What does it take to make a movie memorably bad?
John Waters’ “Pink Flamingos” now re-released by New Line Cinema, with cut scenes and a wry Waters commentary — is a movie that stubbornly, hilariously refuses to die. Its 1972 hippie era may have vanished, but director-writer-producer-cinematographer-editor Waters’ amazing film lives on: a movie that takes badness dre5tfto the limit, making vice a virtue and visa versa.
Waters’ epic comedy is about a duel to the death between two degenerate outlaw families for the title of “Filthiest Person in the World” — climaxing in the legendary scene where 300-pound transvestite star Divine wolfs down an actual dog dropping. It’s still a shocker.
Throughout, Waters satirizes gamy exploitation movies — especially the ones made by his sleaze favorites Russ Meyer (“Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!”) and Herschell Gordon Lewis (“2,000 Maniacs”). On one side of this Homeric clash of depravity, in a trailer with pink flamingo lawn ornaments, is the vile clan of Babs Johnson, a k a Divine: including consort Cotton (Mary Vivian Pearce), maniacal son Crackers (Danny Mills) and Grandma Edie the Egg Lady (the late but immortal Edith Massey), an obese, demented oldster in a playpen who keeps wailing for “eggies.”
On the other side are the vicious Marbles: Raymond and Connie (David Lochary and Mink Stole), an evil pair in wild red and blue hairdos, who run a kidnap ring and baby shop and embark on a campaign to win Divine’s Filth crown. Practically nothing either family does from then on can be described in a family newspaper.
This film — so politically incorrect, the phrase might have been invented for it — can’t easily be justified in any way but one. It’s very funny.
A major source of the humor is Waters’ dialogue: a crazily articulate flow of tirades and nonsense, delivered at a crackling pace. Another is the late Divine, born Harris Glenn Milstead: a performer of truly overwhelming presence, twisted humor and amusingly grand narcissism.
Then there’s Waters’ secret humanism. Though his public image suggests a nihilistic wise-cracker, the movies themselves show that he loves his actors, if not necessarily their characters.
I wish Waters had actually given us a “Pink Flamingos: Special Edition,” restoring the hour he cut in 1972. But for “Flamingos” alone, Waters probably deserves the title bestowed on the late, unforgettable Ed Wood Jr: the movies’ “King of Bad.” Awful as he was, Wood wasn’t bad by design but by temperament. Waters is the true visionary, bad by artistic choice. (star) (star) 1/2
———-
MPAA rating: NC-17. Language, sensuality, nudity, violence.
