Search - Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains on DVD

Content Advisory: Adult Situations, Not For Children, Adult Language Movie Release: 1982 DVD Release: 09/16/2008 Format: DVD - Color,Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV Edition: Restored/Remastered Audio Tracks: English SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 1 hrs 27 mins Studio: Rhino Entertainment Members Wishing: 14 Genres: Drama, Musical, Rock Musical

A very inexperienced rock band flirts with fame thanks to a valuable assist from the media in this comedy-drama directed by veteran music producer Lou Adler. Corinne Burns (Diane Lane) is a fifteen-year-old orphan who gains a measure of local notoriety when she quits her job at a burger stand during a live television newscast. Corinne has few prospects but plenty of nerve, and she's formed a band with her sister Tracy (Marin Kanter) and cousin Jessica (Laura Dern) called the Stains. While checking out a gig by veteran hard rock band the Metal Corpses, led by flamboyant singer Lou Corpse (Fee Waybill), opened by British punk upstarts the Looters, Corrine sneaks backstage to ask advice just as Lou demands tour manager Lawnboy (Barry Ford) find a new opening act. Lawnboy impulsively gives the Stains the gig, and while the first show for the girls (who've had all of three practices) is little short of a disaster, Corrine's skunk-stripe hairdo, provocative clothes and defiant declaration "We don't put out" captures the attention of a television reporter who covered her before. A story on the evening news about the Stains turns the band into a cult sensation, and Looters lead singer Billy (Ray Winstone) tries to offer her some advice and emotional support as the Stains rise from opening act to headliners, but Corinne and her friends learn that their new fans are a very fickle breed. Shot in 1980 but released to only a handful of theaters in 1982, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains gained a potent cult following after it appeared on cable television, largely among punk rock fans -- the Looters featured Steve Jones and Paul Cook of The Sex Pistols on guitar and drums as well as Paul Simonon from The Clash on bass, while L.A. punk troublemakers Black Randy and the Metrosquad briefly appear as themselves. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Diane Lane - Corinne "Third Degree" Burns
Peter Donat - Harley Dennis
David Clennon - Dave Robell-The Agent
John Lehne - Stu McGrath

Lou Adler's low-key comedy-drama about the rise and fall of an all-girl punk band has developed a passionate cult following even though it barely received a theatrical release in 1982, was never released on home video and is best known to fans from periodic screenings on the USA network's weekend music show Night Flight (which has been off the air since 1988). Despite all this, the film has circulated for years on bootleg videotapes taken from occasional cable screenings, and now Rhino Home Video has given the movie a belated release on DVD. Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains has been given a widescreen transfer to disc, letterboxed at 1.78:1 on conventional televisions and enhanced for anamorphic playback on 16x9 monitors. Bruce Surtees' cinematography often focuses on the grimy side of the film's location shooting in Vancouver, British Columbia and Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and the digital transfer honors the film's cool color palate, though the detail is significantly better than when the film appeared on television, and fans will welcome the chance to finally see the film in its proper aspect ratio after years of pan-and-scan TV presentations. The audio appears in two mixes, the original two-channel version in Dolby Digital Stereo and a new surround mix in Dolby Digital 5.1; the new mix is livelier than the original but the difference isn't especially remarkable. The dialogue is in English, with no multiple language options or subtitles included (and optional titles might have been helpful for some viewers given the thickness of Ray Winstone's British accent). Bonus materials include a large gallery of production photos and two commentary tracks. Director Lou Adler's chat is unfortunately lethargic, punctuated by long silences and offering little of interest, but the second commentary from Diane Lane and Laura Dern is charming and fun; the actors sound like old friends looking through a high school yearbook, alternately amused and mortified by their teenage adventures and remembering plenty of stories about their fellow cast members and the production history. It took more than a quarter century for Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains to arrive on home video, and this edition isn't quite perfect -- the documentary on the film that Sarah Jacobson and Same Green made for IFC's Split Screen series would have been an ideal supplement for this disc but it's sadly missing. However, at very least the movie looks and sounds great on disc, and would-be rebel girls wanting to see this picture can finally get it at any decent video store, which is a more than welcome turn of events. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide