356 - Valley of the Dolls, United States, 1967. Dir. Mark Robson.

Friday, December 22, 2017

356 - Valley of the Dolls, United States, 1967.  Dir. Mark Robson.

Anne Welles takes the train from Laurenceville to New York City.

She gets a job at a talent agency.  She is hired by the father, Mr. Burke, but works directly with the son, Lyon Burke.

He sends her over to a theater where they are rehearsing a new musical.  She needs to get the star, Helen Lawson (Susan Hayward), to sign some contracts.

When Anne arrives she sees them rehearsing.  Jennifer North (Sharon Tate) is modelling a grand headdress.  She has a great look.  Neely O'Hara (Patty Duke) is practicing her song.  She has a great voice.  Anne cannot believe the talent and energy in the room.  This industry looks fascinating.  She is going to enjoy her job.

She enters Lawson's dressing room.  The grande dame.  She is chewing out a man.  Anne asks her to sign the contracts.  Miss Lawson begins to do so.  But then Anne makes the mistake of complimenting the girl she just heard singing downstairs.  Helen is threatened.  Cut the musical number.  Reduce Neely to a minor role.  Force her out.  Anne cannot believe what has just happened.  This industry looks terrifying.  She is going to hate her job.

She is going to quit her job, but Lyon talks her out of it.  They have a moment.  The chemistry between them begins.

Neely has a run-of-show contract with the musical, meaning they must pay her $200 a week for the run of the show regardless of how much her role may swell or shrink along the way--even if they cut her out of it completely.  To her this means she is getting paid to sit backstage in her dressing room, feeling bored and depressed.  She did not sign up for that.  The show's producer offers her to walk away to maintain her dignity.  Her friend observes that he just wants to save $200 a week.  Why not get your agent to fight for you?  But he will advise her to stay.  Why fight for her?  It is worth 10% to him to do nothing.  She quits the show.  With her "dignity."

But showbiz has its way of creating unexpected twists and turns.  If you have talent and work hard, then new roads will open up for you when old ones close.  Neely gets a gig on a national telethon.  She sings live on air.  The phones start ringing.  The public loves her.  She gets a job at a nightclub.  She is on her way.

The three young women--Anne Welles, Jennifer North, and Neely O'Hara--are all at the beginning of their careers, trying to get noticed, trying to get established, trying to get going.  Together they will learn the ropes and climb the ladder, moving back and forth between New York and Los Angles--and Laurenceville--falling in and out of love with the men in their lives, working through relationships with mothers and grandmothers, struggling with the pressures of show business, and hopefully finding a way to stay clean and sober along the way.

Unfortunately, however, when those pressures press hard, those who are pressed upon might find themselves turning to substances to help them get through.  Booze.  Drugs.  Pills.

The phrase "valley of the dolls" does not mean what it sounds like.  It is not a place full of young, pretty girls.  It is a low point in the mind, a place of desperation, when someone has turned to pills.

A doll is a prescription pill used for recreation or self-medication.  Here a barbiturate.  The slang use of the word seems to be limited to this film and the book upon which it is based.  It does not appear that it was in common use even at the time.

The film takes the women and their careers seriously.  It follows their hearts and sees the world through their eyes.  It is beautifully filmed (contrast the city with the beach with the snow) and offers moments of touching insight.  It is not clear why it has been marketed and treated the way it has over the years, as pulp camp, as sexploitation, even to this day, even by Criterion.  Perhaps to some degree time has tamed it.  Perhaps their professional appearances and polite manners obscure to us what to them seemed lowbrow.  If they are lowbrow, then what are we?  Do you even know anybody who can dress that well and speak with that level of courtesy?

Yes, there are lines of dialogue, taken from the book, that jump out at the viewer as being artificially written for broad effect.  But one can think of hundreds of films where that is the case and yet nobody pays it any mind.

This movie offers something especially special for the viewer--the opportunity to see Sharon Tate act.  Many people know of her as the young and pregnant wife of Roman Polanski who was brutally murdered at the behest of Charles Manson.  Consequently, many people have a place in their hearts for her.  But how many have ever seen her act?  She was 26 when she died.  Before that, she appeared as an extra in two popular films and as an actress in five mostly unwatched ones.  And then this one.

Sharon Tate plays Jennifer North as having a tender and loyal heart.  She falls for crooner Tony Polar, who falls for her while singing to her at the nightclub, despite his sister Miriam's (Lee Grant) protestations.  When he comes down with a chronic and terminal genetic disease she stands by him, does whatever it takes to take care of him, and seeks to be with him.  What she goes through to help him, and how her mother compounds it, is heartbreaking.

Her good heart extends to her friends as well as to her husband.  Anne Welles, who has not had any particular ambitions beyond being a secretary, happens to be pretty and is hired by a client in the office to be the face of a line of beauty products.  In a scene where Jennifer is sitting on the floor working on her fingernails while watching television, Anne's commercials begin airing and Jennifer's face lights up with joy.  She is genuinely and deeply happy for her friend.  She is sweet and kind and good.

Barbara Parkins plays Anne Welles.  She was popular at the time for a television show called Peyton Place, the Sex and the City of its day.  She played the naughty girl in her television show, and Patty Duke, who was on The Patty Duke Show, played the good girl in hers.  They switch places in this film.  She was 20 at the time of the film and had already had an Oscar for four years, having won at age 16 for playing Hellen Keller in The Miracle Worker (1962).

Judy Garland was originally hired to play Helen Lawson, and she filmed a few scenes.  I have read or heard multiple and contradictory stories as to why she left and whether she quit or was fired.  I do not know which one is accurate so I will not speculate.

This film also played a role in the early careers of John Williams, who composed and arranged the score, and Dionne Warwick, who sang the theme song.

Check out the film.

It is more than what it appears.