If you've seen 1981's Ladies
And Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains, you probably watched a lot of late-night cable
in the 1980s. Its presence there inspired a cult following, which found punk
inspiration in its tale of a teen girl band that briefly makes it big with
enthusiastically amateurish anti-consumerist diatribes. The long-overdue DVD release
will probably expand that cult. Though Stains is hilariously clueless
about the way rock actually works, even though music-industry veteran Lou Adler
directed it, the film has a weird integrity, striking and holding a chord
designed to resonate with rebels-in-the-making.
It's easy to see how the
movie fell through the cracks. The screenplay by Slap Shot and Coming Home writer Nancy
Dowd—who pulled her name from the film—has its roots in punk, but
by the time of the film's aborted 1981 release, punk's moment as an object of
mainstream fascination had already passed. A few years later, a cast that
included Diane Lane and Laura Dern might have had some drawing power, but at
the time, they were unknown.
They were also 15 and 13 years
old, respectively, and their youth helps sell the film's grungy fairy tale.
Lane stars as an orphaned Pennsylvania teen who, as the movie opens, has
already earned some notoriety as the subject of a TV profile about small-town
life, wherein she mentions a largely theoretical band called The Stains,
composed of herself, her sister (Marin Kanter), and her cousin (Dern). Their
course is set after they watch the British punk band The Looters (led by a
young Ray Winstone, fronting Paul Cook and Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols and
Paul Simonon of The Clash) open for an Alice Cooper-inspired washout on a tour
of Pennsylvania bars. (As no punk bands did at the time.) With a Shaggs-like
gift for performing and an X-Ray Spex-like talent for presentation, The Stains
join the bill, becoming a runaway hit after some unusually intense coverage on
the local news.
Thus begins the most
compressed rock rise-and-fall story ever. Seemingly over the course of a few
days, the Stains inspire an army of wannabes, then lose touch with their roots,
man. It's a time capsule that remains resonant in spite of the silliness that
coats it. "She said things I've always wanted to say and I haven't been able
to," one fan says to explain her Stains devotion. That's rock 'n' roll.
Key features: Adler provides a sleepy
commentary that's made up for by a fond, lively track from Lane and Dern.