Pink Flamingos (1972) - John Waters
Related: American cinema - John Waters - American exploitation - 1972
Description
Pink Flamingos is a 1972 film directed by John Waters. It made an underground star of the flamboyant and obese drag queen Divine. The independent film also stars David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce, Mink Stole, Danny Mills, Channing Wilroy, Cookie Mueller, Paul Swift, and Edith Massey. Produced to a budget of only $12000, it was shot on weekends in the vicinity of Baltimore, Maryland. [edit]
Plot Summary
Divine lives under the pseudonym "Babs Johnson" with her egg-loving mother, Mama Edie, delinquent son Crackers, and Cotton, a like-minded companion whose simple pleasure is voyeurism. They reside in a mobile home (in front of which can be found a pair of pink, plastic flamingos, accounting for the film's title) on Philpot Road in Phoenix, Maryland, a suburb of Baltimore (John Waters' hometown). After finding that Divine had been named "the filthiest person in the world" by a paper, a rival family, the Marbles, set out to destroy the tight-knit family but come unstuck in the process. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_Flamingos [Nov 2005]
The film played the Elgin theatre in New York.
Pink Flamingos (1972) - John Waters
This is the movie that made John Waters famous, and quite possibly the film that made bad taste cool. Yes, Virginia, a large transvestite actually eats dog feces as a kind of dizzying denouement to this frequently illogical and intentionally disgusting movie, but by the time that happens, you're already numb... and you've possibly laughed to the point of losing bladder control. The plot revolves around two vile families laying claim to the title "The Filthiest People Alive." You've got pregnant women in pits, you've got grown men getting sexual satisfaction from chickens, you've got people licking furniture to perform trailer-park voodoo, and you've got classic lines like: "Oh my God! The couch... it... it rejected you!"
Waters, who went on to direct genuine pop-culture classics such as Hairspray and Serial Mom, made this celluloid sideshow with one aim--to make a name for himself. It worked. He does have a genuine eye for filmmaking (when the trailer burns down, you feel the white heat of Divine's pain and anger). On the other hand, you won't notice any disclaimers about stunt doubles and animals not being mistreated. There weren't, and they were. Welcome to the filthiest film in the world. --Grant Balfour for Amazon.com
your Amazon recommendations