Why so much hype?

Highly Overrated But Still Good

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Blistering performances.

Female Trouble (1974): Dir: John Waters / Cast: Divine, David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce, Edith Massey, Mink Stole: Amusingly disturbing followup to Pink Flamingos with a theme that takes mental stability to whole new lows. Divine plays Dawn Davenport, a loud obnoxious overweight teenager who ends up hooking up with Donald and Donna Dasher, a flamboyant couple played with questionable fashion by David Lochary and Mary Vivian Pearce. They enlist Dawn to be their poster girl of crime and film her doing all sorts of horrendous antics. John Waters lavishes in the depraved but his filmmaking hardly improves here. He seems to rejoice in inserted penis shots as well as pointless inserts of a boar head on a wall. The sets are flimsy but his cast have the right kind of over-the-top presence to be entertaining. Divine as Dawn demands our attention, applauding even the very notion of going to the electric chair. Lochary and Pearce play the very enemies poising as friends. Edith Massey as a neighbor despises Dawn because she got her nephew fired. For her crime Massey is locked in a big bird cage and has her hand chopped off. Mink Stole plays Dawn's sassy daughter Taffy who resents her mother and plays smash-up derby in the house in one of the funniest moments. While vulgar and often gross Waters seems to attack celebrity and society's wayward desire for self importance. Score: 7 / 10

I first saw this film without its soundtrack while at a gay bar in a now gone San Francisco bar, the Phoenix, riveted to the film as disco music pumped in the background. As soon as I returned home to Los Angeles, I had to rent the film to see what I hadn't heard, and I was not bored for a minute. To say that Dawn Davenport had a lot of problems is an understatement. I'm sure she was right down the hall from Tracy Turnblad (of "Hairspray") as these both took place in Baltimore around the same time, so watch it with that thought in mind.Tracy was sent to detention for "a hair don't" while Dawn (the over-sized Divine) was expelled after fighting the girl who tattled on her for eating a meatball sandwich in class. Dawn is then furious when on Christmas day, she opens her present to find sensible lady-like shoes while she wanted "cha-cha heels". A fight with her father follows and Dawn rushes out into the cold in nothing but a coat and a slinky, too-tight nighty. Then, she is picked up by none other than Divine, in male guise, and ravished by him, leaving her pregnant and alone. You'll be mesmerized as Dawn delivers the baby herself, goes from hash slinger to go-go dancer to a part of a mugging ring.Divine isn't the only gross-out character here; There's the enormous Edith Massey, stuffed into a one-piece leather outfit, as the aunt of the long-haired man Divine becomes lovers with. If the sight of Divine having sex with herself/himself isn't enough to drop your jaw, try Massey fondling herself topless then strutting around in this leather sausage wrapper as she begs her nephew to convert to homosexuality. "The world of heterosexuality is a sick and boring life!" she protests, even more aghast by Divine's womanly presence in his life. Daughter Taffy grows up into a Rhoda/Bad Seed/Nellie Olsen like brat who rebuffs her "daddy" then sets off to find her real father, now a disgusting drunk who ends up repulsing her.Their world changes when Massey throws acid in Divine's face, but Divine uses the scars to accentuate what she already feels to be beautiful. I can't really repeat a lot of the dialog here, but even if I could, it would take away the pleasure of hearing some of the most obscene words put together in a reviling type of poetry. The film sort of falls apart when Divine goes on a major crime spree towards the end, but it really is spoofing all of those bad girl 50's and 60's movies, so that's a necessary evil. I can guarantee that while Waters' later films "Hairspray" and "Cry Baby" went on to become Broadway musicals, this one will remain where it belongs, as a midnight cult movie where the somewhat tipsy audience members shout out the lines along with the stars.

sinfully hilarious, but ultimately totally revolting. as one critic put it, "isn't there a law or something?". i don't think this film actually violated any laws, at least i don't think, most everything was faked here. unlike 'Pink Flamingos'. now i'm sure 'Flamingos' violated some law or another.if you watched this movie you really should face up to the fact that you have a problem. and it's a deviant one. no. ha ha. you probably need help. therapy. i thought this movie was pretty funny too, but it goes way too far in pushing the limits. morbid curiosity isn't everything. didn't curiosity kill a cat or something? at least in this case, turn it's stomach.i like John Waters very much. but he's like Jeckle and Hyde. part sweet, knowing sensitivity, and part demon from the bowels of hell. i think i prefer the sweet side of John better than the other.look. i laughed. God forgive me. but i'm not sure this kind of thing is worth a few laughs. it feels unsanitary. yes there are actually many sophisticated lines of dialog and many real (too real) insights into American society and our troubled times, but still at what cost. this film really does lower the bar in terms of taste. it also makes us too tolerant of deviancy. this movie almost pushes the self righteous, moralizing vigilante in me out to the surface. not a pretty way to feel.i dunno kiddies. trust papa. you're playing with fire here with this stuff. aren't there supposed to be permission slips for this sort of thing? there should be. i don't care what your age.if you want to do this i personally would advise against it, but i doubt i could stop any of you from watching this sort of thing. i guess it's alright. there's worse things out there and it's only a simulated snuff flick. it's alright to do this i suppose if you go to Church, or say a few "hail Mary"s or go seek therapy afterwards. yikes.i didn't know how to number rate this so i just rate it one colossal headache and a pain in the butt.

Funnily enough, around the time that Divine sits in the crib with the pile of dead fish I started thinking about the words of the Bomb Squad's Hank Shocklee - "If they want noise, let's give them NOISE!" Yes, friends, Waters is the queer Public Enemy, tying identity to culture, cranking the most alienating elements of same to 11, and losing great chunks of his own demographic in the spectacular, chaotic process. This was made right off the midnight-movie success of "Pink Flamingos", and presumably this facilitated a budget, and presumably this led to the extra notch of competence that keeps the movie barreling forward from beginning to end - there's even an original theme song, plus thirty glorious seconds of Nervous Norvus singing "H-I-P". In most underground movies a scene featuring the lead actor, in two roles, raping himself for two full minutes - and THEN taking off his pants - would be the climax, not the inciting incident! And Edith "Flav" Massey yelling "NO I don't want any god damn eggs!" is an even better inversion than the new Bond's martini line. A triumphant cinematic masterpiece.