Valley of the Dolls (film)

Infobox Film
name = Valley of the Dolls


image_size = 200px
caption = Original film poster
imdb_id = 0062430
producer = David Weisbart
director = Mark Robson
writer = Novel:
Jacqueline Susann
Screenplay:
Helen Deutsch
Dorothy Kingsley
Uncredited:
Harlan Ellison
starring = Barbara Parkins
Sharon Tate
Patty Duke
music = André Previn & Dory Previn (songs)
John Williams
cinematography = William H. Daniels
editing = Dorothy Spencer
distributor = Twentieth Century Fox
released = December 15, 1967
country = United States
runtime = 123 min.
language = English

"Valley of the Dolls" is a 1967 American drama film based on the 1966 novel of the same name by Jacqueline Susann. The "dolls" within the title is a slang term for downers, mood-altering drugs. The film, which was produced by David Weisbart and directed by Mark Robson, received a great deal of publicity during its production. Upon release it was a commercial success, though universally panned by critics. It was re-released in 1969 following the murder of star Sharon Tate, and once again proved commercially viable. In the years since its production, it has come to be regarded as a camp classic. Barbara Parkins, attending a July 1997 screening of the film at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco, told the sold-out crowd, "I know why you like it... because it's so bad!" [ [http://search.sfweekly.com/Issues/1997-07-23/music/music4.html Night Crawler, SF Weekly] ; Retrieved on 2007-02-07] The movie was remade in 1981 for television as "Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls".

Plot

The film tells the story of three young women who meet when all are embarking on the beginning of their careers. Neely O'Hara is a plucky kid with undeniable talent who is working in a Broadway play which stars the legendary actress Helen Lawson. Jennifer North, a beautiful blonde with limited talent, is appearing in the chorus. Anne Welles is a New England ingenue who's recently arrived in New York City and is working for a theatrical agency that represents Helen Lawson. The three women become fast friends, sharing the bonds of ambition and the tendency to fall in love with the wrong men.

O'Hara becomes a major success and moves to Hollywood to pursue a lucrative film career, but almost immediately falls victim to the titular "dolls" — prescription drugs, particularly the barbiturates Seconal and Nembutal and various stimulants. Her career is shattered by her erratic behavior and she is committed to a sanitarium.

Meanwhile, Jennifer follows Neely to Hollywood and marries nightclub singer Tony Polar, by whom she gets pregnant. When she learns he has the hereditary Huntington's chorea — a fact his sister Miriam (Lee Grant) had been concealing — Jennifer has an abortion. Faced with Tony's mounting medical expenses, Jennifer finds herself working in French "art films" (extremely tame soft-core pornography) to pay the bills.

Anne, having become a highly successful model, also falls under the allure of "dolls" to escape her doomed relationship with cad Lyon Burke, who has an affair with Neely. After Jennifer is diagnosed with breast cancer and told she must have a mastectomy, she commits suicide with an overdose of "dolls". Neely is released from the sanitarium and given a chance to resurrect her career, but the attraction of "dolls" proves too strong and she spirals into a hellish decline.

In the film, Anne abandons drugs and her unfaithful lover and returns to New England. Lyon Burke ends his affair with Neely and asks Anne to marry him, but she refuses. This "happy ending" was cobbled together by studio demands for an uplifting dénouement; it strays from the original plot of the book, in which Anne stays with Lyon after his affair with Neely and becomes increasingly dependent on drugs. Writer Harlan Ellison, who wrote the original screenplay, took his name off the project because of the ending and the watering-down of his realistic adaptation of the story.

Cast

*Barbara Parkins as Anne Welles
*Patty Duke as Neely O'Hara
*Sharon Tate as Jennifer North
*Paul Burke as Lyon Burke
*Tony Scotti as Tony Polar
*Susan Hayward as Helen Lawson
*Martin Milner as Mel Anderson
*Charles Drake as Kevin Gillmore
*Alexander Davion as Ted Casablanca
*Lee Grant as Miriam Polar
*Naomi Stevens as Miss Steinberg
*Robert H. Harris as Henry Bellamy
*Jacqueline Susann as Reporter #1 at Jennifer's suicide
*Robert Viharo as Art Film Director
*Joey Bishop as Telethon Emcee
*George Jessel - Grammy Awards Emcee

Award nominations

*Academy Award for Best Music, Scoring of Music, Adaptation or Treatment (John Williams)
*Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer – Female (Sharon Tate)
*Grammy Award for Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture (André Previn)

Differences between the book and film

*In the film, Anne finds it difficult to leave the beautiful house in Lawrenceville. In the book she despises the cold, austere house and loses Lyon the first time around because she refuses to live there with him.
*In the film, Neely O'Hara is cast out of Lawson's new Broadway play. In the book, O'Hara replaces Terry King because Helen prefers that an unknown play the second-lead "ingenue" role, rather than King who was getting too much attention in the press.
*The film completely excludes the lengthy subplot in which Anne is unwillingly engaged to wealthy but unattractive Alan Cooper while struggling to hide her feelings for Lyon Burke.
*In the book, the story takes place over multiple decades, dealing with the aging of women in Hollywood, while the film takes place in a much shorter time span.
*In the book Anne ends up marrying Lyon Burke, and Lyon ends up participating in a serious affair with Neely O'Hara. Anne does not have the peaceful catharsis in the book that she does in the film, instead she slips into the same drug induced comatose life that plagued the rest of her friends, while settling for her loveless marriage and her husbands infidelity.
*In addition to numerous other characters, the characters of George Bellows and Terry King are eliminated completely, though Bellamy is mentioned in the beginning of the film by Miss Steinberg.

Trivia

*Judy Garland was originally cast as Helen Lawson, but was fired when she showed up to work drunk [cite web | title = BBC News Report | url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6197589.stm| accessdate = 2007-04-07] ; Susan Hayward replaced her in the role after production had already begun.
*Barbara Parkins suggested Dionne Warwick perform the film's theme song. A re-recorded version of the song became Warwick's biggest hit to date, peaking at the #2 spot in February, 1968.
*Barbara Harris was seriously considered for the role of Neely O'Hara; Barbara Parkins also tested for the role, although it ultimately went to Patty Duke.
*Soap opera actress Darlene Conley ("The Bold and the Beautiful") has a bit part in the film as a desk manager at a rehearsal hall.
*Judith Lowry, who later appeared in the series "Phyllis", played Anne's Aunt Amy, although she wasn't credited.
*The book's author, Jacqueline Susann, appeared in the film as a reporter at the scene of Jennifer's suicide.
* "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls", a 1970 satirical pastiche, was filmed by Twentieth Century-Fox while the studio was being sued by Jacqueline Susann, according to Irving Mansfield's book "Jackie and Me". 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 movie with the same title. The suit went to court after Susann's death in 1974; the estate would eventually win damages in the amount of $2 million against Fox.
* An uncredited Richard Dreyfuss played the role of an assistant stage manager. This was Dreyfuss' first film appearance.
* Also uncredited, actress Peggy Rea, who later appeared in The Waltons, Step by Step (TV series) and Grace Under Fire appears briefly as Neely O'Hara's vocal coach.

References

External links

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