There are of course many film directors that put two fingers
up to America, but John Waters put his thumb right up its arse! The duke of
disgust, the saint of bad taste, Waters has made a career out of making vile,
stupid, repulsive and sexually explicit movies: none more so than Pink
Flamingos (1972) - one of those rare films that’s just got to be seen
to be believed! Waters not only directed but wrote, produced, shot, edited and
scored this ‘transgressive black comedy exploitation film’[1]
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| ....to some lucky young fellow! |
This nauseating grindhouse movie stars Waters high school
friend Glenn Milstead better known as the deliciously outrageous Devine an
actor mainly associated with performing as a female drag queen and recently the
subject of a wonderful documentary by Jeffrey Schwarz I
Am Devine (2013).
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| "wheres my eggs, I'm hungry" |
Devine lives under the pseudonym of Babs Johnson who is on
the run from the police for a number of unexplained murders. She lives in seclusion
on the outskirts of Baltimore, Maryland in a pink caravan which she shares with
her mentally retarded mother Edie, an obese women who inhabits a playpen and
has an addiction to eggs, her delinquent son Crackers who enjoys lethal chicken
sex and her travelling companion Cotton who gets her sexual pleasure from
watching Cracker having sex.
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| Babs like to please her son. |
When Devine is proudly named ‘the filthiest person alive’ by
a tabloid newspaper her bitter rivals Connie and Raymond Marble are extremely
jealous and set out to destroy her. This pair of despicable foot fetishists
kidnap young girls, force their manservant Channing to impregnate them and sell
the babies to lesbian couples, this in turn finances an inner city heroin ring
which caters to high school children.
This highly colourful married couple despatch Cookie to have
sex with Cracker and learn where Babs Johnson and her entourage live. This intimate
act involves one of the most infamous scenes in the film. With Cotton looking
on, Cookie and Cracker have sex while crushing a live chicken between them! The
other infamous, and best-remembered scene in the film is the concluding one
where Devine scoops up fresh dog excrement, eats it, gags, and smiles for the
camera. A scene that not recommended to be watched whilst your having your tea!
And believe it or not all produced for a budget of $10000, and that included
the hire of the poodle.
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| Happy birthday Babs. |
As well as Devine and Waters who plays Mr J the narrator,
the film stars David Lochary as Raymond, an actor that specialises in playing sophisticated
pervert’s in Waters films, his last appearance in Female Trouble was in 1974 just two years before he died from an
overdose of PCP (angel dust). His wife in the film Connie is played by Waters
regular Mink Stole, another Dreamlander Edith Massy plays Edie. And how could
we forget Elizabeth Coffey a postoperative transsexual woman who plays the
chick-with-a-dick who turns the tables on pervert Raymond!
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| Babs does not need little plastic bags? |
Pink Flamingos is
still, after several years, one of the hottest film attractions and has been
honoured all over the World as a film classic and was shown at the New York
Museum of Modern Art as part of The Great American Comedy Series. But there’s
no disputing that the release of this notorious film caused a great deal of
controversy because of the perverse acts performed in explicit and graphic
detail.
The film was re
released in 1997 and subsequently on DVD to mark the 25th
anniversary of its premiere. This newer version includes an improved soundtrack
and some extra scenes from the original release introduced by the director
himself. I can say, with hand on heart that there is no other film like it.
Certainly not one for the ‘grey pound’ ha ha ha ha.
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