Rated C (Solo).
DIRECTOR: John Waters
BOTTOM LINE: After two under-the-radar curiosities, John Waters and his star, the fabulous drag queen Divine (né Harris Glenn Milstead), arrived on the scene in the fall of 1972 with “Pink Flamingos,” a sick-and-twisted black comedy and the first part of his “Trash Trilogy”, which also includes “Female Trouble” (1974) and “Desperate Living” (1977).
Divine plays a criminal named Babs Johnson, who is proud to be the filthiest person alive. While living in a trailer with her mother, Edie (Edith Massey), and companion Cotton (Mary Vivian Pearce), she is confronted by the Marbles (David Lochary and Mink Stole), a pair of criminals envious of her reputation who try to outdo her in filth. The scene in which Devine eats dog poop is not for the faint of heart. Like “Valley of the Dolls” and “Rocky Horror,” the ONLY way to see “Pink Flamingos” is as a GROUP EXPERIENCE with a very gay crowd. Like the majority of his films, “Pink Flamingos” is set in Waters’s hometown of Baltimore, which he affectionately calls the “white trash capital of the world.” Original screenplay by Waters.
Waters would skirt the mainstream with Polyester in 1981 and burst through with Hairspray in 1988.
Supplemental material: The Dreamlanders
