I can't quite call VALLEY OF THE DOLLS a bad movie because to me a truly bad movie would be unwatchable. VALLEY is very watchable, it's just inept in almost every category, presenting this lurid melodrama as though it were a prestige picture. The acting is campy, the songs are mostly bad (what even is the melody of "I'll Plant My Tree"?), and the story is a conga line of soap opera cliches. However, there are genuinely moving bits amid the garbage-- Sharon Tate is heartbreaking as the tragic Jennifer North, who only sees value in herself as a sexual object and nothing more. The ending actually made me cry, as did the scene where Anne returns home to her aunt.
A visual essay on the Criterion release points out that for all its melodramatic nonsense, the film does touch on topics that still resonate with women in a post-sexual revolution world. There's a beating heart beneath the goofiness and the dumb dialogue. That makes the film weirdly compelling in the end, even if it seems to be compelling in spite of itself.
A visual essay on the Criterion release points out that for all its melodramatic nonsense, the film does touch on topics that still resonate with women in a post-sexual revolution world. There's a beating heart beneath the goofiness and the dumb dialogue. That makes the film weirdly compelling in the end, even if it seems to be compelling in spite of itself.