Polyester

Okay I know a lot of John Water's fans _won't_ rank this movie as high as some of his earlier work, because it is fairly "mainstream" for Waters. I liked Divine's performance in this film and loved the relationship with Tab Hunter. Also get to see another fav of John Water's, Mink Stole, as well as many other "regulars" to his films. If you haven't seen any of his work, I would start here. Sadly though, we don't get the theatre experience of *Odorama* (that's what the numbers signify---a scratch and sniff card that was handed out to movie goers.

"Polyester" is a sort of warped women's picture, something reminiscent of a forgotten late career Liz Taylor vehicle that everyone glances at for a moment only to go back to drooling over something "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" related. I'm sure John Waters wanted it that way. Around the time "Polyester" came out (the early '80s, to be exact), he began to get bored with merely shocking people; he had ideas, dammit, and he was going to show the world! Making his favorite drag queen feast on dog poop for the sake of a jolt wasn't going to cut it anymore. So, following "Polyester", he became increasingly mainstream friendly, his next venture being 1987's "Hairspray", which was, in turn, followed by "Cry-Baby" and "Serial Mom". I've only witnessed the latter two — I'm too terrified to watch his earlier, more disgusting ventures — and it's impossible not to get a kick out of his filmmaking instincts.

Waters has said that he finds equal influence in high-brow art films and sleazy exploitation trash heaps, and "Polyester" combines the characteristics of the two with startling mastery. It ain't Bergman and it ain't Hill — instead, it's like a Joan Crawford sudser that bled internally after getting shot at a 711 but still decided to crawl to the nearest movie premiere to make an entrance with drama. The film is satire, but it's also a love letter, a stan, if you will, of the Hollywood Golden Age chick flick.

If you aren't so convinced of "Polyester"'s determination to give a sloppy kiss to the good old days of the campy melodrama, listen to this plot: overweight housewife Francine Fishpaw (Divine), who considers herself to be an atypical "good, Christian woman", is about to have a nervous breakdown: her dear husband, Elmer (David Samson), is the successful owner of a local porn theatre and an adulterer of the lowest common denominator. Her kids are maniacs: her daughter (Mary Garlington) is an aspiring go-go dancer knocked up by a hoodlum, while her son (Ken King), a glue-sniffer, is currently making media rounds as the Baltimore Foot Stomper. She has no friends, besides the asinine Cuddles (Edith Massey), and her verbally abusive mother (Joni Ruth White) makes sure to frequently stop by the house simply so she can berate her. So after her life eventually goes completely down the shitter (and I mean completely), she spirals into an alcohol-fueled depression. But after she meets Todd Tomorrow (Tab Hunter), a corvette driving businessman, things begin to look up.

I know, I know, "Polyester" sorta kinda sounds like an extremely over-the-top drama even Bette Davis would have turned down. But this time around, drama doesn't seem like the right kind of word by way of description. Is there a right word(s) to accurately describe "Polyester"? Consider: our female lead is a poorly dressed drag queen who has no problem reminding us that she is, in fact, a man (always a running joke for Waters). Consider that Tab Hunter, yes, Tab Hunter, the Golden Boy of the 1950s teen movie, is her love interest; that her supposed BFF, portrayed by the indelibly lovable Massey, is nearly toothless; that the film, as part of a marketing stunt, came with Odorama scratch-and-sniff cards to give the viewers a realistic aromatic experience.

Nothing about "Polyester" is remotely serious, and I like it all the more for it. At first, it seems like a bunch of super messed up friends got together and decided to make a movie, but as the film continues, one realizes that Waters is actually a clever writer, and Divine is a star, especially when it comes to sniffing loudly (you've got to promote that Odorama, after all), making disgruntled moans, and being all around charismatic. Yes, "Polyester" is chintzy, but sometimes, even the trashiest of entertainment seems like some form of bizarre art. Waters loves to throw garbage at us, but he's good at it. He's a smart director and a smart writer, as good at shocking as he is causing a guffaw. And you're damn right he calls this a living.

