Titty Power: Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains

“We need to make being poor cool again.” - John Waters, This Filthy World (2006)

The 1980s was really the last decade of true grime cinema. Its resulting Bohemia, that unusual and corrupted regarded with ambivalence, sadly disappeared in the national tide of gentrification, reluctantly or not, and in the film world, dilapidated city life was traded for Rob Reiner-esque Americana. The vanguard of modern filmmaking was eventually traded for censor-safe subjects, refining even the most revolting if it was to reach any kind of audience. Film-making, and it’s sister world of contemporary art, really stopped being daring.

In 1981, director Lou Adler’s and writer Nancy Dowd’s über-obscure punk rock epic, Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains was already probably considered passé when it was released in late 1982 (Dowd’s pseudonymous writing credit, Rob Morton, symbolized her displeasure with the final product). Although it came about at the same time as the similarly grimy, low-budget punk-themed movies, Smithereens and Times Square, post-punk and New Wave had already started taking over as the next musical epoch. The chord combinations of punk too few, the angst too redundant, and the drugs too plentiful. Shot over a two year period, it was released to near-obscurity, even with its ties to well-known music icons and convenient timing (Mtv was born), and it only made the transition to DVD last month. But, the movie wasn’t really all that original: the triumphant marriage of music and youth rebellion. Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains is much more significant as an understanding of just how far from drawing lines in the sand film-making has become. While it never arrived in time to be part of the closing curtain on first-wave punk, it could be for the last vestiges of grime cinema.

Diane Lane was just 15 when she starred as Corrine Burns, the typically baffling, teenage “misfit” orphan turned equally baffling superstar heroine in Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains. The film opens with a reporter interviewing the distant teenager as a follow-up to her minor stardom when she was seen on the news being fired at the fast food place where they were doing a story. Shocked by her indifference more than her having to absorb continuous disappointment, the reporter finishes the interview with that typical rhetorical question so replete with disgust and demand: “What are you going to do with your life?!” (Cue the Kelly “Shoes” video!)

Corrine envisions future celebrity and her novice, three-piece all-girl punk band, The Stains (which features a mere 13-year old Laura Dern as “Peg”), are their only ticket out of dingy, hopeless Dodge. “Were there even girl bands before this movie?” Diane Lane asks on the DVD commentary (the Lane-Dern commentary is a great additional feature), frequently citing this movie as the inspiration for a lot of bands’ sound and image. It sounds like an excessively self-congratulatory claim, but it’s especially possible that The White Stripes drew on this movie for plenty of their retro red-and-white imagery. But to answer Diane’s question… yes, there were the Runaways, the girls who didn’t give a damn about their bad reputations. However, the angst-ridden girl bands never really came about in full effect until much later, and most notably with the Riot Grrrl period in the 90s.

Corrine’s escape is not without cynicism, hardened further by the two bands they tour with. Tubes lead singer Fee Way Bill and guitarist Vince Welnick played The Metal Corpses, an aged duo of extremely self-indulgent 70s rockers who desperately ignore their obsolescence. The others are a British punk band called The Looters, which featured Sex Pistols drummer Paul Cook and guitarist Steve Jones and ex-Clash guitarist Paul Simonon while the lead, Billy, was played by Ray Winstone who most recently played Frank Costello’s henchman, Mr. French, in The Departed. They all compete with one another in their bid to be famous and even the most well-meaning can be corrupted; the gatekeepers of fame all have their price.

But the Stains, as young girls never taken seriously to begin with, use outrageousness and rejection and altruism to their advantage, and like the characters in Time Square and The Legend of Billie Jean, they eventually become the headlining success. Not surprisingly, their fan base are screaming crowds of equally alienated teenage girls, something that might be called neo-feminism, had the loyalists who adopted the band’s look (they call it “Going Skunk”) and slogans and lyrics not been shallow followers. The enlightenment to eventually break their bond is just a simple, obvious warning from Billy (The Stain’s big hit single, “The Professionals” (actually a Sex Pistols song, was stolen from him). The spectacle had gotten too far out of hand.

Diane Lane, on the DVD commentary, suggests that this is a film in dire need of a remake. The dirty word that it might be (that dreaded “R” word!), that grimy Bohemia, the drastic differences in the music industry then and now, and the silliness of a youth rebellion epic would probably lost in translation to modern film. Although, sadly, there are few films anymore that really depict the relationship between music and youth, especially teenagers. The closest it has really come lately, at least in more popular film, is where this has been done to supplement the narrative (Empire Records, Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist), or even through the popularity of soundtrack (Juno).

“You can’t make a movie like this anymore,” Laura Dern accurately replies. It featured plenty that would set off conservative censors today: the fighting was authentic because stunt people weren’t hired, the kids were shown to be chain smokers, and even at 15, Diane Lane was filmed partially nude for a brief shower romance with Billy. Grime cinema was low-budget, daring was the default because on the one hand, controversy drew the cult appeal (look at John Water’s catalog of films), and on the other, because there wasn’t much money and expertise to making these films (see Susan Seidleman’s acclaimed debut feature film, Smithereens). The era of grime cinema produced a lot of shitty films (although so did those outside of that context), but it also produced a lot of cult films of note. Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains probably isn’t likely to generate a sudden rise in noteriety, even with the careers that Diane Lane and Laura Dern have both established for themselves, but it is at least a glimpse into where the limitations of the medium used to be (music, too).

