Valley Of The Dolls on TCM NOW!

Gowns by Travilla

Hair by Kenneth.

Songs by Dory Previn.

Acting by Cardboard

I'm heating some lasagne.

Jennifer, Tony's choking again.

“At night, alllll cats are grey…”

“Ted Casablanca is not a FAG!”

“…and I’m the dame who can prove it.”

Was Patty imitating Babs in the song part?

Patty Duke dated Lucille Ball's son?!

I'll plant my OWN TREE.

Gimme a fountain pen and not one of those lousy BALLpoints

The exercise sequence is hilarious!

Mel, you call this acting??????

“You know how bitchy fags can be” was definitely a runner up DL tagline.

other people have loyal help, why can't we?

R10 And Lucy made PD have an abortion…I think. Been years since I read her memoir.

Here comes Tony Polar...he's gonna put the bite on me for a job!

Nudies!

R27 abortion? What about Sean Astin? It was believed for a time that Desi was his father

I don't need pills like Neely (Said as she sucks down champagne!)

[quote] Acting by Cardboard

And one ham.

On the summary on TCM they don't even list Susan Hayward as one of the stars. Sad!

R17 abortion? What about Sean Astin? Desi Jr. was thought to be his father.

Boobies. Nothing but boobies!

I'm going to heat the lasagna...

So funny how people are interested in this film now- it was a bomb, a joke really, and remains a piece of s…t film making. Camp? It’s so stupid, poorly acted and looks like crap.

OMG! Sally Spectra as a nurse!!

Patty's hairdos are spectacular. All wigs, or some of her own thick hair? And she looks sensational in that white gown.

Neely's certainly no Gillian Girl

Just think, a scant few years after Patty had her wholesome twin TV sitcom. Quite a leap, this role!

I still think Sean is Desi's son- they look like twins when younger. Watch Toy Soldier.

I agree, R32.

John Astin is still around, age 92. He had a great smile.

[quote] He had a great smile.

Is his smile no longer great?

Well, I don't rightly know, R35.

Sparkle Neely Sparkle!

I’m both proud and embarrassed to say that I know every line of this movie by heart.

I love Neely's accidental bead-bra during the Cystic Fibrosis telethon

Patty's character is thoroughly unlikable. She plays her at 10+ throughout. It really is a shrill performance.

But she looked fabulous!

NEELY O'HARAAAAAAAAA !!!!!!!

Kate

her last film before Valley was 1965s Billie

I’ll reheat the lasagna.

[quote] "Patty's hairdos are spectacular. All wigs, or some of her own thick hair? And she looks sensational in that white gown."

Probably a mix of her own hair, falls, and full wigs, R29. And you're right. That white gown is spectacular. It's the best Duke ever looked, and it's the best look from the film. It's fantastic.

[quote]Songs by Dory Previn.

Yeah well, whatever.

[quote]So funny how people are interested in this film now- it was a bomb, a joke really.

Not a bomb at all. A huge moneymaker for Fox.

Tony!

It has so many LITTLE campy moments.

Like Anne grandly dumping Neely’s pils into the trash can.

Despite a cameo as a reporter covering Jennifer's suicide, Jackie Susann made no bones about her contempt for the finished product at the world premiere, held aboard the cruise liner [italic]Italia.[/italic]

[quote]It has so many LITTLE campy moments.

[quote]Like Anne grandly dumping Neely’s pils into the trash can.

Also: the hip and happening George Jessel hosting the Grammys.

Some people don’t like it because it’s less overtly campy than Mommie Dearest or Showgirls, but it’s more ridiculous than both in its own way.

Hayward comes off very well in the film. She seems to be the only one who gets the wavelength the film is operating on and manages to best it. Despite having the most obviously campy role, she doesn’t come off as campy-cos-bad like three girls do. Something that makes me give her even more credit as an actress despite always knowing she was good.

Helen comes off as a wise old sage. The three girls kinda seem like losers.

The book is even better!

Of course the Neely character is based on Judy Garland, but the singing style, with all the gestures – and the way we're supposed to think she's this unique, exciting young talent – seems inspired by Babs Streisand, no?

In the (indeed great) book here was another Barbra-inspired character, toward the very end. Anne is miserably married to serial cheater Lionel. She catches him canoodling with this hot new Broadway star, who's kind of a brash, quirky kid: "I dig you, Lionel." Neely dismisses her: "She sings in her throat. She won't last."

Boobies, boobies, boobies.

She’s locked herself in her dressing room!

Patty said in her memoir that she let everyone believe Sean was Desi’s son and Lucie Arnaz visited her in the hospital. Lucy Sr loathed her.

Then we'll do the second act first!

You oughta know. You just got out of the nuthouse.

