Desperate Living

For the HORSE the band album, see Desperate Living (album).

Desperate Living
VHS cover
Directed by	John Waters
Produced by	John Waters
Written by	John Waters
Starring	Mink Stole Jean Hill Edith Massey Mary Vivian Pearce Liz Renay
Music by	Chris Lobingier Allen Yanus
Cinematography	John Waters
Editing by	Charles Roggero
Studio	Dreamland
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release date(s)	May 27, 1977 (1977-05-27)
Running time	91 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$65,000

Desperate Living is a 1977 American crime comedy fantasy horror film directed, produced, written, and photographed by Baltimore, Maryland filmmaker John Waters starring Liz Renay, Jean Hill, Mink Stole, Edith Massey, and Mary Vivian Pearce.

Plot

Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole), a neurotic, delusional, suburban housewife, and her overweight maid, Grizelda Brown (Jean Hill), go on the lam after Grizelda smothers Peggy's husband, Bosley (George Stover), to death. The two are arrested by a cross-dressing policeman (Turkey Joe) who gives them an ultimatum: go to jail or be exiled to Mortville, a filthy shantytown ruled by the evil Queen Carlotta (Edith Massey) and her treasonous daughter, Princess Coo-Coo (Mary Vivian Pearce).

Peggy and Grizelda choose Mortville, but still engage in lesbian prison sex. They become associates of self-hating lesbian wrestler Mole McHenry (Susan Lowe), who wants a sex change to please her lover, Muffy St. Jacques (Liz Renay). Most of Mortville's social outcasts - criminals, nudists, and sexual deviants - conspire to overthrow Queen Carlotta, who banishes her daughter, Coo-Coo, after she elopes with a garbage collector (George Figgs), who is later shot to death by the guards. Coo-Coo hides in Peggy and Grizelda's house with her dead lover. When Peggy betrays Coo-Coo to the Queen's guards, Grizelda fights them, and dies when the house collapses on her. Peggy, however, joins the queen in terrorizing her subjects, even infecting them (and Princess Coo-Coo) with rabies.

Eventually, Mortville's denizens, led by Mole, overthrow Queen Carlotta and execute Peggy by shooting a gun up her anus. To celebrate their freedom, the townsfolk roast Carlotta on a spit and serve her, pig-like, on a platter with an apple in her mouth.

Cast

• Mink Stole as Peggy Gravel
• Jean Hill as Grizelda Brown
• Edith Massey as Queen Carlotta
• Mary Vivian Pearce as Princess Coo-Coo
• Liz Renay as Muffy St. Jacques
• Susan Lowe as Mole McHenry
• George Stover as Bosley Gravel
• Turkey Joe as Sheriff Shitface
• Cookie Mueller as Flipper
• Channing Wilroy as Lt. Wilson
• Ed Peranio as Lt. Williams
• Paul Swift as Mr. Paul
• George Figgs as Herbert
• Al Strapelli as Dr. Evans
• Brook Blake as Bosley Gravel, Jr.
• Karen Gerwig as Beth Gravel

Production

This is the only feature film Waters made without Divine prior to the actor's death in 1988. Divine was touring as a live performer and couldn't fit Desperate Living into his schedule. This was also Waters' first film without David Lochary, who bled to death after accidentally cutting himself whilst on PCP just before production.

Due to his Pink Flamingos infamy, Waters began to attract actors from outside his circle of friends. Liz Renay was a convicted felon and author of My Face for the World to See, her still-in-print autobiography (referenced in Waters' previous film Female Trouble). Casting Renay presaged Waters' later use of other crime-related celebrities like Patty Hearst and Traci Lords in his films.

Release

In Italy, the film was heavily censored, dubbed, and retitled Nuovo Punk Story (which translates to "New Punk Story"), intended to capitalise on the rising popularity of the punk movement in the country. Desperate Living was rejected for a UK cinema release by the BBFC in 1977. It was finally released on video in 1990 after the eyeball-gouging scene was trimmed by four seconds.

Reception

The film currently holds 70%, and an 82% Audience rating, on Rotten Tomatoes.^[1]

Tributes

John Waters

• The musician and band Marilyn Manson include a tribute to Desperate Living on their 1994 album, Portrait of an American Family. The last track on the album has a recording of Mink Stole's character, Peggy Gravel, shouting at children playing baseball (having just broken her window). The line is spoken as follows:

  "Go home to your mother! Doesn't she ever watch you? Tell her this isn't some communist daycare center! Tell your mother I hate her! Tell your mother I hate you!"

  • The sound of a ringing telephone is then heard on a loop before, at the very end of the track, a message from the Marilyn Manson Family Intervention Hotline answering machine is heard, specifically a mother asking for her son's name to be removed from the band's mailing list.
• The musical Miss Saigon features a musical scene with the first words being "Coo-Coo Princess".
• Horse the Band's 2009 album was titled Desperate Living after the film.
• Japanese director Tomoaki Hosoyama's early pink film Lesbian Harem (1987) is an homage to Desperate Living.^[2]

References

1. ^ Desperate Living at Rotten Tomatoes
2. ^ Weisser, Thomas; Yuko Mihara Weisser (1998). Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia: The Sex Films. Miami: Vital Books : Asian Cult Cinema Publications. p. 241. ISBN 1-889288-52-7. 

External links

• Desperate Living at the Internet Movie Database
• Desperate Living at AllRovi
• Desperate Living at Rotten Tomatoes