Ladies and gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Have any of you ever heard of a movie called Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains?

[00:00:05]Ladies and gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains. No.

[00:00:08]No. No. Who's it by?

[00:00:11]Ladies and gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains.

[00:00:14]I may have, but I'm not sure.

[00:00:16]Anybody else think they may have? I remember it Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous, but I forgot the rest of it.

[00:00:22]But the name was familiar.

[00:00:24]All right. And there you have it. Nobody really knows. According to a recent Newsweek poll, 83 million Americans plan to see Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.

[00:00:33]Now, I'm not even sure if a total of 83 people have seen a missing Paramount picture from the early '80s called Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains.

[00:00:42]Two of its biggest admirers, Sam Green and Sarah Jacobson, investigate the colorful case of its disappearance and reemergence.

[00:00:52]You might have seen this film on late night television and wondered what the hell it was.

[00:00:57]I'M PERFECT.

[00:00:59]BUT NOBODY IN THIS [ __ ] GETS me cuz I don't put out. Diane Lane, Laura Dern, and Marin Kanter as teen girls in a punk band. Don't touch me. Fee Waybill of the Tubes doing his best Alice Cooper.

[00:01:13]Members of the Sex Pistols [music] and the Clash basically playing themselves.

[00:01:18]B-movie queen Debbie Rochon as a 12-year-old extra.

[00:01:21]And Christine Lahti as trailer trash.

[00:01:24]The movie is even more bizarre when you consider it was produced by Joe Roth, who now runs Disney.

[00:01:30]Directed by Lou Adler, famous for producing the Mamas and the Papas [music] and the films Up in Smoke and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

[00:01:38]And written by Nancy Dowd, who also wrote Slap Shot and won an Oscar for Coming Home. You stink!

[00:01:46]The film tells the story of a teen girl band who run away from home to open for some English punkers and a washed-up metal act.

[00:01:54]Through the power of TV, they become stars. Stars. Their look and attitude inspire girls everywhere.

[00:02:01]They rise to fame only to crash and burn.

[00:02:04]And then discover true success from the whole process.

[00:02:08]Made in 1980, the film was never released.

[00:02:12]But after airing on late night TV a few times, it somehow amassed a cult audience which includes [music] Courtney Love, members of Bikini Kill, and Jon Bon Jovi.

[00:02:23]Now finally, 18 years after it was made, due to popular demand, the film is getting a video release.

[00:02:30]The story of the making of the film is as fascinating as the film [music] itself.

[00:02:35]Ladies and gentlemen, here's the story of Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains.

[00:02:42]After the success of Slap Shot, Nancy Dowd wanted to write a film about girls escaping their dreary mill town lives through rock and roll.

[00:02:50]She was inspired by her own background as well as seeing The Ramones for the first time. I was so riveted when I saw The Ramones. You have to remember that during the '70s, um everything in terms of music was junk.

[00:03:07]Nancy Dowd was friends with this woman, Caroline [ __ ] Caroline was a journalist who had written a book about the very, very early days of the punk movement in London.

[00:03:18]I guess it came about like that, that they wanted a band, a punk band. I wasn't too sure about it at the time really, but we heard that there was a lot of money on offer.

[00:03:28]Lou Adler had directed Up in Smoke and was looking for a new project. Lou Adler. And they sent me two scripts.

[00:03:35]Uh, one was The Fabulous Stains, uh, which was called All Washed Up at the time.

[00:03:43]And the other was Airplane.

[00:03:45]>> [music] >> Diane Lane was 14 years old and had done only one film when she auditioned.

[00:03:51]Well, it was a very weird script and I thought how am I going to pull this off?

[00:03:58]I can't sing, you know.

[00:04:00]I suck. And then I thought, well, that's they're supposed to suck. So, maybe I can do that.

[00:04:05]>> [laughter] >> The film was shot in 1980 in Vancouver.

[00:04:10]It was not your average movie shoot. I had a methadone habit as well as doing heroin and when we got to Vancouver I couldn't find anything.

[00:04:19]So, I was going through major withdrawals the whole time I was there.

[00:04:24]On the film we had 13 or 14 people who had either doing their first film or had never done a film before including myself who had directed only one film. Other cast members included Paul Simonon of The Clash and British actor Ray Winstone.

[00:04:41]Despite the lack of experience, the actors rose to the challenge.

[00:04:45]We had the designated drug trailer so that we would all go smoke pot to get into character, you know, because we were drug addicts.

[00:04:58]Is there any coke in this [ __ ] man? Uh Laura was great. I mean, her scene in the dressing room is still terrific and a lot of it came right out of her.

[00:05:09]I hate the name Jessica. It's a lovely name. Makes me gag. Diane was going a lot on instinct at that time. You are so jealous of me.

[00:05:19]I'm everything you ever wanted to be.

[00:05:22]A [ __ ] Exactly.

[00:05:25]It was uh nerve-wracking to have that kind of ballsiness that Perrin pulls off. He was an old man in the young girl's world. A [ __ ] you attitude and and and the see-through clothes. I mean, I was mortified. I thought you know, you can see my nipples. To get the fashion and attitude right, Caroline [ __ ] was brought in as a punk rock expert.

[00:05:48]I wanted Caroline very much to become what I suppose is the technical advisor on the movie. To be the person [music] who who came up with the look.

