Female Trouble
Tags: comedy, murder, cult, violence, insanity, psychedelic, absurd, satire, queer

Plot synopsis:
Dawn Davenport (Divine) is a rebellious bad-girl teenager who smokes cigarettes, uses hairspray, and doesn't care about school. Dawn and her two best friends, Chicklette (Susan Walsh) and Concetta (Cookie Mueller), discuss the upcoming Christmas holiday. All three of them intend on using Christmas simply for financial gain, but Dawn has something particular in mind; she has requested "cha cha heels", and she assures her two friends that there will be trouble if her parents let her down.Christmas morning, Dawn's very square parents wake her up to open presents, and Dawn makes a beeline for a certain package the size of a shoebox; it does contain shoes, but not cha-cha heels. "Nice girls don't wear cha-cha heels!" exclaims Dawn's father, but Dawn is furious. She stomps on the rest of the Christmas presents, hurls her mother into the Christmas tree, and curses her parents, running away from home.Outside in her nightgown, coat and slippers on Christmas morning, she is picked up by a sleazy-looking man named Earl Peterson (also played by Divine). Earl takes her to a dump and has sex with her on a dirty mattress, and Dawn steals his wallet. Nine months later, Dawn is living in a cheap hotel and very pregnant. She phones Earl at work and demands money, but he hangs up on her. Dawn stumbles back into the hotel and immediately gives birth to a baby girl she names Taffy, cutting the umbilical cord with her own teeth.Years later, Taffy is an obnoxious preteen girl, and Dawn is working in a number of jobs, including a waitress, a stripper, and a prostitute. She also is a petty thief, working together with Chicklette and Concetta. After Taffy erupts with some particularly annoying behavior, the frustrated Dawn gets Chicklette and Concetta to help chain the child to her bed in the attic. Dawn is despondent about the pressures of being a mother, and Chicklette and Concetta encourage her to pamper herself by getting her hair done at The Lipstick Beauty Salon, where patrons must audition for an appointment.Dawn is immediately favored by the snobbish owners of The Lipstick, Donald and Donna Dasher (David Lochary and Mary Vivian Pearce). She also gets her hair done by Gator Nelson (Michael Potter), who proposes marriage the same day. Gator just happens to be Dawn's next-door neighbor, where he lives with his Aunt Ida (Edith Massey), an obese, elderly woman who dresses outrageously and encourages her nephew to be gay. Aunt Ida is heartbroken when Dawn and Gator get married, and she clashes with Dawn repeatedly thereafter.Dawn and Gator are married for five years before things start to fall apart. Gator cheats on her with various women, while Ida harasses her by doing things like dumping garbage in her back yard. Taffy grows into a strange teenager who likes to play "car accident", where she re-enacts fatal car crashes using props. One day, after a bad fight with Gator (he places a carrot in Dawn's mouth during sexual climax), Dawn goes to get her hair done and is called into the private quarters of the Dashers, who inform her that they want her to be a model for them. The Dashers are obsessed with crime and feel that it is connected to beauty, and they ask that Dawn be their "crime model". In return, she gets special treatment and they immediately honor her request to fire Gator.Gator becomes enraged and decides to leave Baltimore for Detroit, so that he can become part of the auto industry. Aunt Ida, who is still trying to fix Gator up with other men, becomes insane with sadness. Before Gator leaves, he punches Dawn in the face and gives her a black eye. The Dashers join her at her home for dinner that evening and are thrilled by her black eye, photographing it. Taffy embarasses Dawn by starting an argument, and Dawn smashes a chair over her back, rendering her unconscious. The Dashers are thrilled, photographing the fight, but they are even more excited when Aunt Ida forces her way into the house and hurls acid in Dawn's face, scarring her for life.After Dawn recovers from her wounds, her face is horribly mutilated, but the Dashers convince her that her wounds are 'beauty marks', and she refuses plastic surgery. They also redecorate her home and buy her new clothes. Dawn's final treat is Ida herself, kidnapped and imprisoned in a bird cage for Dawn's amusement.Taffy enrages Dawn by insisting that Dawn tell her the whereabouts of her father, Earl, but when Taffy finds him, he makes drunken sexual advances towards her. As a result, Taffy stabs him to death and runs from the scene.The Dashers escalate their experiment with Dawn, injecting her with liquid eyeliner and telling her it is like drugs. Dawn is so influenced by them that she no longer knows what is real and what isn't. They design a stage show for her, and on opening night she is visited backstage by Taffy, who has converted to a hare krishna. Dawn strangles her to death in front of the Dashers and her friends, who cheer her on. On stage, Dawn fires a gun into the crowd, killing an audience member. A riot breaks out, with several more audience members killed in the melee. The Dashers are arrested, but Dawn escapse and hides out in the woods. She isn't a fugitive for long; she is found and brought back to Baltimore for trial.Dawn feels no remorse for her crime, considering the trial the highest reward for her 'career', but she is outraged when the Dashers turn tail and try to deny their involvement in everything. For their testimony they are granted immunity, and Dawn gets the death sentence. Her stint in jail leads her to believe she is a superstar, and her criminal celebrity will endure after she is dead. As they strap Dawn into the electric chair, she launches into a speech where she thanks everybody for this crowning moment, and they throw the switch, killing her.

