Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains – Review

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains

with Diane Lane, Laura Dern, Christine Lahti, Fee Waybill
Directed by Lou Adler
Written by Rob Morton
Produced by Joe Roth
(Parmount, 1981)
by J. Lianna Ness

As the movie opens, Corinne “Third Degree” Burns (Diane Lane) is being interviewed by a local TV-news show after making waves in her little Pennsylvania town with her punk rock band, The Stains. Fed up with go-nowhere, small-town life and the simple-minded people who live it, Corinne gets inspired after seeing a British band called The Looters (featuring ex-Sex Pistols Steve Jones and Paul Cook, and The Clash’s Paul Simonon, led by a promiscuous singer named Billy [Ray Winstone, who co-starred with Paul Simonon in Rude Boy (1978)]). After the show, she approaches Billy about auditioning for them. He blows her off and she’s about to go home when the road manager/promoter recognizes her from the local TV show. He agrees to let The Stains join the tour with The Looters, headlined by an archaic acid-rock band called The Metal Corpses (Fee Waybill of The Tubes is hilarious as the washed-up singer). When their guitar player dies, The Looters take over the headlining spot and The Stains become their supporting act. Corinne’s outrageous clothes (see through blouse with no bra, nylons and panties), trend-setting hair (black with a white stripe down the middle), and passionate tirades against sexism in the music industry, pique the interest of the media hounds who jump on the story, as well as all the frustrated young women who see and hear about it. What follows is the usual frenzy – all the young girls in the country start dressing just like Corinne, dying their hair and calling themselves “skunks,” catapulting The Stains into national notoriety. But does Corinne believe in what she says and does, or is she just another fame-seeker? Is the media using her or is she using the media? Rent the movie and find out.