Female Trouble: A Queer Film Classic

FEMALE TROUBLE: A Queer Film Classic

Copyright © 2017 by Chris Holmlund

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any part by any means—graphic, electronic, or mechanical—without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may use brief excerpts in a review, or in the case of photocopying in Canada, a license from Access Copyright.

ARSENAL PULP PRESS

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Efforts have been made to locate copyright holders of source material wherever possible. The publisher welcomes hearing from any copyright holders of material used in this book who have not been contacted.

Queer Film Classics editors: Matthew Hays and Thomas Waugh

Cover and text design by Oliver McPartlin

Edited for the press by Susan Safyan

Cover image from the film Female Trouble

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication:

Holmlund, Chris, author

Female trouble / Chris Holmlund.

(A queer film classic)

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-1-55152-684-3 (epub)

1. Female trouble (Motion picture). 2. Waters, John, 1946- --Criticism and interpretation. I. Title. II. Series: Queer film classics

PN1997.F453H65 2017      791.43'72      C2017-901462-5

C2017-901463-3

Contents

Acknowledgments

Synopsis

Credits

Chapter One: Introducing Female Trouble

Chapter Two: Behind the Scenes

Chapter Three: Before the Camera

Chapter Four: The Trouble with Female Trouble

Chapter Five: From Trash to Art to Celebrity

References

Filmography

Index

In memory of my beloved parents.

For all the activists and rebels of my g-g-g-generation and for all those today working for peace, justice, liberty, and love.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

John Waters and his assistants Susan Allenback and Trish Schweer have been of tremendous help, and everyone I have interviewed—John, Pat Moran, Mink Stole, Bob Adams, Susan Lowe, George Figgs, Vincent Peranio, Delores Deluxe, Elizabeth Coffey-Williams, Marina Melin, Hilary Taylor, Mary Vivian Pearce, Channing Wilroy, George Stover, Dave Insley, Charles Roggero, Leroy Morais, and Jochen Breitenstein—has been unfailingly gracious, informative, and fun. John even made time in his busy schedule to drive me around to many of the film’s locations. I so appreciated that, because it gave me a better sense of Baltimore, both present and past. I loved being able to meet so many of you in your homes, to see your books, your posters, your artwork.

Thanks to John and his staff for some of the illustrations, and to George Stover for sharing his collection of VHS covers. Elizabeth Coffey-Williams facilitated a screening and discussion of Female Trouble at the John C. Anderson LGBT-friendly apartments. The experience was unforgettable. Thanks, too, Elizabeth, for sharing your personal photographs (one of which is published here) and your clippings. Pat Moran provided me with a copy of the wonderful French poster for Female Trouble that hangs in her casting office. It too can be seen here, as can an example from George Stover’s collection of VHS releases. Sincere gratitude to Bob Adams for sharing his many photographs of the film shoot and the Dreamlanders at the time. Several are reproduced in this book. Bob, I’ll never forget your saying when we met that I never knew when I started taking pictures that I was taking pictures of history. None of us imagined anything of the kind. (I include myself as another Marylander politically active in the late 1960s and early 1970s.) We were just living, doing our damnedest to influence history, and laughing! I hope all of you enjoy this book. I know I enjoyed researching and writing it. For me it’s been a trip down memory lane.

Warm thanks to my students, generations of whom have watched Female Trouble with me in American Independent Film and Sexuality and Cinema classes. I appreciate the smart comments you’ve offered over the years and your enthusiasm. I’m really lucky to count so many of you as close friends and chosen family. Special shout-outs to Matthew Ownby, Amy Bertram, Carissa Stolting, Maggie Sharbel, Chris Bottoms, Alexander Parks, Nida Kirmani, Bess Connally, Blake Wahlert, Tonya Ervin, Margo Greenlaw, Pamela Jorden, Ashley Maynor, Paul Harrill, Stephanie Brinson, Diana King, Erin Leland, and Chris Cagle.

