Customer Reviews

Lust in the Dust [VHS]

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Being a huge fan of late greats Divine and Paul Bartel, I've been a fan of this film for many years. I just purchased the DVD edition of this film and was pleasantly surprised by the packaging and information on this disk. The menus are adorned with huge, scary close-ups of Divine's face with the Lust in the Dust theme song playing over the menu selections. It's pretty great! But, best of all, is the 16 minute featurette, More Lust Less Dust which features interviews with stars Tab Hunter and Lainie Kazan as well as other people related with the project. They talk about the fun atmosphere and location shooting (highlighted with stills and home movies) and feature many rare images of Divine and Bartel. The most interesting aspect in the documentary was the discussion of how they wanted to keep the film from being a "John Waters film without John Waters" and the very surprising footage of Edith Massey's screen test for the film! Ultimately, she wasn't used. All in all, a great and funny disc (and at times a touching tribute) that wonderfully displays many of the talents of these two talented (and underestimated) men; Divine and Paul Bartel. We will miss them!

But that's because I happen to think you can't get much funnier than casting a very overweight white male (who thinks he's a female) as a side-saddle burro riding Mexican plus sized siren named Rosie Velez, who is on her way to the dusty desert town of Chile Verde. Miss Kazan, one of moviedoms most underrated comedic actress', shines with her usual brilliance. Definately one of my personal top ten rated comedy pictures of all time. Which means it's right up there with "Some Like it Hot" "Dinner at Eight" and "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World".

I first saw this on the big screen. It was funny then and it is funny on the video screen. A spoof of the Clint Eastwood save-the-fair-maiden from the bad guys medium sized epics. Geoffrey Lewis is a good bad guy. Lanie Kazan is excellent as the tough girl who fights mano a mano with our heroine the petite-plus Devine. Cesar Romero has almost as much fun being serious as when he was The Joker. And, there is dust and occassional lust and a town that looks like it needs The Magnificent Seven. I still enjoy seeing this one at least once a year. It is a good choice for college age types who don't want to think too hard after a tough exam. If you like this one, be sure to catch Tab and Devine in Polyster and Devine in Hairspray.

Lust In The Dust is an excellent spoof of western films with plenty of laughs and great entertainment. Many people mistakenly believe that this is a John Waters movie; it is not. Tab Hunter was one of the producers and he plays tough, mysterious gunfighter Able Wood as well.

But already I am getting somewhat ahead of myself. The action actually begins when we see Rosie Velez (Divine) struggling in the heat of the desert with her mule as she tries to get to Chile Verde in New Mexico. Soon she meets up with a rough and tough silent type cowboy who turns out to be the very famous Able Wood; and together they enter Chile Verde.

Rosie wants a job as a singer at the only saloon in town owned by Marguerita Ventura (Lainie Kazan); and the catfights start right from the word go as Rosie and Marguerita don't exactly get along. Sure, Rosie gets a job--scrubbing floors in the saloon, that is! Meanwhile, Able turns out to be in Chile Verde to find the long lost gold treasure allegedly buried there. Although the town's priest (Cesar Romero) denies that the gold treasure actually exists, soon almost everyone in town reveals that they are really there just to find the hidden gold treasure.

Of course there are many laughs along the way. Rosie sings a hilarious song as she auditions to sing in Marguerita's saloon; and Able spars with Hard Case Williams (Geoffrey Lewis), a rough and tough man himself--who is always quoting intimidating passages from the Bible. We get fight scenes and the inevitable race for the gold.

It may seem like I gave it all away; but I really didn't. Look for some very funny scenes with the piano bar player Red Barker (Courtney Gains) and the race for the gold treasure could make any one of several characters--or more than one person--very rich fast. Even after the treasure might actually be found, what happens to Rosie, Able, Marguerita, the town's priest--and the others?

The choreography works really well in the fight scenes; and the cinematography gives us great widescreen shots of the New Mexican desert. Excellent!

The DVD extras include a fifteen minute featurette with Tab Hunter and others telling the story of how this movie came to be a reality; and we get quite a bit of rare bonus footage of people like Edith Massey auditioning for the role of one of the "women of the night" in Marguerita's saloon.

Overall, Lust In The Dust is great entertainment that not enough people take the time to watch. It's fun, hilarious and even better if you've seen a few westerns in your time. It's also based on Duel In The Sun; and many people who remember Duel In The Sun will appreciate the parody of that movie's ending at the end of Lust In The Dust.

