Valley of the Dolls, The Musical

[shermanslave]

Posted: 1/17/04 at 5:50pm

I am watching this really bad and really wonderful movie on television and I am wondering if there is a stage show based on it. I seem to recall something about it, but maybe I dreamed it. One can only imagine the casting that this board could come up with. ( First one to suggest Kristin Chenoweth or Idina Menzel is a rotten egg.)

shermanslave productions

Updated On: 1/17/04 at 05:50 PM

[MasterLcZ]

Posted: 1/17/04 at 5:54pm

A "Dancing Dolls Dream Ballet" (with chorus girls dressed as giant amphetemenes) for Neeley is a must.

[shermanslave]

Posted: 1/17/04 at 5:58pm

I love that idea! Imagine the costumes! They would have to do it with some very tongue in cheek kind of humour.
shermanslave productions

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/17/04 at 7:00pm

I've watched that movie on Oxygen twice in the past month. The thing is, I hated it when I rented it the first time I saw it years ago. And now it's really grown on me. I still can't stand the looped dialogue, almost every line of Martin Milner's seemed to have been re-recorded later. On the other hand, hearing Margaret Whiting sing for Susan Heyward is a pleasure of the highest order. No matter how bad Broadway musicals get, there's nothing as gawdawful as "I'll Plant My Own Tree." Not even in Wicked!

[MasterLcZ]

Posted: 1/17/04 at 7:03pm

Are you talking about the song itself, or Judy's version?
Or both?

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/17/04 at 7:07pm

Oh, the song itself. It's like the idea of somebody who has never seen a Broadway musical writing a Broadway musical song. I also love the way Hayward acknowledges the applause of the audience. It's like the director kind of thought it was more like a concert than a show.

And, of course, the inexplicable mobile.

[Deena Jones2]

Posted: 1/17/04 at 7:15pm

Do you know who sang Neely's songs? I am sure it wasn't Patty Duke.

[iflitifloat]

Posted: 1/17/04 at 7:24pm

Anyone remember Russ Myers' Beyond the Valley of the Dolls? Now *that* would be a hell of a movie to adapt for stage. There was a thread a couple of weeks ago about favorite bad movies. It was a glaring oversight on my part to neglect mentioning this fine film.

[Kristie-K]

Posted: 1/17/04 at 7:30pm

I loved Susan Hayward...the best thing in the movie.....I'll Plant My Own Tree was sooo campy, it was like Susan was trying to sing it as "Judy" would of done it....but very choreograhed and wooden.......But Miss Hayward looked lovely.

[AugustBurns2]

Posted: 1/17/04 at 8:11pm

I saw Beyond the Vally of the Dolls (screenplay written by Roger Ebert!) last year at the Castro Theater here in San Francisco. What a crazy movie! It's a parody, but it's so bizarre and funny.

This would make a great camp musical. Hell, the main characters are in an all girls' rock band. Wow, I would love to get my hands on that property to adapt. Now that would be one crazy show!

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 1/17/04 at 8:12pm

There was an Off-Broadway non-musical version back in '96. I think it was at the old Circle in the Square in the village.

[iflitifloat]

Posted: 1/17/04 at 8:14pm

Get out! Ebert did the screenplay?? I haven't seen it in a long time, but it used to have a bit of a cult following amongst some people I know.

[iflitifloat]

Posted: 1/17/04 at 8:19pm

Nothing like a quick Google, is there?
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 1/18/04 at 11:51am

I am fairly certain that Patty did her own singing.

As for BEYOND VotD it was supposed to be campy, so it does not merit campy stauts no matter how bad it is. Now, VotD is true camp because it took itself seriously.

By the way, everyone assumes that Neely was based on Judy, but I have another theory...see picture at left.

[MasterLcZ]

Posted: 1/18/04 at 12:46pm

Um Hmmm, Suleen!

I would LOVE to hear Bernadette's impressions of Betty.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/18/04 at 12:51pm

According to an obsessive fan's Valley of the Dolls website, Gail Heideman sang Patty's songs for her. One clue is that they didn't double track her vocals the way they did when they tried to make Patty a pop star during the run of The Patty Duke Show.

Posted: 1/18/04 at 12:55pm

ctually a friend is trying to get rights to create ...yes ..an OPERA out of VOTD.....

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/18/04 at 1:11pm

Maybe you need a new collection of friends?

Posted: 1/18/04 at 1:38pm

Namo Stop...you were so sweet the night of the gathering...calling me your little voice...it was soooooooo sweet...why must you then pretend to act a different way on the board

It's just like the Avril song: Complicated

Why you have to go and make things so complicated?
I see the way you're acting like you're somebody else gets me frustrated
Life's like this you
And you fall and you crawl and you break
and you take what you get and you turn it into honesty
and promise me I'm never gonna find you fake it
no no no

[Auggie27]

Posted: 1/18/04 at 2:33pm

No one remembers, but there was to be a stage show back in the 70s, Alexis Smith was talked up as Helen Lawson. (singing "The Story of Bushes and Trees?") Then, there was a new MOW, setting it in the world of rock music. Ooooh. Cut-ting Edddddge.

The novel remains lurid and laughable on every page, but actually, not a bad portrait of the b'way theater in the 40s and early 50s. The sense of Helen-really-is-Merman makes all that stuff work, whereas Hayward, God Bless her, neve really seemed Merman-esque. Updating it to the 60s, and putting Helen on stage in a drag queen costume and hairdo, standing 'neath her plexi-glass mobile destroyed any sense of versimilitude. And of course, we all turned to Ms Susann for versimilitude.

My favorite thing in the movie can only be appreciated on a 100th viewing: all the scenes that end with a question to Barbara Parkins' Anne, to which she simply stares at the camera, Stepford like. She's the most sullen, monosyllabic heroine to ever inhabit a major film. Like Geraldine Chaplin in ZHIVAGO, she barely even speaks.

Updated On: 1/18/04 at 02:33 PM

[MasterLcZ]

Posted: 1/18/04 at 2:44pm

And wasn't Jennifer based (in part) on Carole Landis (with whom Jackie reportedly had an affair with when she was a chorus girl in Carole's 1945 Broadway flop A LADY SAYS YES)?

And Jackie, bless her heart, had quite the thing for Broadway comics - George Jessel and Eddie Cantor (Don't understand Jessel, but Cantor....ya know...I can kind of see it).

Updated On: 1/18/04 at 02:44 PM