Polyester (film)

Polyester
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	John Waters
Written by	John Waters
Produced by	Robert Shaye John Waters Michael White
Starring	Divine Tab Hunter David Samson Edith Massey Mink Stole
Cinematography	David Insley
Edited by	Charles Roggero
Music by	Debbie Harry Michael Kamen Chris Stein
Production companies	New Line Cinema Dreamland Michael White Productions
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release date	May 29, 1981 (1981-05-29)
Running time	86 minutes[1]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$300,000[2]
Box office	$1.12 million[3]

Polyester is a 1981 American comedy film directed, produced, and written by John Waters, and starring Divine, Tab Hunter, Edith Massey, and Mink Stole. It satirizes the melodramatic genre of women's pictures, particularly those directed by Douglas Sirk, whose work directly influenced this film. The film is also a satire of suburban life in the early 1980s, involving topics such as divorce, abortion, adultery, alcoholism, racial stereotypes, foot fetishism, and the religious right.

Polyester was filmed in Waters' native Baltimore, Maryland, like many of his previous films. It featured a gimmick called Odorama, whereby moviegoers could smell what they were viewing on-screen with special scratch-and-sniff cards (a stylistic tribute to the work of William Castle, whose films typically featured attention-grabbing gimmicks).

Following Stunts, it was among the earliest films that New Line Cinema produced.