Dolls! Dolls! Dolls! by Stephen Rebello book review
“Valley of the Dolls” may be the most beloved bad movie of all time, a fitting adaptation of the 1966 Jacqueline Susann novel it’s based on. Stephen Rebello certainly seems to think so. His new book “Dolls! Dolls! Dolls!” says so right in the subtitle. Rebello, a screenwriter, journalist and author of a book about the making of “Psycho,” takes us — as his subtitle also proudly announces — “deep inside” the making of the 1967 film. The movie — which follows the exploits of three pill-popping female show-business wannabes — was roundly dismissed by critics. Roger Ebert called it “a dirty soap opera” that failed even to “raise itself to the level of sophisticated pornography.” Nonetheless, the film was, like Susann’s novel, a commercial success and, to many, a classic.
In his book, Rebello chronicles how Susann’s salacious bestseller went from page to screen. If that sounds like a dull procedural, think again. Rebello delivers a surfeit of detail — some chapters are so top-heavy with names and facts one fears they may topple over like one of the stupendous hairpieces featured in the film. Though the book is gossipy, it is full of surprises and even suspense — revealing how cutthroat and puerile Hollywood can be.
The first surprise is that Susann relinquished all control over how the film was produced, written, cast and publicized, meaning that Twentieth Century Fox could slice, dice and contort her novel however it chose. Also surprising: Science-fiction author Harlan Ellison was hired to write the first screen treatment, but his script had a psychedelic twist, and he was, unsurprisingly, fired. The studio then looked for a writer who was “solid, dependable, and female” and got two — Helen Deutsch and Dorothy Kingsley. Though they had their differences, they shared screenwriting credit.
Even if Susann’s novel had been panned by the critics, the film studio’s head, Darryl F. Zanuck argued, “Dolls” could become a “problem picture” that exposed social issues, like anti-Semitism in “Gentlemen’s Agreement” or race in “Pinky.” This hoped-for status might explain why top-drawer talent such as Barbra Streisand, Candice Bergen, Julie Christie, Natalie Wood, Debbie Reynolds and Bette Davis showed interest in being cast. But the director, Mark Robson, who had a great success with “Peyton Place” (1957), wanted “new faces,” and though he thought Patty Duke a “preposterous candidate” to play the hard-charging Neely, the young Oscar-winner got the part. Barbara Parkins, on loan from ABC’s TV “Peyton Place,” and Sharon Tate added their lovely faces to the cast. Judy Garland was brought on to play Helen Lawson, an aging singer who wrangles with upstart Neely. But Garland had a meltdown during shooting and was quickly replaced by another screen queen, Susan Hayward.
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Though Susann envisioned Sean Connery, Paul Newman or Steve McQueen playing the male lead, and the studio tested Christopher Plummer, James Garner and Gig Young for the part, “second string” actor Paul Burke landed the role. According to Rebello, Parkins prepared for her love scenes with Burke by staring at a photograph of Cat Stevens. Another surprising fact concerns Parkins: Though beautiful and ambitious, after doing “Dolls,” her career stalled, and her agents advised her to turn down “Goodbye, Columbus” and “Love Story.” If she had had another agent, her career might have taken off. Instead, she continued to pose for “Playboy.”
And so it goes for 18 chapters — all phases of production and the people behind them discussed in gossipy detail. Bill Travilla, whose custom-made costumes cost thousands, predicted, unironically, that his designs would be “duplicated in every budget shop and department store in America.” The film’s hairstylist, Mr. Kenneth, made towering concoctions and luscious extensions for the female leads, and met the challenge to make the diminutive Duke look taller while wearing his wigs. Parkins suggested that Dionne Warwick sing the film’s title song, after Judy Garland was dismissed. We learn how thoroughly the studio’s pre- and postproduction press coverage of “Dolls” fed huge public interest. We learn that director Robson timed the actors’ dialogue with a stopwatch, that Sharon Tate kept a “tiny mirror in her cleavage to check herself before each take,” and that a ticket to a film in 1967 cost $1.30.
Rebello fills his book with (what we assume are accurate) factoids, but he seldom tempers his “magnificent obsession” with the film to consider the significance of what he reports. Only in the final pages, for instance, does he mention how the film’s “lipstick traces [are] all over pop culture,” how its “retro-glam” echoed in the work of big name fashion designers and Red Cherry Eyelashes, or that feminists Camille Paglia, Candace Bushnell and Lena Dunham acknowledge Susann’s influence.
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But other questions still loom. Rebello claims that “Dolls” is a bad movie, but is it? Is Patty Duke’s character’s meltdown acted any worse than Frank Sinatra’s in “The Man With the Golden Arm”? Are films about women more open to parody, more easily reconfigured as camp? Granted, if such questions were considered, Rebello’s book might have inspired more contemplation and less gush, which could alienate readers just in it for the fun. So, let’s accept it as it is, a book to simply enjoy, especially after seeing the film, which I strongly recommend you do.
Sibbie O’Sullivan, a former teacher in the Honors College at the University of Maryland, is author of “My Private Lennon: Explorations from a Fan Who Never Screamed.”
DOLLS! DOLLS! DOLLS!
Deep Inside 'Valley of the Dolls,' The Most Beloved Bad Book and Movie of All Time
By Stephen Rebello
Penguin Books. 352 pp. Paperback, $17
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