Polyester
Tags: pornographic, comedy, murder, cult, absurd, psychedelic, satire, humor

Plot synopsis:
The life of fat housewife Francine Fishpaw (Divine) is crumbling around her in her middle-class suburban Baltimore home. Her husband Elmer (David Samson) is a polyester-clad lout who owns an X-rated theater, causing anti-pornography protesters to picket the Fishpaws' house. She also states that "all the neighborhood women spit at me" whenever she is at the shopping mall. Francine's children are Lu-Lu (Mary Garlington), her spoiled slutty daughter, and Dexter (Ken King), her delinquent glue-sniffing son who derives illicit pleasure from stomping on women's feet. Also adding to Francine's troubles is her snobby, class-conscious, cocaine-snorting mother La Rue (Joni Ruth White) who robs her blind and only cares about her "valuable shopping time."
Francine seeks solace in her best friend Cuddles Kovinsky (Edith Massey), an independently wealthy, simple-minded woman and the world's oldest debutante. Cuddles was once the Fishpaws' housekeeper, but she inherited a large sum of money from a very affluent family that she used to work for, and has befriended Francine. This infuriates La Rue, who admonishes Francine, "She was a scrub-woman. Give her carfare...a ham at Easter, but for God's sake, don't hang around with her!" Cuddles tries to cheer Francine with "seize-the-day" bromides, to no avail.
Francine discovers that her husband is having an affair with his secretary, Sandra Sullivan (Mink Stole), and later confronts them during a motel tryst and demands a divorce. Francine then falls into alcoholism and depression, exacerbated by her children's behavior: Lu-Lu becomes pregnant by her delinquent boyfriend Bo-Bo Belsinger (Stiv Bators) and she tells her mother, "I'm having an abortion, and I can't wait!"; and after Dexter is arrested at a supermarket for stomping on a woman's foot, the media reveal that he's the "Baltimore foot stomper".
Lu-Lu goes to a family planning clinic for an abortion, but is harassed by anti-abortion picketers. She flees, returns home, and tries to induce a miscarriage, causing Francine to call an unwed mothers' home. Two nuns arrive, cart Lu-Lu out of the house, lock her in the trunk of a car, and take her to a Catholic home for unwed mothers. Meanwhile, on Halloween evening, La Rue is shot by Bo-Bo and his friend, who have come to trash the Fishpaw house. La Rue manages to retrieve the gun and shoots Bo-Bo dead. Lu-Lu comes home from the unwed mothers' home and, upon discovering her dead boyfriend, tries to commit suicide by sticking her head in the oven. Francine comes home, sees her daughter's suicide attempt, and faints. After this, Francine's life begins to change. Dexter is released from jail, completely rehabilitated. Lu-Lu suffers a miscarriage from her suicide attempt and sees the error of her ways, turning from a high-school harlot to an artistic flower child who enthuses, "Look, Mother, I've discovered macramé!". Francine finally summons the strength to tell off La Rue. A beacon of light arrives in the form of lounge-suit-wearing, Corvette-driving Todd Tomorrow (Tab Hunter), lifting Francine's spirits. Todd proposes marriage to an elated Francine, who accepts.
However, it is soon revealed that Todd is romantically involved with La Rue and they are conspiring to embezzle Francine's divorce settlement and drive her insane. Meanwhile, Elmer and Sandra break into the house to kill Francine, but are felled by Dexter and Lu-Lu. Dexter steps on Sandra's foot, causing her to accidentally shoot Elmer; Lu-Lu uses her macramé to strangle Sandra. Cuddles and her German chauffeur/fiancé Heintz (Hans Kramm) arrive and run over La Rue and Todd.
The film concludes with a happy ending for Francine, her children, and Cuddles and Heintz.

Review: I have to comment on this movie.It was 1981 and it was my birthday.I moved to a new job and knew absolutely no one and went to a theater to see "Polyester" knowing nothing about it.It was raining and as soon as I entered to buy a ticket three employees started laughing and looking at me.They said you are the only one here to see the movie.I was handed a card and I went to a seat and sat down and the previews started.An usher walked by and I said hey,turn down the lights and turn up the sound.I put my feet up on a seat-back and thought hey,this is okay.It was my first John Waters movie and I laughed a lot at the crazy movie.I used the scratch and sniff card as prompted by the screen which was cool.I had a great time.It wasn't until several years later when I saw more Water's films that I even knew that Divine was actually a man and Water's films were a wee tad irregular.If you are humored by odd movies and odd people then watch the movie.I wish I had saved the scratch and sniff card.Not a movie for the kids..
I was familiar with Waters' work, having seen PINK FLAMINGOS, and was ready for the "Odorama" cards handed out when you bought your ticket, but my "associates" were a bit mystified.
