KATHY SHAIDLE LOOKS BACK AT VALLEY OF THE DOLLS:

Valley… is the most enduring example of what I call The Great Hollywood Hip Replacement: That blessedly brief slice of the Sixties when the geriatric studios were desperate to be “mod,” but didn’t quite “get” it.

Now, The Party is fun, and Wild in the Streets is deeper than it looks. But think (if you dare) about Skidoo, The Big Cube, Riot on Sunset Strip, What’s New, Pussycat?, The Love God, I Love You, Alice B. Toklas!, bits of Sweet Charity, and anything with “Dr. Goldfoot” in the title.

Those films are now just dated curios, precisely because they tried so painfully to be “of the moment.”

Whereas Valley of the Dolls endures (complete with its own Criterion edition) because while it too strove to be timely, it somehow did so without acknowledging Time’s reality beyond its own sprocket holes:

In the Valley… alt-universe, all the women have bouffant hairdos, same as on Star Trek. So we guess it’s the Sixties, but it can’t be: there’s no rock and roll, Vietnam War or Kennedy assassination; hell, even Old Blue Eyes mentioned the Civil Rights Movement in that preeminent Hip Replacement tv special, Frank Sinatra Does His Thing, i.e. the one where he wears love beads and a Nehru jacket.

George Jessel (!) hosts the Grammys (?) here in the Valley…, but the night’s big winner wears a Mary Quant knockoff; singers do 1940s “dancing hobo” routines in stuffy supper clubs one minute, and wear bikinis the next. We’re clearly meant to be impressed when Joey Bishop shows up. (Was anyone, ever?) No sooner has “Winchell’s column” been mentioned with hushed reverence than Jennifer’s boyfriend Tony gets out of what I think is a silver Corvette stingray convertible.

The great news is, this is a Sixties without hippies, too — not even of the ersatz Sonny & Cher variety.

Heh. Read the whole thing.