It was not a nuthouse!

I always wanted to do Neely's understudy for a Halloween costume.

A very deliberate take on Streisand who was of course replacing Garland and Merman at the time was film was being made.

You're not the breadwinner either!

Two former AA winners - Hayward & Duke.

And three future AA winners - Grant, Dreyfuss, and Marvin Hamlisch playing the piano in the rehearsal hall when Neely sings.....

Designing VotD...

I must correct myself, Lyon not Lionel.

I wanted to like Patty, but Gary talked me out of it.

[quote]Patty Duke dated Lucille Ball's son?!

Gurl, it was a WHOLE THING

Even after the DNA test, Patti still believed Desi was Sean's father.

My mother's movie magazines were all LIT UP with the Lucy-Patty-Desi drama. It pretty much sparked my lifelong love of gossip and scandal.

....and THEN young Desi took up with LIZA! I guess Lucy had to accept that as somewhat of a relief.

No one has ever been as pretty as Sharon Tate. It’s like those monsters killed a mythical creature.

1981...

Patty was nuts. Liza was ‘kooky’ and her parents were Hollywood royalty. Desi Jr actually accompanied Liza to the Oscars the year she won.

Helen is much more vicious in the book. In the powder room scene during the whole fag back and forth Helen says ‘what about your kids? Are they fags, too?’ Neely had twins with Ted but that was left out of the movie. I hope one day we get a VOD mini series that follows the book more closely including setting it the 40s and 50s.

Roger Ebert's review:

"What we have here is a dirty soap opera. It is dirty because it intends to be, but it is a soap opera only by default. It tries to raise itself to the level of sophisticated pornography, but fails. And it is dirty, not because it has lots of sex in it, but because it firmly believes that sex is dirty.

That makes sense. Most soap operas are aimed at audiences who are fascinated by the subject of sex, but who want it presented in a disapproving way.

And so in "Valley of the Dolls" we are given a pantheon of fallen women. They fall because they drink too much and take too many pills, but their main offense seems to be their irregular private lives. The story is so confused that we can hardly keep straight just who has done what, but it doesn't matter: They all do something.

Some moments persist in the memory, however. The scene in which Sharon Tate does her bust exercises, and most particularly the dialog at the end of that scene, should be preserved in permanent form so future historians can see that Hollywood was not only capable of vulgarity, but was also capable of the most offensive and appalling vulgarity ever thrown up by any civilization. I can't believe that scene. I really can't.

Side by side with this exhibit should go the one in which Neely O'Hara (Patty Duke) meets the handsome young man in the lawyer's office. Having preserved an example of vulgarity, we should also preserve a classic soap-opera cliché. Miss Duke gulps and blinks her eyes and the handsome young man is cool and suave, and as she leaves she drops her purse.

Both of them stoop to pick up the contents, and as their eyes meet from a distance of six inches she says she's afraid she has made a bad impression and he says he's enchanted, or something. Zing! Love at first sight. That this cliché should be thought still serviceable in 1967 is a sad commentary.

There is also a lot of fairly mild vulgar language, shoveled into the script so ineptly that we can tell the scriptwriters (two women) must not swear much. Mark Twain once explained why women were such poor cussers: They know the words, but not the music.

I don't understand how Patty Duke and Barbara Parkins got themselves into this movie. I guess it was the money. Both are quite attractive and capable actresses, and Miss Duke is particularly effective in her first musical number. Better things await them. Sharon Tate remains a wonder to behold, but after her bust exercises I am afraid I will be unable to take her any more seriously as a sex symbol than Raquel Welch.

As for the young men in the cast: They all apparently go to the same barber and tailor, and their mothers must all have been frightened by Robert Cummings. I couldn't tell them apart."

Side by side with this exhibit should go the one in which Neely O'Hara (Patty Duke) meets the handsome young man in the

Uhhh that was Parkins not Duke

I loved Patty, especially in this movie. Something about her, she just had such a cool look. I even liked her bizarre Emmy acceptance speech.

Ebert's review is rather ironic, given that he wrote the screenplay for the sequel.

He wrote that review before he was hired to write the screenplay.

Right r81 but complaining about the “most offensive and appalling vulgarity,” only to turn around and pen a movie about murder, mayhem, orgies and killer transvestites is hilarious. Especially considering his script was based on Sharon’s murder, making it ten times as offensive, appalling and “vulgar.” It’s not like he wrote that review in the 60’s and went on to write a screenplay decades later. It was only a couple years. What a hypocrite, his schlockfest of a movie makes VOTD look like Citizen Kane.

And what is Ebert referring to as far as Tate’s scene? “Oh to hell with it, let ‘em droop” ??? If anything I thought that was a cute addition and really humanized her character.

