Forever Fabulous

"Welcome to beauty queen world." Loreli Daily (Jean Smart, Designing Women, Style & Substance) is a former beauty queen who was forced to leave Texas under mysterious circumstances. When she receives a letter asking her to return to oversee a pageant, her current beauty queen daughter Corinne (Jennifer Elise Cox, Smart's Brady Bunch Movie co-star) pushes her to return to the Lonestar State. In tow are Loreli's sleazy boyfriend (Robert Wagner), Corinne's emotionally overwrought best friend Liz (Jorja Fox), and Tiffany Dawl (Emily Proctor), a conniving reporter who's looking to get a story on Loreli. Soon after hitting the road, a thoroughly bizarre death occurs and everything seems to go downhill for our heroines from there....

With its strange documentary narration, weird homages, endless references to Valley of the Dolls, quotable one-liners, campy performances, musical numbers, twist ending and a cameo by Mink Stole, Forever Fabulous (initially screened under the title Tiara Tango) seemed destined to become a cult classic. However, since it was barely released, it's only become a very minor cult favorite. Problems plagued the production (including numerous re-writes -- it was conceived as a much darker film with a higher body count), it never got picked up for major distribution (except for a few airings on cable) and a decade later, it still languishes in almost total obscurity.

The producers announced an official DVD release was forthcoming, but as of 2012 it still hasn't happened. Pity, this is an oddity that's waiting to be discovered by an adoring audience.