Valley of the Dolls (1967)

Directed by Mark Robson. Starring Barbara Parkins, Paul Burke, Patty Duke, Sharon Tate, Tony Scotti, Lee Grant, Mel Anderson, Alexander Davion, Charles Drake, Susan Hayward. [PG-13]

For such a campy trash classic, this much-derided adaptation of Jacqueline Susann’s hackneyed bestseller can also be really slow and dull when the melodrama isn’t cranked to 11. Three women try to make it in showbiz, but are misled, mistreated, victimized, or left to self-destruct, resulting in them getting hooked on “dolls” (slang term for barbiturates). The kitsch sometimes flies off the screen as if powered by 3-D rendering—one montage can’t even be believed—but the bad laughs don’t add up to much entertainment value when Mark Robson and the cast fail to bring any of the wretched writing to life, as if the whole picture was on those downers, man. The cult following insists the movie is fascinatingly bad instead of just bad-bad, so judge for yourself. Screenplay by Helen Deutsch, Dorothy Kingsley, and an uncredited Harlan Ellison. John Williams’ score earned him the first of his fifty-plus Oscar nominations. Look for a young Richard Dreyfuss in his first film role (a bit part); Ms. Susann and Marvin Hamlisch make cameo appearances.

36/100