Fourth highest grossing film of 1967

[quote]He wrote that review before he was hired to write the screenplay.

I'm quite aware of that. It's still ironic that he would complain about vulgarity on this film and then write a screenplay that went even further in that direction.

Don’t worry sweetheart. If it flops I can always get you a job as understudy for my grandmother.

Thanks. I already turned down the part you're playin'.

“You’re being obnoxious…”

Theatre-A-Go-Go

[quote]My mother's movie magazines were all LIT UP with the Lucy-Patty-Desi drama. It pretty much sparked my lifelong love of gossip and scandal.

Interesting story being touted at the bottom of the magazine cover at R71, given when it was published. It's about some star's secret "homosexual wedding."

This IS an exciting business!

I HATE that fucking movie. The dame who plays me has it all wrong. I would have played myself, but I wouldn’t suck Robson’s wife’s cock.

Did Lucy hate me too?

Critic Judith Crist on the movie when it premiered on TV:

For out-and-out trash, few films have surpassed 1967's Valley of the Dolls - or made as much money. It's the bowlderized version of the Jacqueline Susann book which provided a mawkish, trite, cheap story and smut; the movie lacks the smut but compensates by being badly acted, badly photographed, and sleazily made, with a cheapjack production underling the near-idiot literacy level of the script. Patty Duke, who scores high in the repulsive bracket, and Susan Hayward, who can count this as [italic]her[/italic] horror movie (all middle-aged stars have to do one, it seems) fortunately survive their appearances herein.

Nice!

You should know honey. You just came out of the nut house.

"Excuse me I got a man waiting for me"

"That's a switch from the fags you're usually stuck with"

[quote]"That's a switch from the fags you're usually stuck with"

"At least I never married one!'

"You take that back!"

[Wig-flushing cat fight ensues.]

R88 saw the production at the Circle in the Square Downtown on Bleecker Street. It was hilarious and the audience was given a cup of candy to take pop along with the characters as they dosed.

^ saw some of the cast members at the Film Forum for a screening of another camp classic The Big Cube (1969) with Lana Turner as a retired actress whose stepdaughter is spiking her sedatives with LSD. It also features gowns by Travilla

“Having FUN, kiddies?”

The Big Cube is on youtube.

Is this thing the white gown that some of you are cooing over? No WAY! Duke was short and a bit chunky, the fucking gown makes her look like a votive candle!

It looks much worse in the film than it does in this still, the hand on the hip gives her the illusion of having a waist.

“Sure, you dried her out, but it won’t last…..”

“I need a man to hold me. I miss Mel, I mean Ted.

“All I know how to do is take off my clothes.”

[quote]The book is even better!

One of my best friends (an English professor) told me he found an old copy in his parents' vacation condo and ended up reading it in one sitting. His verdict was that Jackie Susann was a master storyteller.

Jennifer, shame on you!

To hell with them, let ‘em droop!

[quote]Patty said in her memoir that she let everyone believe Sean was Desi’s son and Lucie Arnaz visited her in the hospital. Lucy Sr loathed her.

R59 Well, I loathe Lucy, Sr so we're even.

How do you think I feel, sneaking out of your apartment, at 4 in the morning??

Look. They drummed you right of Hollywood. So you come crawling back to Broadway. Well Broadway doesn’t go for booze and dope. Now you get out of my way, I got a man waiting on me.

“The sanitarium was very expensive!”

Art films? Nudies!

I loved Patty Duke's creative decision to play Neely O'Hara as a total guttersnipe for the entire length of the film. Just a nasty, trashy bitch.

“Thank you for the loviest winter of my life.”

I always liked that line…it reminds me of past winter romances I’ve had, a thousand years ago.

[quote]One of my best friends (an English professor) told me he found an old copy in his parents' vacation condo and ended up reading it in one sitting. His verdict was that Jackie Susann was a master storyteller.

You cannot put the book down. The first time I read it I stayed up all night, I finished just as the sun was coming up. Susann's next novel The Love Machine is even better.

Susann really was a master storyteller, it's a shame she died so early. One wonders about what other novels she would've written as the Seventies went on, and then into the Eighties.

I find Barbara Parkins deadly boring. It’s like she’s underwater, she’s so slow.

First choice Candice Bergen wasn’t a better actress at that point, but at least she had a glimmer more personality onscreen. And as a former model she already looked more Gillian Girl.

OP, it's not on TCM now, I just checked.

Barbara Parkins screen test for Neely is dreadful. The actor who read with both Babs and Patty loved Patty but not Babs.

[quote]it's not on TCM now, I just checked.

It was on YESTERDAY, when this was posted. 🙄

What a FEEB. r118

You can find it to rent on Amazon Prime if you missed it.

