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Vapid tale of three women in show business dealing with the consequences of drugs, infidelity, and ineptitude, all so that one of them can find herself. Relentlessly dull, but not nearly as depressing as it might have been, for that would have required at least one character that we cared about. Despite the title -- "dolls" being a euphemism for drugs -- the opening, which represents the women as three pills, and the drug-centric blurb on the original poster for the film, only one of the women has a drug problem. It's symptomatic of a movie searching for a unifying theme where none exists, unless perhaps it is that show business sucks. (As indeed it would, if its products were as bad as the songs in this picture.) Starring Barbara Parkins (who, if nothing else, is at least pretty), Patty Duke (who gets all the really dramatic scenes, no doubt succeeding only in shaming her identical cousin), and Sharon Tate (who, thanks to Charles Manson, gets a pass). Based on the bestselling book by Jacqueline Susann, much of which seems to have been drawn from her own life. The film was satirized by Roger Ebert and Russ Meyer three years later in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. (Ebert, in reviewing the original film, highlighted a scene with Sharon Tate in which she gives up her bust exercises with the words, "Let 'em droop," calling the scene and that line in particular "the most offensive and appalling vulgarity ever thrown up by any civilization" -- a remark that really needs no further comment.)
Vapid tale of three women in show business dealing with the consequences of drugs, infidelity, and ineptitude, all so that one of them can find herself. Relentlessly dull, but not nearly as depressing as it might have been, for that would have required at least one character that we cared about. Despite the title -- "dolls" being a euphemism for drugs -- the opening, which represents the women as three pills, and the drug-centric blurb on the original poster for the film, only one of the women has a drug problem. It's symptomatic of a movie searching for a unifying theme where none exists, unless perhaps it is that show business sucks. (As indeed it would, if its products were as bad as the songs in this picture.) Starring Barbara Parkins (who, if nothing else, is at least pretty), Patty Duke (who gets all the really dramatic scenes, no doubt succeeding only in shaming her identical cousin), and Sharon Tate (who, thanks to Charles Manson, gets a pass). Based on the bestselling book by Jacqueline Susann, much of which seems to have been drawn from her own life. The film was satirized by Roger Ebert and Russ Meyer three years later in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. (Ebert, in reviewing the original film, highlighted a scene with Sharon Tate in which she gives up her bust exercises with the words, "Let 'em droop," calling the scene and that line in particular "the most offensive and appalling vulgarity ever thrown up by any civilization" -- a remark that really needs no further comment.)