“She Said What I Think All Day Long”: ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains’ and the Many Lives of an Unkillable Cult Classic

The first time Corinne Burns (Diane Lane) appears on television, it does not go well. An orphaned teenager in the rust belt city of Charleston, Pennsylvania interviewed by Harley Dennis (Peter Donat), the stuffy host of a 60 Minutes-like newsmagazine, Corinne finds herself fired from her fast food job mid-interview after an angry outburst in which she declared that Charleston, though popularly known as “the town that will not die,” actually “died years ago.” Yet, as Dennis informs his audience, Corinne’s angry appearance—which plays as part of the newsmagazine segment that opens Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains—resonated with those watching. Viewers sent the show “8,000 letters in 10 days,” including one from a 15-year-old Chicago resident named Sam who wrote, “I think that girl is great. She said what I think all day long.”

The story told by the film Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains often reflects the story of the film itself. Shot in 1980, Stains was essentially abandoned by Paramount after a string of unsuccessful test screenings. The studio released the film in a handful of theaters in Denver, Boulder, and Fresno in 1982 and it might easily have disappeared entirely had it not then been shuttled off to the world of television. Stains began resurfacing on cable and in syndication in 1983, but 1985 served as the true year zero for its cult following. That’s when the film first showed up on USA Network’s weekend late-night programming block Night Flight, a stoner-friendly collection of music videos and cult films created and curated by producer Stuart Shapiro. (Perhaps it should come as no surprise that Night Flight’s revival as a streaming service has coincided with cannabis legalization.)

Night Flight aired the film regularly between 1985 and 1986, then it essentially vanished from circulation. Music rights issues prevented the film from even receiving a release on VHS in an era when seemingly every title imaginable found its way into video stores. (It wouldn't legally be available on home video until a 2008 DVD release.) But that didn’t mean it disappeared. The film lived on via bootleg tapes, the occasional revival screening, and the advocacy of passionate fans like Sarah Jacobson, a pioneering DIY filmmaker who penned an oral history of the film for a 1997 issue of Beastie Boys’ Grand Royal magazine that included praise from Courtney Love, Tamra Davis, Pat Smear, MTV personality Jake Foglenest, and others.* However hard to find it became, Stains and its tale of an all-female teenage punk trio’s rise and fall (and then rise again, maybe, depending on how you look at it) had been seen. The film’s most passionate fans even saw themselves reflected back from the screen.