Valley of the Dolls

Probably my favorite film of all time. The best classic trash, with the greatest costumes, and the biggest hair! Watch for the poolside scene in which Patty Duke, Martin Milner, and Sharon Tate all say "fag"! I'm sure everyone on Earth noticed the famous "beads-around-the-breasts" shot, so we won't go there. My favorite line: Barbara Parkins tells Patty Duke that she shouldn't be taking her "dolls" with alcohol, and Patty says "It makes 'em work faster."

The film adaptation of Valley of the Dolls is stupid, empty, overly melodramatic...and a lot of fun!

Jacqueline Susann's 1966 novel is my all-time favorite, and her gritty, glossy pulp material was severely diluted for the big screen. That is the main problem. Too many punches are pulled, the characters are sweetened up, and a completely ridiculous happy ending (which Jackie hated) is substituted for the book's bleak, satisfying conclusion. Mark Robson's film has none of the spirit of its basis.

With that out of the way, the movie is very enjoyable for what it is: An unintentional laugh riot. The dialogue is hilarious and eminently quotable--"Boobies, boobies, boobies! Nothin' but boobies! Who needs 'em? I never had any! Didn't hurt me none!" Most of the supposedly "dramatic" and "touching" scenes are a scream. Patty Duke is priceless as the speech-slurring, tantrum-throwing, self-destructive Neely O'Hara. Watch her flailing around during the "It's Impossible" number; notice the embarrassing position of her beads. Barbara Parkins seems to have taken one Seconal too many before shooting, as she appears to be completely anesthetized. Susan Hayward gets to bellow a lot, fight with Duke, and get her wig thrown into a toilet in the most famous scene. The only one who comes off really well is Sharon Tate, a talent who never got the attention she deserved in life. Hers are the only genuinely affecting moments in the film, especially her final scene.

The candy-colored photography is good, beautifully capturing the glossy red capsules taken at every turn. The hair and fashions are glamorous--and so is the hairspray can! Dionne Warwick sings the beautiful theme, and the rest of the songs are enjoyably silly. I have the soundtrack LP--TWO copies! In conclusion, the ultimate camp classic! I'm off to take another doll now....

This movie truly is badly done and campy. However, there is one good reason to watch it: Sharon Tate. She was truly one of the screen's all time beauties (if you disagree at first, name someone prettier =)

She is not a bad actress either and did her best with the forced, artificial dialog. Overall the movie has virtually no suspense or drama or tension it just chugs along predictably with one badly written scene after another. Then all of sudden Wham! Sharon appears and you stop caring about the worthless "plot" and watch her. She steals all her scenes and makes the other actresses invisible.

All in all its a bittersweet vehicle for an extraordinarily lovely woman who met a very violent and tragic end.

There's nothing I can add to the many hilarious and trenchant comments of other IMDB users--"Valley" will live forever as one of the greatest bad movies ever. But here's something nobody else has picked up on. The scene when Patty/Neely discovers hubby Ted cavorting in the pool with another woman? Well, before Patty/Neely sees them, she hears splashing and giddy, girlish laugh. That splash and laugh are Marilyn Monroe--audio from her famous nude swim scene in "Something's Git To Give," the movie she never finished.

Somebody at 20th Century Fox--MM's home studio--had a perverse sense of humor!

Wow! What a movie! I didn't know what to expect going into this. But I didn't expect for Valley Of The Dolls to be this good!!! I saw this movie in the Criterion Collection and wanted to check it out since it starred Sharron Tate, and being a true crime nerd, plus having loved Margo Robbie's performance of Sharron Tate in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, I knew I was only doing myself a disservice having not seen a Tate film. I really did love her performance in this movie and thought she did a great job of giving a sobering performance. It was almost haunting. But the surprise of the movie was seeing Patty Duke as one of the staring characters. I felt her character stole the show. Really really enjoyed it.