Eternal love and gratitude to my brother, Steve, the best little brother a girl ever had. It was so much fun to get together with you and Dana in Baltimore. Stort tack to all my friends and family in Sweden, who saw me through the 1960s and 1970s (and beyond). You mean so much to me, Karin Bark, Gunnar Bark, Mia Drotte-Bark, Birgitta and Sune Bjursten, Eva Bark, and Monika Vinterek. A salutary fist in the air to the several high school and undergrad hippie/radical pals from the 1960s and 1970s with whom I’m still in touch—Eric Arnould, Bob Simpson, Maggie Mead Clancy, Verna Wefald, Trisha Harris, Peter Hochman, and Sigrid Trumpy—and to my grad school rad buddies too—Marianne Oren, Jack Yeager, Winnie Woodhull, Kris Hafner, Sarah Pritchard, Maureen Turim, Jean Lind, Evan Dunsky, Laurie Lavine, Patty Zimmerman, Barbara Stenzel, Gina Marchetti, and Diane Waldman. Thanks to all of you for keeping the faith!

My inspirational filmie friends are too numerous, really, to list: I know I will inevitably forget someone. (And some mentioned previously do also count here because they’ve become film professors.) Here’s a start with regard only to this book: At the University of Tennessee, special thanks to Chuck Maland, Maria Stehle, Nicole Wallenbrock, Drew Paul, Bill Larsen, Greg Womac, and Lynn Sacco for dinners, movies, and joyous camaraderie. Many of you are based elsewhere but cheered this project on as well: thanks to Celestino Deleyto, Yannis Tzioumakis, Sean Griffin, Kathleen McHugh, Camilla Fojas, Diane Carson, Pat Aufderheide, Caetlin Benson-Allott, Mark Gallagher, Justin Wyatt, Barry Grant, Alice Kuzniar, Cynthia Baron, Angelica Fenner, and Janet Walker. My colleagues at Lund University (Erik Hedling, Olle Hedling, Anders Marklund, Lars Gustaf Andersson, and Anki Wallengren) and Linné University (Elisabet Björklund and Mariah Larsson) made my time as Research Professor in Lund both happy and productive. So too did colleagues at the Five Colleges in western Massachusetts, the University of Hartford, and Wesleyan University when I conducted research as Neilson Professor at Smith College. (Scott Higgins, Sally Ross, Amelie Hastie, Lokeilani Kaimana, Stephanie Rosen, Alex Keller, Frazer Ward, Lisa Henderson, Sean Shimpach, and Sarah Lerner, this means you!). Many colleagues—in the US, Canada, the UK, Sweden, and New Zealand—have participated with me on panels and workshops related to this project. I owe much to Harry Benshoff, Dana Heller, Kevin Heffernan, Matt Connolly, Louise Wallenberg, Joe Wlodarz, Marc Siegel, Lucas Hildebrand, Misha Kavka, and Gary Needham for their comments and ideas.

The University of Tennessee-Knoxville has supported my research, helping to pay for the color photographs and reimbursing Bob and Elizabeth for the photographs they provided. UTK also funded one of my trips to Baltimore and Philadelphia to interview the surviving cast and crew. Tom Waugh, who holds the Research Chair in Sexual Representation and in Documentary at Concordia University, has donated some of his research monies to fund the color images as well. He and Matt Hays have believed in this project from the get-go.

The Academy of Arts and Sciences Margaret Herrick Archives houses valuable press material, as does the Wesleyan Film Archives. (Waters’ papers are housed at Wesleyan.) I value the assistance I have had from staff at each archive. At UTK, Kathryn Brooks has managed to track down several articles not fully catalogued by the archives: many thanks, Kat! Michelle Brannen, UT’s Studio head extraordinaire, and I giggled as we did the frame grabs that appear here. Michelle, you know how much I relish our friendship and how much I am always grateful for your know-how!

Warm thanks to Brian Lam, Susan Safyan, Cynara Geissler, Robert Ballantyne, and Oliver McPartlin at Arsenal Pulp Press for producing such a classy-looking book. Tom Waugh and Matt Hays have been marvelous editors. Their work has influenced mine here—and elsewhere—in so many ways.

I am pleased that this book, with all of your help, will finally reach students, teachers, audiences, and fans of one of the most entertaining and thought-provoking movies I know: Female Trouble.

SYNOPSIS

Female Trouble is the fictitious biography of a headline-seeking criminal named Dawn Davenport. The film traces her life from her teenage years as an obscure suburban brat to her untimely death in the electric chair. When Dawn and her friends are first seen in 1960, they are juvenile delinquents. Dawn quits high school and runs away from home. She is picked up and pleasured by a hoggish welder named Earl. She then heads to the big city of Baltimore in search of the fast life. She works as a waitress, go-go dancer, and prostitute and gives birth to Earl’s illegitimate child, Taffy.

Dawn and her high school pals turn to crime. Dawn gets lucky: she marries a macho hairdresser named Gater. Dawn also meets Donald and Donna Dasher, two fascist beauticians who run the Lipstick Beauty Salon where Gater works. She falls for their brain-washing and control techniques.

Gater is soon unfaithful to Dawn, and there are in-law problems with her husband’s overly protective aunt, Aunt Ida: Ida loves queers and hopes her nephew will find a nice boyfriend and turn nelly. Taffy hates Gater. Unloved, she plays car accident for kicks. Dawn kicks Gater out. When Gater leaves to work in Detroit’s auto industry, Ida tosses acid in Dawn’s face.

Egged on by the Dashers’ bizarre beauty treatments and promises of stardom, Dawn becomes their tool for criminal kicks, plunging headlong into their Crime Is Beauty program. The Dashers and their followers encourage Dawn to turn to ever more outrageous crimes.

Taffy grows into a severely maladjusted young lady who, in one final act of rebellion, turns Hare Krishna in order to get on her mother’s nerves. Sick of motherhood, bored with life in general, Dawn’s peak of criminal success occurs at her trampoline act in a fashionable nightclub when she strangles her daughter and shoots several spectators. Apprehended by the authorities, she is sentenced to die in the electric chair, a death she welcomes, believing that the death penalty is equivalent to the Academy Award in her chosen profession of crime.

(Adapted from the Dreamland Studios’ Baltimore premiere press release written by John Waters. See Figures 25 and 26. Spoilers now included.)

CREDITS

Female Trouble, 1974, US, English, 89 min.

Color, Sound, 35 mm, 1.85:1

Locations: Ellicott City, MD; Phoenix, MD; Fells Point, Hampden, Mount Vernon, and Brooklyn (all in Baltimore, MD)

Shot: Fall 1973–early Spring 1974

Distributed by New Line (Saliva Films)

Production Company: Dreamland

Director, writer, cinematographer: John Waters

Producers: John Waters, Jimmy Hutzler, James McKenzie

Baltimore premiere: October 11, 1974

New York premiere: February 25, 1975

Cast

(Throughout I retain Waters’ original spelling of Gater, Cheryll, and Chaplin)

Dawn Davenport: Divine

Earl Peterson: Divine

Donald Dasher: David Lochary

Donna Dasher: Mary Vivian Pearce

Taffy Davenport: Mink Stole

Aunt Ida: Edith Massey

Concetta: Cookie Mueller

Chicklette: Susan Walsh

Gater: Michael Potter

Wink: Ed Peranio

Butterfly: Paul Swift

Dribbles: George Figgs

Vikki: Susan Lowe

Teacher: George Hulse

School Snitch: Margie Skidmore

Mean Girl: Berenica Cipcus

Dawn’s Mother: Betty Woods

Dawn’s Father: Roland Hertz

Baby: Ramsey McLean

Drunk: Henry Bederski

Taffy as a Child: Hilary Taylor

Stripper: Cindy Chosky

Telephone Company Girl: Laurel Douglas

Priest: Mark Lazarus

Gater’s Girlfriend: Anne Figgs

Sally: Sally Albaugh (and double for Earl Peterson, uncredited)

