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"The first thing a Cry-Baby girl learns is our bazooms are our weapons."

1990 PG-13 / Musical Comedy Directed by: John Waters Starring: Johnny Depp, Amy Locane, Traci Lords

Tagline

Too young to be square... Too tough to be shocked... Too late to be saved

Summary Capsule

Girl is caught between the pristine life or the leather, biker-chick life in a zany musical.

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Amazon.com: DVD | Amazon.com: Soundtrack

Andie's Rating: Campy doesn't even begin to describe it
Andie's Review: Well, I've always been a big fan of movie musicals. Fiddler on the Roof, Grease, West Side Story, Singin in the Rain, etc. But Cry-Baby goes above and beyond the typical musical because of its cheezy, self-aware, self-mocking antics.

"What makes this movie so much fun is because the musical numbers are positively silly."

The premise is that good-girl Allison Vernon-Williams (beautiful Amy Locane) falls for Wade "Cry-Baby" Walker (Johnny Depp), so named because he always cries a single tear out of his left eye. He, of course, is known as leader of the town gang, called Drapes. After Allison leaves her grandmother's charm school's talent show to go with Cry-Baby, what insues is a fight between the Squares and the Drapes over which boy Allison will be with, Cry-Baby or Baldwin the town dipstick.

What makes this movie so much fun is because the musical numbers are positively silly. They absolutely crack me up! When Cry-Baby gets thrown in jail, he and the other jailbirds sing a lovely doowop song about tears and crying and generally the joys of losing your love. Later, when they're making license plates, they all sing a rousing Elvis-like song called "Doin' Time for Bein' Young." But the Drapes don't get all the good musical numbers. Baldwin and his cronies get to do some wonderfully cheezy renditions of "Sh-Boom" and "Mr. Sandman." They also do a mean Bunny Hop down the middle of the street to come pick up Allison.

In addition to the great music and the wonderful leads, the supporting cast hits about every cliché you could come up with. There's the Drape Ho (played to the hilt by a gorgeous Traci Lords), the pregnant girl, Cry-Baby's scary grandma Ramona, Allison's uptight snooty grandmother, the bible-thumping parents with a Drape son, and the list just keeps on going. This movie is basically an hour and a half of silly entertainment that I think most musical-lovers would really enjoy.

Get 'er up, get 'er up, buddy's gonna shut you down A love story set to the backdrop of racial oppression! That hair... it hates him

Didja Notice? [some sources: IMDb]

• While although the tattoo of the name "Cry-Baby" on Johnny Depp's arm is a fake, the Native American tattoo above it is real.

Is It Worth Staying Through End Credits?

No.

Intermission! [some sources: IMDb]

There is an alternate version of Cry-Baby shown every once in awhile on USA. It has a lot of deleted scenes, including 3 or 4 deleted singing/dancing numbers.

To find a young actor for the role of Wade "Cry-Baby" Walker, Waters bought $30 worth of teen magazines, all of which showed Johnny Depp of "21 Jump Street" on the cover. Depp thought the script was funny and strange, and took the offbeat role to avoid being typecast as a TV teen idol.

Groovy Quotes

Allison: I'm so tired of being goo.

Wanda: I wouldn't be caught dead in a full skirt.

Pepper: The first thing a Cry-Baby girl learns is our bazooms are our weapons.

Soundtrack Review

Includes all the great numbers from the movie (not sung by Amy Locane or Johnny Depp of course), I highly recommend it.

If you liked this movie, try these:

• Grease
• Hairspray
• West Side Story