Desperate Living
| Desperate Living | |
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Film poster
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| Directed by | John Waters |
| Produced by | John Waters |
| Written by | John Waters |
| Starring |
Mink Stole Jean Hill Edith Massey Mary Vivian Pearce Liz Renay |
| Music by | Chris Lobingier Allen Yanus |
| Cinematography | John Waters |
| Edited by | Charles Roggero |
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Production
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| Distributed by | New Line Cinema |
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Release date
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Running time
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90 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $65,000 |
Desperate Living is a 1977 American comedy film directed, produced, and written by John Waters. The film stars Liz Renay, Jean Hill, Mink Stole, Edith Massey, and Mary Vivian Pearce.
Peggy Gravel, a neurotic, delusional, suburban housewife, and her overweight maid, Grizelda Brown, go on the lam after Grizelda smothers Peggy's husband, Bosley, to death. The two are arrested by a cross-dressing policeman who gives them an ultimatum: go to jail or be exiled to Mortville, a filthy shantytown ruled by the evil Queen Carlotta and her treasonous daughter, Princess Coo-Coo.
Peggy and Grizelda choose Mortville, but still engage in lesbian prison sex. They become associates of self-hating lesbian wrestler Mole McHenry, who wants a sex change to please her lover, Muffy St. Jacques. Most of Mortville's social outcasts—criminals, nudists, and sexual deviants—conspire to overthrow Queen Carlotta, who banishes her daughter, Coo-Coo, after she elopes with a garbage collector, who is later shot to death by the guards. Coo-Coo hides in Peggy and Grizelda's house with her dead lover. When Peggy betrays Coo-Coo to the Queen's guards, Grizelda fights them, and dies when the house collapses on her. Peggy, however, joins the queen in terrorizing her subjects, even infecting them (and Princess Coo-Coo) with rabies.
Eventually, Mortville's denizens, led by Mole, overthrow Queen Carlotta and execute Peggy by shooting a gun up her anus. To celebrate their freedom, the townsfolk roast Carlotta on a spit and serve her, pig-like, on a platter with an apple in her mouth.
Art director Vincent Peranio built the exterior sets for Mortville on a twenty-six acre farm in Hampstead, Maryland owned by Waters' friend, Peter Koper. The exterior sets were largely facades constructed of plywood and rubbish Peranio and Waters had collected from around Baltimore. Production manager Robert Maier recalled the challenges of shooting without adequate facilities, how the cast and crew overwhelmed the farm's septic system, how heavy rains nearly washed away the set, and how "charmed" Waters seemed through it all.
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