Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

Russ Meyer and film critic Roger Ebert let loose inside a major studio, and the result is a delirious, satirical explosion. An all-girl rock band chases fame in a Hollywood of drugs, sex and sudden violence, and the film parodies the melodrama it pretends to be while going completely over the top. It somehow got released by 20th Century Fox.

It is fast, camp, quotable and knowingly absurd, a genuine one-off that treats its own excess as the joke. The whiplash tonal shifts and the outrageous finale are the point.

A studio film like no other, and far smarter than its reputation.