Anyway, it had the usual John Waters' cast of characters (Mink, Edith, Divine, etc.), along with the late, great Stiv Bators making his big-screen debut as (what else), a delinquent.
This was my first John Waters movie, and it opened with scratch and sniff cards.
And Mom worries about fresh scents.With these subplots to the main plot, it should be obvious that plot resolution and character development are not the main attractions in a John Waters movie.
Even the fairytale resolutions to the problems are a hilarious sendup of 80's America.If you want to see what makes John Waters such a cult hero, but would find Female Trouble or Pink Flamingos too offensive, this was his first attempt to bridge the gap to the more accessible films he made later, while still having enough of the gross-out quality for a good laugh riot.
Polyester is the bridge, as so many people put it, between his disgusting yet entertaining earlier work to more mainstream films like Hairspray.Divine plays Francine Fishpaw.
I love John Waters movies.
This movie is filmed in oder-rama and the DVD comes with a scratch and sniff scent card.
John Waters was still doing really outrageous movies when "Polyester" came out.
Portraying suburban Baltimore housewife Francine Fishpaw's (Divine) world falling apart, the movie pulls no punches.
A seriously divine comedy about the twisted and perverted American family life that only John Waters can deliver.This film revolves around the main character, an aging housewife played by the transvestite Divine.
My first John Waters gross-out movie had me hooked to his works, but after seeing his other, much better earlier movies, I see that POLYESTER isn't as great as it was cracked up to be.Divine is much too whiny (but good and campy) as Francine Fishpaw, a troubled housewife whose husband is a cheating porno theater owner, daugher is a slut, son is a glue-sniffing foot fetishist, and mother is a hateful kleptomaniac.
While POLYESTER has plenty of great scenes (Dexter stomping on womens' feet, LuLu ditching a dorky date for her real boyfriend BoBo, the gigantic Jean Hill hijacking a bus and popping a car tire with her teeth), it is one of the weaker Waters movies.
It also features great cameos from Waters regulars Mink Stole (Elmer's mistress), Mary Vivian Pearce (a nun), Susan Lowe (foot stomper victim), Cookie Mueller (foot stomper victim), Marina Melin (foot stomper victim), Sharon Niesp (a nun), George Figgs (abortion picketer), and the guy who played Dawn Davenport's teacher in FEMALE TROUBLE.POLYESTER is not one of my highly recommended Waters movies, but is a great start for those who want to gradually build a following of his films and is a nice farewell to lovable Edith Massey in her last Waters movie..
"Polyester" is a freaked out satire on the American Way of Life that lives in the first line from his great main actor Divine and his fabulous performance as cheaten and alcoholic house wife.
Another memorable performance is given by David Samson as her Homer Simpson-like husband, who runs a porn movie theatre and has an affair with his slutty secretary...
The first "commercial" film for John Waters is considerably more tame than his earlier works, but is still a lot of fun mostly in part to the Odorama gimmick, which pays excellent tribute to B-movie horror maven William Castle who pioneered the movie gimmick back in the 50's.All of the usual suspects (Divine, Edith Massey, Mink Stole) provide their ever so dependable over the top performances, and heck - Tab Hunter ain't too hard on the eyes either :) He fits in well with the rest of the motley crew.
if you live in the immediate area, come to the clearview theatre in chelsea...I'm really hoping the idea will catch on, and hopefully other john waters films will come back to life there...
I mean this one did play in regular theaters i'm told unlike the previous ones...and it was tamed down quite a bit compared to say Desperate Living, but it had Jean Hill , and that's got to count for something...and it was edie's last film (SNIFF) ...plus it was just hilarious to see Divine in such a submissive role here.
While Waters would eventually redeem himself with Pecker and, to a lesser extent, Serial Mom (only to slip up with Cecil B.) Polyester remains a classic and my favorite of his films.
The only good thing in her life is her darling friend Cuddles(Edith Massey, in a memorable final performance) who recently inherited a lot of money and is now a millionaire.
The film deals with all of Francine's problems including her disgusting husband who is constantly playing pranks on Francine with his slut secretary(John Waters regular Mink Stole, in a scene stealing performance) and the porno picketeers who stay outside.
Of course, these smells are dealt with by the infamous 'Odorama' card(I'd love to see Waters' use this more in other films) which can sometimes be quite repellant.
I love the movies before this, regardless of content, but they all tend to be aimed at the audience that also stars in those films....Polyester was the first film that exposed those characters to mainstream America.
Cult director John Waters skimmed the outskirts of mainstream film-making with "Polyester", which had a bigger budget and better distribution than his previous output--it's even got Tab Hunter in the cast!
