Calling all Russ Meyer fans: this is better than Black Swan

18 classic proto-punk songs from the 60s cut to the best and worst go-go dancing you've ever seen. It's like Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens without all that troublesome plot and dialogue. Gals can learn a move or two and guys will be visited by the ghosts of feminist ex-girlfriends to put their tongues back in their mouths.

The Grimys: 37 minutes of non-stop go go action and relentless garage rock rhythm. NSFW

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls Screening, July 12, 1990 - Part One

Produced by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association in conjunction with Robert Rosen at the UCLA Film and Television Archives, this screening was shot by The Voyager Company for a laserdisc on the Criterion label that was blocked by 20th Century Fox and never released. In attendance for a discussion after the film, Russ Meyer, Roger Ebert, John LaZar, David Gurian, Dolly Read, Charles Napier, Michael Blodgett, Edy Williams, and host Michael Dare. This is raw, unedited footage provided by Susan Arosteguy at The Criterion Collection. Cameraman unknown.

Transcription at http://www.dareland.com/emulsionalproblems/russmeyer.htm

Part one is pre-screening.

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls Screening, July 12, 1990 - Part Two

Produced by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association in conjunction with Robert Rosen at the UCLA Film and Television Archives, this screening was shot by The Voyager Company for a laserdisc on the Criterion label that was blocked by 20th Century Fox and never released. In attendance for a discussion after the film, Russ Meyer, Roger Ebert, John LaZar, David Gurian, Dolly Read, Charles Napier, Michael Blodgett, Edy Williams, and host Michael Dare. This is raw, unedited footage provided by Susan Arosteguy at The Criterion Collection. Cameraman unknown.

Transcription at http://www.dareland.com/emulsionalproblems/russmeyer.htm

Part two is opening credits, closing credits, and beginning of discussion.

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls Screening, July 12, 1990 - Part Three

Produced by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association in conjunction with Robert Rosen at the UCLA Film and Television Archives, this screening was shot by The Voyager Company for a laserdisc on the Criterion label that was blocked by 20th Century Fox and never released. In attendance for a discussion after the film, Russ Meyer, Roger Ebert, John LaZar, David Gurian, Dolly Read, Charles Napier, Michael Blodgett, Edy Williams, and host Michael Dare. This is raw, unedited footage provided by Susan Arosteguy at The Criterion Collection. Cameraman unknown.

Transcription at http://www.dareland.com/emulsionalproblems/russmeyer.htm.

Part three is more discussion.

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls Screening, July 12, 1990 - Part Four

Produced by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association in conjunction with Robert Rosen at the UCLA Film and Television Archives, this screening was shot by The Voyager Company for a laserdisc on the Criterion label that was blocked by 20th Century Fox and never released. In attendance for a discussion after the film, Russ Meyer, Roger Ebert, John LaZar, David Gurian, Dolly Read, Charles Napier, Michael Blodgett, Edy Williams, and host Michael Dare. This is raw, unedited footage provided by Susan Arosteguy at The Criterion Collection. Cameraman unknown.

Transcription at http://www.dareland.com/emulsionalproblems/russmeyer.htm.

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls Screening, July 12, 1990 - Part Five

Produced by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association in conjunction with Robert Rosen at the UCLA Film and Television Archives, this screening was shot by The Voyager Company for a laserdisc on the Criterion label that was blocked by 20th Century Fox and never released. In attendance for a discussion after the film, Russ Meyer, Roger Ebert, John LaZar, David Gurian, Dolly Read, Charles Napier, Michael Blodgett, Edy Williams, and host Michael Dare. This is raw, unedited footage provided by Susan Arosteguy at The Criterion Collection. Cameraman unknown.

Transcription at http://www.dareland.com/emulsionalproblems/russmeyer.htm.

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls Screening, July 12, 1990 - Part Six

Produced by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association in conjunction with Robert Rosen at the UCLA Film and Television Archives, this screening was shot by The Voyager Company for a laserdisc on the Criterion label that was blocked by 20th Century Fox and never released. In attendance for a discussion after the film, Russ Meyer, Roger Ebert, John LaZar, David Gurian, Dolly Read, Charles Napier, Michael Blodgett, Edy Williams, and host Michael Dare. This is raw, unedited footage provided by Susan Arosteguy at The Criterion Collection. Cameraman unknown.

