“Alright, faggot. Start explaining.”
The Valley of the Dolls I happen to record this one off of the Fox Movie Channel last month, and - against my father’s advice - finally sat down to watch it. My dad had seen the movie back around the time it first came out (1967), and told me he thought it was pretty lame and a waste of time. Not one to heed to reason, I perservered anyway and was pleasantly surprised. Admittedly I knew almost nothing about the movie before watching it, so I guess some form of surprise was inevitable. From what little I did know, I was certainly not expecting a half-assed attempt at a garish Hollywood musical, and this attempt was half-assed at best. The film contains at most four distinct musical numbers, but they tried damn hard to pretend like there were more. Songs were performed by different artists or, failing that, at least performed at different tempos to change the “mood.” Yawn. Our “heroine,” Neely, moves from New England to New York. She gets a job with some showbiz types, and two hours of trite film is made. Really. Now, if I was going to make a film that is supposedly anti-drug (or rather, anti-sleeping pill), I think I could do better than to turn it into a Disney musical. It reaches the point of absurdity in a “dramatic” scene where our heroine is stumbling like a drunkard (sleeping pills make you drunk in this film) with the obscenely delightful title music blaring at the audience. Am I supposed to be happy that she is in a “doll”-induced state of obliteration? I was happy that it meant the end of the film was near. As much as it may seem otherwise, I genuinely enjoyed watching this one. Not because it was a piece of quality cinema, or anything like that. It is, however, definitely a glimpse back into a different time, both in Hollywood, and in Hollywood’s interpretation of reality.
