Valley of the Dolls (film)

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Valley of the Dolls
Original film poster
Directed by	Mark Robson
Produced by	David Weisbart
Written by	Novel: Jacqueline Susann Screenplay: Helen Deutsch Dorothy Kingsley Uncredited: Harlan Ellison
Starring	Barbara Parkins Sharon Tate Patty Duke
Music by	André Previn & Dory Previn (songs) John Williams
Cinematography	William H. Daniels
Editing by	Dorothy Spencer
Distributed by	Twentieth Century Fox
Release date(s)	December 15, 1967
Running time	123 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
IMDb profile

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!"^[1] The movie was remade in 1981 for television as Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls.

1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Award nominations
4 Differences between the book and film
5 Trivia
6 References
7 External links

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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

[edit] Award nominations

[edit] 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.

[edit] Trivia

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

Judy Garland was originally cast as Helen Lawson, but was fired when she showed up to work drunk^[2]; 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.