My older sister was a humongous fan of musicals at the young age when I was obsessed with horror films. She liked Grease and Dirty Dancing and a movie called CRY-BABY. That one she talked about a lot. I was too young to give a damn about either John Waters or even Johnny Depp at that time, and I was more familiar with Argento, Jackson and even Steve Miner. I might have accidentally (term used loosely) taped over her VHS copy of CRY-BABY, and she held it against me for a long time. During that period, I came to appreciate Johnny Depp as a versatile, soft-spoken actor of impressive range, due mainly, of course, to his work with Tim Burton. John Waters, however, took a bit more time and age to fully appreciate. He hadn't warped my fragile little mind in the way of Wes Craven and John Carpenter.

In retrospect, I kind of wish he did.

I should have listened to Tara. After all, it was she who first turned me on to Stand by Me, and I immediately thought it a wonder despite the disappointment of not seeing a Stephen King adaptation with a legit body count. I set myself straight in preparing for penance by sampling some of Waters' work by curiosity, including the immortal Pink Flamingos, the movie many devout, card-carrying appreciators of the writer/director declare his best. Surely, I found it audacious and sick, but that was before I watched Female Trouble, Polyester and A Dirty Shame. John Waters, the "pope of trash," finally got to me, that pencil-mustached queen.

CRY-BABY was a blind buy from the DVD shelves, and I watched it three times that day. Other movies and obligations kept me from watching it as religiously as I hoped, but I think I knew why my sister liked it. I think I ended up liking it more, especially after getting a college-level education and watching other John Waters films. Tara borrowed the DVD from me for a time being, and I almost forgot I had it until a brain fart occurred. Several pestering phone calls and constant reminders later, I got the movie back. I watched it only twice on that day.

Hairspray came out in 1988 and became John Waters' first and only mainstream success. For a brief while, Waters was sought after by major studios eager to inaugurate the Baltimore native into Hollywood. Produced by Imagine Entertainment and released via Universal, CRY-BABY came out in 1990 and was notable for starring Depp in the throes of his teen idol period. Depp wasn't a star, though, especially not the kind he is now, and the 21 Jump Street heartthrob couldn't help the movie turn a profit. Chalk up the movie's cult following, then, to TV and VHS, which presented either the original PG-13 theatrical version or an even more compromised edit which bothered Waters, contractually obligated to agree to both.

Thank goodness for the advent of DVD, because CRY-BABY premieres on the medium in a long-overdue Director's Cut. Having truly experienced CRY-BABY for the first time this way, I find it miles better than Dirty Dancing (nothing against Jennifer Grey or Patrick Swayze, though) and, dare I say it, even more of a hoot than Grease, which was pleasant if overrated. A bawdy satirist with a pure camp sensibility and often unspoken craftsmanship, Waters delivered a jovial movie musical that has fun with both the Elvis Presley vehicle and kitschy juvenile delinquent cautionary dramas of the 1950s. It also unmistakably wild in a way that only Waters can pull off.

Baltimore teenagers of 1954 are divided principally by two social classes a la West Side Story: the Squares and the Drapes. The latter are defined by dapper dictators in dinner suits singing barbershop-friendly, antiseptic versions of doo-wop. They uphold good manners, but they are also repressed and governed by fear in the form of air raid drills. They sure aren't pacifists either, as they draw first blood against their rivals, the Drapes. Characteristic of all society fears in losing control of their children, the hormone-fueled Drapes predominantly come from white trash families, play rockabilly (although there isn't a clear name for the sound in this movie) and cop cool, confrontational attitudes.

Wade "Cry-Baby" Walker (Depp) is a Drape. Allison Vernon-Williams (Amy Locane) is a Square. They first lock eyes during a polio vaccination, and naturally they get the hots for each other despite the objections from their cliques. Allison declares she's "tired of being good," whilst Cry-Baby (so named for the single tear that trickles from his eye) is willing to be courteous to her grandmother (Polly Bergen) to prove his sincerity in courting Allison, even in a speeding car. Allison is inducted into Drape society with considerably more openness by Wade's female compatriots, blonde bombshell Wanda Woodward (Traci Lords), pregnant but shapely Pepper (Ricki Lake) and Hatchet Face (Kim McGuire), who I'm convinced had a baby she named Rodney.

