It is hard to imagine Johnny Depp scrambling for a movie role.
Flicks like Alice in Wonderland and the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise have made him one of the world‘s most in-demand movie stars.
Yet in 1990 Depp was still best known as a TV teen idol via his role as a youthful undercover cop fighting crime in schools in 21 Jump Street.
Enter John Waters, the Baltimore based filmmaker best known for homemade hits like Female Trouble, Desperate Living and the infamous Pink Flamingos.
The midnight movie mogul had recently made a modestly successful bid for mainstream acceptance with the PG-rated Hairspray.
He was looking for someone to star in his follow-up film. Depp was trying to escape his status as a pop cultural pin up boy.
The 1990 movie Cry-Baby seemed to suit both of their purposes.
It‘s Romeo and Juliet on a Motorcycle!
Cry-Baby is set in Baltimore in 1954.
Depp is Wade “Cry-Baby“ Walker, a drip dry James Dean type who leads a gang of juvenile delinquents called the Drapes.
Depp‘s character has earned his distinctive nickname via his ability to shed a single tear.
“I‘m so tired of being good,“ sighs society deb Allison Vernon-Williams (Amy Locane) as she gazes wistfully at Walker and the stage is set for a rumble between the Drapes and a clean cut gang of upscale kids who call themselves the Squares.
Allison ditches suburbanite boyfriend Baldwin (Stephen Mailer) and hops on Walker‘s Harley and all heck breaks loose.
Depp Does The Elvis
Depp‘s character ends up in reform school.
The setting affords Waters the opportunity to stage some nifty song and dance routines right out of Jailhouse Rock.
In fact, the whole movie appears to be a skewed homage to 1950s junk culture.
Picture an Elvis drive-in movie directed by Andy Warhol and you get some idea of the flavour of the film.
Disparate Casting
The diverse cast includes veteran rocker Iggy Pop, former porn princess Traci Lords, onetime Warhol film star Joe Dallesandro, faded Sixties teen dream Troy Donahue and kidnapped heiress turned bank robber Patty Hearst.
It‘s hard to imagine this disparate group of people at a backyard barbeque let alone a film set but then oddball casting is one of the signatures of Waters films of this period.
It‘s a Wrap
The Baltimore based filmmaker has not lost of all his celebrated bad taste here - he has simply, um, watered it down to fit into a PG-13 rating.
Fans of campy nostalgia should enjoy this blast into the past.
However, the film is notable mainly for a chance to see the future box office champ in one of his first starring roles (and his one and only collaboration with the notorious Waters.)
Richard Goertz - Richard Goertz has a Bachelor of Arts degree majoring in English and History acquired light years ago (when his hair was longer) and have ...
