The movie critic Rex Reed hated the film, to the point that in his review he had asked, "Where do these people come from? Where do they go when the sun goes down? Isn't there a law or something?" The quote was posted on the Waverly Theater poster, and in Village Voice ads for the film. When Female Trouble was released on DVD, this quote was on the front of its box.
As they had done in Pink Flamingos, John Waters filmed a scene of Divine from his car, hoping to get double-takes to Dawn Davenport striding down the street, but no-one seemed fazed at all. Waters believes this was because they saw the scars and assumed Divine was a mentally ill woman. The man who pops out his glass eye was a friend of Waters'.
John Waters had Divine take trampoline lessons at a local YMCA; Divine was terrified about breaking his neck but managed to do the trampoline scene in one take.
Susan Lowe played the receptionist at the beauty salon while near the end of the term of her pregnancy. She agreed to her newborn baby being used for the birth scene. John Waters claims that Susan's mother-in-law (who was visiting from England) was on the set and this was her first time seeing her grandchild.