Cry-Baby and Allison, both orphans, strike up a romance at the Jukebox Jamboree until Allison's suitor Baldwin (Stephen Mailer) and his Square sidekicks start a riot by torching Cry-Baby’s prized motorbike. The Drapes, including Allison, are arrested and stand trial, with Pepper losing her two children and Cry-Baby's Uncle Belvedere (Iggy Pop) and Aunt Ramona (Susan Tyrrell) fined for all they've got. Mrs. Vernon-Williams pleads for the judge to let off Allison and Cry-Baby, but only Allison is pardoned, with Cry-Baby sentenced to juvenile delinquency hall until he's 21. If that's not bad enough, town hussy Lenore (Kim Webb) falsely announces on TV that she's pregnant with Cry-Baby's child. As the sleazily angelic Baldwin makes his move to win Allison, the Squares take back Baltimore and single out the Drapes for humiliation, and Cry-Baby's friends, as well as Allison's grandma, attempt to sway the judge's ruling.

Waters' touch in both adhering to and sending up the clichés of old teen exploitation flicks and Elvis musicals is flabbergasting. Using a crew which features several of his frequent collaborators ("Dreamlanders" Van Smith, costume designer, and Vincent Peranio, production designer) as well as a bigger budget than Hairspray allows for Waters' kitschy recreation of WASP suburbia and group socials both blandly formal and Technicolor-tinged outdoorsy to look even more professionally exaggerated. The broad but witty performances establish clearly drawn characters that manage to be serious as well as smirking. A whole sequence wherein Cry-Baby and Allison make out whilst confessing their dark family histories is orchestrated with manic energy and outlandishly-scripted specifics, particularly the revelation that Cry-Baby has a tattooed electric chair on his chest to honor the memories of his parents, including the notorious Alphabet Bomber. An obvious Drape sympathizer and proud outcast, Waters continues to send up bourgeois reservations of the past and now through broader-than-thou comic touches and references.

Surely Waters wasn't the first to poke fun at the Atomic Age's plasticine social fears and conformities, but his movie is arguably the most entertaining and playful 1950s satire. The opening credits sequence alone finds a surprisingly kinky undercurrent to the polio epidemic panic, and the hang-ups harbored by the Squares against the Drapes are played for a lot of ironic comic touches. When the astoundingly sincere Cry-Baby rides to the charm school to woo Allison, it seems a random crotch-scratching is all it takes to set off Baldwin. Other times, it's purely the result of stunt casting, as when Joe Dallesandro himself plays a preacher who chides his son, Milton (Darren Burrows), for wearing clothes "obviously designed by homosexuals." The son retorts by asking his father to not embarrass him and so that he can just have a good time. Like Hairspray, the movie is concerned with suggesting the outsiders are simply just living their young lives to the fullest in the face of rampant, myth-oriented hostility towards the others. By posing a nobly rebellious front and siding us with them, Waters allows us to bask in the Drapes' sense of freedom and fun.

Waters also injects his vivid scenery with a healthy dose of hormonal overdrive. The dancing sequences bristle with pelvis-thrusting life, and even if the French kissing is meant to look heavily freakish, Waters pays that joke off with the shot of Pepper's two kids recoiling and trading lollipops, thus proving they're on the cusp of getting over cooties. Several scenes are jaw-dropping in their sexual overtones, including a particularly kinky bit of tear-drinking on both Cry-Baby and Allison's part. The females in CRY-BABY are the type of heartbreaking tough chicks who literally use sex as a weapon (their bosoms can put someone's eye out). In the case of the three Cry-Baby femmes, even the butch Hatchet Face and the plump Pepper, they are wise and witty in their flirtations, whereas a character like Lenora is deliberately manipulative and a bit too obsessive (she sunburns her leg except the patch-covered area reserved for the initials CB).

1990 was the first year of Johnny Depp's career, taking on a dramatic role in Edward Scissorhands and a fearless comic role in this flick. He perfects every pout, sneer & puppy-dog gaze and delivers every choice bit of dialogue with gusto ("You got it, Allison. You got it RAW!"), but never fails to instill Cry-Baby with a genuine likeability. I take that back about the "fearless" part, because in the DVD extras, Depp comments on the dancing sequences as nightmarish because he didn't know how to dance. You'd never know it from watching this performance, especially the Jailhouse Rock knock-off wherein Cry-Baby, pressing license plates with Allison's name, reacts to his sweetheart's change of heart by singing "Doin' Time for Bein' Young" whilst getting knocked down by fire hoses and maneuvering his way through hordes of extras. Odd comic touch: the previously deleted scene wherein Depp erotically sticks a lit match in his mouth.