Transcription at http://www.dareland.com/emulsionalproblems/russmeyer.htm.

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls Screening, July 12, 1990 - Part Seven

Produced by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association in conjunction with Robert Rosen at the UCLA Film and Television Archives, this screening was shot by The Voyager Company for a laserdisc on the Criterion label that was blocked by 20th Century Fox and never released. In attendance for a discussion after the film, Russ Meyer, Roger Ebert, John LaZar, David Gurian, Dolly Read, Charles Napier, Michael Blodgett, Edy Williams, and host Michael Dare. This is raw, unedited footage provided by Susan Arosteguy at The Criterion Collection. Cameraman unknown.

Transcription at http://www.dareland.com/emulsionalproblems/russmeyer.htm.

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls Screening, July 12, 1990 - Part Eight

Produced by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association in conjunction with Robert Rosen at the UCLA Film and Television Archives, this screening was shot by The Voyager Company for a laserdisc on the Criterion label that was blocked by 20th Century Fox and never released. In attendance for a discussion after the film, Russ Meyer, Roger Ebert, John LaZar, David Gurian, Dolly Read, Charles Napier, Michael Blodgett, Edy Williams, and host Michael Dare. This is raw, unedited footage provided by Susan Arosteguy at The Criterion Collection. Cameraman unknown.

Transcription at http://www.dareland.com/emulsionalproblems/russmeyer.htm.

Part eight is milling, nothing but milling. If you're not a fan of milling, watch something else.

The Amazing Adventures of the Portfolio in the Storage Locker

Putting together a full color portfolio in the 80s was a very different thing from now. I had to shoot 4x5 internegatives to make each 8x10 blowup of a Polaroid, so my portfolio originally cost several hundred dollars to create, zip-up, checkered black-and-white cloth binding, too cool for school. I only had one. (As they got cheaper to produce, I had several. I never stopped giving them out or trying to get my stuff published. This is the story of THAT ONE portfolio, the first I ever made.)

An editor at Spy Magazine had my portfolio and expressed interest in either doing a story about me or hiring me to do a story on someone else. I didn't hear from him for more than a year when I got a call from a janitor who was cleaning out the abandoned offices of Spy Magazine. They had ceased publishing and closed down. Someone had left my portfolio behind in a pile of rubble. Since there was no more mailroom for him to mail it back to me, and since the offices were being closed THAT VERY DAY, the janitor gave me till 6PM to get down there to pick up my portfolio, a bit difficult since Spy was in New York and I was in Los Angeles. Luckily I had a friend in New York, Garry Goodrow, who got to the offices just in time to salvage the portfolio and mail it back to me.

I met Hugh Hefner at a press conference at the mansion. He loved my shot of him and asked for a blow-up for the mansion. I personally gave him the portfolio and he said we'd do something for Playboy, which he was only publishing at the time. One year later I got my portfolio back from the editor of Playboy with a note saying Sorry, my work wasn't right for Playboy.

One day Timothy Leary showed up at my door. He was a birthday present and he spent a couple hours with me. He loved my work, and when he left, he took the portfolio with him, promising to show it around to help me get published or find a gallery. I kept running into him at openings and premieres and he kept promising. Then he died. Then Cristie's auctioned off all his stuff and my portfolio wasn't among them. A year later, I got an e-mail from the woman in charge of keeping the inventory of Leary's stuff. She had my portfolio and wanted to know what I wanted done with it. She gave it to a friend who brought it back to me 10 years after I gave it to Leary.

Doug Edwards, curator for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, took the portfolio and decided to produce a show for the lobby of the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. When Karl Malden was voted in as president, he cancelled the show, so we waited two years for him to be voted out of office. The show was back on when Doug suddenly died of AIDS. One year later, three years after Doug had taken it from me, I got it back from the Academy with an apology for not having my show.

The portfolio now sits in a storage locker in Desert Hot Springs waiting for crowdfunding to save it from the dumpster.

http://rockethub.com/projects/705-save-the-polaroids-from-the-dumpster