I highly recommend Lust In The Dust for people who like movies that spoof westerns; and people who like campy, over the top entertainment will cherish this film for ages to come. With a cast including Divine, Lainie Kazan, Tab Hunter, Cesar Romero and more you just can't miss.

Enjoy!

On the road to Chili Verde Divine hooks up with Tab Hunter, once there they learn of the legend of the gold. Guns fights, cat fights and sexual hijinks follow but it's all too tame. The first 15 minutes are fine with Divine swimming bottomless then wearing out four rapists, but soon the focus of the film drifts away from the campy stuff and goes more about the story of the lost gold. Who cares about the gold?! I want to see Divine half-naked and singing and eating pie underwater and maybe biting a midget on the foot, not searching for gold.

I respect Paul Bartel, but I think John Waters would have been better for this movie. Yea, I know he turned down the job but that doesn't change the fact he probably would have made a better film. At least it would have been cruder and campier and that's what we want right?

Also Gina Gallego didn't have a big enough role.

It isn't the greatest movie ever, but it has some great moments. I am buying this strictly to hear Divine's pub room song. It is th highlight of the film. Another scene you'll love is when a lover gets accidently squeezed to death between Divine's legs. And don't miss Divine riding a donkey through the desert!

One of the funniest films of the 1980's. By far Paul Bartel's best work. Seeing Divine sing THESE LIPS ARE MADE FOR KISSIN' is worth the price of the DVD.

I notice some seriously humor-impaired reviews here, but this is one of the movies I can watch over and over and never get tired of(Mad Mad Mad Mad World and anything by Laurel and Hardy are some others). Just fantastic-Cesar Romero and Lainie Kazan are great, as is the whole cast. IMHO the whole movie is about perfect.

Critics be damned. I love this movie. Paul Bartel directed two of my favorite 80's comedies---"Eating Raoul" and this. Only Bartel could have put together a cast like this in a western satire and get away with it. Lainie Kazan (a much underrated actress with fantastic comedy skills) and Divine are a perfect match for a hellcat-take-all catfight. "You're cheap!" snarls Kazan at Divine. "Cheap!?" shrieks Divine. "This FURNITURE"S cheap!" as she cracks a chair over Kazan's head. Oh, but there is much more going on here. Great location shooting, Tab Hunter as an Eastwood-type mystery drifter, two completely TASTELESS "show-stopper" style saloon numbers -one by Divine and one by Kazan, Cesar Romero as a deranged priest, the wonderful Nedra Volz as "Big Ed" and a host of other top-notch supporting players all rollicking and frolicking their way through this funny,funny movie. As I said, critics may have hated it but I recommend it for Bartel/Divine/Kazan/Hunter fans. The title was supposedly a play on the old western trash classic "Duel In The Sun"!

Divine, the alter ego of Glen Milstead (1945-1988), first burst onto an unsuspecting public with such notorious John Waters films as the infamous PINK FLAMINGOS, dishing up bad-taste humor in proportion with her truly ample size. But there was more to Divine than drag queen humor, and LUST IN THE DUST offers her a less extreme playground, pitting her against a lone gunman (Tab Hunter), a vicious saloon floozie (Lainie Kazan), and a host of desperados in a flyweight send up the spaghetti westerns so popular in the 1970s and 1980s.

Directed by Paul Bartel, best known for his 1982 black comedy EATING RAOUL, LUST IN THE DUST is essentially the very slight story of a search for gold--a search that leads Able Wood (Hunter), Marguarite Ventura (Kazan), and Rosie Velez (Divine) to the isolated old west one horse town of Chile Verde. There, with support from the likes of Cesar Romero, they snap, snarl, break up furniture, sing bawdy songs, show their tatoos, and... well... lust in the dust. What else?

I may be overly generous in granting this film four stars. The film is occasionally slow and there's nothing greatly inspired about plot, script, and so on--but the performers make the whole thing a lot of fun. Divine wallows, Kazan hisses, and Hunter sweats with the best of 'em, and when it comes to one-liners the movie overflows with both the obvious and very unexpected. Yes, it's all very silly stuff, but everybody puts it over with flair and a sense of fun; you'll grin in spite of yourself. The DVD offers a reasonable, if not pristine, print of the film--and there's even a bonus package: the film trailer and an entertaining little "making of" documentary.

If you're already a Divine fan, LUST IN THE DUST is a must; if you've never encountered Divine, this would be a good place to start, for it lacks the truly jaw-dropping (and frequently off-putting) content of Divine's work for John Waters. Two tons of big fun!

GFT, Amazon Reviewer