Review: "Female Trouble" is one of John Water's best movies, probably the best of his pre-respectable (read: pre-"Hairspray") flicks.
Posessing a much more strong (and bizarre) plotline than the also brilliant "Pink Flamingos", "Female Trouble" documents the exploits of Dawn Davenport, a horrible juvenial delinquent turned criminal played by the unbeatable Divine.
This was Water's last film to features his entire original ensemble of actors (Divine, David Lochary, Mink Stole, Mary Vivian Pierce, and Edith Massey) and each has a memorable and hilarious role.
Stole steals the show as Dawn's "retarded" 14 year old daughter, but Edith Massey is also great as Aunt Ida, who constantly urges her nephew Gator to turn gay ("The world of the heterosexual is a sick and boring life!").
Although John Waters is best known for "Pink Flamingos", his two best films are "Female Trouble" and "Desperate Living".
Well, as far as "Female Trouble" is concerned, it is the film that invented Dawn Davenport (Divine), one of the trashiest white schoolgirl tramps ever to strut her stuff in a pair of cha-cha heels.
You will laugh, you will cry, you will vomit and you will die as you behold the deliciously disgraceful antics of the indefatigable queen of crime and sleaze.All the delightful Waters regulars (the achingly gorgeous Edith Massey, the fantastically filthy David Lochary, the marvellous Mink Stole and the putrid Ms. Mary Vivian Pearce) are paraded about like proud circus exhibits as Waters' weaves a rags to bitches story of one woman's rise from the suburbs of Baltimore to her fall in a city without pity.Certainly this was one of the first films to explore the issue of criminals becoming celebrities.
For mine, Waters lost his zing after "Desperate Living" when his movies got softer and his characters started turning up on TV shows like "Wally George", "Jerry Springer" and the earlier "Oprah" eps.
All of the great elements of John Waters' films mesh together perfectly in this hilarious romp that operates around the theme of 'crime is beauty.'  All of the classic John Waters' actors are here, and most of them give their best performances.
John Waters has said that this film is the 'ultimate Divine vehicle', and he's right.
This is not the most accesible of Waters' films, and truthfully, this probably isn't the one to start with if you're not yet a fan (I would recommend Polyester or Hairspray in that case), but if you want to see an early work thats not quite as gross as the others, check it out!
John Waters obsession with serial killers and their ilk is strongly represented here.Female Trouble was shot on 16mm , in color and has been shown in several different running times.Highly recommended.A+.
The makeup was beyond belief.That was the good things about the film that featured an outrageous star in Divine, a transvestite that played Dawn Davenport.
He is definitely on the cutting edge in outrageous humor, horror, and satire.This film on the outrageous cult of celebrity is no more outrageous than the current obsession in the media with Paris Hilton.If you haven't seen a John Waters film, check out the Sundance Channel for this one..
Sure, "Desperate Living" is a great film, but Divine is just someone that goes hand-in-hand with Waters (like Joe Dallesandro with Paul Morrissey).
Even though "Female Trouble" is lesser known than "Desperate Living" or "Pink Flamingos", it is better than those two films put together!
