Take 1967's Valley of the Dolls, for instance. Jacqueline Susann's blockbuster dirty book lent itself well towards a deluxe screen adaption, a hoary old "three girls meet different fates" concept brought into the age of pills, booze and permissive sexual mores. What went wrong, then? Perhaps somebody should have told the screenwriters that passages which look good on paper don't necessarily translate well to the screen. Mark Robson's technically proficient but cold direction compounds the problem, resulting in a film that lacks emotional resonance. Issues of drug abuse, mental illness and abortion are dealt with on the same superficial terms as the chi chi fashions, sets and shellacked hairstyles. The resulting mishmash might appear dreadful, but really it's fascinatingly watchable. It might be Valley's biggest legacy that it stands as one of the few films that shows taboo situations while simultaneously being embalmed in a studio-shined veneer of its own outlandish datedness.

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