Desperate Living
Tags: comedy, murder, allegory, cult, violence, insanity, absurd, psychedelic

Plot synopsis:
In an affluent Baltimore suburb, all hell is about to break loose in the home of the Gravels. Bosley Gravel (George Stover) has a discussion on the front porch with Dr. Evans (Al Strapelli). Gravel has had his wife Peggy (Mink Stole) released from a mental institution; Evans feels she should have stayed for a while longer, but Gravel says that Peggy's breakdown is "part of the past now". However, inside the house, Peggy is in hysterics. Her young son and his friends are playing baseball in the front yard, and one of them accidentally hits a baseball through Peggy's window. She immediately starts shrieking and views the accident as an assassination attempt. She begins screaming at the children, then is driven even further insane when the phone rings and it's a wrong number. She viciously berates the caller and goes downstairs. Grizelda Brown (Jean Hill) is a very large black woman who works as a maid for the Gravels; she is doing housework when Peggy appears in her frantic state. Grizelda assures her that everything is alright and she's just upset, but Peggy tells her that someone just tried to kill her.Peggy goes off looking for her two youngest children and finds them naked, playing an innocent game of doctor; horrified, she screams at them and calls them "sodomites", ranting that her daughter Beth (who appears to be about 8 years old) could be pregnant. Meanwhile, Bosley finds Grizelda drinking from his liquor cabinet, and they argue about it. Grizelda is defiant, but Bosley finds his savings account book, his lottery ticket, and two rolls of toilet paper in Grizelda's purse. Before he can call the police, Peggy appears and confronts Bosley in a deranged way, ranting about her paranoid delusions before disappearing upstairs. Bosley goes upstairs to administer an injection for Peggy, and leaves Grizelda alone in the kitchen.Upstairs, Peggy refuses the injection and reacts with hostility to Bosley, who says "Peggy, I might have to commit you again!" In response, Peggy smashes glass over his head and screams for Grizelda, who rushes upstairs. Grizelda, who appears to weigh well over 300 pounds, sits on Bosley and kills him. Horrified, the two of them run from the house and leave in Peggy's car.In the car they have an argument; Grizelda announces that they are going to sleep in the woods overnight to hide out from the police, and Peggy takes a haughty attitude with her. As a result, Grizelda forces the car to a halt and drags Peggy from the driver's seat outside the car. "I ain't your maid anymore, bitch, I'm your sister in crime!" she tells her, and Peggy seems to suddenly fear for her life. Before the altercation can go any further, a very strange looking policeman (Turkey Joe) pulls up on a motorcycle. The cop immediately knows who Peggy and Grizelda are, saying that the authorities have already learned of the murder they committed and are looking for them this very minute. Instead of arresting them, the policeman assaults them, removing his uniform to reveal women's lingerie underneath. He forces the women to remove their panties, which he then puts on, and kisses them lewdly (something that is made even more disgusting by the fact that the policeman's gums are constantly bleeding). The cop makes a brief reference to a place called Mortville; Peggy and Grizelda have never heard of it, but he tells them that it is a place where killers can live scot free. In exchange for their cooperation, he lets them escape to Mortville, and they run off through the woods for their destination.When they find Mortville, they realize it is a ramshackle village built entirely out of garbage. The place is populated by bizarre, degenerate characters. Grizelda accepts it for what it is, but Peggy remains haughty. The two of them find a house that offers a "room for rent", and they are greeted by an extremely abrasive woman named Mole McHenry (Susan Lowe). Peggy tries to ingratiate herself to Mole, who immediately sees through her, but Grizelda makes a decent impression and Mole offers to rent them a room, stealing Grizelda's purse as payment. Inside she finds six dollars cash, which Mole considers a large amount of money, and the lottery ticket Grizelda stole from Bosley. Mole takes this as well, announcing "I'll take this, and I'LL win it." Then she invites Grizelda and Peggy to dinner, telling Grizelda "You look like you got a big appetite!"Inside Mole's house, they meet Mole's girlfriend, Muffy St. Jacques (Liz Renay). Muffy is a sexpot type, and Mole derides her for being "lazy" by sleeping late; she also jealously accuses her of having sexual dreams about men. When Muffy makes a flippant comment in response, Mole violently