Valley of the Dolls (1993)

Jacqueline Susann's Mount Everest of trash has become a cult favorite, so its long-awaited release on videocassette — piggybacked by its pseudo-remake, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls — must be cause for some kind of celebration. Valley of the Dolls has every show-business cliché you love to hate: the innocent who becomes a famous model and sees the true horror and meanness behind it all (narrator Parkins); the self-destructive, pill-popping pip-squeak star (Patty Duke); the maudlin sentimentality (one character is stricken by a rare and crippling disease); and the kitsch (old star-crone Susan Hayward singing amid chintzy Alexander Calder-like mobiles). The movie has not been letterboxed to preserve the original wide-screen dimensions — not that it matters, it's so poorly made. Still, it remains an extravagant, unintentional hoot. B