Thanks for the memories!

A Masterpiece!

Blistering performances.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

i did't rate this. as a Christian who likes John Water's 'Crybaby' and 'Hairspray', i have to draw the line somewhere. i can't endorse this. it's too unclean. but as a fan of Water's, i find a lot of this painfully funny. so i can't skewer it either. i'm caught in the middle on this one, so i'll just leave it up to the other Water's fans to handle this.they used real roadkill animals in this. also cockroaches and...barf! you name it. so BEWARE! and be wary.i will say to those repeat offenders who delight in watching this over and over, "THIS IS'NT SOME COMMUNIST DAYCARE CENTER! WHERE ARE YOUR PARENTS?!". and i refuse to hold your hands through this one, because sometimes the hand you hold is the hand that holds you down. you're on your own with this one. good luck but...SEE YA SEE YA WOULD'NT WANNA BE YA!!!

It was 1977, the year the Sex Pistols stormed the British pop charts with "Anarchy in the U.K.", and John Waters marked the year with the release of his most joyously angry opus, "Desperate Living".Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) is a suburban housewife who returns home from the mental hospital to the care of her husband Bosley (George Stover) and her massive black maid Grizelda (Jean Hill). She is caught up in one long paranoid screaming fit, accusing a neighbourhood kid of trying to murder her with a baseball and fearing that her pre- pubescent children are having sex. When Bosley catches Grizelda stealing and tries to administer "fit medicine" to Peggy, the pair attack him and Grizelda kills him by sitting on his face.On the run from the law, Peggy and Grizelda have an encounter with a perverted policeman (Turkey Joe) with a panty fetish. In return for their panties, and wet soul kisses, he shows them the way to Morteville, a town so hideous that criminals can live there in a state of "mortification" rather than go to prison.The pair rent a room from a lesbian couple, butch Mole McHenry (Susan Lowe) and her busty man-loving girlfriend Muffy St. Jacques (ex-stripper Liz Renay). But they are soon arrested by the leather goons of Queen Carlotta (Edith Massey) who orders them to have a trash make- over.Carlotta's daughter Princess Coo-Coo (Mary Vivien Pierce) is in love with Herbert (Mike Figgs), the garbage collector at the local nudist colony.Mole makes the ultimate sacrifice for her lover, Peggy joins forces with Queen Carlotta, and Princess Coo-Coo becomes a victim of her mother's insanity, as Morteville moves inexorably toward revolution.This John Waters classic is a masterpiece of deranged comedy which repays multiple viewings. Beneath the camp humour and cheap gross-out gags is a surprisingly perceptive satire on the infantile, neurotic nature of fascism. Compare this film with Barbet Schroeder's classic documentary "Idi Amin Dada" (1974), and you will see that the psychology of real fascist dictators is not that different from that of Queen Carlotta. (Idi Amin's portrait is one of several that hangs on the wall in Carlotta's castle.)Some may not like this film as much as John Waters' other early works because of the absence of Divine, but really this is a benefit in a way as it allows Mink Stole to shine in her one starring role and gives great space also to the incomparable Jean Hill. But everyone is good in this film, with Susan Lowe having her one big role in a Waters' movie. The scene in which she reveals her special gift to Muffy actually has a profound undercurrent of tragedy you just don't expect in a Waters' film.Look out also for one of Waters' most obvious tributes to Herschell Gordon Lewis in the wrestling scene, an appearance by Waters' current casting director Pat Moran as the bathroom pervert (she also played Patty Hitler in deleted scenes from "Pink Flamingos") and the gorgeous Marina Melin (who had been appearing in Waters' films since "Eat Your Makeup" (1968)) baring all as the chief nudist.Waters really wears his "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" and "Wizard of Oz" influences on his sleeve with this one.

The only John Waters film to date set in what is virtually an alternate universe -- the town of Mortville, Maryland -- a disgusting shantytown that inexplicably is governed by its own fascist Empress (Edith Massey), who is both cruel and unusual, and who lives in a Disneyland-like castle. This film is hard-core, undistilled Waters, working in his Classic Period that includes "Pink Flamingos" (his breakthrough film) and "Female Trouble" (possibly his greatest work). Filming without his leading lady/leading man, Divine, "Desperate Living" emerges as more of an ensemble film featuring notorious Hollywood starlet Liz Renay, Waters regular Mink Stole, and Jean Hill, discovered and making a striking debut herein. "Desperate Living" is audacious and fevered and yet has a naive quality to it, typical of Waters' artistic charm. Filmed on a shoestring budget, the film benefits from creative and eye-filling sets by Vince Peranio and costumes by Van Smith. It is a fusion of the surreal, the self-consciously rude and outrageous, and an homage to bad movies past. Acted out in a raucous, strident fashion favored by the director that punches every word across with triple exclamation points, "Desperate Living" is the pinnacle of Waters' wild style. It was followed by a comparatively more demure "Polyester" with Divine returning to the starring role, toned down for wider audience appeal. Needless for me to add, this film isn't for everyone nor was it meant to be, as is obvious right from the opening credits.

After rich housewife Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) accidentally murders her husband and runs away with her overweight black maid Grizelda Brown (Jean Hill) to Mortville, a community of outcasts and criminals ruled by Queen Carlotta (Edith Massey), Desperate Living starts losing the power of John Waters's greatest merit--attack on the norm of the American value. For a Waters film, the more fictitious and metaphysical its format is, the less effective the outcome of his attack is; that's why realistic (for Waters) Female Trouble is intense but fairytale-ish Desperate Living is not. Freaky actors screaming and doing nonsense are amusing to watch, but, needless to say, missing irreplaceable Divine is a significant disadvantage for early Waters.