John Waters' first film with an actual coherent script and plotline, Divine gives the performance of her career as Dawn Davenport, the juvenile delinquent turned full-time criminal.
All of the best Waters alumni are here (only missing later star Jean Hill) and are their best: David Lochary as Donald Dasher, Mary Vivian Pearce as Donna Dasher, Mink Stole as Taffy, Cookie Mueller and Susan Walsh as Dawn's sleazy cohorts, Susan Lowe as a bitchy secretary, and last but definitely not least, Edith Massey as bizarro Aunt Ida!
"Female Trouble" features Waters' best writing to date (50% of the lines are instant classics), best costume design, best set design, and best gimmick (Divine raping "himself"!).
Funnily enough, around the time that Divine sits in the crib with the pile of dead fish I started thinking about the words of the Bomb Squad's Hank Shocklee - "If they want noise, let's give them NOISE!" Yes, friends, Waters is the queer Public Enemy, tying identity to culture, cranking the most alienating elements of same to 11, and losing great chunks of his own demographic in the spectacular, chaotic process.
It's funny as hell, dirty as anything I've seen, and it makes you wonder what other gold you've missed from that time period.Female Trouble works on many levels.
Pick any line at random; you'll find it will be appropriate to use SOME time during your life....I personally like this movie best of Waters' work.
One of John Waters' very best films from his earlier years is the cult classic, "Female Trouble".
Edith Massey puts on a great performance as Aunt Ida delivering such classic lines as "I worry that you'll work in an office, have children, celebrate wedding anniversaries...the world of a heterosexual is a sick and boring life!".
Some classic scenes from this movie include Dawn toppling the Christmas Tree on top of her mother, the infamous scene where Divine gives birth to baby Taffy (she chews off the umbilical cord and spits it on the wall!) and the even more infamous scene where Divine (in drag) has sex with Divine (out of drag...complete with "skid marks" in his underwear!)...and this is just scratching the surface of the outrageous scenes in "Female Trouble"..
There are so many classic, quotable lines its almost impossible to choose favorites, although the foul mouthed and threatening school girls are particularly funny, and Edith Massey gets some of the best lines throughout the rest of the movie.
Though it's one of John Waters' less notorious films, "Female Trouble" finds him at his peak.
Where "Flamingos" had long, boring stretches between the shockingly hilarious scenes, "Female Trouble" is interesting all the way through.Divine is good, as always, but it's Mink Stole who steals the show as her hyper-active daughter Taffy (I was in stitches when she was squirting ketchup all over herself, playing "car crash").
A Must-See. Long before John Waters was turning out "mainstream"-type fair like Cry Baby and Pecker, he was creating underground masterworks such as this and Pink Flamingos and Multiple Maniacs.
Female Trouble, I think, stands out as the best of the cult movies of the '70s (with the exception, perhaps, of the Honeymoon Killers) because it is a fully realized masterwork, not just a series of "shocking" scenes strung together.
A true comedy masterpiece, from director/writer John Waters (Hairspray, Pink Flamingos), starring the very large Divine, in a tour de force performance.
The major reason why John Waters has emerged as one of the most distinctive American filmmakers with his early cheap and trashy flicks in the 70s and why people still watch them as cult classics is that they brutally expose, with amplification, the hideous reality of the U.S. suburb under its beautiful surface.
"Female Trouble" is another one of my favorite John Water's films.
Devine was certainly no stranger to trash films when John Waters assembled the cast of this Baltimore gem, and it shows.
Two years off of his Pink Flamingos fame, John Waters returns to the screen to prove he is the true filth elder of the seventies.
While that, at times, felt like it was testing the audience's capacity for shock, Female Trouble sticks to a solid story about a troubled teen or later evolves into a trouble adult.The teenager is drag-queen Divine, cementing the fact that he has an unsung talent for overacting and slapstick.
After she fails to receive the "cha-cha heels" she wants for Christmas, Dawn runs away, winds up being raped by an odious, disgusting man (also played by Divine, outside of drag), gives birth to a kid, and adapts to a fearless life of crime.Her daughter grows up to be just as outspoken and surly as she herself.
