A troubled teenage girl and her two pals decide to vent their repressed and roiling emotions via a punk rock band, the Fabulous Stains. Though utterly devoid of talent, the Stains manage to get a gig touring with another punk band, the Looters (comprised of former-Sex Pistols Paul Cook and Steve Jones, Clash bassist Paul Simonon, and Tubes vocalist Fee Waybill). Thanks to clever promotions of their agent, the Stains become popular, even though they never waxed a single. The agent then exploits their popularity at every turn and transforms the talentless Stains into national sensations and causing them untold stress and inner turmoil. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Review by All Movie Guide
All Movie Guide
lost interest.
It's not hard at all to see how Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains became a cult favorite despite being thrown away by Paramount Pictures, who clearly had no idea what to make of the movie when they gave it a token release in 1982. The look and the sound of the teenage punk trio the Stains (played by
Diane Lane,
Laura Dern and Marin Kanter) is eerily prescient of the Riot Grrrl bands that would emerge a decade later (and to a lesser extent the inspired amateurism of the K Records roster), and while Lane's performance is a bit uneven, she captures the bluster and defiance of an adolescent too young and naïve to be intimidated with admirable brio.
Christine Lahti is brilliant in her small but showy supporting role as Corrine's aunt, Fee Waybill of the Tubes is so hilariously accurate as a washed-up heavy metal lunkhead that it's a wonder he didn't get more film work after this, and someone should have had the good sense to have the Looters, the British punk outfit assembled for the film, cut an album after making this -- actor
Ray Winstone (who did this shortly after
Quadrophenia) is a good and charismatic singer, while Steve Jones, Paul Cook and Paul Simonon are a great rock and roll band in their all-too-brief moments on screen. But for every moment where Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains gets the feel of life on the road just right, there's another where the movie just doesn't ring true, and it simply defies logic that the Stains could suddenly start filling big halls simply on the basis on a few local television spots and without making a record (the MTV-influenced coda at least suggests a more likely scenario for their overnight stardom). And director Lou Adler has a truly lamentable sense of pacing here; the movie's tempo is uncomfortably slow, as the narrative lurches forward in sluggish fits and starts. There are far too many good things in Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains to ignore it, but it's simple to see why screenwriter Nancy Dowd took her name off the project (she's credited as Rob Morton); it's like an album with three or four terrific songs scattered among seven or eight tracks of tossed-off filler. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide