Landing in the small slipstream of punk-inspired cinema that took the first half of the 1980s, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains (1982) would emerge decades later as that subgenre’s most recognizable signpost. Like Allan Moyle’s Times Square and Brian Gibson’s Breaking Glass (both from 1980), Lou Adler’s film, about a trio of young women who conspire to hit the big time as punk rock legends, espoused a kind of DIY attitude that would predate the Riot Grrrl movement of the early 1990s, while also giving that movement its inspirational fuel.
Guitar-slinging alt-rockers Kathleen Hanna, Courtney Love, and Kristen Hersh have all namechecked the film as a prime example of the get-up-and-do-it enthusiasm that pushed women to the fore in the throes of punk rock culture, as well as the ensuing troubles women would face in a less-than-discerning male-dominated music industry. Yet despite its current celebrated status as a cultural marker of the second wave of punk that briefly swept the tail end of the 1970s and the first few years of the ‘80s, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains did not fare well upon its release. Riddled with creative and professional conflicts from the very start, the film had a rocky production.
It was first conceived by screenwriter Nancy Dowd (collaborating with music journalist Caroline Coon on the story idea), who had already earned an Academy Award for Best Screenplay for 1978’s psychological drama Coming Home. Dowd, intrigued by the punk movement of the late ‘70s, had a finger on the pulse of a musical culture awakening to women’s independence in rock music. With the quick rise of all-female or female-led punk and rock groups, like the Slits, the Runaways, the Raincoats, and an unsigned Go-Go’s, it isn’t difficult to see what it was about these bands that captured Dowd’s imagination.
Indeed, Dowd’s experiences as a writer in Hollywood were not far off from the exploits of women taking to the stage and the recording studios. Equally rife with misogyny and its resulting inequities, these respective artistic environs shared more than a sympathetic line of experience that would funnel much inspiration into a script; they also shared the potential for a platform that would give women autonomy over fashion, sound, and image of their own making.
These were Dowd’s hopes, but it’s not the way things turned out. Within weeks of production, the screenwriter’s attempts at negotiating the film’s creative direction with director Adler were suddenly halted, reportedly following a sexual assault against her by a crew member. Dowd relinquished whatever professional and creative control she had at that point, later signing off on the project with the pseudonym Rob Morton.
The artistic struggles between writer and director are evident in the final product; Dowd envisioned a story in which the toils of three young working women would be admired by an adoring fanbase of equally young women. Adler’s vision, which eventually won out, had the all-girl band crashing out miserably before rising like phoenixes from the flames to join the very establishment that sought to exploit and destroy them. Watching the final product, an uncongealed mashup of ideas, one gets the distinct impression of the warring of sexes that eventually led to such a wavering vision of female independence.
Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains stands like the lone and confused child of bickering, divorced parents, uncertain of its loyalties to either fitful parent. Despite all this, the film proves a fascinating watch, both as a credible story of rags-to-riches stardom and a curious document of a cultural and musical phenomenon that dawned at the end of the 1970s.
The story begins with orphaned teenage sisters, Corinne and Tracy Burns (played by Diane Lane and Marin Kanter), introducing themselves, along with their cousin Jessica (Laura Dern), to a television crew on camera, who is profiling Corinne’s life in small-town Charleston, USA. Framed as a troubled teenaged loser, Corinne tells a patronizing reporter that she, Tracy and Jessica are the Stains, a would-be rock group that Corinne believes is her ticket out of Charleston.
After connecting with Billy (Ray Winstone), frontman for a British punk band called the Looters, at a local concert venue, Corinne manages to get her band the Stains a slot on the Looters’ tour. Now sharing tour bus space with both the Looters and the Metal Corpses, an obnoxious, ageing wannabe shock-rock band, the three girls get their first taste of a rock n’ roller’s road life.
Barely able to play their instruments and unequipped for life on the stage, the Stains get their first big shock when they play their first show at a local dive bar, only to be jeered by a disinterested crowd. Corinne doesn’t take too well to the crowd, prompting her to sound off at the audience and reveal a new mohawk hairstyle and risqué wardrobe, stunning them into silence. In the audience, however, are a few very impressionable girls who take a fancy to the Stains’ look.
