Polyester (1981)

By the late 70s John Waters was in danger of painting himself into a filmic corner. There wasn’t too much left for him to do in terms of cinematic grossness, and he was inevitably going to start running up against the law of diminishing returns. In 1981 he found the answer to this conundrum by veering sharply towards the mainstream with Polyester.

That’s not to say that Polyester can be described as a mainstream film. It’s still a low-budget production, and there’s still a fair amount of grossness. And a great deal of outrageousness and grotesquerie. But there’s also a coherent plot, and real characters. And not just real characters, but characters we can care about, in a twisted sort of way. There’s even actual acting. It’s a movie that gives the impression of having been made from a written script.

Divine is suburban housewife Francise Fishpaw. Francine wants to love the American Dream, and be accepted by her neighbours. Unfortunately that isn’t likely to happen, since her husband Elmer runs the local porno movie theatre. The Fishpaw residence is the target of noisy demonstrations by the self-appointed guardians of public morality, demanding family entertainment instead of the fleshly delights currently being offered by Elmer’s movie house.

The Fishpaw’s two teenage children are also a source of anxiety. The son, Dexter, is a devotee of both glue-sniffing and foot fetishism. He is in fact the notorious Baltimore Foot Stomper, who has been terrorising the women of this fair city by stomping on their high heel-clad feet. Daughter Lu-Lu also indulges in glue-sniffing and is dating a punk rocker. She is also proudly looking forward to her first abortion. Francine has enough worries with her two offspring, but her world really starts to fall apart when she discovers her husband’s affair with his secretary Sandra (Mink Stole looking more outrageous than ever in a Bo Derek hairdo). Francine’s mother is also helping herself to Francine’s money. Francine takes refuge in alcoholism, until one day she meets a gorgeous if somewhat ageing stud (played with gusto by 50s heart-throb Tab Hunter) at a traffic accident. Is Francine’s luck finally changing for the better? Well, maybe not.

The movie was famous for having been filmed in Odorama, with theatre patrons being supplied with scratch and sniff cards to be used at important points in the movie. This was an obvious tribute to one of Waters’ cinematic idols, William Caste, the famous B-movie producer known as the King of the Gimmicks. In fact the biggest inspiration for Polyester comes from another of Waters’ idols, the great Douglas Sirk. If you can imagine one of Sirk’s sumptuous Technicolor melodramas from the 50s but with a 300-pound drag queen as the female lead, you have an idea of what to expect from Polyester. On a miniscule budget Waters does a surprisingly good job of evoking the look and the feel of Sirk’s movies.

The biggest revelation though was that Divine could act. He makes a perfect Douglas Sirk melodrama star! The acting in general is bizarre but extremely effective, with Waters regulars Mink Stole and Edith Massey (as Francine’s best friend Cuddles Kovinsky) both extremely good. Ken King as Dexter and Mary Garlington as Lu-Lu are wonderfully over-the-top. Lu-Lu’s constant dancing is terrific. Both children eventually reform, and are even more disturbing after their reformations! Lu-Lu becomes a hippie and credits macrame with saving her life after she had fallen into the hands of crazed pro-life nuns and had suffered a miscarriage brought on by the constant hayrides to which the nuns subjected their captive unwed mothers-to-be.

The DVD includes a commentary track by John Waters, and like all his commentary tracks it’s immensely entertaining.

Polyester gave Waters his first real taste of commercial success and it’s a perfect mix of his trademark outrageously confrontational style with the odd warmth and the sympathetic portrayal of outsiders that make his later more mainstream movies so appealing. And it’s non-stop fun.

Cecil B. DeMented (2000)

To say that John Waters’ 2000 film Cecil B. DeMented is a hit-and-miss affair is really to miss the point. It’s as deliberately anarchic as its subject matter, and despite its unevenness it’s more successful than it has any right to be. Its sheer energy and Waters’ bravado carry it through.