impales her hand with a large fork. When Grizelda and Peggy see that the "dinner" Mole has prepared is a dead dog, they try and back out of eating, but the borderline violent Mole tries to force them to eat it.Before they can, strange looking goons who wear costumes that resemble S&M bondage gear break into the house and kidnap Peggy and Grizelda, ushering them into the back of a truck and driving off with them. Before they leave, Mole tries to console them "Don't worry, it's standard procedure in Mortville!" In the back of the truck, Grizelda tries to kiss Peggy romantically; the icy Peggy reacts with shock and disgust. They are taken to a castle on the border of Mortville, where they are brought before Mortville's facist dictator, Queen Carlotta (Edith Massey). Carlotta is carried around by her goons, as she seems too large to walk on her own. She intimidates the women, telling them that she knows they are on the lam for murder and that she expects them to live in a constant state of "mortification" in Mortville. The goons force them to eat live roaches and Carlotta makes them watch the execution of a prisoner, whose only crime seems to be defying the Queen. She sends them off to see the "ugly experts", where they will get a humiliating makeover. When they've gone, Carlotta drops her theatrical attitude and has one of her goons sexually stimulate her by stripping and dancing nude. Carlotta then has her goons take her to see her daughter, Princess Coo-Coo (Mary Vivian Pearce). It seems Coo-Coo has been acting defiant, sneaking out of the castle to rendezvous with her lover Herbert, one of Mortville's garbage men. Carlotta scolds Coo-Coo and tells her that she disapproves of her relationship with Herbert. As punishment, Carlotta grounds Coo-Coo to her room for several years. Unbeknownst to Coo-Coo, Carlotta orders her goons to assassinate Herbert on sight.Back at Mole's, Peggy and Grizelda return wearing outrageous clothing and makeup. Mole and Muffy laugh at them, and Peggy tries to insult Mole, causing her to threaten Peggy physically. Muffy tells a story about how she ended up in Mortville, and we see a flashback to the night Muffy's life went wrong. Muffy and her former husband are seen arriving home after a party to find that their teenage babysitter is having a wild party in their home. Drugs and alcohol are rampant, and Muffy's husband (Roland Hertz) chases all of the kids out of the house. Muffy finds the babysitter upstairs in their bed naked with a boy; when she demands to know where her baby Freddy is, the babysitter (Pirie Woods) tells her that she thinks she left him in the kitchen. Muffy finds the baby boy inside the closed refrigerator and goes berserk, whacking the babysitter on the head with a frying pan and shoving her face in a large bowl of dog food, suffocating her. When Muffy's husband sees what happened, she runs away and takes off in their car; the husband tries to stop her, but Muffy rolls up the window on his neck, choking him to death and dragging his body along as she drives off. Mole tells her own story immediately after, revealing that she was a female wrestler who went berserk at a match and murdered her male opponent.After the stories, Mole reveals that she is betting on the lottery ticket she took from Peggy and Grizelda to bring them some much-needed cash to get them out of their hopeless situation. Peggy is indignant, shrieking that the lottery ticket belongs to her; she further enrages Mole by saying "We need money, we're not trash like you!" Grizelda defuses the situation by taking Peggy back to their 'room', which is a small shed behind the house with a bed in it. Both couples then have sex, although Peggy does so begrudgingly, performing oral sex on Grizelda.The next day, Carlotta's goons walk through the streets of Mortville delivering a "royal proclaimation" from Carlotta declaring the day "Backwards Day". All residents of Mortville are to walk backwards and wear their clothes backwards or face immediate execution. Muffy and Mole are extremely agitated by this, coupled with the fact that they are hungry from a lack of food. A cat brings a dead rat in and Mole reacts joyfully, cooking the rat and planning on eating it. They later leave the house and head off on an errand; Peggy and Grizelda appear and beg to tag along. Mole's errand is to collect a current newspaper (which is considered contraband) so she can check the lottery numbers. They stop at Mortville's nudist colony to find out where they can score a newspaper, and they are immediately joined by Princess Coo-Coo; when they all fall their knees as instructed by the Queen, Coo-Coo urges them not to. "I'm not like my mother," she claims. Coo-Coo has come to visit Herbert, who is also a nudist, but the goons appear and shoot Herbert