Forgotten Teens of the Movie Screen Pt 2.
‘Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains’. (Dir Lou Adler 1982)
Now here’s a pretty obscure one. Like ‘Time Square’ (1980), this is another feminist slanted teen drama where its young leading women play in a band and find empowerment through punk. Annoyingly, the film is damn hard to find anywhere outside of eBay.
‘Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains’ was barely granted a theatrical release (Paramount couldn’t figure out how to promote it because, by 1982, punk rock had become, like, so 1977) and remains unavailable on DVD in the UK.
Which is a bit silly frankly- there are far shitter movies than ‘The Fabulous Stains’ sitting proudly on shop shelves across the country awaiting their inevitable fate as Oxfam fodder; this film deserves many a loving home.
It stars Diane Lane (of ‘Rumblefish’ and ‘The Outsiders’ fame) and Laura Dern (‘Blue Velvet’) as a pair of strikingly attired punk heroins who inspire an army of female fans with their raw music and Lane’s ‘don’t fuck with me’ charisma. The film also features a fictional new wave band made up of Ray Winstone on vocals, The Clash’s Paul Simonon on bass, Paul Cook of the Sex Pistols on drums and the Pistols’ Steve Jones on guitar.
Surely the above could make for a fairly easy DVD sales pitch, particularly for fans of 70’s punk. As it is, the film remains a little seen curio, albeit one with a small but significant cult following (Courtney Love has sited it an an inspiration- a clear line can be drawn between the pissed off girl DIY stylings of the Stains and the early 90’s riot grrrl movement).
‘Stains’ is your classic cautionary tale about fame, with a bit of romance thrown in alongside the spikey girl-punk ‘tude. What I have managed to see of it is a little dated and kitsch (in an endearing way mind) . Nevertheless, Diane Lane is rather excellent- brimming with confidence and sass.
I need to track down a copy from America so I can watch the whole thing- but as you can see from the trailer, it looks like a lot of fun.
Here are some stills for your viewing pleasure- along with the trailer, they rather nicely capture the spirit of a time- when popular music occasionally believed it had the power to change the world.