This was my first John Waters movie, and it opened with scratch and sniff cards. Each "spot" had a color and number and when the appropriate scene arrived we had the privilege of smelling what was on screen. Divine's character had an odor fetish and was constantly spraying air freshener, while a nefarious plot was instigated to drive her insane by planting offensively smelly things like gym sox, dead fish etc for her to find at home.

Her husband runs an adult cinema. Her son, based on the Baltimore Stomper, a true character, sniffs industrial solvents, stalks women with cute shoes and feet, and then stomps on them with his combat boots. The daughter, obviously the model for Christine Applegate's character in Married With Children, is the high school slut that dances on tables for quarters. And Mom worries about fresh scents.

With these subplots to the main plot, it should be obvious that plot resolution and character development are not the main attractions in a John Waters movie. The caricature of society and its stereotypes is his game, and the best moment of the movie has to be when the TV news camera is in the face of one of the Baltimore Stomper's victims as she is being carried to the ambulance on a strecher. The victim's on camera stream of obscene invectives against the callous media was one of the great moments of the movie because it was such a refreshing expression of the common person's real disgust and frustration with tabloid evening news and a culture that trivializes human suffering. Juxtapose a broken instep with the main character's insufferable pain of finding a smelly sock and you have the theme of this movie. Even the fairytale resolutions to the problems are a hilarious sendup of 80's America.

If you want to see what makes John Waters such a cult hero, but would find Female Trouble or Pink Flamingos too offensive, this was his first attempt to bridge the gap to the more accessible films he made later, while still having enough of the gross-out quality for a good laugh riot.

(Serial Mom will be on TV the weekend after Veteran's Day, and it is another very accessible glimpse into the mind of Mr. Waters.)

If John Waters did nothing else in his career he created the fabulous screen team of Divine and Tab Hunter. Back in the day when he was one of Henry Willson's chiseled clients he was linked often on and off screen with Natalie Wood. Personally I think he works much better with Divine.

Polyester and it seemed everyone was wearing the fabric in 1981 in some manner is a wonderful satire on the American scene. Like Married With Children the Fishpaws are your typical American family seen with a jaundiced eye. But the Fishpaws make the Bundys look like the Cleavers.

Our leading character is Divine all 300 pounds of her who has let herself go to seed married to this bum of a husband David Samson who is getting on with his secretary. Divine is a good Christian woman who lives the middle class life due to Samson's income from a drive- in he owns where porn rules.

Her daughter Mary Garlington is the Kelly Bundy of the 80s. And her son Ken King has issues that make Bud Bundy look like the All American kid. He's not called the Baltimore Stomper for nothing.

In the end she gets shed of Samson and meets her dream man, Tab Hunter. But that's only the beginning.

Divine created some very funny characters for John Waters in her life. But they had a touch of pathos and sadness as well. This was her great strength as a performer.

Waters serves up some real funny stuff in Polyester. It's positively Divine.

After several years of crudely made, crudely funny films such as PINK FLAMINGOS, director John Waters graduated to a somewhat more sophisticated style, and POLYESTER has a comparatively (note the word: comparatively) subtle script, cinematography that doesn't shake, sets and props that don't actually look like they were salvaged from the local junkyard, and even a mainstream star: 1950s matinée idol Tab Hunter.

The story concerns the extremely dysfunctional Fishpaw family. Husband Elmer is in the porno movie business; daughter Lu-Lu is a mindless teenage slut with a nasty boyfriend; son Dexter is wanted by the law for a sexual fixation that leads him to stomp women's feet! And then there is the mother, poor Francine, extra large and utterly at sea, hoping against hope for middle class respectability in the midst of it all.

Tab Hunter (who is even more of a stud here than in his earlier pretty-boy days) romancing female-impersonator Divine is a major draw, and there is enough hilarity--ranging from a nun-enforced hayride for single pregnant women during a rainstorm to a black gospel singer who hijacks a bus to chase down a juvenile delinquent--to keep the show rolling, and the satirical edge is often quite effective.

Even so, POLYESTER lacks the same shock appeal that made Water's earlier work so entertaining--and it is a tremendous pity that we can't experience the film in its original "ODORAMA." Recommended, but primarily for Waters fans interested in seeing him in his transitional phase.

Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer