By Erin Free
The beautiful Diane Lane is now best known as an Oscar nominee (for her bravely uninhibited turn in Unfaithful) with occasionally wayward taste when it comes to picking movie roles, often starring in disappointingly middle of the road fare undeserving of her talents. Must Love Dogs and Under The Tuscan Sun, we’re looking at you! Diane Lane began her career, however, as a feisty child actress, delivering brilliantly beyond-her-years performances in fine films such as A Little Romance (1979), Touched By Love (1980) and Cattle Annie And Little Britches (1981). Her most eye-opening performance, however, undoubtedly came with 1982’s Ladies And Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains, a wonderfully entertaining, fictionalised critique on the commercialisation and exploitation at the heart of rock music. “It was a very weird script,” Lane says in a short documentary about the making of the film. “I thought, ‘How am I gonna pull this off? I can’t sing…I suck.’ But the band is supposed to suck, so maybe I can do that!’”
With a sassy swagger and sultry surliness, Lane comes on strong as Corinne Burns, a teenage suburban brat with no future who teams up with her sister (Marin Kanter) and cousin (Laura Dern) to form The Stains, a primitive/punk/New Wave band who sound like an even more detached version of Liz Phair. Hitting the road with a cock-rock has-been (The Tubes’ Fee Waybill) and an angry young punk group led by the tough but vulnerable Billy Faith (a trim and fresh-faced Ray Winstone, playing out front of The Sex Pistols’ Steve Jones and Paul Cook, and The Clash’s Paul Simonon), The Stains quickly become a youth phenomenon. Sullenly spitting out their song, “Waste Of Time”, and stridently hurling their catch cry, “Don’t put out!”, the trio inspire an army of proto-feminist teenage look-a-likes and a subsequent media frenzy.
Grimly authentic (the film was directed by music industry veteran, Lou Adler, whose only other effort was the Cheech & Chong vehicle, Up In Smoke), Ladies And Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains is absolutely unrelenting in its cynicism, as the icy, self centred Corinne uses and exploits everyone and everything around her (even someone’s untimely death!) in order to achieve stardom. “It was nerve wracking to have that ballsiness that Corinne pulls off,” says Lane. In the film, punk music – despite its rebellious stance – is largely presented as a commodity to be bought and sold when in the wrong hands, with only a true believer like Billy able to stay true to its outlaw essence.
Filled with telling, prescient moments (the film is often heralded as a precursor to the “Riot Grrrl” movement, and counts Courtney Love and members of Bikini Kill as fans) and vivid characters, Ladies And Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains is a potent music movie, and an often eye popping (check out the teenage Corinne’s see-through-blouse-and-black-undies get-up!) footnote in the career of the now decidedly mellower Diane Lane. “Sixteen and on her own,” Lane’s co-star, Fee Waybill, laughed to LA Record of the then very young actress. “She was gorgeous. No chaperone. And half the time she had that see-thru top, so her fucking tits were hanging out. Everybody on the set was after her! Everybody!”
Ladies And Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains is screening as part of The Queensland Art Gallery Of Modern Art’s “Get What You Want: Music Cinema” programme, which runs from September 2-October 2. To buy tickets to Ladies And Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains, click here.
