Sparkle Time: "Valley of the Dolls" Due on DVD!

Ace Village Voice columnist Michael Musto has exciting news for culture vultures: the prayers of 50,000,000 Jacqueline Susann fans will be answered in 2006 when the greatest bad movie ever made, "Valley of the Dolls," debuts on DVD. Musto writes in his "La Dolce Musto" column that the DVD "is being sumptuously repackaged, and there will even be special featrues, like a documentary I've been interviewed for."

Since this summer I have become a dues-paying member of the cult of VOTD. I always had the vague impression that it was incredibly racy, and I always liked the poignant theme song as performed by Dionne Warwick (true story: I was once in the Toys R Us store in Westport CT and the public address system actually played this song; some eager-beaver marketer took the "dolls" reference too literally).

The weight of second-hand impressions finally pushed me to read the paperback. Its sweeping plot staggers from 1945 New York to swingin' Hollywood in the 1960s and back to New York. Susann's time as an actress gives the early sections about the Broadway scene a real sense of authenticity.

Still hungry to go deeper into VOTD, I found the movie through the NY Public Library. The movie brings the book to fetid life, with some of the most unintentionally hilarious dialogue and bizarre cinematography ever made. A carpet-chewing Patty Duke brings just the right tone to scrappy singer/star Neely O'Hara, while lovely and doomed Sharon Tate plays the lovely and doomed Jennifer North. Richard Dreyfuss makes a blink-and-he's-gone appearance, by the way. I would definitely see VOTD again, this time with a group of people so we can savor certain parts and let our jaws drop in unison.

The British website Dollsoup has a great discussion of the movie, with prime bits of dialogue, such as the famous Helen Lawson/Neely O'Hara battle):

Helen Lawson: They kicked you outa Hollywood, so ya come crawling back to Broadway. Well Brooahdway doesn't go for BOOOZE and dope.

As the mood strikes me, I'll provide more random wisdom from the book and the movie. In the meantime, as I trudge through the search for creative and romantic fulfillment, I'll tell myself, in the immortal pep-talk words spoken by Neely O'Hara to Neely O'Hara:

SPARKLE, MISSION2MOSCOW, SPARKLE!