The Valley of the Dolls is like that old saying "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times" The movie of the book by truck driver in drag Jacqueline Susann stands alongside such movies as 'Showgirls' and 'Mommie Dearest' when it comes to talking about camp, so-bad-they're-good movies. Infact, Valley of the Dolls could possibly be the mother lode. The creme de la creme. The ultimate.
The ingredients are as follows:-
Take 1 Barbara Parkins - Stunning actress playing newbie Anne Welles, she starts to walk the tough streets of New York with killer hair in a beehive and wide I just killed Bambi eyes who looks good but displays one emotion whether supposedly wasted on drugs, in love or playing hard to get. She also has the strange idea that to fall in love, you only need to touch hands with a man.
Take 1 Patty Duke - Short, dumpy and badly dressed as Neely O'Hara. She's addicted to dolls quicker than you can say Tony Polar and almost steals the show with her crazy antics of pulling wigs, drinking bourbon, making a comeback, passing out in motels, (Joan Crawford circs 1953 anyone?) taking more drugs, dumping husbands and going to the funny farm to dry out.
Take 1 Sharon Tate - Lovely to look at as stunning Jennifer North. She rides through life on her looks but has talent so shows it in French 'art' movies, marries a mental patient, lives with mental patient and his clingy sister and when she finds out she has breast cancer, decides to top herself as without her looks or breasts, she's worth nothing. I disagree, she also has some crazy looking side winders with the biggest bouffant of 1967.
Add 1 Susan Hayward - The real scene stealer, as Helen Lawson the tough premier star on Broadway, she commands plants to grow, she cuts Neely from her act for singing too well, has her wig thrown down the toilet and manages to cope with the oddest piece of staging ever seen on screen during her showstopper "I'll Plant My Own Tree" And you know what? She planted it alright and walks away with the movie.
Mix these together with a Dynasty actor playing the lead male and some awful acting and directing and hey presto, you end up with the rather delicious 'Valley of the Dolls' There's a bit of a story as each character falls in love with these dolls and descends into their own valley, however a lot of things change from the book to the movie. Anne Welles is so together and walks away from her lover Lyon in the movie but in the book, she sticks with him and becomes addicted to dolls. Neely O'Hara chews the scenery like a bad amateur production of Hamlet and ends up in furs in an alleyway, drunk as a skunk with flashes of Linda Gray's Sue Ellen. Jennifer North dies rather mutely, no big death scene although life imitates art in a macabre way as Sharon Tate was murdered not long after this movie ended. The most exciting and cheesy thing about the movie is the red rotten dialogue, it's a gay man's wet dream to utter any of the following lines....
HELEN LAWSON : The only hit that comes out of a Helen Lawson show is Helen Lawson, and that's ME, baby, remember?
NEELY : All right, faggot! Start explaining!
TED CASABLANCA : You need glasses, Neely. She's hardly built like a boy.
NEELY : Boobies, boobies, boobies. Nothin' but boobies. Who needs em?
ANNE : Neely, you know it's bad to take liquor with those pills.
NEELY : They work faster.
NEELY : "I have to get up at five o'clock in the morning and SPARKLE, Neely, SPARKLE!"
NEELY : Who's stoned? I am merely traveling incognito.
MEL : You're spending a lot more time than necessary with that fag.
NEELY : Ted Casablanca is NOT a fag... and I'm the dame who can prove it.
NEELY : I didn't have dough handed to me because of my good cheekbones, I had to earn it.
HELEN : They drummed you out of Hollywood, so you come crawling back to Broadway. But Broadway doesn't go for booze and dope. Now get out of my way, I've got a man waiting for me.
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