VALLEY OF THE DOLLS: trashier than the municipal dump

I'd always imagined that VALLEY OF THE DOLLS would be trashy. I'd read enough about the film in books on the history of 1960s cinema to expect airport novel junk with a high Hollywood gloss but I didn't realise quite what a soap opera it would be as well.

I don't mean those self-perpetuating daytime tv soaps with their cardboard sets and wooden acting. VALLEY OF THE DOLLS is Dynasty style soap, right down to the casting of a Hollywood star who's seen better days.
That actress on the slide is Susan Hayward, playing Helen Lawson, a Broadway legend who's attained her mythic status by clambering over the bodies of those who were more talented but less determined. It's a part that would have also suited the late 60s-era Bette Davis or Joan Crawford, although it's doubtful whether anything or anyone would have remained standing had either of those ladies been cast in the role.
It's a shame that Hayward's part isn't bigger. Lawson is an enjoyable and much needed counterpoint to the shrieking, wailing and immature suffering of the three interchangeable young women at the heart of the story.
I had the hardest time telling Barbara Parkins (Anne) from Patty Duke (Neely). They both look so similar that it took me the first thirty seconds of any scene either of them was in to figure out which one I was watching. It didn't help that the same guys got involved with both of them.
The third of the trio is Sharon Tate as Jennifer. Although beset by the same personal and career setbacks as Anne and Neely in her climb up the greasy pole of showbusiness, with her striking looks, long blonde hair and fixation on her breasts, I had no problem identifying her.
It's the myriad of misfortunes which inject the element of soap opera into the proceedings. Between the three of them they rack up more adultery, mental illness, drug addiction, abortions, fatal diseases, alcoholism, attempted suicides, one-night stands, and ex-boyfriends/husbands in just a few short years than any trio of real-life famous-for-being-famous paparazzi-addicted socialites could manage in a lifetime.

Watching the multiple miseries which afflict them as they drag themselves painfully up that pole, it's impossible to avoid reaching the conclusion that fame and fortune are not worth the price they extract. The drama is so overheated that it's also easy to forget that it's not actually so far removed from reality. The history of Hollywood is littered with stars and wannabes who cracked under the pressure, from Peg Entwistle to Judy Garland. Ironically, Garland, who's own life bore many similarities to Neely's,  was hired and fired from the part of Helen Lawson because of her drinking and unpredictable behaviour.
VALLEY OF THE DOLLS is considerably less scandalous now than it was on it's original release in 1967. Thanks to the tabloids, kiss and tell memoirs, and websites like TMZ, there's little we don't know about what happens behind the scenes in showbusiness and the lengths to which some people are prepared to go to find fame and then hang on to it. 
There's something rather endearing about three young ladies quite prepared to trample the ten commandments in their drive to succeed, but unwilling to speak in anything less than perfectly formed sentences while they're doing it.
But even though it's power to shock is much diminished the film survives as an enjoyable example of ludicrous, overblown, implausible camp trash.