In 1967, 20th Century Fox released their movie adaptation of Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls directed by Mark Robson and starring Barbara Parkins, Patty Duke, Sharon Tate, Lee Grant, Paul Burke, Martin Milner, and Susan Hayward.
As with the book, it follows the lives of three women, Anne Welles (Parkins), Neely O'Hara (Duke) and Jennifer North (Tate), as they achieve fame and fortune through showbiz, as well as much duress and heartbreak which they cope with by taking a lot of pills.
As this was an adaptation by a big studio in the late '60s (before the MPAA rating system went into effect), it was scrubbed clean from a lot of the more salacious elements found in the book.
The film's huge success at the box-office made the studio interested in putting out a continuation, resulting in a 1970 parody pseudo-sequel, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, written by Roger Ebert and directed by famed schlockmeister Russ Meyer.
Examples:
- Adaptational Alternate Ending: The movie's ending is a bit more optimistic than the book's, at least where Anne is concerned. In the book, she marries Lyon, only to fall out of love with him through his constant philandering and resort to the dolls for comfort. In the movie, she learns from her friends' mistakes, gives up on the unworthy Lyon and moves back to her home townnote — planning to go on with her life towards a better future. Jennifer and Neely are still SOL as they share their book counterparts' fates, though.
- Adaptational Angst Downgrade: Anne's feelings for her hometown of Lawrenceville are much warmer than in the book, where she absolutely hated it and despaired at the idea of moving back there.
- Adaptational Attractiveness:
- In the book, when Neely rips Helen's wig off, it reveals that her hair is nearly all gone because she's undergoing chemotherapy. The film just has her with grey hair.
- Neely herself becomes obese while in the sanatorium, so much so that Anne is repulsed by her appearance. She remains attractively svelte throughout the film.
- Adaptational Context Change: With the movie covering less time than the book, Neely's career downturn seems less like a once great performer falling from grace, and more like a White-Dwarf Starlet.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: Jennifer is the only one of the main trio who retains her hair color from the book. Anne is portrayed by (dark brown) brunette Barbara Parkins and Neely is played by auburn-haired Patty Duke. In the book, Anne is blonde and Neely has brown hairnote .
- Adaptation Explanation Extrication: The film never clarifies how the three girls met and takes it for granted that they’re already friends from the start, but in the novel it’s explained that they're connected through the Broadway play Hit the Sky whose star Helen Lawson was represented by Henry Bellamy's office where Anne worked. Neely lived in Anne's same rooming house and had a small part in the play. Jennifer was also in the play and connected with Anne while the play was touring. The three later became roommates in New York.
- Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: The movie's update from the 40s to the 60s has several.
- Neely O'Hara becomes a star entirely in musicals, and specifically the showy, tap dancing kind that Judy Garland specialised in. Her success montage even evokes imagery from the likes of Easter Parade. Except that movie musicals had already begun falling out of style by the 60s and while there were still some successful ones like Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music and My Fair Lady, they were no longer studio mainstays, and even the musical actresses that achieved stardom in the 60s like Julie Andrews and Barbra Streisand transitioned quickly into more dramatic roles.
- Anne's modelling campaigns evoke the likes of Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face and again have a distinctly 1950s tone to them, rather than the more contemporary pop art scene of the 60s.
- Jennifer is seen entirely as a Dumb Blonde and Ms. Fanservice, and has to take her career to Europe to star in 'art films' that are considered Porn with Plot in the US. Made more sense in the book for the 40s and 50s, where respectability was far more iron clad, but the late 60s saw the likes of Julie Christie and indeed Sharon Tate herself transcending sex symbol status, with the collapse of the Hays Code allowing for respected actresses to do nudity in films - Deborah Kerr went topless for The Gypsy Moths for instance.
- Overall, the truncated timeline from twenty years in the book to only a vague couple of years in the film makes it extremely odd how much life-changing drama is unfolding in such a short space of time. Jennifer's arc is especially affected; in the book, she had to lie about her age and pretend to be in her twenties when she was thirty-seven, while the film has the very youthful Sharon Tate (24 to be specific) playing the end of her story out.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: Tony is much nicer of a guy in the film version than he was in the original book; he truly loved Jennifer even though their love is cut short due to him being diagnosed with Huntington's Chorea, which is ultimately a terminal disease versus his more childish and brutish manner in the book.
