#236: Polyester
Release Date: May 29th, 1981
Format: Criterion Collection on Blu-ray
Written by: John Waters
Directed by: John Waters
4 Stars
I’m not sure I have the requisite amount of adjectives to write about John Waters’ 1981 comedy, Polyester: garish, melodramatic, subversive, sweet, sympathetic, offensive, ribald, heartfelt, silly, funny…that is, really funny.
The story centers around Francine Fishpaw (played by a hysterical Divine, and I mean hysterical in both senses of the word).
Poor, poor Francine.
Her paunchy, wig-wearing, philandering husband, Elmer (David Samson), runs a porno theater in town. Her teenage daughter, Lu-Lu (Mary Garlington), is a silly floozy who wants nothing more than to wear skin-tight hot pants and drop out of high school so she can become a go-go dancer. Her teenage son, Dexter (Ken King), is a sadistic foot fetishist - the notorious Foot Stomper - who is addicted to angel dust and is arrested for stalking women in public and stomping on their feet.
All of this is a horrifying embarrassment to Francine, with her delicate, good Catholic girl sensibilities. When her husband finally leaves her to be with his much younger secretary, Francine turns to food and booze for comfort. Not even her dear friend Cuddles (Edith Massey), a former housekeeper who inherits a fortune from a former employer and now lives a chauffeured life of luxury, can provide Francine much comfort (in a movie full of hilarious performances, Massey’s steals the show).
Just when Francine is at her lowest, wouldn’t ya know it, she meets a hunky guy named Todd Tomorrow (Tad Hunter). Clad in gold jewelry and driving a convertible Corvette, Todd is seemingly the solution to all of Francine’s problems. Has she finally found the love of her life?
I can’t overstate how much I enjoyed watching Polyester tonight, alone on the couch. I can’t imagine what the experience was like in a crowded theater in 1981, with your complimentary Odorama card in hand to fully experience the debauchery seen on screen (no joke, your movie ticket included a scratch-and-sniff card with ten different odors that the movie cued you to smell at different times).
It must have been raucous fun. It’s now my mission to see Polyester with an audience in the theater, so like Francine, I can be at the total mercy of John Waters and his special brand of lunacy.
