In a notorious review of "Female Trouble," gay critic Rex Reed complained, "Where do these people come from? Where do they go when the sun goes down? Isn't there a law or something?" This is exactly the kind of response to tastelessness relished by the film's cult writer-director John Waters, the self-proclaimed "King of Sleaze." "Female Trouble," in all its grotesque glamour, has been released on Blu-ray by the premier Criterion label in a new 4K digital resolution, an impressive feat considering the film was originally shot in 16mm on a $25,000 budget in Waters' native Baltimore.
Written as a star vehicle for Divine, the iconic drag queen lead, "Female Trouble" cemented Waters' auteur status after his previous film "Pink Flamingo" and its infamous doggie-doo scene. Waters knew he could never top "Pink Flamingo" for its shock humor. Instead he created a melodrama on the trials and tribulations of a woman, a campy version of Douglas Sirk's films, summarized in its ad campaign: "She had a lot of problems." "Female Trouble" was Divine's favorite of all his films, and Waters' favorite of his underground movies.
The film follows the downward trail of obese Dawn Davenport, beginning with her juvenile-delinquent high school years, sent to the principal's office for eating a gigantic meatball sandwich in class. She has a hissy fit when she doesn't get her requested cha-cha heels for Christmas, throwing the tree on top of her mother. She runs away from home; hitchhiking, she has sex with Earl Peterson (also played by Divine) on a dirty mattress alongside the road. Pregnant, Dawn resorts to robbing banks to support herself. She has her baby, Taffy (played as a teenager by Mink Stole) alone, biting off the placenta herself.
To make ends meet, Dawn becomes a waitress, dancer, prostitute, though she is lousy at whatever she does. A terrible mother (she beats Taffy with a car antenna), her friends suggest she get a new hairdo at the trendy Lipstick Beauty Salon from the stylist Gater (Michael Potter). She eventually marries Gator, to the distress of his Aunt Ida (Edith Massey), who wants him to be gay. "Honey, I wish you was queer, because heterosexuals lead such sick and boring lives." The marriage ends because Taffy hates Gater.
On her own again and desperate, Dawn becomes a model for the salon's married owners the Dashers (David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce), who take pictures of her as she commits crimes to test their theory that "crime equals beauty." Even when Ida throws acid on her face, hideously disfiguring her, the Dashers convince her she is more beautiful than ever. Dawn develops a nightclub act, jumping on a trampoline and cavorting with dead fish. When Taffy becomes a Hare Krishna cult member, Dawn strangles her. Believing she is beautiful, on stage she belts out, "Who wants to die for art?" and starts shooting a gun into the crowd, killing several people.
Put on trial and with the Dashers testifying against her, Dawn is found guilty. Sentenced to death, she will have a lesbian affair with another inmate before facing the electric chair, which she believes is the high point in her career, giving her final speech: "I'd like to thank all the fans who died so fashionably and gallantly at my nightclub act. And especially all those wonderful people who were kind enough to read about me in the newspapers and watch me on the TV news. Without all of you, my career could never have gotten this far. It was you that I will die for."
Waters was prophetic, predicting the criminal as celebrity and media obsession with lurid crimes, anticipating reality TV, the sensational nature of stardom, and the cult of personality. This satire on middle-class values is one of his best movies. In line with Criterion's high standards, don't miss Waters' audio commentary, or the 33-minute "Lady Divine," an archival interview shot at Andy Warhol's Factory in 1975 featuring Waters, Divine, Mink Stole, and David Lochary.