERSONS, LIVING OR DEAD. IT DOES, LIKE “VALLEY OF THE DOLLS” DEAL WITH THE OFT-TIMES NIGHTMARE WORLD OF SHOW BUSINESS BUT IN A DIFFERENT TIME AND CONTEXT. — Disclaimer at the beginning of Beyond The Valley of the Dolls (1970)

If I hadn’t reviewed it already, I would definitely have included 1967’s Valley of the Dolls in this series on film melodrama. However, seeing as I have already reviewed it (and you can read that excellent review here!), I figured why not take this opportunity to review a film that was legally required to acknowledge that it was not a sequel to Valley of the Dolls.

I’m speaking of 1970’s Beyond the Valley of The Dolls, a satirical take on every Hollywood melodrama that had been made up until that point. It was directed by notorious exploitation veteran Russ Meyer and written by film critic Roger Ebert. The combination of Meyer’s unapologetic tawdriness and Ebert’s film school in jokes comes together to create a truly memorable film experience.

Okay, so what happens in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls? Let’s see if I can keep all this straight because, in its clearly satirical way, BVD is a bit like the Game of Thrones of satiric Hollywood melodrama. There are so many characters with so many subplots that it helps to have a flowchart to try to keep track of it all.

Kelly (Dolly McNamara), Casey (Cynthia Myers), and Pet (Marcia McBroom) start a band and, after playing the high school graduation dance, they decide to head out to Los Angeles to become famous. Accompanying them is their manager, Harris Allsworth (David Gurian), who is in love with Kelly and spends the entire film looking miserable. As opposed to the three main characters in Valley of the Dolls, Kelly, Casey, and Pet do not arrive in Hollywood as wide-eyed innocents. Instead, they’re already talking endlessly about their love of weed, pills, and sex but they do so in dialogue that is so deliberately over-the-top, so intentionally artificial, and so cheerfully delivered by the three girls that it’s impossible not to root for them. More than that, though, these are three strong, independent women and, regardless of whether they’re appearing a film directed by a man best known for being obsessed with boobs, that’s still three more than you’ll find in most American films from both the 70s and today.

Fortunately, the girls already have a contact in Los Angeles. Kelly’s rich aunt Susan (Phyllis Davis) knows all sorts of people and wants to share some of her fortune with Kelly. Unfortunately, Susan’s lawyer is the evil Porter Hall (Duncan McLeod), who hates free spirits. Porter tries to keep Kelly from getting the money but Kelly is willing to seduce Porter in order to get that money, even after she discovers that the uptight Porter wears his black socks to bed. Obviously, Porter is a bad guy but who can help Aunt Susan realize this? How about the wonderfully named man’s man, Baxter Wolfe (Charles Napier)?

Through Aunt Susan’s influence, the girl’s end up at a party thrown by the legendary music promoter Z-Man (John Lazar). Z-Man is one of those flamboyant 70s characters who simply has to be seen to be believed. Z-Man speaks in some of the most florid dialogue ever heard and there are more than a few secrets hidden behind all of that eccentricity. But, at the moment, what’s important is that Z-Man takes control of the girl’s group — now known as the Carrie Nations (which is actually a pretty good name for a band) — and makes them famous overnight.

Soon, Kelly is spending more and more time with notorious Hollywood gigolo Lance Rocke (Michael Blodgett, who gives a hilariously narcissistic performance) and ignoring poor Harris. This drives Harris into the waiting arms of porn star Ashley St. Ives (Eddy Williams) who, with her unapologetic and non-neurotic approach to sex, is probably the most stable character in the entire film.

Casey, feeling uncomfortable with the Hollywood jet set, is soon popping pills like they’re candy. She finally starts to find some comfort and happiness with Roxanne (Erica Gavin).

And finally, Pet falls in love with Emerson Thorne (Harrison Page), a serious-minded law student. However, as much as Pet and Emerson seem to be meant for each other (and they even get a slow-motion montage where they run through a green field), Pet is still tempted to stray by a punch drunk boxer (James Inglehart).

And finally, there’s Otto (Henry Rowland). Otto is Z-Man’s butler. Apparently, he’s also a Nazi war criminal.

And, not surprisingly, all of this lust and all of these secrets lead to a suicide attempt, renewed love, and finally a disturbingly violent massacre that leaves the surviving members of the cast feeling wiser and sadder but not necessarily older. Fortunately, just in case we the viewers might be wondering how all of this could have happened, a somber-voiced narrator suddenly explains what every character did wrong and how those mistakes led to their fate. Thanks, narrator guy!

So, obviously, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is not meant to be taken seriously. The film is a satire of all of the self-serious and hypocritically moralistic Hollywood melodramas that came before it . Fortunately, the largely likable cast plays all of this absurd material with the straightest of faces and the end result is a film that is sordid and oddly likable. This is one of those films that, if it offends you, you may be taking life too seriously.