Amy Locane is effective as the chaste love interest turned smitten kitten, conjuring up Wanda Jackson and Ann-Margaret when the movie calls for it. Waters gets the most from his supporting cast, all immaculately chosen and playful. Kim McGuire has to be the oldest high school student in the history of teen movies, but she gets to twist that cliché on its ear as well as make for a lovely ugly. Traci Lords, at the time reeling from the underage porn scandal, gets to spit in the face of her past with a spirited performance that is as sexy as it is hilarious. Ricki Lake is as charming here as she was in Hairspray. Iggy Pop is a bundle of wiry charm, and he even gets to perform some of his Stooges-era shakes, whilst Susan Tyrrell chews the scenery at every chance to sublime effect. Patricia Hearst, David Nelson, Troy Donahue, Mink Stole, Joe Dallesandro, and Joey Heatherton play the Drape parents with gloriously tacky abandon (Hearst, in particular, looks exactly like she stepped out of some 1950s commercial). Willem Dafoe turns up for just one scene as a "Hateful Guard," but it is just as precisely funny as anyone else's performance.

CRY-BABY delivers some decent musical numbers, including plenty of vintage doo-wop as well as freshly-recorded reconstructions aided by the likes of Al Kooper, Dave Alvin (of The Blasters) and Rachel Sweet, the "Hairspray" singer who belts out Allison's vocal parts (with James Intveld doing Cry-Baby's parts). The songs bear the curse of sounding a bit too slick for something so simply archaic, with what sounds like drum machines keeping the beat of "Teenage Prayer" and "Teardrops Are Falling." But the rockabilly tracks deliver plenty of swing, including "King Cry-Baby," "Doin' Time for Bein' Young" and a final number that is named after a schlocky celluloid delinquency pic.

John Waters' only Hollywood-funded movie is a lightweight diversion, and those who know the director primarily as the indie merchant of shock and eww will see CRY-BABY as one of his lesser films. I would agree to some extent, especially if I'd seen this film before it was released on DVD. Waters' films are definitely not for everyone, and I can't view this film as a masterpiece. Hitched to its influences, it's a movie made for specific kind of audience weaned largely on pop trash, and it will grow tedious if you allow it. For a solid 92 minutes, however, Waters had me in the palm of his hand, demonstrating genuine craft and a heartwarming if considerably deranged grip on the material, as does the outstandingly odd cast and equally gifted crew. It looks more historically accurate than Grease or any Happy Days episode, and it steps to them with a ribald verve that‘s unbridled but still accessible. Waters knows well enough to know that it's very easy to plant your tongue in your cheek, but it's as much fun if not more so to your tongue inside someone else's cheek. That, in a nutshell, is why I like CRY-BABY so much. Even when it's bad, it sure feels good.

Focus Features presents the Director's Cut of CRY-BABY in a 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer. Among the reinstated footage includes some small dialogue extensions that help push the characters into either more absurd directions or give the characters extra color. Hatchet Face's parents (Troy Donahue and Mink Stole) are seen outside of the school peddling cigarettes to children, and sleazy photographer Toe-Joe Jackson (Alan J. Wendl) represents more of a leering menace in an extended sequence at the swimming hole. The elongated courtroom sequence (which un-bleeps the three comical uses of the f-bomb) makes more believable Mrs. Vernon-William's reluctant acceptance of Cry-Baby as a good bad boy. The last major addition shows the Squares bunny hopping in a line down the street, which leads to them pelting Pepper, Uncle Belvedere and Aunt Ramona with vegetables as they walk out of a welfare office.

The transfer itself looks hotter than I expected it would. The only real noticeable flaws were some halo-induced softness in a couple of shots, relative amounts of grain (especially at the opening) and mild shimmering, but the rest of the time both the print and the DVD transfer were faultless and clean. Colors looked particularly amazing (reds and greens shone well, whilst black is black) and the sharpness and contrast levels were spot-on in any type of lighted shot, be it the cool nighttime sequences or the bright daytime shots. The flesh tones were realistic, and every chintzy detail comes through with shiny clarity. I would have kissed the DVD if I didn't fear leaving an irremovable smudge on it.

The only audio option is a disappointing Dolby Digital 2.0 surround track. A 5.1 remix would've really helped match the solid picture quality lockstep, but the track we do get is flawed and workable. As it stands the mix is basic stereo, with flexible separation if some fluctuating levels of volume during the musical numbers in regards to the quality of the vocal tracks. Dialogue was concise and clear, if at times a bit tinny. Effects sounded natural and were fairly front-heavy, but the songs had enough punch and location to make for a lively if subdued track.

