“I’d like to introduce the most beautiful woman in the world: the fabulous Dawn Davenport.”
Reeling from the cult success of Pink Flamingos, trash hounds everywhere wondered how the future “King of Bad Taste” would follow up on his previous doses of celluloid ipecac. What does one do when they’ve already pushed the limits of filth to the nth degree? In John Waters’ case, he takes it to O with this mascara-stained, good-girl-gone bad B-movie sendup/crime epic, Female Trouble. Dawn ...
“I’d like to introduce the most beautiful woman in the world: the fabulous Dawn Davenport.”
Reeling from the cult success of Pink Flamingos, trash hounds everywhere wondered how the future “King of Bad Taste” would follow up on his previous doses of celluloid ipecac. What does one do when they’ve already pushed the limits of filth to the nth degree? In John Waters’ case, he takes it to O with this mascara-stained, good-girl-gone bad B-movie sendup/crime epic, Female Trouble. Dawn Davenport (played by the paramountly influential Divine) ascends from humble beginnings as a petty, cha-cha heel-less swindler to a criminal whose cult of personality becomes equal to (then) contemporaries such as Manson, Tex Watson, or Richard Speck. Waters distorts the boundaries of crime and beauty to be spoken in the same “bad” breath, with the usual cast of Dreamlanders (Mink Stole, Mary Vivian Pearce, Edith Massey, David Lochary), definitive set design from Waters’ long time collaborator Vincent Peranio, and one of the best theme songs of all time. Rat your hair, inject some liquid mascara, and put on your cha-cha heels for this under-appreciated Waters’ classic.
Dir. John Waters, 1974, 35mm, 89 min.