As trashy as they say 'Valley of the Dolls' was based on Jacqueline Susann's 1966 best seller of the same name. The movie was also enormously successful grossing $50 million world wide on a $4.7 million budget. Critics disliked the film and even audiences were split, but in 1967 the novelty of the degree of salaciousness actually being shown on screen really packed those seats, though it's really nothing by today's standards.
The story of three women and the various degrees of damage worldly success does on their lives, probably best remembered for the presence of Sharon Tate. Patty Duke plays against type, becoming a real bitch over the course of the film. I rather liked Barbara Parkins as the most grounded of the film, she was best known at this time, and probably still if people remember her at all, for being in the TV soap opera Payton Place. While I've never seen that series this movie did make me long for the 1957 movie Payton Place, which was also unusually salacious for it's time, but had a core substance to it that this film lacked.
'Valley of the Dolls' is over the top soap opera, explotive, dirty minded, and while still a landmark in film history it has little to redeem or recommend it. *
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