There was a recent, related comment on imposed limits in a second season episode of 30 Rock in which Liz Lemon’s (Tina Fey) idol, an old writer for Laugh-In (Carrie Fisher), is brought on as a guest writer for The Girlie Show. Her skit proposals for off-colored satire are nixed by Lemon, acting as the proxy of what the corporate-owned, advertiser-weary networks would allow. “Oh hell, we’d do something like that on the Mandrell Sisters!” the guest writer protests. In the end, the skit they decide to feature instead revolves around jokes about dog penises. American films today are too clean and even those considered the new avant garde within the last decade alone have more often been visually daring rather than topically so.

Boy, You’ll Be A Man Soon: White Water Summer

Lord of the Rings was not the first time Sean Astin had been filming in New Zealand. Shooting began on TV director Jeff Bleckner’s adventure movie, White Water Summer in 1985, primarily shot in parts of California and New Zealand. The movie wasn’t actually released, however, until 1987. The flashback of a summer of various, critical rites of passage (well… except the ones of sexual maturity) are narrated by teenager Alan, played by Astin, reflecting on the events when he is a little older. A little wiser.

This is a movie that begins on a somewhat unusual premise: door-to-door camp recruitment. Kevin Bacon plays a purist wildnerness guide named Vic. This was in his period of bouncing around in an unpredictable array of roles in terribly obscure films, even despite the noteriety of Footloose. He’s standing in the living room of Alan’s New York apartment, presenting a slideshow of his previous summer of “making men out of boys” by hiking them around the Northeastern United States. He promises great experiences. Alan’s dad is vicariously hyped for this opporunity for his son, having said that most of his summer vacations at Alan’s age were spent in the backseat of the family station wagon going to an uncle’s farm. Alan’s mother is understandably fretful for the safety of the boys in the vast wildnerness, though Vic assures her they’re in good care. And Alan… well, he’s less than enthused about the inopportune timing of the trip, given that a certain the parents of a girl he likes are going out of town for a month.

Well, Alan’s successfully managed to duck all kind of camp, but since he has no real skills of persuasion, he’s off to join George (K. C. Martel), Chris (Matt Adler), Mitch (Jonathan Ward), and their new-age fearless guide, Vic for a few weeks of camping. And it’s true, Vic delivers on his promise for some adventure. Things like hiking to near-death exhaustion, white water rafting, made-up lore told by the campfire, trout fishing with bare hands, crossing gorges on flimsy footbridges, testing the thresholds for exposure to the elements, and swinging from face of Devil’s Tooth.

Sure, the description makes it seem like an intentionally comical movie, but seriously, Vic is crazy. But his being crazy is crazy since there is no real consistency in his character. Though, there really isn’t any consistency to young Alan either, who seems in startling contrast (whiny nerd) to his older counterpart (hot shot). But Vic, on the other hand, makes a more severe, but unexplained, leap in personality, transforming from easy-going purist camp guide who encourages his troupe of young campers to abandon their city-bred vices to a sociopath who forces four, relatively unprepared teenagers to survive on their own. The movie might have been better as a thriller and that whole idea of young boys pitted against a loose screw (which Bacon does particularly well) in an unfamiliar environment, making the harsher lessons, particularly those wielded against Alan — Vic’s pet project — more understandble.

White Water Summer never made much noise, and really still hasn’t, which unfortunately leaves little background available on the movie, though it did make the transition to DVD. Sean Astin might be a draw. Kevin Bacon, as well. But the remaining members of a cast of five are three actors who rarely showed up in much else of note. Matt Adler’s more prominent role was the leading part in the late 80s surf movie, North Shore (see the related Muvika post). Jonathan Ward co-starred as one of the first batch of kids to be looked after in Charles in Charge, but may be better remembered by the decade’s B-movie nostalgic as the older brother in the E.T. knock-off, Mac & Me. And K. C. Martel, aside from playing one of the oldest brothers friends in the real E.T., would go on to play Mike Seaver’s friend, Boner [insert Boners jokes here] in the TV sitcom, Growing Pains.

Obscurity and character inconsistencies (and sometimes, just plain annoyances) aside, this movie has several things working in its favor. For one thing, Englishman John Alcott, who frequently worked with Stanley Kubrick, served as the cinematographer for this film. A dedication for him appears in the ending credits, since he died 1 year before the film’s release. The movie offers amazing glimpses into some vast wildnerness, and generally does well enough to project that sense of alarm and adventure.

This is also one of those movies that had a characteristically 80s soundtrack with some decent songs that were never released beyond a few popular selections by The Cult, Bruce Hornsby, and Journey on unrelated albums. Once in a while, faithful diggers might find them in their digital hunt, as had been done for fans of Real Genius or with Michael Sembello’s “Rock Until You Drop” single from Monster Squad, but with this movie, those unfortunately remain rare to even find off-screen.

Considering the high obscurity factor, it’s a wonder the movie ever made it to DVD at all. But it’s something the younger nostalgics will likely add to lists of coveted favorites if the cheesiness is forgivable. (For now, the movie is available in full on YouTube).