CRY-BABY

US, 1990, 85 minutes, Colour.
Johnny Depp, Amy Locane, Susan Tyrell, Polly Bergen, Iggy Pop, Rikki Lake, Traci Lords.
Directed by John Waters.

Cry Baby was written and directed by John Waters. Waters had a celebrated reputation for eccentric film `trash', especially in films starring Divine. However, with Hairspray in the later '80s, he made a film which was popular with his cult devotees as well as with the public. It was a nostalgic (yet critical) comic look at Baltimore, where he grew up, in the early '60s. It had the advantage of large actress Rikki Lake as the heroine, a counterbalance to the glamorous starlet heroines. However, this time he has gone back to 1954 in Baltimore, the town young people divided into the cliques, the Squares and the Drapes. The star of the film is the pop hero Johnny Depp (Edward Scissorhands, 21 Jump Street).

The supporting cast is a who's who of eccentric casting with Susan Tyrrell and Iggy Pop as the world's filthiest couple, Polly Bergen as Mrs Vernon-Williams?, Tracy Lord, the pornography film star, as Wanda, Steven Mailer (son of author Norman) as the bad square Baldwin, Troy Donohue and Mink Stole as Hatchet's parents, Joe d'Alessandro and Joey Hetherton as Milton's parents, David Nelson and actual Patricia Hearst as Wanda's parents. Finally Willem Dafoe appears towards the end of the movie as a hateful guard.

The film has a lot of musical numbers, looks back to the '50s and the beginning of the rock era. However, echoing Grease, it is a boy-meets-girl romance, each from the opposite side of the tracks, consequences for adults and for young people - and even a prison sequence with echoes of Jailhouse Rock.

While Johnny Depp is a popular star, he is perhaps too `normal' compared with Rikki Lake (who appears as his sister in this film) for Cry Baby to be as ingratiating as Hairspray.

1.Humour, spoof and parody? Sending up the '50s? The re-creation of the period in Baltimore?

2.The work of John Waters? The aesthetic of trash movies and their cult? The spoof of American culture, the blend of nostalgia and parody?

3.1954, the period, the period of Johnny Ray and `Cry'? The movies of the time, the music, the ethos? Youth and youth values?

4.The impact of the stars and the great range in the supporting cast?

5.The range of songs, performance, the choreography?

6.Baltimore in the '50s, the environment, rich and poor, gangs, the upper crust and the delinquents?

7.The portrait of the Drapes? Wade Walker as Cry Baby and Johnny Depp's presence and style? His look, leadership, singing style? His relationship with his parents? His executed father, his adoptive parents? His relationship with Pepper? Wanda, Hatchet-face and the gang? Their activities, singing and performing? The jukebox jamboree? The rock 'n roll song?

8.The contrast with the Squares, Alison and her hyphenated name, her grandmother and the charm school, Baldwin and his attraction towards Alison? Manners and style?

9.Cry Baby and Alison, the jukebox jamboree, the Drapes and the Drapettes, Alison joining Cry Baby on the stage, romancing? The reaction of Baldwin?

10.Baldwin, the bike, the fire, the brawl, the police, the court case? The Squares going free, the condemnation of the Drapes? The parents and their coming in, their pleas? The reaction of the judge?

11.The portrait of the Drapes: Pepper and Pepper's children, being taken away to the orphanage, the orphans displayed in the windows? Wanda and her behaviour, the plan for the exchange student to Sweden? Cry Baby and his going to prison?

12.Baldwin and his intrigue, the plan with Lenora, the talk about her pregnancy, her lies, the drama of the radio interview?

13.Cry Baby in jail, the parody of the prison films, the musical number, his escape?

14.Mrs Vernon-Williams? and her antagonism, change of heart, Cry Baby out of prison, her supporting Alison, Alison in love?

15.The confrontation with Baldwin, his father operating the electric chair, the build-up to the chicken race - and Pepper giving birth? The future?

16.An entertaining parody? Nostalgia? The point of this kind of American humour?