If you don’t already have it on DVD you are a pleb and I harshly judge you.

R124 NO EXCUSES!

DREADFUL R20

You can see how she wouldn’t work as Neely but would be perfect as Anne.

No wonder they choose her to read for that role instead.

I like in the Roger Ebert review quoted above that he thinks it was Neely, not Anne, who had the encounter with Lyon at the office and drops her purse.

"Barely Pink".

As the poster upthread noted, the book has a few differences. One being Anne is described as a classy Grace Kelly blonde. I guess they wanted a blonde, a brunette and a reddish head for the movie.

It's like a big-production made-for-tv movie. Hard to take for more than 5 minutes at a stretch.

The wigs were glorious!

I thought Kevin Gilmore was a hot daddy.

Parkins' best performance was in The Mephisto Waltz (1971)

[quote] If you don’t already have it on DVD you are a pleb and I harshly judge you.

Excuse me??

It's on BLU-RAY. HI-DEF.

And from CRITERION. The most boutique of the boutique of Blu-Ray/DVD labels.

If you don't own the Criterion Blu-Ray, I harshly judge you and you might as well go whore yourself out at some bar.

The Criterion Disc doesn't have all the extras that the regular DVD does.

And in the book, after Helen gets her wig ripped off - she doesn't grandstand and go back into the party.....she disappears through the kitchen and leaves her young fag boyfriend with the check - and he doesn't have any money to pay.

I'll go out... the way I came in.

In the book Helen is bald and doesn’t have that fab mane of white hair.

r137 they did that for Susan Hayward. No way in hell was she going to wear a bald cap.

Bette Davis campaigned for the role of Helen Lawson. Can you even imagine? She even got chummy with Jacqueline Susann for awhile.

R89 I can tell you about that. Around that time, there was a hoax/prank where hundreds of fake wedding invitations for Rock Hudson’s and Jim Nabors’s wedding were sent out. It got picked up by some media as legitimate.

R126 The way she throws back that doll and pauses to positively caress it in her mouth taught me everything I know about how to swallow a pill!

Barbara is gorgeous in the fashion sequence.

I wish they'd kept Lyon an Englishman, like in the book.

I don't know why Jackie Susann was so upset at how the movie turned out. What did she expect?

Lee Daniels attempted a remake but was stopped by Susann’s estate. I think I read that a few years ago.

Did anyone ever actually call pills "dolls"?

Pants suit by Travilla.

[quote]Pants suit by Travilla.

As worn by Judy Garland in her 1967 engagement at the Palace Theatre in New York.

R148 = gold star gay

Jada Pinkett for Helen Lawson in the remake.

R126 She looks like Jamie-Lynn Sigler in her screen test

Patty talked a lot about working with Judy Garland, as brief as that was, but I don't recall her ever mentioning working with Susan Hayward. Any news or stories about that?

^ Hayward fell during their famous fight scene and rumor had that Duke knocked her down!

I'm glad Judy wasn't in it. Would have been too sad. She didn't have that harrrrd core.

R154, I think Judy would’ve been magnificent as Helen Lawson. I’d like to have seen portray a cast-iron bitch. Also, can you imagine Judy, as Helen, saying “Broadway doesn’t put up with booze or dope?” How about “sure you dried her out, but it won’t last?”

LMAO. Judy would have been FABULOUS. One can see a bit of Helen Lawson in Judy's performance in I Could Go On Singing. And this emerged in the scene in which Judy and Dirk Bogarde went off script.

[quote][R148] = gold star gay

Not so fast. The one shown in R147's link was Hayward's version. Garland's version was a slightly different color and had been gifted to her by Fox. She also spent $3000 on two more. A version in all red and another in all white.

Back in 1941 in Ziegfeld Girl, Judy showed a hard core when her character exclaims, after Lana Turner's Sheila, who's supposedly a good friend of Judy's character, collapses drunk on opening night of the new Follies show "How can someone do that to her career!" I think Garland could have done well as the tough Helen Lawson.

R155 R156 R158 Garland was too tremulous to play a tough broad by this point

R71- Swanky palce!

Judy Garland was a good actress, but I don’t think she was together enough at this point to pull together a characterization like Helen’s required, so far out of her usual range.

I love the sweet look on Susan’s face and her humble bow when the audience goes wild after I’ll Plant My Own Tree. Makes you understand why they love her.

And I love the big thread hanging from her armpit when she lifts her right arm just before the end of the song.

Carol Burnett’s version

R59 She was so frail.

R159 rather

No, it's not on TCM now.

It was when this was first posted.

All you flat chested girls, go make a Fruit Loop "It's Impossible" chain necklace.