dead. Panic ensues, and Peggy, Grizelda, Mole, and Muffy all hurriedly leave the nudist colony and head for a lesbian bar. Inside the bar, a stripper named Flipper (Cookie Mueller) is dancing and beating a bound man to death while the audience cheers her on. Peggy makes a detour to the ladies room, and she is approached for sex by a deranged-looking woman (Pat Moran). When she returns to the table, she begs Grizelda to take her home; Muffy and Mole wonder why she was so adamant to go with them in the first place.Mole and Muffy visit Flipper's girlfriend, Shotsie (Sharon Niesp), and get a contraband newspaper from her. They discover that they are holding the winning lottery ticket after all. Back at the house, Peggy and Grizelda find Coo-Coo in their shed, in a romantic embrace with Herbert's dead body. Grizelda tries to comfort her and Peggy reacts wtih both disgust and jealousy. Peggy opens the door and screams for Carlotta's goons, giving away the location of the Princess; a fight ensues, and Grizelda attacks the goons inside the shed. Although she overpowers them, the small structure collapses and kills her.The goons kidnap Coo-Coo and Peggy and take them before the Queen. The Queen disowns Coo-Coo, who is now blind with rage over the murder of Herbert, and Carlotta orders her to be imprisoned and raped by the goons. Carlotta rewards Peggy for her loyalty by making her the new Princess, grooming her to become the next tyrannical monarch of Mortville. She gives Peggy the task of infecting the citizens of Mortville with rabies, starting with Coo-Coo; Peggy injects her with rabies and throws her out into the streets to spread the disease.Meanwhile, Mole goes into Baltimore to collect her lottery winnings; once she has the cash (which totals about $1000), she visits the John Hopkins hospital and demands an immediate sex change. When the nurses and doctor don't cooperate at first, Mole holds them at knifepoint until they comply. When she returns to Mortville, she showers Muffy with presents, including a new bra and a fur coat. She also shows Muffy a large cache of firearms that she has purchased, with which they can rebel against Queen Carlotta and her goons. Mole's final surprise, her sex change, causes Muffy to react in horror; when Mole tries to have sex with Muffy using her new penis, Muffy vomits and insists that Mole cut it off, which she does. Muffy sews up the wound dutifully, saying that she only pretended to want a man to make Mole jealous, and she vows to stay by Mole even though she now has no sex organs.Shotsie and Flipper appear with the now very ill Coo-Coo, and they hatch a plan to overturn Carlotta. Muffy acts as a decoy and seduces the castle guard, who is ambushed and murdered by Mole and the others. As Carlotta and Peggy gloat in Carlotta's bedroom about the success of their rabies plan, the rebels go into the castle and execute Carlotta's guards, confronting Peggy and Carlotta at gunpoint. They force Carlotta to kiss Muffy's ass, then let Coo-Coo bite her, infecting her with rabies. Peggy tries to act as if she's been forced to do what she did, but everyone sees through her and Mole executes her as well. They decide to cook and eat Carlotta, emerging from the castle with Carlotta's body roasted and dressed out like a roast pig. As Coo-Coo convulses and dies, the citizens of Mortville all appear and help eat the evil Queen in celebration (implying that they will all be infected with rabies as well).

Review: All of John Waters' early films, beyond being purposefully shocking and repulsive, have this really tangible dirty, raunchy quality to them.
Waters has a special gift for compiling the most disgusting items and the most disgusting combinations of items (lesbian glory holes, marshmallows and Cheez-its, egg-addicted 250-lb women, bleeding gums and French kissing, 'Surfin' Bird' and anal lip-syncing) for maximum effect, filming everything in grainy, artless 16mm with alternately wooden and over-the-top line-readings not dissimilar to the acting in a porno flick.If you've seen Waters on television, he has a certain sophisticated charm to his wit, and perhaps a dirtier director wouldn't have the right sensibility to make films as authentically dirty as this one, or the discretion enough to choose performers as dirty-looking as Turkey Joe and Kenny Orye.
What distinguishes his work as "underground" rather than "exploitation" is that he celebrates the depravity and freakishness of his performers rather than exploiting.Every single character in 'Desperate Living' is a sociopath, as it takes place primarily in a fairy-tale town called Mortville, to which housewife Peggy Gravel (Mike Stole) and her 300-lb black maid Grizelda (Jean Hill) flee after the latter murders Stole's husband by sitting on his face.
