Female Trouble

Dawn Davenport is a teenage troublemaker whose Christmas turns sour when her parents refuse to buy her the cha-cha heels she wants. She leaves home, and her life drifts through an unwanted pregnancy and a marriage to a hairdresser before she is drawn into crime by a salon-owning couple who see a way to turn her defiance into fame.

John Waters wrote, produced and directed this 1976 comedy-crime film, his third feature after Multiple Maniacs and Pink Flamingos and the one that precedes Desperate Living in his filmography. Divine plays Dawn as well as Earl Peterson, heading a cast that includes David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce, Mink Stole, Edith Massey and Cookie Mueller among forty-one credited performers. Waters' regular Dreamland troupe gives the film its characteristic ensemble.

The film runs 98 minutes and was released in February 1976. On TMDB it holds a rating of 6.9 out of 10 from around 240 votes, a modest but solid figure that suggests a small, engaged audience rather than broad viewership, consistent with the cult following around Waters' early work.