"Valley of the Dolls" vs "Mommie Dearest" vs "Dynasty"

[Crimson]

I have to say I love both VALLEY OF THE DOLLS and MOMMIE DEAREST, dearly.

I don't have strong opinions on VALLEY, but I dropped MOMMIE from my viewing rotation some years ago. I have no problem with either its Camp tone (honestly, a plus) or its sheer incompetence, but I find the film's handling of its subject to be grotesque. Whatever my ambivalence may be about Christina's version and motivations, she had a wretched childhood and the movie makes me a bit queasy.

Why, in your opinion, did MOMMIE DEAREST eventually supplant VALLEY OF THE DOLLS as "the CITIZEN KANE of camp"??

Dunaway. She's the most Camp actress of all time. And, I can't stress this enough, I don't regard this as a pejorative.

 

[Alexis]

I don't have strong opinions on VALLEY, but I dropped MOMMIE from my viewing rotation some years ago. I have no problem with either its Camp tone (honestly, a plus) or its sheer incompetence, but I find the film's handling of its subject to be grotesque. Whatever my ambivalence may be about Christina's version and motivations, she had a wretched childhood and the movie makes me a bit queasy.

Oh I get that. I have said before on here how I see MOMMIE DEAREST as a horror film, it's not really a biopic or a melodrama, it's a horror story. A camp one.

 

[ClassyCo]

Why, in your opinion, did MOMMIE DEAREST eventually supplant VALLEY OF THE DOLLS as "the CITIZEN KANE of camp"??

Probably because it has been derailed as being bad and "camp" basically from its release. It became an instant "cult classic" and Crawford's appearance (at least the movie version of her) has been cemented in popular culture.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

The MovieBitches blog on Youtube points out (accurately, I think) that MOMMIE DEAREST's flaw was mainly in what it didn't do, that the lack of transitional moments between scenes and timeframes gave it it's clunky feeling, the TV movie flavor, to it.

And I tend very much to agree with that. Also, there's not a single scene which even surfacely addresses Joan Crawford's' dreadful childhood in south Texas -- the poverty, the sex abuse she "didn't mind" at age 11 by her stepfather, the squalid room behind the laundry where she and her family lived, and her life-long resentment of her mother (who later disappeared suspiciously and was probably placed in a horrible old-folks' home without explanation) for subjecting Joan to those early circumstances -- goes completely unaddressed.

So, to my thinking (and I gave in and bought the DVD in 2016 -- although it might have actually been 2006, 'cause shyte is beginning to blur) the flaw of MOMMIE DEAREST was not the principle photography but in what they didn't bother to do -- which would have taken very little: a few montages, that scene in the basement (when Joan tells her daughter that she's lost her studio contract and doesn't have any money with which to buy Christina anything) when just a wee bit of exposition into Joan's past could have occurred, etc...

Context really is everything (which is why most DYNASTY scenes on Youtube actually make the show look better than it was) and I would not have removed any single frame of what they did do in MOMMIE DEAREST; I would just have added a few things.

 

[ClassyCo]

that the lack of transitional moments between scenes and timeframes gave it it's clunky feeling, the TV movie flavor, to it.

The time jumps do make MOMMIE DEAREST seem a little awkward and give it a distinct flavor. I don't think I've ever thought of it as a "TV movie flavor" before, but that basically sums it up.

in what they didn't bother to do

Yes, with just a few script changes, all the background we needed on Crawford (to possibly explain why she is a horrid mother) could've been added and therefore made the movie feel more complete. The frustration of what they could've done leaves one mind baffled.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

The time jumps do make MOMMIE DEAREST seem a little awkward

No, time jumps in a movie are inevitable. It's the lack of transition that's the key MOMMIE DEAREST problem

That, a few montages, and a very small amount of background info, wouldn't have added more than 3 minutes of additional running time to the film.

In fact, it could still be done today.

 

[Crimson]

The MovieBitches blog on Youtube points out (accurately, I think) that MOMMIE DEAREST's flaw was mainly in what it didn't do, that the lack of transitional moments between scenes and timeframes gave it it's clunky feeling, the TV movie flavor, to it.

I agree with this, but I think the film's issues go deeper. Does it even know what it's about? Is there any sense of perspective or purpose that's evident? I mean, if it's about child abuse then why is it so unsympathetic towards the victim? If it's a character study, the writer(s) seemed to hate both Joan and Christina.

 

[ClassyCo]

I agree with this, but I think the film's issues go deeper. Does it even know what it's about? Is there any sense of perspective or purpose that's evident? I mean, if it's about child abuse then why is it so unsympathetic towards the victim? If it's a character study, the writer(s) seemed to hate both Joan and Christina.

This is where my opinions fall concerning MOMMIE DEAREST. The movie simply lacks a strong identity or direction. It isn't a straight adaption of Christina's book, because it was from the viewpoint of the abused child, but yet even if it's supposed to be some expose on Joan, then it still falls short. The writers clearly (or so it seems) didn't like either Joan or Christina. Joan is just hateful and power-hungry without any exposition as to why, and Christina reads a spoiled, vindictive smaller imitation of her adopted mother (which, interestingly, wasn't how the real Christina used to refer to her mother).