Everyone in Mortville is trashy and, well, desperate, and there's a vivid pre-punk vibe here amongst psycho-dyke Mole, played by Susan Lowe, and others, and in the garish, tacky colors of the town's decor, which Waters reports was constructed entirely out of garbage with only one exception.
While I find Waters' 'Pink Flamingos' boring once the shocks become familiar, 'Desperate Living' is a fascinating movie to watch.
You get to see the hefty Jean Hill naked, rolling around in bed with Mink Stole, and you get to see Waters regular Edith Massey in all her snaggletoothed wonder as the wicked Queen Carlotta, being pleasured by one of her many leather-clad man-servants.
It's hard for me to believe that there could be John Waters fans who know only his mainstream films.
They're pretty good movies, don't get me wrong; but they walk meekly in the shadow cast by his amazing Trash Trio (this, FEMALE TROUBLE & PINK FLAMINGOS).
(Well, nobody cites FEMALE TROUBLE for the Donald Dasher character, right?) The way DESPERATE LIVING worked out, you finally get a chance to see how good Waters' other Dreamland divas really were; and they're very, very good.
The movie-opening running tantrum she spews is one of the funniest things I've ever seen - every third or fourth word is shouted for maniacal emphasis ("The CHILDREN are having SEX!!
As a matter of fact, the more Waters' early assaults on good taste have become absorbed into mainstream entertainment, the better and more shocking his films look for it.
"Desperate Living" and "Female Trouble" are Waters' best films, fully realized trash epics with great characters, gorgeous production design and an unapologetic affection for trailer trash values.The story is simple.
Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole), a neurotic suburban snob, flees to Mortville, the town where criminals live scot-free, after her obese maid, Grizelda Brown (Jean Hill), sits on and squashes her sermonizing husband, Bosley Gravel (the great George Stover).
The women share a bed in Mortville under the roof of a disgusting hovel run by Mole McHenry (Susan Lowe), a snot-dispensing, pre-op transsexual with impeccable table manners and a luscious lesbian lover Muffy St. Jacques (Liz Renay).
But the living arrangements prove less than harmonious and the entire place is trashed when the women offer refuge to Princess Coo-Coo (Mary Vivian Pearce), the downtrodden offspring of the domineering, boy-crazy Queen of Mortville (Edith Massey), who objects to her daughter's hippy-fied lifestyle.
John Waters never apologizes for his movies- and this one is both funny and disgusting.
While I prefer the former, I can understand why "Desperate Living" would also be considered his best!While Divine was touring with an off-Broadway play, Waters decided to make a movie starring only women!
Jean Hill makes one of two film performances as Grizelda Brown, the black maid who smothers Peggy's husband by sitting on him!
Additional highlights: a transvestite motorcycle cop with bleeding gums, a bizarre lesbian scene between Peggy and Grizelda, and a sex change resulting in a disgusting penis for Mole, which is eventually cut off with scissors and eaten by a dog!All of the performances are top-notch, the script and dialogue are hilarious, and overall, "Desperate Living" is worthy of being called Waters' best film (but it isn't).
Special mention to Jean Hill as Grizelda, Liz Renay as Muffy, and of course the ever demure (ha!) Edith Massey as Queen Carlotta.
This is Waters' second best movie, next to Pink Flamingos.
If you want stomach-churning grossness for the sake of stomach-churning grossness, juvenile acting, low-budget film-making, and line after line of hilarious dialog, then Desperate Living should please you.
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).
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.
(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.
I can't believe no one will ever read this comment because I am so late at commenting.I guess I'll just mention that this is possibly my favorite Waters film; I love the sets, I love the characters, the dialog...
this could go on for a while.Basically, Waters (along with a cast of grisly looking bums) effectively convinced me that Mortville was a REAL place, disgusting, vile, garish, scary, putrid in every sense of the word- but man, in one shot, you can glimpse the coolest umbrella I ever did see.Also, Edie is maybe at her FUNNIEST here; she DOESN'T play some kind of retard, she plays a Queen, and she does a great job.
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.
