Thanks to the British Film Institute, there’s a list of films that played Scala. To celebrate the release of Severin’s new documentary, I’ll share a few of these movies every day. You can see the whole list on Letterboxd.

Dedicated to Charles “Tex” Watson, this movie proves that if you thought John Waters was a fluke after Pink Flamingos — not that he hadn’t been already making movies for years — he would return with a movie perhaps even more vicious, strange, upsetting to some and hilarious to others.

Dawn Davenport (Divine) flips out on Christmas when she doesn’t get the cha-cha heels she’s been hinted at for months. She meets a man named Earl (also Divine), who drags her to the city dump and quickly fertilizes her egg on a garbage strewn mattress. She gives birth to Taffy (Mink Stole), a daughter she never wanted, one she often beats into oblivion when she isn’t working as an exotic dancer or committing crimes with her friends Concetta (Cookie Mueller) and Chicklette (Susan Welch).

At the Lipstick Beauty Salon, Dawn meets and marries Gater Nelson (Michael Potter). His Aunt Ida (Edith Massey) wants him to be gay and is upset that he’s now married to Dawn. Meanwhile, the salon’s owners, Donald (David Lochary) and Donna Dasher (Mary Vivian Pearce) have convinced her to become their artistic experiment. Crime and beauty are the same, they say, so they get her to not only keep being a criminal, but to take photos of her crimes.

Dawn and Gater break up, enraging Ida, who throws acid in Dawn’s face. The Dashers convince her to not get surgery and instead to inject makeup like heroin. They also kidnap Ida and place her in a big bird cage, allowing Dawn to chop off her hand. Meanwhile, her daughter tracks down her real father and ends up killing him, causing her to convert to being a Hare Krishna, which enrages Dawn so much that she strangles her just before going on stage to jump on a trampoline and fire a gun into the audience. That’s really Divine jumping like that, which found her training at the YMCA to get it perfect.

All the fame has gone to her head and the rich Dashers quickly sell her out. She’s electrocuted, but not before giving this speech: “I’d like to thank all the wonderful people that made this great moment in my life come true. Ha ha ha ha ha! My daughter Taffy, who died in order to further my career. My friends Chicklette and Concetta, who should be here with me today. All the fans who died so fashionably and gallantly at my nightclub act. And especially all those wonderful people who were kind enough to read about me in the newspapers and watch me on the television news shows. Without all of you, my career could never have gotten this far. It was you that I burn for, and it is you that I will die for. Please remember, I love every fucking one of you.”

This pales in comparison to my favorite speech in the movie, as Dawn screams on stage ” You’re looking at crime personified and don’t you forget it! I framed Leslie Bacon! I called the heroin hot line on Abby Hoffman! I bought the gun that Bremmer used to shoot Wallace! I had an affair with Juan Corona! I blew Richard Speck! And I’m so fuckin’ beautiful I can’t stand it myself!”

Originally called Rotten Mind, Rotten Face, this got its name from when Waters and Stole visited Mueller in the hospital. Asking what was wrong — she had pelvic inflammatory disease — she answered, “Just a little female trouble, hon.”

Red Reed said, “Where do these people come from? Where do they go when the sun goes down? Isn’t there a law or something?”

Always and forever, fuck Rex Reed. That line ended up on the poster and the DVD box.