 

[Crimson]

I said it in the thread about the film, but the weirdest thing about MD to me is that it's about a raging, egotistical alcoholic and a kid -- and somehow the kid comes across as the more unlikeable of the two.

I've always had a skeptical wariness of Christina -- the real one -- and I can't rule out that I've just been poisoned to her by the movie.

 

[ClassyCo]

The movie simply lacks a strong identity or direction.

Wikipedia labels MOMMIE DEAREST a "biographical psychological drama".

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

I agree with this, but I think the film's issues go deeper. Does it even know what it's about? Is there any sense of perspective or purpose that's evident? I mean, if it's about child abuse then why is it so unsympathetic towards the victim? If it's a character study, the writer(s) seemed to hate both Joan and Christina.

Well, naturally. But i'd argue the filmmakers do know what it's about, at least for them: neo-'40s glamazon melodrama -- even if that's an unenviable goal cinematically.

Obviously, the movie could have gone in another direction, and arguably should have, but the superlative camp elements of MOMMIE DEAREST, and all its available footage, could have been salvaged without a cut if only they added a tiny bit of history for Joan and a brief dash of buffer-footage between tiny 7-year old Christina weeping hysterically at her mother's antics and, three seconds later, a middle-aged Christina walking in the door with a suitcase and, in basso profundo voice. mutters, "Mommie, I'm home."

I mean, the movie shouldn't feel like a literal CAROL BURNETT sketch.

Oddly enough, little Mara Hobel is a Sun in Gemini/Moon in Aries just like the real Christina.

 

[Crimson]

could have been salvaged without a cut if only they added a tiny bit of history for Joan and a brief dash buffer-footage between tiny 7-year old Christina weeping hysterically at her mother's antics and, three seconds later, a middle-aged Christina walking in the door with a suitcase and, in basso profundo voice. mutters, "Mommie, I'm home."

I seem to recall that being Roger Ebert's main complaint in his brutal review; scenes lurched with no apparent reason. One scene, Joan is triumphant from winning an Oscar and the next she's raging in the garden.

Generously I might say the filmmakers were trying to replicate the schizophrenic home life Christina was subjected to, but in order to pull that off the movie would have had to be from Christina's point-of-view; or, at least, the movie would have had to actually like her.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

I seem to recall that being Roger Ebert's main complaint in his brutal review; scenes lurched with no apparent reason. One scene, Joan is triumphant from winning an Oscar and the next she's raging in the garden.

Generously I might say the filmmakers were trying to replicate the schizophrenic home life Christina was subjected to, but in order to pull that off the movie would have had to be from Christina's point-of-view; or, at least, the movie would have had to actually like her.

Yes, and John Waters points out that the queen-y audience doesn't relate to the little girl at all, but instead the "rich bitch" who knows how to dress.

Not to validate stereotypes in any way...

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Ignore the wine, and the fay (so to speak) manner -- this is actually a pretty good discussion:

 

[Willie Oleson]

I haven't watched the sequel yet though, it's a double feature in my DVD

I had seen another Russ Meyer film and that's probably why I never bothered to check out Beyond TVOTD, but now - so many years later - I love this kind of psychedelic and grotesque trashploitation. Or any-ploitation genre, for that matter. They're wonderful time capsules, the dark and seedy side of 1960s and 1970s artistry.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

I had seen another Russ Meyer film and that's probably why I never bothered to check out Beyond TVOTD, but now - so many years later - I love this kind of psychedelic and grotesque trashploitation. Or any-ploitation genre, for that matter. They're wonderful time capsules, the dark and seedy side of 1960s and 1970s artistry.

I love BLOW UP (1966) but it's not camp.

 

[ClassyCo]

No, time jumps in a movie are inevitable. It's the lack of transition that's the key MOMMIE DEAREST problem

That, a few montages, and a very small amount of background info, wouldn't have added more than 3 minutes of additional running time to the film.

In fact, it could still be done today.

Perhaps a fan or a new DVD release will rectify the issue?

 

[ClassyCo]

Dunaway. She's the most Camp actress of all time.

You know, more so than classic Hollywood actresses, Dunaway is definitely camp. Everything I've seen her in (which isn't too much, I must add) reads "camp".

 

[Crimson]

Dunaway is my favorite post-Old Hollywood actress and she had a helluva good run from '67 to '77. Despite Davis' sour assessment that Dunaway only had a career from roles Fonda turned down, I think Faye was the premier actress of the 70s. The very qualities that made her Camp -- a stylized acting that filtered Method through Old Hollywood glamour -- made her acting look overwrought and out-of-date by the early 80 with the ascendency of Meryl Streep's studied naturalism.

 

[Crimson]

Looping this back to the original topic, if not DYNASTY, then which of the 80s soaps came closest to Camp? Some opinions here that THE COLBYS qualified, but I've never seen it. KNOTS seemed to be a legitimate melodrama. DALLAS perhaps came close to Camp in its middle years, but its earlier years were earnestly grounded and its later years were simply bad. FALCON CREST? It's been ages since I've watched it, but my memories would point to it being the closest to Camp.