{"id":4899,"date":"2025-08-01T00:26:19","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T04:26:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=4899"},"modified":"2026-04-02T17:41:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T21:41:26","slug":"desperate-living-1977","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=4899","title":{"rendered":"Desperate Living-1977"},"content":{"rendered":"

Desperate Living-1977<\/strong><\/p>\n

Director John Waters<\/strong><\/p>\n

Starring Mink Stole, Liz Renay, Susan Lowe<\/strong><\/p>\n

Top 250 Films #225<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Scott’s Review #534<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Reviewed December 4, 2016<\/p>\n

Grade: B<\/strong><\/p>\n

Desperate Living (1977) will not be everyone’s cup of tea. It is a raunchy, late-night comedy, similar to other John Waters-directed cult classics.<\/p>\n

This one, however, suffers from the absence of Waters’ staple, Divine, who did not appear due to scheduling conflicts.<\/p>\n

For this glaring omission, Desperate Living is not the greatest of the Waters films, but it is a fun experience all the same.<\/p>\n

The film features choruses of political satire, specifically on fascism and the overthrow of the government.<\/p>\n

Mink Stole (Peggy Gravel) takes on the lead role as a crazed, mentally unhinged, neurotic woman on the lam with her maid, Grizelda, after they accidentally cause the death of Peggy’s husband.<\/p>\n

Peggy has been in and out of mental hospitals and is clearly off her rocker as she yells at neighbors about communism.<\/p>\n

After an encounter with a lewd police officer, the duo is banished to Mortville, a town filled with outcasts and social deviants. They align with others in the town to overthrow the tyrannical Queen Carlotta, played by Waters fixture Edith Massey.<\/p>\n

Carlotta plots to spread rabies throughout the community and is at war with her daughter, Princess Coo Coo.<\/p>\n

The issue with Desperate Living is the absence of Divine, originally set to play Mole McHenry, a self-loathing female wrestler, determined to receive a sex change operation.<\/p>\n

One imagines the Divine in this important role, which Susan Lowe, a capable star, played, but not the Divine. With Divine in the part, the hilarious possibilities are endless.<\/p>\n

Mink Stole carries the movie well, but traditionally being a supporting player in Waters’s films, she is not quite the star the film needs to be a true success.<\/p>\n

This is not to say that the film is a dud- it is entertaining and will please most Waters fans. It contains gross-out moments and vulgarity from the very first scene- as the opening credits roll, we see a roasted rat, daintily displayed on good china, on an eloquent dinner table, presumably to be served.<\/p>\n

Later, Carlotta meets her fate by being roasted, pig style, on a spit with an apple in her mouth. Another character is executed by being shot in the anus. The offensive moments never end!<\/p>\n

There also exists a quite controversial scene that I am surprised made the final cut. Peggy, already in a frazzled state due to a neighbor boy accidentally shooting out her bedroom window, is shocked to find another boy playing “doctor” with a little girl in her downstairs basement.<\/p>\n

Both children are completely naked, leaving not much to the imagination. This scene is tough to watch as one wonders what the child actors thought of all of this.<\/p>\n

I have never viewed another scene quite like this in a film.<\/p>\n

Otherwise, Desperate Living is filled with cartoon-like characters, lots of sexually deviant leather men, grizzled men with facial hair, and other odd-looking characters who make up the community of Mortville.<\/p>\n

Water’s set creations for the exterior scenes of the town are great using mainly cardboard and rubbish he found throughout Baltimore where the film was shot, the sets show a bleak yet colorful underworld.<\/p>\n

Desperate Living (1977) is a raunchy good time with over-the-top acting, trash-filled moments, and laugh-out-loud fun.<\/p>\n

The lack of any Divine makes it not the first offering to watch from the Waters collection. Pink Flamingos (1972) and Female Trouble (1974) would take that honor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Desperate Living-1977 Director John Waters Starring Mink Stole, Liz Renay, Susan Lowe Top 250 Films #225 Scott’s Review #534 Reviewed December 4, 2016 Grade: B Desperate Living (1977) will not be everyone’s cup of tea. It is a raunchy, late-night comedy, similar to other John Waters-directed cult classics. This one, however, suffers from the absence … Continue reading Desperate Living-1977<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,187,49,179,41,215,7464],"tags":[7687,9242,9241,958,10044,137,10042,9239,959,9243,10043],"class_list":["post-4899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1977-movie-reviews","category-campfilms","category-comedies","category-darkcomedies","category-indiefilms","category-indie-comedies","category-top-250-films","tag-225-favorite-film","tag-channing-wilroy","tag-cookie-mueller","tag-edith-massey","tag-jean-hill","tag-john-waters-films","tag-liz-renay","tag-mary-vivian-pearce","tag-mink-stole","tag-paul-swift","tag-susan-lowe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4899"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22813,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4899\/revisions\/22813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}