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Hooooo boy.
Jacqueline Susann’s Valley of the Dolls became a bestseller in 1966, and after just one year the inevitable movie adaptation was released.
This might explain why the theatrical trailer looks like a collection of money shots: contemporary audiences, one assumes, were already aware of the main characters’ struggles, quirks and eventual fates, so the marketing plan must have sounded like “hell, let’s just get down with the sleaze and call it a day”.
The infamous restroom catfight between Neely O’Hara and Helen Lawson pops up, as do some lines that would eventually make the history of camp (I gotta get up at 5 in the morning, it’s “sparkle, Neely, sparkle!”).
Patty Duke never recovered from this, and neither did TV bad girl Barbara Parkins.
Camp value notwithstanding, it’s a pretty boring, subdued affair - skip it and go straight to Russ Meyer’s parody. Or, you know, read the book.
