Valley of the Dolls

[StevePulaski]

Valley of the Dolls (1967)
Directed by: Mark Robson

The leading ladies in Valley of the Dolls.

Rating: ★★

It's not too surprising that Valley of the Dolls became a runaway hit in America in the 1960s as both a bestselling novel by Jacqueline Susann and a reportedly less-than-faithful film adaptation. It was the rise of the counterculture in the country at the time, where people were beginning to be more open to examining sex, infidelity, and relationships. Facets of life that were practiced but kept out of the mainstream discourse were rising to the surface in conjunction with the rise of a vocal new generation that was actively engaged in peace, love, and anti-war rhetoric. At the time, it was seen by audiences as revelatory and daring. In present times, however, it's little more than an extended soap-opera.

"Soapy" is the most applicable word I can conjure for Mark Robson's Valley of the Dolls, an adequately acted but otherwise cardboard look at the messy existences of several women, whose addictions and foibles contribute to the downfall of their respective careers. For clarification, "dolls" refers to pills: uppers, downers, and in-betweeners that the three leading ladies feel keep them stable and interesting, so they believe.

They are consumed liberally by Anne Welles (Barbara Parkins), a small-town-born woman with Big Apple aspirations who settles for a job as an attorney's (Robert H. Harris) assistant, Helen Lawson (Susan Hayward), a big star of Broadway musicals who Anne meets early in the film, and Neely O'Hara (Patty Duke), a promising starlet who Neely believes threatens her status. Also in the mix is Jennifer North (Sharon Tate), a rising sex symbol in skin-flicks who takes a liking to Anne and whose career is kickstarted alongside Neely's despite the two taking drastically different paths to stardom. The first half builds these women up to be ambitious titans only to paint their demise in great detail, as they all fall victim to vices such as sex, booze, and pills. In particular, Neely takes the hardest tumble, soiling a couple marriages due to her addictive nature and lightly resembling the well-documented fall of Judy Garland.

Anne acts as a stabilizing force for all the mayhem, for she seems to have a clear head on her shoulders most of the time. Her and Lyon Burke (Paul Burke) strike up a romance through work, after their eyes lock in one of the film's handful of hokey sequences, which inevitably spawns its own dramatic subplots. There's enough going on with these characters that it's admittedly difficult to keep the development straight. It's too bad the film predated the release of Charly McClain's memorable hit "Who's Cheatin' Who" by 13 years because that tune would make an even better theme song to the picture despite Dionne Warwick's soulful croon being a suitable tone-setter.

Valley of the Dolls is brought down by a second half that can't convincingly execute the many unraveling plot-threads. Beyond being tough to keep track of the entangled webs spun by the leads, the trio of writers (Helen Deutsch, Dorothy Kingsley, and Harlan Ellison) crank up the melodrama late in the film that prompts Robson to exhaust himself trying to develop and articulate all these stories. The standout performer is Sharon Tate, whose scene involving her "bust exercises," as gratuitous as it is, is made effectively comical thanks to her delivery. On top of being an alluring presence, she plays a believable character that is already conditioned to accept and partake in the changing culture around her. Anne, Helen, and Neely are slow to catch-up, but they get there eventually.

Valley of the Dolls fits the bill for the time in terms of being a runaway success in print and on screen. It was part of a movement actively waking up a prudish America, so hesitant to meaningfully discuss what goes beyond the white-picket fence and in the bedroom despite actively engaging in sin on a regular basis. It has the look and feel of a soap-opera, but perhaps at the time that's the presentation in which it needed to be presented for it to be digested and consumed at the rate it was. It's not nearly as deep as Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, one of the period's best dramadies, and it did serve as the focal point of inspiration for the infamous director Russ Meyer to use as a jumping-off point to make one of his most commercially recognized films. However, watching it in the present provides little excitement and far too little insight outside of ancillary footnotes.

Starring: Barbara Parkins, Susan Hayward, Patty Duke, Sharon Tate, Paul Burke, Lee Grant, and Robert H. Harris. Directed by: Mark Robson.