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Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009
Waters admitted that "Pink Flamingos" was a tough act to follow: "I knew that if I tried to top the shit-eating scene ... I'd end up being 70 years old and making films about people eating designer colostomy bags." Obsessed by the Manson family in particular, and violent crime in general, his next two movies, "Female Trouble" (1974) and "Desperate Living" (1977), satirically reflect his obsession with violence.
He decided that the theme of his next movie should be "crime is beauty." A big fan of high-profile sensational murder trials, he befriended lifer Charles "Tex" Watson, the principal murderer of Sharon Tate (Watson has since found God), and the plot of "Female Trouble" spread "like cancer" in his mind.
"Female Trouble" concerns one Dawn Davenport (Divine), who follows a life of renegade crime that leads to her death by execution. It all starts with her running away from home as a juvenile delinquent and becoming impregnated by low-life Earl (also played by Divine). Dawn gives birth to Taffy (Mink Stole), who follows in her mother's white-trash footsteps by killing her bastard father. Dawn meanwhile hooks up with hateful husband-and-wife beauticians Donna and Donald Dasher (Mary Vivian Pearce and David Lochary), who turn her into such an object of beauty that she is scarred by a viciously jealous Edith Massey ("Here's some acid in your face, motherfucker!"). They also exercise a diabolical, Manson-like mind control, goading her into joining their "crime is beauty" terror campaign.
"Female Trouble" is a perfect synthesis of Waters' fascination with the origins of antisocial behavior manifesting itself into violent crime; the real-life insanity of the Mansons is turned into cinematic farce, with the sight of Divine mowing down members of her audience during her trampoline act in a nightclub, and ends uproariously, insanely, with Divine, face acid-ravaged and head shaved, bellowing her way into the electric chair.
Cecil B. Demented
"Desperate Living" starred Mink Stole as Peggy Gravel, a bitter bipolar housewife who goes on the lam with her 400-pound ex-maid Grizelda, after Grizelda, at Peggy's hysterical instigation, sits on Peggy's husband's head and smothers him to death. Escaping to the hellacious town of Mortville, where criminals can evade the law but must endure the mercurial humiliations of the evil Queen Carlotta (Massey), Peggy and Grizelda shack up with Mo, a butch psychotic pre-op transsexual wrestler and his/her girlfriend, Muffy St. Jacques. More perversions ensue, including those involving Princess Coo Coo (Pearce), the queen's defiant daughter, who runs off with a janitor at the local nudist camp. He is gunned down by the queen's leather-clad goons, and the princess is dragged back to the castle, where she inspires the wrath of her mother to such an extent that she is ordered gang-raped ("Take her and fuck her!" yells the queen with brain-damaged menace) and injected with rabies from a potion concocted by Peggy, who has become the princess's hideous replacement. It all ends with the evil queen being deposed and eaten in a coup, and the criminals of Mortville dancing in celebration of their freedom.
The make-it-up-as-you-go-along quality of the plots adds to the fun. With "Polyester" (1981), Waters' odiferous valentine to kitsch American cinema of the 1950s and '60s, the story is the usual Waters pastiche of inanity, irony and low-brow wit: Francine Fishpaw (Divine) is the long-suffering wife of Elmer, who spends his time cheating on her with his secretary (Mink Stole) and devoting himself to pornography, and the mother of two delinquent children -- a trampy daughter who hangs with punks, and a son who is a foot fetishist. To make matters even worse, her dog commits suicide by hanging itself on the refrigerator and leaving a note that reads "Goodbye Cruel World," and her mother is a kleptomaniac who steals from her.
Poor, demoralized Francine descends into booze and obesity until one day she is rescued by Todd Tomorrow (Tab Hunter), the polyester-wearing suave owner of an art-house drive-in that specializes in obscure Marguerite Duras movies. In roles that would have once been played in some B-grade 1950s Warner Brothers sudser by Joan Crawford and, well, Tab Hunter, Divine and Hunter light up -- and stink up -- the screen, and Waters advertised his movie in true schlock style as being filmed in "Odorama" -- with scratch-and-sniff cards being passed out to each audience member before the movie.
"Polyester" was the last real John Waters exercise in poor taste, but was much more palatable than the previous films. In fact, its goofiness and retro quality was a sign of things to come from Waters. With the scratch-and-sniff cards polluting the audience's olfactory nerves, Waters was seducing them into participating in their own debasement, to actively joining in the low-class antics being played out on the screen. What could be grosser than willingly sniffing Divine's passing gas, even if it was only an incredible simulation? It was also a great gimmick, in the tradition of William Castle (` la "Mr. Sardonicus," the 1961 film that allowed the audience to vote -- or so it seemed -- on the evil Sardonicus' fate via something called the "Punishment Poll"), to involve the audience -- or, at least, give the impression that the audience was being included.