Divine is a riot as a three-hundred-pound suburban housewife who is trying to deal with her wildly dysfunctional family: her daughter is pregnant, her husband is cheating on her, and her son is a notorious criminal (he sneaks up on unsuspecting ladies and stomps on their feet!).
I hadn't seen "Polyester" since its initial release, and was curious about it after having just viewed the recent Criterion Blu-Ray of one of John Waters' earlier independent productions "Female Trouble" (1974).
I guess Waters figured it was time to sell out for the Reagan era, which was probably a savvy business decision, but the way in which he did it, by doing a broad satire of a Douglas Sirk melodrama using trashy characters and a "reformed" Divine as the pathetic (rather than monstrous, as he played in "Pink Flamingos" and "Female Trouble") character of Francine Fishpaw comes off as a cheap, slapstick betrayal of his earlier anti-aesthetic.
Perhaps Waters is even satirizing himself by having his heroine be a pro-life Christian, to show how "sick and twisted" heterosexual family life is in surburban America; recall that Edith Massey, playing Aunt Ida in "Female Trouble," states this explicitly in one of her scenes with her son Gator.I guess after realizing he couldn't "go home again" and had to do something totally different (his next film after this one, "Crybaby", was pretty iffy, too), Waters hit upon the goldmine idea of doing a musical, "Hairspray," which ended up rejuvenating his career and was later successfully produced as a Broadway smash.
If John Waters did nothing else in his career he created the fabulous screen team of Divine and Tab Hunter.
But the Fishpaws make the Bundys look like the Cleavers.Our leading character is Divine all 300 pounds of her who has let herself go to seed married to this bum of a husband David Samson who is getting on with his secretary.
But that's only the beginning.Divine created some very funny characters for John Waters in her life.
This was her great strength as a performer.Waters serves up some real funny stuff in Polyester.
If you aren't so convinced of "Polyester"'s determination to give a sloppy kiss to the good old days of the campy melodrama, listen to this plot: overweight housewife Francine Fishpaw (Divine), who considers herself to be an atypical "good, Christian woman", is about to have a nervous breakdown: her dear husband, Elmer (David Samson), is the successful owner of a local porn theatre and an adulterer of the lowest common denominator.
Consider that Tab Hunter, yes, Tab Hunter, the Golden Boy of the 1950s teen movie, is her love interest; that her supposed BFF, portrayed by the indelibly lovable Massey, is nearly toothless; that the film, as part of a marketing stunt, came with Odorama scratch-and-sniff cards to give the viewers a realistic aromatic experience.Nothing about "Polyester" is remotely serious, and I like it all the more for it.
At first, it seems like a bunch of super messed up friends got together and decided to make a movie, but as the film continues, one realizes that Waters is actually a clever writer, and Divine is a star, especially when it comes to sniffing loudly (you've got to promote that Odorama, after all), making disgruntled moans, and being all around charismatic.
POLYESTER, while representing an improvement in filmmaking technique from previous John Waters' movies, is still noticeably lacking in the narrative department.
Part of the reason it's like this may have something to do with the type of movie that POLYESTER is making fun of, and the satire is pretty dead-on at times, but it succumbs to a lot of the goofiness and clichés as well.
As far as acting is concerned, Divine was never really the greatest actor, but she managed to put together a decent performance here, at least more so than she did in previous John Waters films.
Overall, POLYESTER isn't John Waters' best movie nor his worst.
It's also more tame than previous Waters movies, so newbies to his style wouldn't be as put-off by this as something like PINK FLAMINGOS or FEMALE TROUBLE..
...in context of John Waters' reality...Polyester is a perfect balance between Waters' somehow-charming trademark gross-out sleaze (in explaining the character of Baltimore, he calls those movies "documentaries") and major - picture production values.Packed with his regular ensemble of - uh - actors, a (closet homosexual) 50's heartthrob, hysterical social satire, and ODORAMA, this movie has something to purturb EVERYONE several times over.For the mild-mannered, it's much easier to take than his early debaucheries, while for die- hard Waters fans, it retains the hammy, outlandish - uh - acting that helps make his movies so eccentric..
I recently had the pleasure of seeing John Waters live show followed by a screening of Polyester and we were spoiled and got the Odorama cards!
One does not see this film for its true like story line, but to see over the top blown up characters that make you laugh.
Honestly, each actor's character is so unique it's hard not to mention them all.If you're looking for a really good laugh and a strange movie Polyester is the ticket.
John Water's Purest May Not Rank This Film as Highly as His Earlier Work..
Okay I know a lot of John Water's fans _won't_ rank this movie as high as some of his earlier work, because it is fairly "mainstream" for Waters.
I liked Divine's performance in this film and loved the relationship with Tab Hunter.
Also get to see another fav of John Water's, Mink Stole, as well as many other "regulars" to his films.
If you like John Waters, you will love this film.
