5 Feet of Fury

Will Roger Ebert Biopic Be a Big Bust? My NEW PJM post

Yep, there’s a movie in the works about his collaboration with Russ Meyer on Beyond the Valley of the Dolls:

The macho, boisterous, “right wing” Meyer befriended a young nerdy liberal Ebert, after the latter defended Meyer’s ribald “nudie” flicks about big-busted ball-busters in the Wall Street Journal.

When a sclerotic Twentieth Century Fox picked outsider Meyer to make a movie that all the hip, happening fans of Easy Rider would flock to see, Meyer dragged young (but not at all hip or happening) Ebert down from Chicago to Hollywood to work on a script.

In a few weeks, Ebert bashed out Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, a frenetic, psychedelic extravaganza about an all-girl rock band and their young, decadent, sexually ambiguous pals — directed by a raving heterosexual WWII veteran who hated modern music and all its commie pinko hippie pomps and works.