Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains

Director: Lou Adler

1982 / 87min / 35mm

Laura Dern turned 13 during the shoot of Adler’s film, Dern's second credited screen role and the crown jewel in the girl punk canon, in which orphaned high school dropout Diane Lane hits the road with her all-female garage band (rounded out by Dern and Marin Kanter) in search of stardom, fiercely facing the hostility of male-dominated audiences and condescension of macho knuckle-dragger peers (actual members of the Sex Pistols, the Clash, and the Tubes appear, while Ray Winstone plays Lane’s rocker peer love interest and antagonist.) A stinging proto-riot grrrl satire of music industry sexism with an acid script by Nancy Dowd (Slap Shot) and Caroline Coon, which would make the Stains’ “Never Put Out” the personal mantra of generations of fans who discovered it on late-night cable.