Cecil B. DeMented is a would-be independent film-maker who has gathered around him a devoted circle of guerilla underground film-makers. They’re kind of a cult, and they call themselves the Sprocket Holes. Their dream is to smash the corrupt Hollywood studio system. And they not only dream about doing this, they have a plan to make their dream a reality. They will make a movie called Raving Beauty, which will be an object lesson in cinematic purity. And they have a plan to generate so much publicity for the film that no-one will be able to ignore it. They will kidnap a major Hollywood star and force her to star in the picture.

They realise that this movie will probably cost them their lives, but independent cinema is a cause worth dying for! It soon becomes clear that they consider it a cause worth killing for as well. They storm a theatre (in Baltimore of course) where the ageing faded bitchy spoilt brat star Holly Whitlock (played by Melanie Griffith) is making a personal appearance at a charity bash to promote her new romantic comedy. The organiser of the charity gala is killed as a result of a shoot-out between the Sprocket Holes and the police.

Holly Whitlock is extremely obstructive at first, but gradually she comes to identify with her kidnappers. She starts to believe in their dream. There are of course uncanny similarities to the real-life story of Patty Hearst, kidnapped by urban terrorists back in the 70s, and in fact Patricia Hearst herself plays a small role in the film. In any other movie this would be creepy, but Patricia Hearst is a regular member of John Waters’ stock company of actors, in fact she’s more or less a part of his cinematic family, and somehow it doesn’t seem creepy at all.

The Sprocket Holes are the sort of collection of misfits that you’d expect to find in a John Waters movie. Cecil B. DeMented himself is an insane visionary. His chief assistant is Cherish, a former porn star. The makeup girl is a likeable Satanist. The director of photography is addicted to at least half a dozen different drugs. The hair stylist is tortured by guilt because of his heterosexual tendencies, which he has tried without success to repress. They have all taken a vow of celibacy until the movie is completed, as a result of which they are all permanently obsessed by sex.

The Sprocket Holes encounter numerous obstacles in their attempt to make their film, mainly because their film is about a bunch of radical film-makers who declare war on the Hollywood system. This involves them in another gun battle at a film industry function, and yet more violence erupts when they try to disrupt the making of the sequel to Forrest Gump, Gumped Again. On the run from studio heavies, film union representatives and the cops, as well as enraged movie fans who declare that they like family entertainment, the movie guerilla are rescued by king fu film fans. Still on the run, they take refuge in another movie house, which is screening a season of Cherish’s porn films. The audience recognise her, and willingly join the running battle on the side of the Sprocket Holes.

The movie ends in mayhem, but while Cecil B. DeMented proclaims his contempt for phoney life-affirming endings, the ending of Waters’ movie manages to be cataclysmic, tragic, farcical and yet weirdly life-affirming. Whatever his feelings for the subjects of his rather caustic satire, Waters loves movies and somehow there’s the strange feeling that the movie is saying that movies will survive even the efforts of the cynical manipulators who run the studios and the efforts of crazed fanatics like DeMented.

While Waters doesn’t neglect a single opportunity to mock the opportunism and greed of Hollywood, the movie’s satire is directed just as much at the oh-so-serious and pretentious indie film crowd who see themselves as the saviours of film. The Sprocket Holes’ vow of celibacy certainly appears to be a dig at the Dogme people. There are some wonderful sight gags involving movie marquees, and some great lines, my favourite being Cecil B. DeMented’s proclamation that, “Technique is nothing more than failed style.”

It’s difficult to say if we’re expected to see Cecil and his crew as heroes, anti-heroes or just crazies. I suppose that depends on how you feel about Cecil’s belief that movies are worth dying for! In fact they come cross as a mixture of all those characteristics. They’re idealists, but they’re violent and they kill people. They’re visionaries, but they’re also pretentious and pompous and more or less talentless. They’re all certifiably insane, but they form an odd little family and they care about each other. This ambiguity works in the movie’s favour, preventing it from being just a tiresome tirade against the evils of big business.

