“Welcome to Sparkle’s Tavern, a bizarre little hole-in-the-wall. In the Convenience Parlor in the back of the tavern are four more holes in the `Suck Stalls.’ When the chorus girls and headliner Sparkle aren’t singing and dancing, they’re servicing the leather-cowboy patrons. Buster, the proprietor (and Sparkle’s gay brother) runs around nervous all the time and occasionally helps out at the stalls: `All this [fluid] is going to give me the runs,’ he says at one point. These siblings are terrified that their fragile, obsessive-compulsive mother will one day discover her children’s secrets. When gang leader Jock `rapes’ Sparkle in his apartment already full of `whiskey-laden, naked’ bodies, his jealous, white-trash girlfriend, Brenda (comparable to actress Yvette Mimieux), spills the beans about Beth Sue (Sparkle) and her non-sensual, highly dramatic Mom. This info allows Jock to blackmail Buster and seize control of his tavern. Jock sends an invitation to Mrs. Blake for a free night at the tavern…
`Sparkle’s Tavern’ is a lusty, bizarre, sexually-dripping marvel of the emotional dangers in a dysfunctional family crippled with secrets and lost passions. Marion Eaton as Mrs. Blake is the marvelously pinched backbone of this body of decadence and Dionysian mania. After the `enlightenment,’ Buster is stunned that his kooky, closed mother comes to his tavern. She brings a mysterious guest, Mr. Pupik (`pupik’ is Yiddish for belly button), who sings revealing jingles and eats things like Christmas candy wrapped in slices of olive loaf.”
~Frederic E. Kahler, IMDB
