"Where do these people come from? Where do they go when the sun goes down? Isn't there a law or something?" - Rex Reed's rant about FEMALE TROUBLE proved press quote fodder for John Waters but it's scattergun satire still feels vibrantly fresh.
Following up the underground success of PINK FLAMINGOS, Waters provides another vehicle for the amazing Divine, this time in two roles.
Channeling Liz Taylor - helped by Van Smith's costumes and make-up - Divine gives us Dawn Davenport, from bored Baltimore 1960s schoolgirl to ranting, scarred murderess on Death Row.
A teen runaway because she doesn't receive cha-cha heels for Christmas, Dawn becomes a mother after being raped by filthy Earl (Divine again), She achieves notoriety when she meets Donald and Donna Dasher, terrorist beauticians who need a model to show that crime enhances beauty.
Dawn's nemeses are her brattish daughter Taffy and the hag-next-door Ida.
Shelf or charity shop? Shelf! Waters' tribute to expoitation bad-girl films is an eye-popping riot from start to finish. 1974's THE TOWERING INFERNO, CHINATOWN, and YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN all seem to have been made a long time ago but FEMALE TROUBLE is as fresh as Baltimore paint. Waters elicits an extraordinary performance from Divine who is hilarious as the murderous, glamourous (even when acid-scarred) Dawn - you haven't lived till you have seen her death-defying trampoline act! The Dreamland rep company - more over-the-top than the Western Front - are all great - the sublime Mink Stole as Dawn's awful daughter Taffy, Mary Vivian Pearce and David Lochary as the Dashers, Edith Massey as Ida, distraught that her straight nephew isn't gay "The world of the heterosexual is a sick and boring life" and Dawn's two cohorts Cookie Mueller and Susan Walsh.
I should add FEMALE TROUBLE includes the greatest line of cinematic dialogue ever: "I wouldn't suck your lousy dick if I was suffocating and there was oxygen in your balls!"
No comments:
Post a Comment