Valley of the Dolls (1967)
Directed by Mark Robson
Lured by their dreams of fame and fortune, three ambitious young women enter the world of show business and discover how easy it is to sink into a celebrity nightmare of ego, alcohol and pills — the beloved "dolls."
2 connections found
View:
2 connections, in both directions
What critics compared Valley of the Dolls to
But writer/director Quentin Tarantino thoughtfully humanizes Sharon Tate, the 26-year-old Valley of the Dolls star who was murdered by the Manson Family in 1969, to weave a narrative about celebrity and shattered dreams in Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood .
Rick’s new next door neighbors happen to be Roman Polanski (Rafal Zawierucha), hot off directing “Rosemary’s Baby,” and his actress wife Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie almost capturing Tate’s particular sweet naivete) who is a rising star with "Valley of the Dolls."
The theater staff is amused and surprised, if not exactly star struck – they don’t really know who she is until she mentions her part in Valley of the Dolls .
This year I’ve seen three movies featuring Tate: this, The Haunting of Sharon Tate , and Charlie Says ; I also watched the fevered Valley of the Dolls , which Tate starred in.
The rising star’s murder near the end of her pregnancy and its peace and love era-ending eeriness notwithstanding, the real Tate’s role (and that of Patty Duke’s Neely O’Hara) in Valley of the Dolls is obvious subtext here, especially for the trajectory of DiCaprio’s TV actor Rick Dalton who battles alcoholism while trying to stay relevant as an actor and ends up making B-movies in Italy.
Decades after 1967’s Valley of the Dolls and decades prior to 2016’s The Neon Demon, Dutch director Paul Verhoeven‘s Showgirls, the over-the-top tale of ill-gotten fame, busted dreams and the skeezy, grimy underbelly of Las Vegas, dragged its garish arse across screens across the world.
There are also some noteworthy theories, such as the one that considers Showgirls to be part of a camp trilogy that also includes 1967’s Valley of the Dolls and 1981’s Mommie Dearest .