The Second in our ongoing series of bad movie/good cocktail pairings. Tonight’s features are Jacqueline Susann’s Valley of the Dolls and the Harvey Wallbanger Cocktail.
Sorry I missed yesterday; I had a bad case of the “cocktail flu” and was offline, watching a delightful classic movie: Valley of the Dolls from 1967.
Neely is Needy
It is unthinkable to me that Patty Duke did not win the Oscar for her portrayal of Neely O’Hara or, as our generation calls her, LiLo. Yes, it was over-the-top, but have you met people like that? They are over-the-top. She was fucking stone-cold brilliant in that role.
Sharon Tate as Jennifer
Sharon Tate was transcendently beautiful, perpetually slightly confused-looking, and perfectly cast as Jennifer, the doomed showgirl-cum-housewife with no particular talent outside generating pity and taking off her clothes. At least she had no illusions either.
Barbara Parkins on left
Barbara Parkins was beautiful, classic, a brunette of the Royal Doulton type with china-white skin, enormous panda eyes, and hair that was too well-brought-up to…
Found on Robson Street. That’s either a Cthulhu whose wings have been plucked (Nodens, that fucker, without a doubt) or a portrait in site-appropriate rainforest marble of some random douchebro on Granville street at about 3am, puking his virgin guts out.
It’s time for a seriously cheesy, seriously un-serious movie starring one of the Great Old Ones of Hollywood: Lon Chaney Jr. He had a Freudianer, or at least Oedipalier time of it than most, as his father will be forever famous for his portrayals of various costumed monsters. Lon Jr started that way, too, as name recognition is quite useful when it comes to starting a career sometimes; he even changed his name from Creighton Tull Chaney to Lon Jr. He had to wait till his father was safely dead before stepping into his shoes, though. Soon enough he proved himself as a character actor and even, when cleaned up, a leading man, in one of my favorite oldie melodramas, The Shadow of Silk Lennox. But it was just so easy to get jobs in horror films.
His particular niche was slightly dumb, generably amiable, inadvertently sinister character roles. There were quite a lot of them to go around, too. Basically if it was insufficiently classy for Boris Karloff, Chaney got it. He’s most famous for playing the Wolf Man, although to my taste the Spaniard Paul Naschy was better at that role.
Here he is as the faithful servant of a decayed and sinister family in the weirdly mod (check out those opening credits!) 1967 horror flick Spider Baby, or The Maddest Story Ever Told! Someone needs to make an Austin Powers version of this, seriously. Or at least a Scooby Doo one.
In a dilapidated rural mansion, the last generation of the degenerate, inbred Merrye family lives with the inherited curse of a disease that causes them to mentally regress from the age of 10 or so on as they physically develop. The family chauffeur looks out for them and covers up their indiscretions. Trouble comes when greedy distant relatives and their lawyer arrive to dispossess the family of its home.
Bonus: CAROL OHMART! You remember her! From the Vincent Price 1959 classic The House on Haunted Hill (the one that was actually filmed IN the house reputed to be haunted)? She played the conniving trophy wife. Of COURSE she did; just look at her! Anyway, she’s another leading lady who could act rings around most, and who never enjoyed the success she deserved.
Carol Ohmart should have stayed a pantherian brunette rather than a leonine blonde
The suggested cocktail pairing with tonight’s gruesome entertainment is the White Spider Cocktail. Oh yes, there’s another version, but it’s made with vodka and therefore clearly inferior. We’ll wait while you mix yourself one…
…aaaaand now for something completely different! Here is my latest discovery, Gin Wigmore, fresh out of Kiwilandia and sounding like a hairball coughed up by the raddled lungs of Janis Joplin on a helium binge.
No, wait. It sounds a LOT better than it reads, trust me. You will like this, and if you don’t, I want to know what’s wrong with you.
I got lots of jealous lovers that all wish they had me back
Got a pistol for a mouth, my old mama gave me that
Making my own road out of gravel and some wine
And if I have to fall then it won’t be in your line
[Pre-Chorus:]
Everybody’s doing it so why the hell should I
Everybody’s doing it so why the hell should I
[Chorus:]
I’m a bad woman to keep
Make me mad, I’m not here to please
Paint me in a corner but my colour comes back
Once you go black, you never go back
I’m a black sheep
I’m a black sheep
[Verse 2:]
I wasn’t born a beauty queen but I’m okay with that
Maybe radio won’t mind if I sing a little flat
I wear my boots to bed, hang a cross up on the wall
To save me from a shallow grave that wants to take us all
[Pre-Chorus:]
Everybody’s doing it so why the hell should I
Everybody’s doing it so why the hell should I
[Chorus:]
I’m a bad woman to keep
Make me mad, I’m not here to please
Paint me in a corner but my colour comes back
Once you go black, you never go back
I’m a black sheep
I’m a black sheep
I’m a black sheep
I’m a black sheep
[Repeat Verse 1:]
I got lots of jealous lovers that all wish they had me back
Got a pistol for a mouth, my old mama gave me that
Making my own road out of gravel and some wine
And if I have to fall then it won’t be in your line
[Chorus:]
I’m a bad woman to keep
Make me mad, I’m not here to please
Paint me in a corner but my colour comes back
Once you go black, you never go back
[Outro:]
Once you go black, you never go back
Once you go black, you never go back
Once you go black, you never go back
Once you go black, you never go back
Valley of the Dolls 
Neely is Needy 
Sharon Tate as Jennifer 
Barbara Parkins on left 
raincoaster 