The movie version of Valley of the Dolls was based on Jacqueline Susann’s 1966 novel of ambition, drug addiction and dissipation in the mid-60s entertainment industries of LA and New York. What is it with Hollywood film’s predictable bias that modern decor, or lofts, or any kind of contemporary design will go hand and hand with dissipation, dysfunction and general immorality? It’s convenient shorthand for the idea of In every dreamhome, a heartache. Sure, this tacit argument might contain a smidgen of truth, since despite its supposed democratic intent high modern midcentury design was often an indicator of way too much money, but Hollywood’s bias probably also belies a completely parochial conservatism. The protagonist’s relieved, happy return to the small Vermont town of her birth is proof of this pat little moral. I love a lot of the film’s modern interiors, their mix of modern furniture and contemporary and Asian art, their colour, their airiness and their postwar optimism. And all their ashtrays. You’ve never seen so much smoking in your life.

Ann Margret as Nora Walker Hobbs in Ken Russell’s 1975 film “Tommy”. This scene, not to mention the whole film, was absolutely formative for me (and apparently I’m not alone). It opens with a drunk Nora watching TV in her all-white glam boudoir; on the screen is an ad for baked beans, “Fit For A Queen.” Nora throws a champagne bottle through the TV set, soap suds and baked beans pour out into the white bedroom, and she writhes, laughing, in the surreal, psychedelic mess.

 See Hilly Blue’s excellent collection of film stills at  Flickr.