Pink Flamingos. 1972. USA. Written and directed by John Waters. With Divine, David Lochary, Mink Stole, Mary Vivian Pearce, Danny Mills, Edith Massey. 35mm. In English. 92 min.
In 1968 film exhibitor Ben Barenholz, who would later become one of the most groundbreaking distributors of offbeat independent films, bought the Elgin Theater, a somewhat rundown venue in Chelsea whose ramshackle appearance was redeemed by the quality of its projection and the comfort of its large auditorium. The theater had a distinctly counterculture vibe, and in 1970 Barenholz hit on the idea of midnight screenings of potential cult movies that would draw a young audience. In his invaluable book Repertory Theaters of New York City, Ben Davis wrote that after an astonishingly successful run of Alexandre Jodorowsky’s El Topo, ”the next big runaway midnight hit that ran for over a year was the New York premiere of John Waters’s bad taste comedy Pink Flamingos (1972), a film about the 300-pound drag queen Divine, who wants to clinch her title as ‘The Filthiest Person Alive’…. This midnight show established the reputation of the film and its director.”