Female Trouble (1974)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Director:

John Waters

Writer:

John Waters (writer)

Release Date:

28 March 1984 (France)

Genre:

Comedy | Crime | Horror

Tagline:

Nice girls don't wear cha-cha heels.

Plot:

A spoiled schoolgirl runs away from home, gets pregnant while hitchhiking, and ends up as a fashion model for a pair of beauticians who like to photograph women committing crimes.

Plot Keywords:

Christmas | Cha Cha | Electric Chair | Hitchhiking | Homosexual

Cast

Divine	...	Dawn Davenport / Earl Peterson
David Lochary	...	Donald Dasher
Mary Vivian Pearce	...	Donna Dasher
Mink Stole	...	Taffy Davenport
Edith Massey	...	Ida Nelson
Cookie Mueller	...	Concetta
Susan Walsh	...	Chicklette
Michael Potter	...	Gator
Ed Peranio	...	Wink
Paul Swift	...	Butterfly
George Figgs	...	Dribbles
Susan Lowe	...	Vikki
George Hulse	...	Mr. Weinberger
Margie Skidmore	...	School snitch
Berenica Cipcus	...	Mean girl

Also Known As:

Rotten Mind, Rotten Face (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated NC-17 for explicit sexuality and nudity.

Runtime:

89 min | USA:92 min (16 mm version) | USA:97 min (original length)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Chace Surround (2001 re-release) | Mono

Certification:

Australia:R | Canada:18+ (Quebec) | Canada:18A | France:-16 | USA:NC-17 (1999) | USA:X (original rating) | UK:18

Filming Locations:

Baltimore, Maryland, USA

Company:

Dreamland

Trivia:

The female prisoner kissing Dawn in her cell at the end of the movie previously appeared in Pink Flamingos (1972) as "Chick with a Dick." The actress is a male-to-female transsexual.

Goofs:

Continuity: When Dawn returns home from hospital with the Dashers and unwraps the birdcage containing Aunt Ida, Donald instructs her to, 'Cut off the hand that threw the acid!' Dawn then chops off Ida's left hand. Ida, however, threw the acid with her right hand.

Quotes:

Dawn Davenport: I've DONE everything a mother can do: I've locked her in her room, I've beat her with the car aerial. Nothing changes her. It's HARD being a loving mother!

Movie Connections:

Featured in Fabulous! The Story of Queer Cinema (2006)

Soundtrack:

Blue Kat

I laughed. A lot.

FEMALE TROUBLE, an early offering from the warped mind of John Waters, is one of the few comedy films I can think of that manages to have its cake and eat it. On the surface, it's a thoroughly deranged bad-taste comedy, populated with the most appallingly hilarious cast of screwed-up social misfits and dysfunctional lunatics outside of late-period Monty Python (think Mr and Mrs Git and the Garibaldi family, or Terry Jones using a loaf of bread to remove "cat's do" from his "stinking feet"), but on a deeper level it's a scabrous spoof on the idolatory nature of celebrity, the dogged pursuit of fame by talentless and charisma-free no-hopers, and the whole gruesome phenomena of the media slut and the fashion plate that rules pop culture just as much now as it did when this film was made - perhaps moreso, in fact. If I'm honest, however, the film does seem to run out of steam when David Lochary (a very underrated and much-missed cult actor) turns up as the super-precious media guru and proceeds to market Divine as the ultimate example of his twisted "crime is beauty" ideal, but only because of all the jaw-dropping, shockingly funny stuff that went before - during the course of my average day, just thinking of Divine literally "f***ing himself" on that grubby mattress (or 'Dawn Pigpork' and the repulsive Gator pouring bile and invective on a silently smouldering Taffy, or Edith Massey getting one of her pudgy paws hacked off, or Divine's awe-inspiring Christmas day tantrum, or the inspired use of the goofy oldie "D-I-G means look") makes me giggle like a goon. FEMALE TROUBLE, moreso than PINK FLAMINGOES (which shot itself in the foot by being slightly TOO authentically disgusting for comfort), should be compulsory viewing - or punishment - for any swollen-headed, supersensitive, quasi-intellectual college boy (or girl) who balks at the Carry On films and the Benny Hill Show. Very often, the more outrageous and revolting the subject matter, the more shamefully hysterical the joke is. One of the enduring facts about bad-taste humour is that it SHOULDN'T make you laugh, but it DOES. And escape valves for all that compassion burnout engendered by (insert your favourite 'good cause' here) don't come much stronger than the work of John Waters.