As the girls continue to tour with the Looters, their profile grows considerably larger. Their notoriety is further magnified by an enthusiastic female reporter who can spot the girls’ potential as a feminist beacon for young girls everywhere. The Stains’ success becomes complicated when Corinne and Billy begin a precarious romance, and when exploitation finally rears its ugly head. Opportunism makes a cash grab out of the girls, pitting them against the Looters, their promoters, and eventually each other, and soon the rising stars must find a way to preserve their mutual veracity, or crash and burn in true rock star fashion.
Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains has much going for it, despite the initial pushback it received when it debuted in 1982. Shelved for about a year as the studio tried to retool it when it did poorly with test audiences, the film betrays a few disjointed moments; a case of blindly trying to pin a donkey’s tail on an as-yet fully formed body. Yet the work carries much strength and passion – the result of the raw, natural talents of the three leads, who provide enough verve to keep the story alive and kicking.
A 15-year-old Diane Lane’s then-inexperience is to her credit here, as she picks her way through a very mixed cast of both professionals and novices, green but working on raw talent. Summoning a punk-rock energy all her own that is very natural, very urgent, and always beguiling, Lane gathers a powerful friction in both her performance as a troubled and desperate teenager, as well as a punk-rock upstart bluffing her way admirably on a contentious and unpredictable stage.
Dern and Kanter are solid supporters, and the trio forms an ensemble to rival the best of the real girl-punk bands of the day, whether posturing in impromptu punk regalia or riffing lines about disaffected youth. Their combined imperfections are key; even the sometimes-nervous delivery of an actress uncertain of her marks and lines gives credence to the rough DIY approach that inspired the roles in the first place.
Costumer Christopher Ryan misunderstands punk culture, to be sure; as per the Hollywood norm, outsiders to any niche beyond the motion picture industry have little to no true contact with their subject of concern. Still, he throws all three actresses into stark relief as punk provocateurs, with looks that inspire each to deliver a performance of unpolished ingenuity.
To accompany the look is a set of songs that could easily have been recorded by any of the real punk bands the Stains were based on. “Waste of Time”, the band’s anthemic (though underwritten and poorly performed) calling card, gains considerable traction in a story about women fighting a losing battle in a rigged, patriarchal system.
Impeding on its charms is a somewhat botched editing job, obviously done at the behest of a flummoxed film studio that didn’t really understand what they were getting with a film about female punk rockers. There are clear gaps in the story that signal executive decisions made regarding the script, and a tacked-on ending that glosses over the hardships that follow the story’s climax, circumventing some of the messages the film initially set out to deliver about women and the music industry. Aged by about two years, the three girls’ maturing physiques clearly give away the shelving the film was given, though perhaps also add to the realism of a band finally clearing a path to stardom after years of struggle and strife.
Fun City Editions delivers a beautiful package, doing justice to a lost, once-much-sought-after film. Their 4K UHD and Blu-ray remasters (released together as a double-disc package) present clean, crisp transfers that retain the bold new-wave colors of fluorescent reds, pinks, and purples, and a cool range of browns and beiges with true clarity. Sound is clear for the most part, with only a few dips in audio in some dialogue parts; a minor deficiency likely due to the age of the film.
The release also contains a notable commentary track by actresses Lane and Dern (Kanter is sadly absent). The actresses provide a funny and informative recollection of on-set experiences and express all the misgivings they have had about the film in the years following its release. Director Adler provides another commentary track, one that is comparatively sobering and less impassioned.
One gets the feeling that Adler treated the project like any other directing job, though he appears to have approached the film’s production from a well-meaning place. Also included in the supplements are a retrospective making-of documentary of the film, in which the actors are interviewed, as well as some deleted scenes and the dailies from the music video, which caps the film. These extras delve deep into the film’s lore and on-set activity, expanding upon its long-standing mystique.
Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains provides an equal amount of flash and grit to give some balance to a not-always-committed script. As the years have passed since its 1982 release, the film’s faults now seem like thoughtful missteps that reveal a kind of education behind the scenes; a story of what happens in the gender equation when artistic and political agendas collide with business and commerce.
Unlike the new wave neon saturation of Martha Coolidge’s Valley Girl (1983), or the processed pop-commerciality of Susan Seidelman’s Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), films that catapulted punk-inspired subcultures into the mainstream consciousness of middle America, Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains merely built the scaffold on which those other, more successful films would scale grander heights. It was a thankless job at the time, of course, but it’s appreciated by a later, more discerning generation, who helped to give women rockers their rebel yell.