Booze, dope and showbiz. How can we resist?

The Valley of the Dolls is finally out on a deluxe 2-disc DVD — just in time for Gay Pride Day. And what a celebration it is! From its shocking-pink plastic case to its tons of queer-centric extras, we have never seen a DVD cater so hard — or so lovingly — to a certain kind of fabuloso gay mania.

Here you will find extras that include: Karaoke versions of the film’s dumbly worded songs where you follow the bouncing Rx bottle. Commentary by a camp-savvy but earnest Barbara Parkins (who hated her boxy, beige good-girl suits when all the other actresses got to wear sparkly Travilla gowns.) Remarks from Patty Duke (who hated the director and was accused of beating up too hard on Susan Hayward in the the film’s campfest finale, the ladies room cat fight.) And comments from a supporting player, who noted that it was a movie where all the actresses hated each other, upstaged each other, and saw their roles as pivotal career-changing opportunities.

Oh, how wrong — the film was universally panned as “the worst film of 1967” even as it became Fox’s biggest moneymaker — they were. And yet how right: Gay men have kept this film and the glory of its actresses alive for lo, these 40 years.

Positioning the DVD for maximum gay impact, the extras are riddled with zinger-flying comments from Bruce Vilache, Michael Musto and E’s gossip columnist Ted Casablanca (who surely named himself after one of the film’s characters, the purported “fag husband” who is caught canoodling in the pool with — a naked boy [in the book] or a naked girl [in one of the film's rare retreats from author Jackie Susann's screaming-headline brio.])

Front and center, of course, is the film itself (beautifully transfered on this DVD). Here, once again, is the story of three beautiful girls (so like ourselves):

Jennifer – the Sexbomb who is too gorgeous!

Neely — the Superstar who is too talented!

Anne — the Good Girl who, by simply entering a room with a steno pad, is offered the job of international supermodel.

Golden girls all. Yet, with a never-to-be-forgotten relish for degradation, they each end up hating their fabulous lives and tossing back “dolls” (i.e. pills) with whiskey chasers. Never before has drug addition, drunken rages, passing out on beaches, and screaming mental breakdowns on movie sets (”That cameraman is frying me!”) looked so glamorous.

This is exactly why we go ga-ga for this movie. It was Jackie Susann’s squaresville read on “swinger” mentality, posing as savvy insider shit.

With utter New York brashness, Susann conflated the lowlight showbiz people she knew with the megawatt stardom of Judy Garland (she who is too talented, here called Neely), Marilyn (the sexbomb Jennifer, played by Sharon Tate, later to become a victim of the Manson family, but here reciting her lines with a flat John-Waters tonality suggestive of rote memorization) and the classic good-hearted (yet fantastically beautiful) brunette — an idealized version of Susann herself, as filtered through the soppy plotlines of 1940’s women’s movies … but with one explosive difference. This good girl fucks, just like in real life.

Best of all, there’s Susan Hayward’s Helen Lawson, biting off every line with tough-as-nails scorn. This fire-breathing dragon was based on Ethel Merman, whom Susann actually got to know, in the manner of an obsessed fan. Unfortunately, Merman had to take out a restraining order to keep the smitten Susann from beating down her door (another juicy tidbit from the DVD extras).

In revenge, Susann cast her “Helen” (Ethel) as the killer queen bee and older star who overshadows everyone else’s career, who stakes a claim on every molecule of oxygen in the vicinity with lines like “The only hit that comes out of a Helen Lawson show is Helen Lawson. And that’s me, baby! Remember!”

What joy to meet up with these dolls again on this Gay Pride Day.

	“Who’s stoned? I’m merely traveling incognito.”        – Neely, bombed out of her mind, taking exception to a bartender’s remark. “Was she depressed?”        – Jacqueline Susann, appearing in the film as a reporter, asking the dumbest of all possible questions after Jennifer’s suicide. “Look, they drummed you right out of Hollywood. So you come crawling back to Broadway. Well, Broadway doesn’t go for boooooooze and dope!”        – Helen Lawson giving Neely some career advice. “I’m gonna heat up the lasagna.”        – Lee Grant, making a hasty exit rather than discuss family problems. “It’s not booze, it’s pills .”        – One stagehand to another in the wake of Neely’s spactacular freakout on a movie set. “They’re replacing you with a younger girl.” “Younger? Lyon, I’m only 26!” “You look 36.”        – Exchange between Neely O’Hara and her agent. “You should know, honey, you just came out of the nuthouse!”        – Helen Lawson, after Neely makes a crack about someone not being crazy. “You’re being ob-nox-ious!”        – Anne to Neely, but made memorable by Barbara Parkin’s weirdly swanky pronunciation of ‘obnoxious’

Still hooked on dolls?

Deluxe 2-DVD Special Edition of the film.
Part 2 of our Dolls coverage
Our Helen Lawson tribute

The Jacqueline Susann novel that began it all.
And, of course … Narcotics Anonymous.