Madame Wang's

Madame Wang's is a story about a Sadomachistic East German, (played by Patrick Shoene) who comes to L.A. looking for Jane Fonda to help lead the revolution. He Jumps ship just before dock and swims ashore to find a group of people living in an old abandoned building, some sell junk at the local flea market (one crazy looking fellow likes to sniff door handles), others sell their bodies for money. It is at one of these Flea Markets that Madame Wang is introduced, she happens to be the owner of Madame Wang's Restaurant, a place for Punk bands to get their start. The East German has no luck finding Jane Fonda so instead decides to live the American Lifestyle for a while, donning Soccer jersey's (which what he thinks all Americans wear) and hoping he can score a Mercedes from a rich sugar Mama he hooked up with. Instead one of the Hookers he first met at the abandoned building tells him to try out at an audition at Madame Wang's, He goes and finds the whole thing crazy, and does not really want to be a punk, but gets a gig because he cuts his stomach up to the tune of guitar grinding, and Madame Wang approves! This film was backed by the same Producer who put up the money for Forty-Deuce, and is hard to find in North America on any format. Good Luck Finding this one on your local video store rack. Jane Fonda is NOT in this movie. But there are notable appearances by Local Punk Bands, some who went on to make somewhat of names for themselves, like The Mentors & El Duce.

I loved it! I ate it up, bit by bit! Paul Morrissey's painfully underestimated 1981 punk/commie/thrash-comedy may have come a few years to late (the thrashy and tacky white thrash aesthetics used in this film were already explored by John Waters in the 70's, and punk was getting way to over-exposed). But that doesn't matter since this is one of the funniest films of the 80's! It's the kind of film you just have to watch over and over until every act and line is memorized. Practically every scene in this film is notorious. And it's got a very original, great outlandish humor that almost got me killed the first time i saw it. For example we got a fat transsexual (perhaps not so original in this type of film) who talks about hamburgers for ten minutes, swap-market irony, disco dancing guru's and a homosexual man who quite literally like to polish his doorknobs all day long. The main story is centered around a young, beautyful communist man who is stranded i the U.S, looking for Jane Fonda. But the only things he finds are human thrash, money hustling and a never ending talk about the fabulous punk club-ownerer Madame Wang who is going to make them all stars. I'm not much for overanalyzing pictures so I leave you with these words: buy, rent or steal Madame Wang's tomorrow! If you have any kind of humor you will not regret it. I give this flick ten doorknobs out of ten possible.