Wait, Dolls are Drugs?

Usually I go to the Movies & Mimosas feature at the Bowtie to see a good movie I either haven't seen on the big screen or haven't seen in years.

Today I switched it up and went to see a truly bad movie on the big screen and thoroughly enjoyed it.

That's right, I gave up $4.50 and two hours of my life to watch Valley of the Dolls, easily one of the campiest movies I've ever sat through.

When I arrived, there weren't a lot of people in the audience, so I asked the girl sitting nearest me why she was there.

"Because I don't have a life and I love movies," she admitted.

Turns out it's usually the costuming that attracts her; she won't be coming to see The Breakfast Club next week because "they wear the same costumes for the whole movie."

It never would have occurred to me to make that a deciding factor, but to each his own.

I got a foreshadowing of what she meant during the opening credits when I saw a line acknowledging "Handbags by Lewis Purses."

Definitely the first time I've ever seen a purse credit in a movie.

And because I had never seen the movie (or, god forbid, read the book), I had no idea what the movie was about other than prescription drug abuse.

I didn't even know that the "dolls" of the title referred to pills. Duh.

The usual 1967 details were appealing, as always.

Glass milk bottles outside apartment doors, women wearing hats and gloves everywhere, and hair teased unbelievably high.

When one character is trying to get off the phone with her mother, she says, "Gotta go. I'll write you tomorrow."

Ah, yes, letter writing, that lost art.

Favorite dialog:
Her: Are you wooing me?
Him: If you wish to be wooed.

One thing that did stick out jarringly was the negative gay stereotypes.

"Some queer deigns to design their clothes..." or "You know how bitchy fags can be."

Just as bad was the old-school thinking that "Ted Casablanca is not a fag...and I'm the dame who can prove it!"

Still, in 1967? Just embarrassing.

But the whole movie was kind of embarrassing in that high camp sort of way.

The audience was in the spirit of it, though, laughing at the overly dramatic moments and cheesy dialog as if it were intentional.

And, maybe it was, given that it was made in the sixties.

But at least the costumes and purses were good.