Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains
Original film poster
Directed by	Lou Adler
Produced by	Joe Roth
Written by	Rob Morton (Pseudonym of Nancy Dowd)
Starring	Diane Lane Laura Dern Marin Kanter Ray Winstone Steve Jones Paul Cook Paul Simonon Fee Waybill Barry Ford Black Randy Elizabeth Daily Brent Spiner
Cinematography	Bruce Surtees
Edited by	Tom Benko
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date	October 1982 (1982-10) (U.S.)
Running time	87 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains is a 1982 film about three teenage girls, played by Diane Lane, Laura Dern and Marin Kanter, who start a punk band.

Corinne Burns is a seventeen-year-old girl whose mother has recently died from lung cancer. Working in a fast food restaurant to help support herself and her younger sister, Corinne is interviewed by a local television station for a story about her town's dwindling economy. During the interview, Corinne becomes angry and belligerent towards the reporter, eventually lashing out at her boss and getting fired. The segment resonates with the station's teenage viewers, who see Corinne as a kindred spirit. The station does a follow-up interview, which primarily consists of Corinne acting flippant and making sarcastic remarks to the journalist. However, she does manage to slip in a plug for her garage band "The Stains", which consists of her, her sister Tracy, and their cousin Jessica.

Emboldened by appearing on television, Corinne attends a concert put on by small-time promoter Lawnboy, featuring the washed-up metal band the Metal Corpses and their opening act, an up-and-coming punk band called the Looters. Eager to end hostilities between the jaded Metal Corpses and the hedonistic Looters, Lawnboy signs the Stains without having heard them perform. Corinne and the Stains join the bands on tour, witnessing firsthand the bands' animosity towards one another, largely the result of the conflict between the aging Lou, the frontman for the Metal Corpses, and Billy, the Looters' volatile lead singer.

At their first show, the Stains prove to be completely inept as a band: Neither Jessica nor Tracy can play instruments, and Corinne sings in an off-key monotone. The audience reacts angrily, prompting Corinne to lash out at them for a variety of real and perceived faults. After the show, the Metal Corpses' guitar player is found dead in the bathroom; the Metal Corpses decide to leave the tour, with Lawnboy making the Looters the new headliners with the Stains as their opening act. A dissatisfied Billy asks Lawnboy to replace the Stains as soon as possible.

At their next show, Corinne debuts a new, more extreme punk look, with hair dyed to resemble a skunk and a see-through blouse worn over a pair of bikini briefs. Claiming that she "never puts out," she goes on another tirade, garnering media attention. While male journalists focus on Corinne's antisocial attitude and the band's lack of talent, female journalists perceive Corinne's rants as calls for female empowerment and hail the Stains as a new voice of feminism. Almost literally overnight, the Stains become a national sensation, with girls all over the country emulating Corinne in every way possible, from dying their hair to running away from home.