The extras on the DVD are limited to the basics: commentary, featurette and deleted scenes. They all enhanced my appreciation of the film and provided for an interesting enough experience to warrant a five-star grade. If you haven't had the pleasure of listening to John Waters do an audio commentary, run out and start watching some of his movies and make sure you don't skip them. His recollections are usually bittersweet, always personal and more often than not quite intelligent and tasteless. Simply put, Waters is a natural raconteur whose geniality and offbeat sense of humor is as effervescent as anything on display in his movies. The stories he tells from the production (involving the problems with rain machines and lip synching), the opinions he shares ("Vintage car drivers are worse than stage mothers") and the detailed observations of childhood memories (particularly his awe of the real-life Drapes, who demonstrated hubcap-stealing proficiency he admits were out of his league) are hilarious and appealing, even when he expresses puzzlement at the sexual nature of modern teenagers and drops references to the Glory Hole and a tradition known as "blow roasts." His commentary is NOT PG-13, a friendly reminder due to the nature of some topics of discussion, and I'm not just limiting this to the typical swipes against the MPAA (Susan Tyrrell's shameless salutations will induce a spit take).

Waters returns for more on "It Came From Baltimore," a new 47-minute piece on the making of CRY-BABY which features new interviews with the cast and crew, including Johnny Depp (also featured in archival clips), Amy Locane, Ricki Lake, Traci Lords, and Kim McGuire. It sets up the context of the film via scholarly discussions by Waters and writer David Ehrenstein, but most valuably some expertly woven clips from classic delinquency flicks like Live Fast, Die Young, which starred Troy Donahue, and films with both Sandra Dee and Mamie Van Doren. Waters even pulls out that big book of 1950s gay erotica (with Joe Dallesandro on the cover, natch) he used to help pitch the project, something he merely mentioned in the commentary. We also get plenty of discussions on the nature of a doing a John Waters film in Hollywood from producer Rachel Talalay and the three "Dreamlanders." Most fascinating is the revelation of a "Cry-Mary" clique that developed on set in order to comfort Traci once the FBI swooped down on the set. Casting director Pat Moran recalls a heartbreaking instance during the film's premiere involving a young girl whose appearance in the film as a contortionist was cut without her knowledge. Coupled with the commentary, the breadth and wealth of information on display is miraculous.

Said deleted supporting appearance by "the human wheel" is rescued for a fine collection of deleted scenes. Like Mr. Depp, who was able to riff on his prefab pin-up idol stature with assuredness and wit, Traci managed to find invaluable help from Waters and friends in breaking away from the public image stigma she'd been dealt with through CRY-BABY. The two outtakes involving her character of Wanda being propositioned and kidnapped by Toe-Joe provide unavoidable parallels to her past, but they're handled with as much satiric brio as Depp's performance. It's broad fiction as a cathartic escape from unfortunate truth. There's also an excised musical number called "Chicken," which fueled the method hatred between the Drapes and Squares during the shoot. Did I mention this package's extras are worth five stars yet?

(The set opens with forced previews for The Big Lebowski, The Wedding Date and the first three season packages for Northern Exposure.The feature presentation and the extras, not including the commentary, come with optional English, Spanish and French subtitles).

Movie grade: 4.5 stars.
Video grade: 4.5 stars.
Audio grade: 4 stars.
Extras grade: 5 stars.
Final grade: 5 stars. A deserving cult and camp classic that proves Waters can wring as much campy euphoria from the sight of a teen girl drinking her own tears as he can from a transvestite eating poodle droppings. I was amazed that I ever doubted this movie and John Waters for that matter, as he is every bit the clever, individualistic film buff, queer connoisseur and social satirist people make him out to be and then some. I never once thought of the man or his lone major studio effort as cynical and heartless, and I'd be willing to say this is one of the most spontaneously whimsical musicals I have seen, even better than some of the more recent ones. Backed up by an incredible yet minimal assortment of extras, which is in a way the essence of rockabilly, the DVD comes with a very high recommendation for all Drapes, Squares and even Scrapes.

CRY-BABY is a Universal Pictures release, unrated but containing suggestive sexual content and some strong language. It opened in theatres on April 6, 1990 in a PG-13 edit that ran about 85 minutes. This Director's Cut edition lasts for 92 minutes.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good Date Movie
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older