[00:05:59]>> [singing] >> The kids were really fascinating. I loved how they ended up looking. Part of the look of the film was the hundreds of extras.

[00:06:08]B movie queen Debbie Rochon was homeless and 12 years old when she auditioned for the casting [music] director. It's been a long time since I've been able to kill something.

[00:06:17]She said, "Will you dye your hair? Very extreme." And I said, "Absolutely. I'm not doing anything else right now."

[00:06:23]Working with teenage girls is like working with teenage girls.

[00:06:27]Then you take those girls and you throw them in with uh an English punk band and we all stay in the same hotel. It was wild.

[00:06:36]We should have filmed it.

[00:06:38]Sex Pistols were big time back then. It looked like the kids invaded the hotel.

[00:06:43]And we was right up on the 19th floor and stuff and they were kind of they were going crazy downstairs and we actually started lobbing bottles at them from the 20th floor, you know. Like I don't know what they wanted, whether they wanted us to be friendly or to kill us. There was more Sex Pistols was going on when the camera wasn't rolling than what was for the movie, you know what I mean? I saw the dawn a lot, you know.

[00:07:07]It's stuff you can only do when you're that age.

[00:07:10]While everyone else was having fun, Nancy Dowd, who'd won an Oscar at this point, was fighting with the director and dealing with sexual harassment from the crew.

[00:07:19]So, I had to stand very close to the to the operator to get the eyeline correct.

[00:07:25]He went to turn the knob on the camera and as a joke, he he turned my breast. I remember thinking, "This is the most humiliating moment of my life."

[00:07:38]The incident only added to Nancy's feelings of being unwanted on the shoot.

[00:07:42]She ended up leaving the set early and taking her name off the film.

[00:07:50]After wrapping [music] the film, Lou Adler returned to Malibu to edit.

[00:07:54]Hopes for the movie were high. I figured it was going to be a classic. I just figured oh well, this is it. I'm going to you know, I'm going to be an actor now. I don't have to worry about getting a new record deal, you know, they're going to be knocking on my door. I thought it was really going to be good because Nancy wrote it and all these wonderful actors were involved. I thought when the movie was done that it was going to be a really big major motion picture in all the theaters and you know, I would be seen by trillions of people all over the world. Despite the high hopes, Lou Adler struggled with editing the film for over a year.

[00:08:28]At one point, he even shot a new ending where the Stains make it big looking surprisingly like the Go-Go's.

[00:08:34]>> [music] >> As the editing dragged on, doubts grew.

[00:08:38]I was calling him all the time. Well, there's a little problem and [music] we have to re-edit and blah blah blah and I kept starting to think oh man, this is sounds like rock and roll to me.

[00:08:50]You know, the tour's been postponed.

[00:08:53]Finally, ladies and gentlemen, the fabulous Stains [music] was done.

[00:08:58]Paramount previewed the film in Denver.

[00:09:01]The audience response cards were bad.

[00:09:04]It was a tough film to find the right film to preview with it and I don't think we had the audience. I guess every director says that if we have a bad preview. So, we were pretty much dead at Paramount.

[00:09:14]Maybe at at the time it might have been a bit corny.

[00:09:18]Just for the time.

[00:09:20]You know, after the Pistols and the punk thing was kind of dying out.

[00:09:24]It might have been a stupid time.

[00:09:26]After the film bombed at a handful of art houses in 1984, it was shelved.

[00:09:32]After that, it was only shown a few times on late night cable.

[00:09:36]One night in the mid-80s, I sort of rolled in from a party. I turn on the TV as I come in and, you know, feeling no pain, I look at the TV set and I think, "Gee, this looks kind of familiar."

[00:09:50]You know, and like, "Wait a minute.

[00:09:52]What's What's I Have I seen this movie before? What is this?" And I I wrote it. I've never seen the whole film.

[00:10:01]Never seen it.

[00:10:02]I think about 10 years ago I saw it.

[00:10:05]Someone had a copy of it.

[00:10:07]It a a copy of a copy.

[00:10:10]A a fan sent me a copy that they taped off a TV. So, that's still the only copy I have. But despite its limited screenings and no video release, The Decline somehow, after almost 20 years, managed to find its audience.

[00:10:26]It's the most important [music] film ever made. It has everything in it. It's got uh you you you know, the take on the music industry and then, you know, feminism and and uh just crazy rock and roll and some Jamaican guy with a with a thick accent you can't really understand what he's saying, but but he's so genius.

[00:10:44]It's just it's hilarious, but it's serious and it's it's so important. I can't stress how important [music] the movie is. Ladies and gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains.

[00:10:54]In 1998, the film had its first official screening in 15 years to a packed house at the Chicago Underground Film Festival.

[00:11:02]A large part of the film's cult audience is musicians. Pat Smear of The Germs and Nirvana wanted to re-record the soundtrack.

[00:11:10]Tobi Vail of Bikini Kill said, "It is the most realistic and profound film I have ever seen."

[00:11:16]Inspired by this new generation of fans, after 18 years, Paramount is finally releasing [music] this film on video.

[00:11:23]I would never have thought it. I thought this had gone to, you know, die in the Paramount vaults.

[00:11:29]The fact that this film, unreleased, about this underground borough band, is then somehow in its unreleased state inspired girl bands. It's great. It's great. So this little band did live on in some weird way.