Paranoid Peggy and gargantuan Grizelda are on the run from the law. What they run into is Mortville, a psychoward village ruled by evil Queen Carlotta and her goons. They move in with the resident lesbian couple, Muffy and Mole, but when Peggy switches sides and joins Team Carlotta, the locals foment revolution to overthrow the corrupt regime. Everyone has something to hide in Mortville, and this is John Waters at his raunchiest, trashiest, most politically incorrect and fall-down funniest best. Buddy Night all the way.

Desperate Living
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Movie Description
Everyone in Desperate Living's Mortville has some horrible secret to hide. The mentally unstable Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole, in a superb display of overacting) and her 300-pound-plus maid Grizelda must take it on the lam after Grizelda smothers Peggy's husband under her elephantine buttocks. They find themselves in Mortville, a shanty fiefdom ruled by the grotesque Queen Carlotta (the incomparable Edith Massey). The evil queen delights in tormenting her subjects, but Peggy and Grizelda soon team up with a pair of lesbian outcasts, and a rebellion is in the air. John Waters's Desperate Living takes on the air of a seedy, trash fairy tale as the humiliated residents of Mortville rise up against the queen and the cursed princess finds herself in a power struggle against her mother. Notable for the absence of Waters regular Divine, this movie pushes the rest of the cast to their over-the-top best. Fifties sex bomb Liz Renay has a great time as Muffy St. Jacques, half of the lesbian couple, and was still looking great by the '70s. The tumbledown sets of Mortville add a surreal touch to the movie, but Edith Massey steals every scene she's in as the hateful, repulsive Queen Carlotta. Note that the actors' breath is clearly visible in many scenes; it was filmed outdoors in a bitter Baltimore winter. Nasty, shabby, gross, and hilarious, this is John Waters at his best. --Jerry Renshaw
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John Howard: Desperate Living Trailer
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