freakboy on film: PINK FLAMINGOS (the Criterion edition)

 

Everything you’ve read in the tabloids is true! 

Divine is the filthiest person alive, but she’s not out to prove anything.  Using the alias Babs Johnson, she just wants to enjoy life in her secluded trailer alongside her dysfunctionally functional family.  There’s her traveling companion Cotton, her chicken-lovin’ son Crackers and her egg-obsessed mother Edie. 

Meanwhile across town, Connie and Raymond Marble are seething with filth-envy.  The Marbles kidnap young women, chain them up in the cellar, have their butler Channing impregnate them and then sell the babies to nice lesbian couples.  Surely this means they are far filthier than Divine and they are going to prove it! ~ 

Let the competition of filth commence! 

That is the plot of writer/director John Waters’ 1972 masterpiece of mess.  His first color feature film is a juggernaut of bad taste that will shock you, challenge you and make you howl in hysterics.  Well, unless you’re Peggy Gravel from Waters’ DESPERATE LIVING and have never found the antics of deviants one bit amusing.  (More about that later) 

photo from the 25th anniversary soundtrack album 

The acting is full throttle, but never really camp.  The characters are vividly realized with Divine leading the way, coming at the camera like gangbusters as Babs commits gleeful cinematic terrorism.  Mink Stole as red-haired Connie and David Lochary as blue-haired Raymond are perfectly delusional as the wannabe upper crust society couple wallowing in their gutter trash dreams.  Mary Vivian Pearce as Cotton and Danny Mills as Crackers make for an unsettling believable duo of sex and violence, of sorts.  Edith Massey is beyond memorable as Divine’s mentally ill mother, who is almost always in a playpen. 

I first experienced PINK FLAMINGOS on VHS back in the late 1990’s and was entertained and shocked, despite knowing all the crazy revolting incidents in advance.  The years have mellowed the initial jolt, but the chicken scene still makes me grit my teeth.  I’m not a fan of “animal humor,” but I guess I accept what happens in PINK FLAMINGOS because it’s supposed to be shocking and it doesn’t feel like a cheap joke or lazy writing.  The very real chicken’s very real death seems strangely important to the overall plot.  Yes, I’m keenly aware this makes me a hypocrite when I complain about other films or TV shows where (hopefully not real) animals are killed for the purpose of a supposed joke.  Anyhoo, enough about me and my contradictory mental trigger issues.

The Criterion blu-ray edition is chock full of truly surprising surprises!  Viewers are treated to the feature length documentary DIVINE TRASH, which is an insightful and hilarious look at the making of PINK FLAMINGOS.  Then John Waters takes us on a journey to a couple of key filming locations as they are now, 50 years later.  Another fascinating extra is a slew of deleted scenes which reveal a magical subplot that was thankfully cut and one character’s fluid sexuality! 

 

On top of all that, there’s the brilliant slipcase designed to resemble the very un-divine birthday gift for Babs.  Open up the blu-ray case and you will find, not a turd, but rather entertainingly informative liner notes written up as a tabloid rag seen in the film.  Last, but certainly not least, you will also receive the perfect item for a PINK FLAMINGOS viewing…a barf bag!  Honestly, this reproduction of the barf bag passed out at the film’s premiere made purchasing the Criterion edition totally worth it!  I openly laughed in delight at this fun bonus! 

In conclusion… 

John Waters’ PINK FLAMINGOS is a film that needs to be seen to be believed and the best way to see it is Criterion’s blu-ray edition.  I mean, eating dog shit has never looked more beautiful! 

SIDE NOTE (in case anyone from Criterion is actually reading this…)

Please begin working on a DESPERATE LIVING blu-ray edition!  It’s my favorite pre-HAIRSPRAY John Waters film.  

 

Oh, and the one thing your blu-rays and DVDs lack is a descriptive audio track for the visually impaired.  

Thankfully, I watched PINK FLAMINGOS and other Waters films multiple times before losing a chunk of my vision, but you can do better by being more inclusive in the future. 

Thank you. 

And thank you for reading or listening to my half-blind words. 

 

Freak Out, 

JLH 

P.S. my review of a different John Waters film…

click the pic