John Waters | The Diane Linkletter Story / 1970

the doctor calls too late

by Douglas Messerli

 

Divine, David Lochary, and Mary Vivian Pearce, and John Waters (mostly ad-libbed dialogue), John Waters (director) The Diane Linkletter Story / 1970

 

Even John Waters admits that the 10-minute short, The Diane Linkletter Story is the worst of all his movies, but describes it as being an accident as he and his actors were trying out a new sound system. The actors simply ad-libbed the dialogue to check out the new synchronized sound.

    In a sort of prologue consisting a seemingly real dialogue between Linkletter and his daughter (at least the voice that sounds like his), Art pleads: “Come back, come back before you’re trapped in a life that daily grows more aimless and unreal.” The credits, written on paper, are lifted between sentences by Divine.

    The film itself has its own looney logic as the Art Linkletter (David Lochary) and his wife Lois (Mary Vivian Pearce) wait up late for their daughter Diane (Divine), trying to imagine where she might be, Lois suggesting that she’s been going “with that crowd again,” Art continuing the train of thought “from that acting school I told you she shouldn’t go.” Lois admits that Diane told her she’s been taking drugs, and soon together they concur that something has changed about their sweet little girl since she been going out with Jim.  “She now hangs out with stringy-haired hippies and is probably on drugs down on the strip.” 

    Lois seems to know more about her daughter’s recent bad habits than Art, who wonders why she hasn’t told him about his daughter’s recent drug activity. Moreover, she can’t control her highs anymore.. Perhaps it’s just all hormonal, Lois vaguely comments. But Art fears “her youth has been stolen by this poison.”

     They agree that they’ve done everything for her, and now Lois suggests they should send her to a doctor like the ones he meets at the club.

     Art is clearly concerned since he’s been talking about these drugs on his show, drugs sold by the mafia and college students. Why can’t the police do anything about it? asks Lois. They have to punish her, declares Art. “We’ve been too liberal.”

      Finally, Diane returns, barely fearing at all to tell them she’s been down on the strip with Jim.

     When they attempt to describe how bad she looks, Diane insists in pure Divine style: “I am what I am and I’m doing my own thing in my time, dammit.”

     “That means nothing to me at all,” Art responds.

     “Who are these people? Is this that Jim?” Lois asks.

     “Jim is a groovy guy.”

      Diane soon makes clear that she’s on LSD this very moment, and Art goes off to call a doctor or the police, or anyone who can help. “Call someone!” Lois pleads.

       Diane soon grows even more distraught by the turn of events. “I don’t need a doctor. Mother, make him stop. It’s my own life. Let me do what I want to do!”

       “You are our child.”

       “I know, but I’m doing my own thing,” she once more insists.

       After much more back and forth argument, Lois intervenes: “Diane are you pregnant?”

       “No, but I wish I was!” Diane runs upstairs, her father shouting after, “And never come back down!”

       In her room Diane proclaims that she hates her parents, while below Lois seems to think that she’s calmed down. Art describes her as a “shocking nut.”

       Diane leaps out the window, and a narrational voice cries out, “So please come back to us. We love you. Call collect.”

 

      Even in an ad-libbed, off-the-cuff piece of fluff, Waters and his cast are better at carrying the true tone of camp humor—the utter seriousness of its sad satire—much better than many a Warhol movie or other such works of the day.

 

Los Angeles, April 24, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (April 2024).