I truly believe that John Waters, while making this movie, either consciously or unconsciously, was constantly repeating to himself, "how can I twist the plot around (and the lack thereof made it quite easy) to allow for the most possible amount of nudity and gruesomeness?"The thing is, I like the idea of a satiric anti-family values movie, but there's a line in the sand of corniness, which if crossed, causes the entirety of the satire to recoil upon itself.
John Waters disgusted the world in 1972 with the holy grail of trash PINK FLAMINGOS, starring the voluptuous Divine, and continued to offend and entertain two years later with FEMALE TROUBLE.
When the final climatic piece of his trash trio DESPERATE LIVING came to pass, it was not as widely accepted as it was missing his muse Divine, instead casting resident villain Mink Stole (the fire crotched Connie Marble in PINK FLAMINGOS and ungrateful illegitimate delinquent child Taffy Davenport in FEMALE TROUBLE) as the lead character, neurotic and paranoid housewife Peggy Gravel.
DESPERATE LIVING is my favourite John Waters film, and one of my favourite films period.
I'm relatively new to Waters, but his outrageous sense of humor and strong satirical slander is particularly evident in DESPERATE LIVING.
And the performances are golden, Mink Stole makes the opening scene magical, Jean Hill is the perfect addition to the Dreamlanders as she goes all-out, and Edith Massey is adorable and strong as always.
There are charming and original costumes, and the set design of the town and Queen Carlotta's kingdom is great.While John Waters' DVD commentary is hilarious as usual, Liz Renay contributes a less insightful, but still relatively entertaining accompaniment.
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.
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.
It's like a trash fairy tale with all the John Water's characters we love...
DESPERATE LIVING is something of a transitional film for director Waters.
I am somewhat baffled at the statement that DESPERATE LIVING is Waters' best film.
All in all, DESPERATE LIVING represents a pre-mainstream John Waters which is always an interesting experience.
Desperate Living is one of my personal favourites in the Waters series of films and will remain that way.
This is one of my favourite John Waters movies along with Polyester and Female Trouble.I don't know what all the fuss was about Pink Flamingos.I found this to be a much weaker effort along with Cry Baby which was incredibly bland.Although I love Devine you wouldn't miss him in this as the rest of the cast are so impressive.10 out of 10!!.
This is John Waters most original and best film.
This truly is one of Waters most shocking films and something that even tops the likes of the blowjob scene in Pink Flamingos.
Mink Stole and her outrageous, shrieking portrayal of Peggy Gravel is one of the best performances in any of John Waters' movies.
When Grizelda the alcoholic maid and Peggy make off after murdering Peggy's husband, they are pulled over in the woods by another great Waters character, Turkey Joe, the motorcycle cop who wears womens panties.
The insane plot has the unbelievably neurotic Mink Stole and her enormous black maid running off after a murder to Mortville, the worst town in the world where criminals go free.
DESPERATE LIVING, John Waters' first movie without his muse Divine, is a fitfully entertaining and really bizarre affair that's hard to sit through at times, but still kind of works by sheer force of will.
After accidentally killing her husband, she runs away to the (fictional) town of Mortville, a slum which is ruled by a tyrannical queen, Carlotta (Edith Massey).
Overall, it's not as great as the collaborations with Divine but it still stands out as one of John Waters' better films before he went more mainstream.
Entertaining John Waters' movie.
"Desperate Living" is the story of Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) and Grizelda (Jean Hill) run to the town of Mortville to escape the law after Grizelda killed Peggy's husband in an "interesting" way.
VERY funny John Waters movie that can be considered his last "underground" type film.
I'm not familiar w/ John Waters' early 'underground' works, but if *Desperate Living* is any indication I've seen more than enough!
Hilarious  sick movie about two women on the run, (because one sat on the other's husband and killed him)taking refuge in a small town of weirdos ruled by a sick fat queen.
Edith Massey is at the peak of her career in this film as the incorrigible Queen Carlotta, a diminutive monarch who leads a group of leather-clad henchmen into subjugating and terrorizing the town of Mortville.
This film has many memorable scenes and unforgettable characters, and Desperate Living is by far one of John Water's best films.
Although Pink Flamingos may be Waters most well known work, it seems almost as though Waters was practicing in comparison to this film, which is equally funny and shocking and sick to no end.
