Product Description

Movie DVD

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8488 in DVD
• Brand: NEW LINE HOME VIDEO
• Released on: 2004-09-07
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 86 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
Director John Waters broke new boundaries of bad taste with this hilariously trashy tale of suburban misadventure. His favorite leading lady, transvestite Divine, plays Francine Fishpaw, a dissatisfied suburban housefrau who longs for a little romance in her life because her husband and children drive her crazy. Salvation arrives in the form of Tod Tomorrow (Tab Hunter), a drive-in owner who sweeps Francine off her feet (a mean task, given Divine's girth). But he's not all he's cracked up to be. Filmed in the miracle of Odorama, video viewers now have to imagine the scents (actually, odors) that came on the Odorama scratch-and-sniff card during the film's theatrical release. It won't be too hard. --Marshall Fine

Customer Reviews

America, The Beautiful?
"This is Odorama!" declares Dr. Quackenshaw (Rick Breitenfeld) sounding like Dr. Strangelove at the start of John Waters' hilarious film POLYESTER. Ignore this proclamation since it only applies to the retro gimmick Waters used to lure people to the film during its original theatrical run. Scratch-and-sniff cards with various scents identified with the numbers 1-10 were given out to members of the audience so that they could interact with the film. Now, unless you own one of those souvinir cards, the numbers that flash on the bottom right corner of the screen during the film won't do much for you, but POLYESTER is still another wildly original film from a man who embraces the white trash culture of America.

There are few better openers than the one Waters created for POLYESTER. Following the prologue, which explains the magic of Odorama, the camera takes us on a tour of Francine Fishpaw (Divine)'s house accompanied by a hilarious theme song sung by Tab Hunter (written by Blondie's Chris Stein and Deborah Harry). Up the camera goes into Francine's room, showing her in her oversized undergarments as she trims her nostril hair, shaves her armpits, and puts on her dress. She goes on a scale which reads 310 lbs and she angrily kicks the scale away. Francine's husband Elmer (David Samson) owns a porn theatre and outside of the couple's house, picketers voice their disgust with a hilarious chant: "2,4,6,8, X-rated movies we all hate. 1,2,5,9, G-rated movies are mighty fine." Francine, a devout Christian, is humiliated. Elmer is ecstatic: "All that free publicity! I can't wait to see the 11 o'clock news!" Their children are a son named Dexter (Ken King) who has a strange fascination for feet and a scrapbook to prove it and a daughter named Lu-Lu (Mary Garlington) whose raging hormones cause her to announce: "I learned all about my cervix in sex education class yesterday!" Francine's mother makes her life even worse. When Francine is on the toilet, her mother walks in and says: "Can't you do that later. I don't have all day, you know. I'm missing valuable shopping time." Francine's only refuge from this living nightmare is her former cleaning lady Cuddles (Edith Massey) who's now rich thanks to an inheritance from another family she worked for. Cuddles pictures herself as the cream of the crop and loves to speak pig latin and French despite her speech impediment due to her missing front teeth.

Thanks to her husband who cheats on her and rubs it in her face, her dysfunctional children, and her mother from hell, Francine's life plummets into alcoholism until she meets the man of her dreams - Todd Tomorrow (Tab Hunter). She first sees Todd standing in front of his white corvette, scratching his crotch as she looks out of the window of Cuddles' limousine. Later, Todd and Francine "meet cute" at the scene of a gory car accident. What follows is Waters' parodying the cheesy romantic montages of other films. The lovers' ride in the country and frolick amongst mother nature is set to a song by Deborah Harry and Michael Kamen sung by Bill Murray (seriously!) sounding hilariously similar to Tab Hunter: "One boy/One girl/Deeply and honestly/Our real life fantasy." Francine's children are now born again artists and she declares: "Oh, thank you God. Thank you for answering my prayers. We're a real family again. A normal American family." Soon, POLYESTER takes a huge twist that leads to a shocking conclusion that I wouldn't dare reveal.

John Waters has become a living legend thanks to his entertaining and creative films that have dared to break the rules and sometimes crossed into the mainstream. From his "indepedent" films (PINK FLAMINGOS, DESPERATE LIVING, and POLYESTER) to his recent "Hollywood" films (SERIAL MOM, PECKER, and the upcoming CECIL B. DEMENTED), Waters has joyfully embraced and satirized white trash America and his beloved hometown of Baltimore. In POLYESTER, he dares to tackle the abortion issue as a protester asks: "Suppose Einstein's mother had an abortion?" and Waters provides this memorable exchange between a mother and her son:

FRANCINE: I'm afraid your mom's an alcoholic.

DEXTER: Oh, mom. You can stop. I got off the the angel dust.

And Waters also pokes fun at his own vocation of choice with the following advertisement announced at a drive-in theatre in POLYESTER:

"Visit our concession stand. We feature boluga caviar, suculent oysters, and champagne. Take a tempting taste treat and ponder the intellectual meaning of cinema."

So "take a tempting taste treat" and enjoy POLYESTER, possible John Waters' greatest achievement.

John Waters-The Queen of Trash!
John Waters is a very brilliant and odd film director. he brings camp, trash, filth, humor and morality to all of his movies, pushes peoples buttons, goes farther than most dare (and then some) isnt afraid of being censored and does what he does and to me thats brillance. true alot of people will think his work is tasteless stupid and gross but thats the whole point! lol! people who dont have a sense of humor or who are not open minded will not like his movies. these are not for right wing conservatives but they should see them (especially a Dirty shame) to broaden their minds a little more. my personal favorites are Pink Flamingos, A dirty Shame, Female Trouble, Polyester and Desperate Living. Serial mom is also a fav but not in this collection. He has come from underground trash to Queen of filth,trash and crudeness and for not being afraid of being bold, outlandish, outspoken and bizzar, I applaud you John Waters. Brillant.

Camp Classic Smell-odrama!
One of the most popular John Waters films has all the camp, politically incorrect elements we've come to love...with the added incentive of the miraculous ODORAMA (card cleverly included).

You can fight the urge, but you'll still laugh out loud at so many outrageous moments in the life of tragi-comic Francine Fishpaw, and the additional commentary track by director Waters is a whole other comedy in itself. He is candid, bemused and reveals so many of his own personal and professional idiosyncracies that you'll definitely want to own this one for your DVD library.

Too bad Tab Hunter and Mink Stole couldn't have been enticed to add their commentary on another track. They're both delightful raconteurs and fun to watch, too!