With a gross of $20 million, the film adaptation of novelist Jacqueline Susann’s Valley of the Dolls (1967, see entry) was Twentieth Century-Fox’s top earner in 1968, the 12 Mar 1969 Var announced. With an option for a sequel, the studio was going ahead with Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, a title selected the previous year, the 3 Jul 1968 Var noted. The 18 Jul 1968 DV reported that Miss Susann’s husband, television producer Irving Mansfield, had signed Gabrielle Upton to write the screenplay. However, when Ms. Susann finally submitted an “original screen story” to Fox, the writer was Jean Holloway. Columnist Army Archerd remarked in the 16 Jun 1969 DV that only one character, “Anne,” from Valley of the Dolls, portrayed by Barbara Parkins, would be carried over into the sequel. The 20 Aug 1969 LAT noted that the film’s budget had “reportedly been severely cut.”
       The following year, Irving Mansfield withdrew as the film’s producer, according to the 2 Jul 1969 Var, ostensibly to work on another of his wife’s projects, The Love Machine (1971, see entry), at Columbia Pictures. However, some insiders speculated that Mansfield was angry with Fox production head Richard D. Zanuck for his “less than kind” words for The Love Machine. The 15 Aug 1969 DV mentioned that Jacqueline Susann herself gave the studio “the OK to go ahead without her,” having already been paid $250,000 for the sequel, because she did not want to be involved with the project. By then, Russ Meyer, known as “King of the Nudies,” had been hired to direct, and had personally brought in Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert to write the script. The 27 Aug 1969 Var explained that with the relaxation of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) film code, “sexplicity and nudity are now familiar in commercial releases of the majors.” Meyer’s previous exploitation film, Vixen (1968, see entry), was made for less than $1 million (the 30 Nov 1969 LAT placed the budget at only $90,000), but became one of the year’s top moneymaking films. Russ Meyer told the 3 Sep 1969 Var that the “supposed sequel” would have “nothing in common” with Valley of the Dolls beyond the “title link.” He called the new Beyond the Valley of the Dolls “a soap opera for young folks” under twenty-six, whereas Jacqueline Susann’s “ideas were concerned with venerable types.” Meyer told critic Kevin Thomas of the LAT that he and Roger Ebert “came up with a 127-page treatment in 10 days—and had the first draft three weeks later.” Almost all of the film was written for “existing sets” on the Twentieth Century-Fox lot in Los Angeles, CA. With the exception of actress Edy Williams, who was already under contract to Fox, the actors were unknowns outside the exploitation market. Meyer claimed that actress Sandra Dee expressed interest in the role of sex novelist “Ashley Famous,” which Williams played in the film, but he turned her down because the film’s title and his own name would be enough to sell the picture. “Using unknowns you avoid highly exaggerated salaries and prima donnas,” he said.
       Principal photography began 1 Dec 1969, according to the 12 Dec 1969 DV production chart. The 14 Jan 1970 DV noted the feature was “nearing completion.”
       The MPAA’s Production Code Administration gave Beyond the Valley of the Dolls an X rating. The day after its 17 Jun 1970 premiere at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood, CA, DV called Fox’s “trashy, gaudy, sound-stage vulgarity” “the most derisible, most hootable film made by a major studio in years,” while the 18 Jun 1970 LAT felt the Zanucks “ought to have their studio washed out with soap.” Jacqueline Susann tried to hold up the film’s release in Los Angeles Superior Court, but Judge Richard Schauer, after watching both Valley of the Dolls and its “sequel,” denied the injunction. Still, Susann continued to pursue a $10-million lawsuit against the studio, claiming the film would damage her reputation and besmirch the original Valley of the Dolls novel. As shown in an advertisement in the 5 Jul 1970 LAT, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls carried a disclaimer: “This is not a sequel. There has never been anything like it!” In the 27 Jun 1970 NYT, critic Vincent Canby began his review with: “Any movie that Jacqueline Susann thinks would damage her reputation as a writer cannot be all bad,” and continued by taking more jabs at the writer than at the film. However, Canby did follow up his review with a 5 Jul 1970 NYT article in which he referred to the film as “The Valley of the Junk,” and regretted that “junk films” were taking too much time away from the better ones.
       The film went into general release, and grossed $427,232 in its first three weeks. By the end of Aug 1970, according to the 2 Sep 1970 ^DV, both Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and Fox’s similarly-X-rated Myra Breckenridge, released a week afterward, had “a combined domestic gross” of over $14 million.
       In Baltimore, MD, the state censor board demanded that several scenes be trimmed or cut before the film’s release there, according to the 22 Jul 1970 Var. The board objected to scenes of violence more than sex, but insisted they had “sexual connotations.” Clips of a head rolling on the floor and of a murderer placing a gun in the mouth of a victim were excised.
       The 17 Feb 1970 NYT announced that Russ Meyer had signed a contract with Twentieth Century-Fox to produce and direct three more movies, but he made only one, The Seven Minutes (1971, see entry). However, in 1979, he created his own sequel to both Vixen and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls with Russ Meyer’s Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens (see entry).