Valley of the Dolls (film)

Recent Radcliffe graduate Anne Welles is hired as a secretary at a theatrical agency which represents Helen Lawson, a cutthroat Broadway diva. Helen fears newcomer Neely O'Hara will upstage her, so she has Anne's boss pressure Neely to quit their upcoming show. Anne sours on show business after seeing Helen's cruelty toward Neely, but the business partner of her boss, Lyon Burke, dissuades her from quitting the agency. Anne and Neely meet Jennifer North, a beautiful chorus girl with limited talent. They quickly become friends, sharing the bonds of ambition and the tendency to fall in love with the wrong men. After Lyon lands her an appearance on a telethon, Neely mounts a nightclub act. Buoyed by her overnight success, she moves to Hollywood to pursue a lucrative film career. Neely soon succumbs to alcoholism and abuse of "dolls". She cheats on her husband, Mel Anderson, by having an affair with fashion designer Ted Casablanca. After Mel leaves her, Neely divorces him and marries Ted. Neely's spiralling drug and alcohol use eventually sabotages her career and ends her second marriage. Anne and Lyon begin a romance, but Lyon resists Anne's wish to marry. When he abruptly leaves for England, Anne is distraught; she is further upset when her mother dies. Soon Anne's poise and natural beauty attract the attention of her boss's client, Kevin Gillmore, who hires her to promote his line of cosmetics in television and print ads. Kevin falls in love with Anne, but their relationship ends amicably when Anne realizes they are incompatible. Jennifer follows Neely's path to Hollywood, where she marries nightclub singer Tony Polar. She becomes pregnant but undergoes an abortion after learning that Tony has the hereditary condition Huntington's chorea—a fact his domineering half-sister and manager Miriam had been concealing. When Tony's mental and physical health decline, Miriam and Jennifer place him in a sanitarium. Faced with Tony's mounting medical expenses, Jennifer reluctantly makes French "art films"—softcore pornography—to pay the bills. Jennifer learns she has breast cancer and, thinking her body is her only currency, commits suicide rather than face a mastectomy. Neely's drug and alcohol abuse lands her in the same sanitarium as Tony, where they discover each other when Neely begins singing in the common area and he joins her. After she is released, Lyon gets her a role in a Broadway play. Neely soon causes trouble by having an affair with Lyon and attending a press party for Helen. During a catfight in the ladies' room, Neely removes Helen's wig and throws it in the toilet. Lyon ends his relationship with Neely when she relapses and is replaced by her understudy. Neely continues her bender at a nearby bar and is left screaming and sobbing in a deserted alley when the bar closes. Upset by Lyon's infidelity, Anne dabbles in "dolls" and almost drowns in the ocean while intoxicated. She returns to New England to live with her Aunt Amy. Lyon follows Anne to New England and asks her to marry him. She declines his offer and remains happily single and independent. ==Cast==

On October 13, 1965, it was announced that 20th Century Fox had purchased rights to the novel ahead of its publication. The film's production was continuously stalled by issues over the screenplay, originally written by Harlan Ellison. Fred Zinnemann was originally slated to direct in February 1966, but was replaced by Mark Robson in September. Natalie Wood, Kim Novak, Lee Remick, and Debbie Reynolds. Susann had wanted Mia Farrow for the role of Ann, but Candice Bergen – who had recently signed with Fox – was cast in late 1966. However, she left before production began. 20th Century Fox wanted contract star Raquel Welch to play Jennifer, but she turned it down, not wanting to play a "sexpot" role. She asked to play Neely, but the studio refused. Jane Fonda also turned down a role as one of the trio. In the years after the film's release, Patty Duke repeatedly spoke of the harsh treatment Garland had received by the studio and crew. In her 1987 autobiography, Call Me Anna, Duke felt that Garland had been deliberately exploited by the studio. She wrote: "The producers may have felt justified in hiring her in the first place... They had gotten their PR mileage out of the situation, the 'Judy comeback' stories had created extraordinary publicity for the film and now she was expendable". In 2009, Duke told an audience at a "Dolls" event at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco that, despite Garland's issues with substance abuse, Robson and others exacerbated the situation by making her wait several hours before filming her scenes, fully aware that she would be bored, upset and drunk by that time. Production Production began in January and February 1967 with scenes shot in the New York City area. Principal photography started on February 17, and ended in late April. On July 21, during post-production of the film, producer David Weisbart died while playing golf with Robson. In the decades since the film's release, several involved in the cast and crew have been critical of Robson's behavior on set. Tate reportedly refused to cry in one scene to avoid affecting her make-up, "which would cause further delay and further infuriate Robson." Duke was also critical of Robson, characterizing him as "the meanest son of a bitch I ever met in my life." ==Release==

The film had its world premiere in Genoa, Italy, on November 16, 1967. Following the premiere, the press boarded the cruise ship Princess Italia for a screening on the way to the Canary Islands. The ship then headed to Miami where the US premiere took place on November 28. Further premieres took place along the route until the ship arrived in Los Angeles for a final premiere on December 14. The film received a wide release on December 15, 1967. By April 1968, it became Fox's highest-grossing film at the time not to have a roadshow theatrical release. Critical response Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes has a 32% rating based on 41 reviews. The critical consensus reads: "Trashy, campy, soapy, and melodramatic, Valley of the Dolls may be a dud as a Hollywood expose, but has nonetheless endured as a kitsch classic". The film was included in the 1978 book The Fifty Worst Films of All Time (and How They Got That Way) by Harry Medved, Randy Dreyfuss, and Michael Medved. In 2005, it was listed in Golden Raspberry Award founder John Wilson's book The Official Razzie Movie Guide as one of the "100 Most Enjoyably Bad Movies Ever Made". Accolades Home media The Criterion Collection released Valley of the Dolls along with its parody Beyond the Valley of the Dolls in September 2016 on DVD and Blu-ray. While the latter film had previously been released by Arrow Films in the United Kingdom in the same year, this was the first Blu-ray release for Valley of the Dolls. ==Soundtrack==

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, a 1970 satirical pastiche of Valley of the Dolls, was filmed by 20th Century Fox while the studio was being sued by Jacqueline Susann, according to Irving Mansfield's book Life with Jackie. Susann created the title for a Jean Holloway-scripted sequel that was rejected by the studio, which allowed Russ Meyer to film a radically different film with the same title. The suit went to court after Susann's death in 1974; the estate won damages of $2 million against Fox. Two updated versions of the Jacqueline Susann novel were later broadcast as TV series: • ''Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls'' (1981) starring Catherine Hicks, Lisa Hartman, Veronica Hamel and David Birney. • Valley of the Dolls (1994) starring Sally Kirkland, Colleen Morris, Melissa De Sousa and Sharon Case. In 2020, Penguin Books published Dolls! Dolls! Dolls!, The Most Beloved Bad Book and Movie of All Time by Stephen Rebello, said to be "a detailed and definitive account of the entire phenomenon from the creation of the original novel to the aftermath of the release of the film." ==Legacy==

The film has developed a cult following, with critics and audiences citing its campy sensibility. The film is particularly celebrated by gay men for its campiness and has become part of the LGBT cultural canon. In 2012, Marina and The Diamonds released her sophomore album, Electra Heart. The tenth track of the album, "Valley of the Dolls", is based on the movie. ==See also==