Girl Who Won’t Pay: Lynn Russo

Doctor: Bob Willis

Nurse: Valerie Stafford

Ernie: Bob Adams

Prosecutor: Channing Wilroy

Judge: Al Strapelli

Defense Lawyer: Seymour Avigdor

Bailiffs: Chris Mason, Mumme

Bitch Prisoner: Pat Moran

Cheryll: Marina Melin

Earnestine: Elizabeth Coffey

Chaplin: George Stover

Crew

Production chief: Pat Moran

Sound: Bob Maier

Lighting and Assistant Cameraman: Dave Insley

Costumes and Makeup: Van Smith

Sets (production design) and Art Department: Vincent Peranio

Editing: Charles Roggero, John Waters

Production Assistance: Cinemen (Jochen Breitenstein and Leroy Morais, uncredited), Steve Yeager

Stills: Bruce Moore, Elaine Jankonus, Mink Stole

Hairstyles: Chris Mason and David Lochary

Special Effects: Ed Peranio

Titles: Randy Burman (title designer) Delores Deluxe (assistant title designer) Alan Rose (title designer)

Dedication

For Charles Watson

Music Credits

Female Trouble (Title Song): sung by Divine; music by Bob Harvey; lyrics by John Waters; arranged by Don Cooke; published by Pentagram

Merry, Merry, Merry, Merry Christmas: written by Ruth Lyon; performed by Ruby Wright with Cliff Lash and his Orchestra and the Dick Noel Singers, courtesy of Ace Records Limited, by arrangement with Celebrity Licensing Inc.

Jingle Bells: arranged by Carl Cotner; performed by Gene Autry, courtesy of Autry Foundation and Autry Qualified Interest Trust

Blue Kat: written by Chuck Rio; performed by Chuck Rio and the Originals, courtesy of Masters International

Underwater: written by John Andrews; performed by The Frogmen, courtesy of Go-Jo Music

Dig: written by Jimmy Drake; performed by Nervous Norvus, courtesy of MCA Records under license from Universal Markets Special Markets

Yogi: written by Bill Black; performed by Bill Black Combo, courtesy of Hi Records under license from EMI-Capitol Music Special Markets

Bridal March and Wedding March: performed by 101 Strings Orchestra, courtesy of Madacy Entertainment under license from Madacy Special Markets

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCING FEMALE TROUBLE

John Waters’ Citizen Kane

A taste of trash we won’t soon forget.

—Von Wiedenman for The Advocate (1975, n. p.)

In its 2002 retrospective of John Waters’ films, Los Angeles’ Nu-Art Cinema hailed Female Trouble as "John Waters’ Citizen Kane." Parallels can indeed be drawn. Producer-writer-director Waters was twenty-nine at the time he made Female Trouble (1974); producer-writer-director Orson Welles was twenty-six when he made Kane (1941). Both films feature big actors: the 300+-pound cross-dressing Divine (a.k.a. Harris Glenn Milstead, playing Dawn Davenport and Earl Peterson) and Welles himself (playing Charles Foster Kane). Both chart the rise, fall, and death of their larger-than-life protagonists.

There the parallels end. Dawn blossoms from teenage delinquent to street-smart model to convicted murderer. By film’s end, although imprisoned, she is neither alone nor unhappy: she has a lovely lesbian lover. Yet she is eager to be electrocuted because she is convinced the public will remember her. Kane begins as an ambitious reporter, becomes a media mogul, and dies a lonely recluse. Dawn’s life is an open book. Kane’s big secret is his sled. Female Trouble is decidedly independent, shot on a shoestring budget of $27,000 US; Kane was produced and released by one of the Big Five studios, RKO Pictures.¹

While perhaps not Waters’ most flaming film—Mondo Trasho (1969), Multiple Maniacs (1970), and Pink Flamingos (1972) also compete for that honor—Female Trouble nonetheless stands out