- Adaptation Personality Change: Helen Lawson is a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing in the book, who initially fools Anne with the fake Nice Girl act, and is using her to get to Allen's father. Film Helen is an up front Jerkass from her very first scene.
- Adaptational Sexuality: Jennifer was bisexual in the book, which even had a detailed account of an affair she had with a female classmate in Europe. All of this is totally eliminated from the movie.
- Age Lift: The women are all in their late 30s or early 40s by the time of the story's end. They're all still in their 20s throughout the film.
- Award-Bait Song: "(Theme From) Valley of the Dolls" by Dionne Warwick, which plays over the opening credits. It didn't get the nomination, although John Williams's score did.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Despite how frequently she drinks or does drugs, not to mention gets overworked, Neely rarely looks more than a little tired or with slightly tousled hair, and her figure is never affected. In the book, by contrast, her weight flunctuates dangerously.
- Bittersweet Ending: Jennifer is dead and Neely's downward spiral will likely kill her in the near future, but Anne renounces the pills and the showbiz life and goes back to her beloved hometown to start over.
- Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Jennifer is blonde, Anne is a brunette and Neely is auburn-haired. An easy way to distinguish our three protagonists. Miriam is an actual redhead.
- Chewing the Scenery:
- Patty Duke's performance is the stuff of legend, as Neely's Sanity Slippage causes her to scream at the sky.
- Mark Robson wanted every line Helen says to be delivered "like a sledgehammer", so the result is that Susan Hayward is especially bombastic.
- Compressed Adaptation: The novel takes place over twenty years - beginning in 1945 and finishing in 1965. The film clearly unfolds in a much shorter time frame. It's already the 60's when it starts.
- Demoted to Extra: Ted Casablanca, the man Neely leaves Mel for, has just two scenes and the second of them is where they break up.
- "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Patty Duke recorded a version of the theme for the soundtrack.
- Dump Them All: Despite carrying a torch for Lyon and being pursued by Kevin, Anne ultimately decides to move forward with her life alone. Already ending things with the basically decent Kevin in the hopes of getting back with the faithless Lyon, she decides to dump him as well, despite his claims that he loves her and wants to be with her. The movie ends with her walking down a snow-covered road, content with her decision.
- Even the Girls Want Her: When Jennifer walks in at the post-telethon dinner, both Neely and Anne are seen staring in awe of her beauty.
- Everything's Better with Sparkles: As the bombshell of the group, Jennifer is often seen in sparkly or sequinned evening gowns.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: Jennifer has shoulder-length hair that is seen to be a little longer to indicate that time has passed. Anne's hair also changes a bit, including at one point bizarrely with a pixie haircut, and then the next scene at shoulder-length.
- Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Subverted, surprisingly enough for the 60s. Jennifer reveals she's pregnant after finding out about Tony's condition, and it's later confirmed she got an abortion. She's treated with the utmost sympathy.
- Incest Subtext: Miriam's first scene has Tony kissing her on the lips after she tries to warn him away from Jennifer.
- Insult Backfire: When she catches Ted cheating on her, Neely calls him a "fag", and he only snarks that Neely needs glasses, because she walked into a Two-Person Pool Party and quite clearly saw a naked woman.
- It's Not Porn, It's Art: Naturally once Jennifer is asked about art films in Europe, this discussion is had over whether the films can be called that because of their nudity.
- Lighter and Softer: The film is considerably less salacious than the book, eliminating Jennifer's bisexuality, toning down the personalities of the men, and giving Anne a happier ending.
- Male Gaze: In-universe. What we see of the French film Jennifer stars in shows several gratuitous shots of her body, including one just of her leg framed sexily.
- Mood Whiplash: Neely's break-up with Ted shows her switching from screaming abuse at him to begging him not to leave her.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Following the book's lead in making it clear who the women are based on, Neely gets a montage where she's dressed in a similar costume to Judy Garland in On the Town, and Anne a modelling campaign that evokes Audrey Hepburn's look in Funny Face.
- Sexy Silhouette: Anne and Lyon's first time is framed only in silhouette.
- Sideboob: Before she and Lyon first sleep together, Anne is shown changing, and there's a glimpse of sideboob as the raciest thing the film shows.
- Wake Up Make Up: When Lyon wakes Neely up to tell her she's been fired from her film, her makeup is still pretty good and her hair is lightly messed.