Of course, it took more than one viewing to appreciate (as did Pink Flamingos, which I HATED the first time through).Definitely funnier than John's mainstream films, with the exception of Polyester, which remains my favorite comedy of all time.No Divine in this one, but Edith Massey is there full-force, and in her funniest role ever.
Perhaps it was a blessing Divine wasn't available at the time this movie was filmed...otherwise Edith might not have been able to "shine"..
It is truly a twisted fairy tale of the town of Mortville, whose inhabitants are ruled by queen Carlotta (played by the "unique" Eddith Massey)  Eventually the people storm the palace and it's a (sort of) happy ending.
Even without Divine, the film is the perfect example of John Water.
I thank God for that but it has every other aspect of a true John Waters film.If you thought Pink Flamingos goes beyond the level of trash..
DESPERATE LIVING is an hilarious assault on "good taste" and the last real John waters film before he went mainstream in the '80s.
"Thelma & Louise" make their way to Mortville, a safe haven for criminals ruled over by the megalomanical nymphomaniac Queen Carlotta (Edith Massey) but as Mole the lesbian points out, "it isn't very pretty what a town without pity can do" and they land right smack in the middle of a dictatorship ripe for bloody revolution.I wouldn't watch something like this unless I was stoned and at first it was so shrill (with everybody screaming until I thought I'd get a headache) but once I started laughing I couldn't stop right up until the hysterical, anarchic ending.
Having been a huge fan of "cult flicks and trash pics" (to quote the book title), I knew it was time to watch John Waters.
It has that terrific home-movie/documentary look that all of John Waters's early films possess.
After the success of his previous films, Waters was able to raise $65,000 (almost triple Female Trouble's $25,000), and the money was brilliantly utilized in the construction of Mortville--a town inhabited by criminals and constructed entirely of garbage.
The focal point of the town is Queen Carlotta's plywood castle--a fairy-tale abode that puts Disney to shame.Mink Stole brings the house down as Peggy Gravel, an insanely paranoid and hostile woman just released from an asylum.
After killing Peggy's husband, the two women flee to the criminal community of Mortville and room with bull dyke Mole (Susan Lowe, in a role intended for Divine) and glamour girl Muffy (legendary stripper Liz Renay).
While there are tons of sick freaks inhabiting the town, Divine was unavailable due to another acting commitment and David Lochary recently died due to drug use and their presence was sorely missed.While all of John Waters' previous films received X-ratings, this one oddly did not and I really can't understand why.
My favorite scenes included the great wrestling match as well as the first 10 minutes of the film (some of the funniest in film history).Amazing because it was poorly made and offensive, I think this film is a step backwards for John Waters' fans, as the previous film (FEMALE TROUBLE) is much funnier and insightful regarding modern society.
For a while this was John Waters classiest film.
They end up in Mortville, a seedy, trash strewn town ruled by the grotesque Queen Carlotta (the brilliant Edith Massey).
They also run into Liz Renay (as Muffy St. Jacques) and the angry Mole, who's desperate for a sex change and heads to none other than Johns Hopkins to get that ball rolling.
"Desperate Living" is about as disgusting as "Pink Flamingos" and at times worse.
When it comes to John Waters, I have no favorite...All of his movies from Mondo Trasho to Cecil B.
Desperate Living is the story of several women, and there are possible SPOILERS ahead: We are first introduced to Peggy (Mink Stole), a truly insane woman.
They also meet Mole's girlfriend, Muffy (Liz Renay, Waters' first celebrity outsider to appear in one of his movies.) Mortville is run by Queen Carlotta (Edith Massey.) The Queen has goons in leather to help her in many ways; including sexually servicing her.
As with all of Waters' films Desperate Living has some of the funniest lines in cinema history!
Mink Stole is perfect as Peggy, and Susan Lowe shines in her first and only major role in a Waters' film.
Mink Stole is hilarious as Peggy Gravel, she plays her neurotic character without flaw.Even though the acting, the story, the budget and everything else is as bad as you'd expect, the film is extremely humorous and the actors have enough comical timing to make you laugh again and again.
John Waters paints a picture that is, again, far from today's supermodel standards, where females rule and are free to be as disgusting or beautiful as they want.I highly recommend this film to anyone who would like to watch something different, because it's way underrated..