The daughter, played by Mink Stole who purposely looks as if she's thirty, is hilarious in every scene she occupies and continues the line of John Waters' secondary characters who overact and are victim to circumstance.Edith Massey makes an appearance has Dawn's lover's Aunt Ida, a morbidly obese woman who always struts her stuff in fishnets and tight costumes.
Apparently, Waters paid frequent visits to prison, where he met the Manson family and adopted the phrase "crime is beautiful" in this film.Also boasting a restoration for the 2000's decade, Female Trouble looks grainy, dirty, and washed out after only being shot on 16mm and then blown up to 32mm.
The result is very strange, and Waters' cheaply constructed editing style can be noted in the film, much like Pink Flamingos.
Female Trouble celebrates its bad, indescribable roots with hysterical characters and a message that is sure to go unseen.Starring: Divine, David Lochary, Edith Massey, Mink Stole, and Mary Vivian Pearce.
Before John Waters became mainstream, he made a whole series of art-house movies like this using grotesque characters and ridiculous story lines, but somehow they worked.
I rented pink flamingos and female trouble came with it.Both are john waters movies and i wanted to see pink flamingos first.
If you rented the pink flamingo's Dvd watch the other movie that came with it.This is one of john water's underrated classics.
This is John Waters' funniest, and most shocking movies, right up there with Pink Flamingos.
(In this case, I should say Pink Flamingos is right up there with this.)  This is definitely John Waters best movie.
Though it's not as notorious as its predecessor, "Pink Flamingos," "Female Trouble" is head and shoulders above that film.
She hitchhikes & has sex on a dirty old mattress in a lot (Divine plays both roles Dawn & the guy who picks her up with poop-stained underwear) & becomes a single mom to her daughter Taffy.
It is still going through my head...."I got problems/Female Trouble..."  Anyway,  this film movies swiftly, and delivers many fists to the gut...Divine is 100% into this film.
And Edith Massey, well, You just have to see her in that black outfit...it almost makes me believe there is no good...what a frightening image to hold on celluloid.Get this movie, it is a true classic from the Waters vault...not as raunchy as Flamingos, but it offers much more, a bizzare story, with bizzare characters, that in many ways, works for the new millenium.9 out of 10.
In his first film after his magnum opus, "Pink Flamingos," John Waters bad-girl epic was his most fully conceived at the time.
But Waters takes the concept to its ridiculous extreme by following Dawn Davenport into adulthood, where a life a crime is complemented by motherhood and a career as a "crime model." A stand out performance is turned in by Mink Stole, as Dawn's bratty daughter, one of the few people in the film who pull off what normal folks would call "acting." Also, Waters improves on his earlier films by using the disgusting scenes as devices to move the plot forward.
While Pink Flamingos is so gross and outrageous its funny, Female Trouble is just a flat out hilarious film.
Female Trouble is John Waters' best film.
Female Trouble is John Waters' follow up to his breakthrough hit Pink Flamingos and anyone that saw that movie will know exactly what to expect.
I think a viewer's opinion on John Waters will largely depend on what exactly they want from movies and thus this is not a film for everyone...and it didn't do much for me.
Some Fun to Be Had. Female Trouble (1974) ** 1/2 (out of 4)John Waters' film takes a look at the life of Dawn Davenport (Divine), an obnoxious and spoiled brat who flips out on Christmas morning because she doesn't get what she wanted from her parents.
From here we see her downfall, which starts with her getting pregnant and this eventually leads to her meeting two weirdos who like taking pictures of violent crimes.FEMALE TROUBLE was the follow-up to PINK FLAMINGOS and I've heard several interview with Waters where he talks about why he didn't want this film to try and top that one.
It's clear that this film doesn't reach the same vulgar and shocking levels of PINK FLAMINGOS but at the same time I think a lot of people are going to be disappointed that it doesn't quite reach the same grossness.I think the greatest things going on in the film is the performance by Divine.
Several of Waters' regulars appear including Edith Massey who even gets a nude scene!The film contains some pretty "bad" moments in regards to the sleaze including one sequence where a dad tries to have sex with his daughter.
Sheri need to play the part like she did in The Devil Rejects.Marlyin Manson as Dawn Davenport, he would probably have a fat suit on,I think he would play the part excellent,Divine was way out there in real/personal life as well as Marylin Manson.
