Directed by John Waters • 1974 • United States
Starring Divine, David Lochary, Edith Massey
Glamour has never been more grotesque than in FEMALE TROUBLE, which injects the Hollywood melodrama with anarchic decadence. Divine, director John Waters’ larger-than-life muse, engulfs the screen with charisma as Dawn Davenport, the living embodiment of the film’s lurid mantra, “Crime is beauty,” who progresses from a teenage nightmare hell-bent on getting cha-cha heels for Christmas to a fame monster whose egomaniacal impulses land her in the electric chair. Shot in Waters’ native Baltimore on 16 mm, with a cast drawn from his beloved troupe of regulars, the Dreamlanders (including Mink Stole, David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce, Edith Massey, and Cookie Mueller), this film—the director’s favorite of his work with Divine—comes to life through the tinsel-toned vision of production designer Vincent Peranio and costume designer/makeup artist Van Smith. An endlessly quotable fan favorite, FEMALE TROUBLE offers up perverse pleasures that never fail to satisfy.
Up Next in Season 1
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Polyester
Directed by John Waters • 1981 • United States
Starring Divine, Tab Hunter, Edith MasseyFor his first studio picture, filth maestro John Waters took advantage of his biggest budget yet to allow his muse Divine to sink his teeth into a role unlike any he had played before: Baltimore housewife Fr...
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Cecil B. Demented
Directed by John Waters • 2000 • United States, France
Starring Melanie Griffith, Stephen Dorff, Adrian GrenierJohn Waters’s defiant takedown of Hollywood mediocrity stars Melanie Griffith as a pampered movie queen who goes guerrilla when she is kidnapped by a band of underground filmmakers act...
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Multiple Maniacs
Directed by John Waters • 1970 • United States
Starring Divine, David Lochary, Mary Vivian PearceThe gloriously grotesque second feature directed by John Waters is replete with all manner of depravity, from robbery to murder to one of cinema's most memorably blasphemous moments. Made on a shoes...
