Polyester

Polyester | |
| Rated: | None |
| Director: | John Waters |
| Cast: | Divine, Tab Hunter, Edith Massey, Mink Stole, Stiv Bators, Mary Garlington, David Samson |
| Release Date: | 1981 |
| Genre: | Black Comedy, Satire |
John Waters’ 1981 satire remains one of his best-made and most enjoyable films, the tantalizing evolutionary link between the shit-eating years of Pink Flamingos and the more polished, Hollywood-friendly Hairspray. Depressed, alcoholic Baltimore housewife Francine Fishpaw (Divine) finds her life collapsing amid an adulterous husband who runs a porno theater, a crazed son with a violent foot-stomping fetish, a daughter growing infamous for her slutty behavior, and police and reporters invading her privacy. For solace, Francine turns to best friend Cuddles (Edith Massey), a former maid turned snooty lottery millionaire, and mysterious, coke-snorting stranger Todd Tomorrow (’50s matinée heartthrob Tab Hunter, a genius bit of casting). Good old-fashioned, meanspirited humor abounds, the music’s fantastic, and as a bonus, the whole thing was filmed in “Odorama,” Waters’ homage to William Castle’s filmmaker-as-showman gimmickry: a scratch-and-sniff card distributed to audience members, who are told, when numerals flash on screen, to take a whiff off the corresponding digit on their cards. We’ll leave it to you to guess what No. 2 smells like.