This afternoon I was watching a rerun of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood on PBS and thinking about watching some of John Waters' film Female Trouble, and it occurred to me that both shows were very wholesome, at least for me, and that I should post an explanation of why I think they are.
You expect it to be silly like most of the rest of the film, but I think Waters wanted to project a real sense of pathos there.
Now, in saying these things, I'm not implying that Waters was trying to make an "edifying" film when he made Female Trouble.
This is NOT one of those cute little John Waters films like CRY BABY or SERIAL MOM that you and your family can watch and enjoy together.
Divine is at his/her most outrageous--with the only prison movie performance MORE amateurish and over-the-top than Susan Hayward in I WANT TO LIVE--which, in many ways, this film parodies in the final segment.
John Waters certainly isn't everyone's cup of tea, but those who appreciate his sense of humor and his sense of bathos will love this film, and won't be satisfied (or fully appreciative of it) until they see it multiple times.The fabulous Divine stars as Dawn Davenport, a juvenile delinquent turned stripper/petty thief/hooker/abusive mother turned shrewish wife/model/celebrity turned mass murderer turned death row inmate, and pulls the multiple transitions off flawlessly.
(He/she also transitions into the role as the father of Dawn's daughter Taffy, the result of a Christmas day quickie - one of the most disgusting and hilarious sex scenes ever captured on film - at least for public viewing.) While Divine, Mink Stole (as teenage Taffy Davenport), and David Lochary (as Donald Dasher, the beauty salon owner) are the only actors with real ability, the rest of the oddball cast complements perfectly the oddball storyline and dialog.I saw the film as a satire of life in America (or maybe life anywhere) - its obsession with celebrity, scandal, and materialism at the expense of family, faith, and true self-fulfillment, conveyed on film as only John Waters can..
Anyway, Dawn ends up married to a guy named Gator, who works at the salon, and looks an awfully lot like Crackers from Pink Flamingos, but isn't.
Well, probably no one, but they might, if we kill people.After Pink Flamingos, John Waters probably felt that his next project would have a lot to live up to, so, making an impact would be the only option, and, an impact is what he made.
In fact, Female trouble is Waters' all-time, funniest film,, not to mention, the most mean-spirited, and my personal favorite.
John Waters made Female Trouble when he still had one foot in the crude (Multiple Maniacs, Pink Flamingos) and the other in the relatively slick (Polyester, Cry Baby, Hairspray, Serial Mom, etc.).
Female Trouble is presented in a palette of lavish colors, inspired and off-the-wall set designs, preposterously decadent costuming and generous dollops of grotesquerie.POSSIBLE SPOILER Divine plays Dawn Davenport, who progresses from high school ne'er-do- well in 1959 to hardened career criminal, ending up in the electric chair by 1974.
In 1974, John Waters created his masterpiece entitled, "Female Trouble," a film that began to show the deep and very dark Baltimore humour he uses today.
Possible minor spoilers.John Waters and Divine hit the big time with the infamous Pink Flamingos (1972).
When I watch it, I can't help but feel slightly regretful that Waters's career eventually took a more mainstream turn; granted, he still has talent, but when you can make a picture as uproarious and unforgettable as Female Trouble with $50,000 and a pack of friends, who needs big budgets and Hollywood stars?After a great credits sequence (with a title tune sung by Divine him/herself), our story begins in 1960.
Enter Donald and Donna Dasher, the flamboyant proprietors of the Lipstick Beauty Salon, who believe that crime and beauty are interrelated and begin helping Dawn become "the most beautiful woman in the world."Female Trouble is one of my favorite movies--definitely my favorite comedy.
Female Trouble (1974): Dir: John Waters / Cast: Divine, David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce, Edith Massey, Mink Stole: Amusingly disturbing followup to Pink Flamingos with a theme that takes mental stability to whole new lows.
I hated the incident involving the chicken, though, but oh well.I thought Female Trouble was going to go the same way as Pink Flamingos, filth-wise, but it doesn't (almost), and I think this is John Waters' best film featuring Divine & co.
The film sort of falls apart when Divine goes on a major crime spree towards the end, but it really is spoofing all of those bad girl 50's and 60's movies, so that's a necessary evil.