Perhaps the movie’s biggest strength though is the acting. Melanie Griffith is absolutely superb. Stephen Dorff is perfect as the crazed visionary Cecil. Maggie Gyllenhaal is a delight as the Satanist makeup artist. It’s Alicia Witt though as the crazed but oddly loveable porn star Cherish who shares the acting honours with Griffith.

Structurally the movie is a complete mess, but I’m inclined to think that it’s supposed to be that way. The chaotic nature of the movie is essential to its success. There are times when you wonder if they’re really going to be able to stretch out such a slight plot to feature film length, but it’s a fairly short film and every time it’s in danger of starting to drag Waters or his actors find the necessary inspiration to keep the momentum rolling.

Female Trouble (1974)

Female Trouble is the first of John Waters’ early pre-Hairspray films that I’ve seen. It’s every bit as gross as I expected it to be, but it is also extremely funny. Divine is Dawn Davenport, who runs away from home after her parents fail to buy her a pair of cha-cha heels for Christmas. She embarks on a career in crime, and encounters a very odd couple who own a hairdressing salon. Their fetish is crime as beauty, and photographing crime. Dawn’s criminal career really accelerates after this point, leading her to murder and to her greatest starring role. John Waters uses this story for some rather biting and surprisingly effective satire on America’s obsessions with fame and crime. Waters regular Mink Stole plays Dawn’s bizarre daughter Taffy, whose favourite pastime is recreating car accidents in the living room. The DVD includes a commentary track by Waters himself – he really does superb commentary tracks and this is no exception. Typical Waters weirdness and bad taste, and all highly entertaining.

Serial Mom (1994)

Beverly Sutphin has a loving husband, two wonderful children, and a beautiful house in suburbia. She’s a devoted wife and mother and an enthusiastic homemaker. She’s like a walking advertisement for both Motherhood and the American Dream. Except for one small detail. Beverly Sutphin happens to be a serial killer. She’s the Serial Mom in John Waters’ delightfully twisted 1994 movie Serial Mom. It’s not that Beverly is one of those awful psycho killers. She’s just very protective of her family. And she only kills people who really have it coming to them. I mean if you go around stealing people’s parking spaces, you have to expect that people will get annoyed. We’ve all been so angry we could have killed someone in that situation, the only difference is that Beverly actually does it.

Kathleen Turner is perfect as Beverly. Imagine Carol Brady suddenly turning into an axe murderer and you have a fair idea of what Turner’s performance is like. Sam Waterston displays a surprising flair for comedy as Beverly’s perpetually startled dentist husband. Waters regulars Ricki Lake (as Beverly’s boyfriend-starved daughter Misty), Patty Hearst and Mink Stole provide good support. Matthew Lillard manages to be both wholesome and slightly creepy as the horror movie-obsessed son. Serial Mom gives John Waters the opportunity for some fairly savage satire at the expense of suburbia, the media, the justice system and our obsession with killers as celebrities, but it’s all done with surprising warmth and light-heartedness. Which, combined with some rather graphic violence, just makes it all the more disturbing. It’s also very funny and thoroughly enjoyable.

Hairspray (1988)

I’d forgotten just how delightful John Waters’ Hairspray was. The plot is corny and lightweight but the film more than makes up for this in sheer good humour and campy outrageousness. I’d also forgotten how good Ricki Lake was as the heroine. Add to that some truly awesomely camp sets and wonderfully excessive costumes and of course hairdos (not to mention fabulous dance numbers) and you have a movie that you just have to love. Divine is divine as Tracy’s mother. Among the supporting players Sonny Bono and Debbie Harry are particularly good as the parents of Tracy’s arch-rival Amber von Tussle. Like his slightly later Cry-Baby it’s Waters indulging himself in nostalgia for an era he obviously regards with mingled horror and affection, and a great deal of amusement. It’s all fabulous fun.