This later John Water's flick didn't have the same effect, grossness, punch, and ultimate filth of his earlier work, but it still is funny and suitable entertainment.
The story of the Fishpaw family is a funny, polished satire of the corrupted and degenerately hypocritical world of the U.S suburb, but it's a mainstream movie, and a comedy, not a cult.
The Fishpaws consist of Francine(christian mother and alcoholic, palyed by Divine), Dexter (shoe fetish and glue sniffer), cheating husband Elmer (runs a porn theater and cheats on Francine with Mink Stole, playing his cheap secretary Sandra) and slut daughter Lulu.
An interesting but mainstream John Waters movie, which he wrote superbly..
Crazy send-up of American family life by John Waters.
After several years of crudely made, crudely funny films such as PINK FLAMINGOS, director John Waters graduated to a somewhat more sophisticated style, and POLYESTER has a comparatively (note the word: comparatively) subtle script, cinematography that doesn't shake, sets and props that don't actually look like they were salvaged from the local junkyard, and even a mainstream star: 1950s matinée idol Tab Hunter.The story concerns the extremely dysfunctional Fishpaw family.
And then there is the mother, poor Francine, extra large and utterly at sea, hoping against hope for middle class respectability in the midst of it all.Tab Hunter (who is even more of a stud here than in his earlier pretty-boy days) romancing female-impersonator Divine is a major draw, and there is enough hilarity--ranging from a nun-enforced hayride for single pregnant women during a rainstorm to a black gospel singer who hijacks a bus to chase down a juvenile delinquent--to keep the show rolling, and the satirical edge is often quite effective.Even so, POLYESTER lacks the same shock appeal that made Water's earlier work so entertaining--and it is a tremendous pity that we can't experience the film in its original "ODORAMA." Recommended, but primarily for Waters fans interested in seeing him in his transitional phase.Gary F.
what a fantastic movie, and no one could have played this lead role other than the spectacular Divine, you really just wanted to cuddle this poor woman, everyone turned againsed her, her husband, her mother, her children, her hole life was a complete tragedy, maby im being soppy, but her character was a little bit to down trodden for my liking, the only thing that kept this movie together was her 1st class acting and i think the producer and director, had a serious bad day before making this movie.
This must be one of the worst efforts in moviemaking I have ever seen, and also one of the funniest.The story of Francine Fishpaw (played by transvestite Divine), the good Christian "wife" of a porntheater owner and how she became an alcoholic is told in such a bad and tasteless way that it became funny to watch.
The same thing counts for the costume design, absolutely fantastically horrible, all that Polyester.At least John Waters in consistent in one aspect of the film: everybody is a lousy actor.
I don't care if John Waters is tamed down here, this movie is funny.
Even though he's sick and twisted, when he wants to be, John Waters is actually a good director.Polyester certainly doesn't have much of a plot and is more concerned about the characters, a trait which I find admirable (that's what the Coens do).
The pushy husband, the cross dressing Divine, Lulu, the foot fetishist son (and thank God this movie doesn't have too much Edith Massey, that woman looks like she was dug up from the grave).
Her porno theater owning husband is having an affair with his secretary and unafraid to show it, the daughter hangs out with the bad boys, and as I mentioned earlier, the son is a foot fetishist (I think it'd be funny as hell to smash random people's feet).
The first bad John Waters movie..
The first Waters movie I saw was Serial Mom and I loved it.
The only thing I liked about that movie was DIVINE.
This movie deliberately set out to be offensive and awful--though fortunately NOT as offensive and gross as Waters' earlier film, PINK FLAMINGOS.
In addition to the family, a whole cast of maniacs and freaks co-star in the film--ranging from the always gross and untalented Edith Massey (who is so bad she's GREAT) to the once-famous Tab Hunter to Jean Hill in a small part as a woman who hijacks a bus in a small but hilarious scene.
Polyester was the very first John Water's film I saw, and I have to say that it was also the "worst" movie I had seen up to that point.Water's group of "talent" included several people who I am sure worked for food, and were willing to say the lines Waters wrote.
Every thing about the movie is terrible, acting, camera, editing, and the story about a woman played by 300 lb transvestite Divine was purely absurd.That said, I have to recommend this film because it is very funny, and you won't believe the crap that happens to poor Francine.
Edith looks and sounds like she is reading the lines off a cue card and has never seen the script prior to filming.Despite all of Francine's travails, Waters cooks up a fabulous Hollywood ending and everyone (who survives) lives happily ever after..
Polyester (1981): Dir: John Waters / Cast: Divine, Edith Massey, Tab Hunter, David Samson, Mink Stole: Released with "ordorama" where cards are distributed for scratch and sniff action when a number flashes on screen.
Divine plays Francine Fishpaw whose life is coming undone.