![]() ![]() “There’s nothing the matter with my face,” she proclaims in her most memorable line, “I got character.” One look at her facial features, which McGuire skillfully contorts as if made of plasticine, and you can see why she got her nickname but the Drapes (including her handsome boyfriend, Milton), like Waters, see past her exterior, snarling protectively whenever her physical appearance comes into question. In the case of Cry-Baby, the most definitive example of Waters’ fondness for the underdog can be found in Mona “ Hatchet- Face” Malnorowski, a key member of the Drapes’ inner-circle, played by the late Kim McGuire, who passed away just last month. ![]() “I'd already made a movie about the unfairness of race that I remembered growing up, and this was a movie about the unfairness of class.” “ everyone was more prejudiced against poor white people than they were against black people,” Waters told Interview magazine of his intentions for the film. The film, of course, focuses on the blossoming love story between its devastatingly attractive protagonists, Cry-Baby and Allison, but it is the broad selection of colourful and extraordinary co-characters that makes for such enjoyable viewing – a vital reminder that, regardless of budget, Waters will always be the godfather of slobs and outsiders. The Drapes are led by Wade “Cry-Baby” Walker, played by Johnny Depp in his chiselled prime, an orphaned bad boy, who rides a motorbike, plays the guitar like Elvis, and cries one single teardrop a day. ![]() The Squares are headed by Baldwin, a smarmy kiss-ass, with a pretty, unsatisfied girlfriend called Allison. Cry-Baby is set in 1950s Baltimore, where teenage high-school students fall firmly into three categories: Squares (rich, preppy, linen-suited and “white” as white can be), Drapes (cool, non-conformist, squeezed into tight trousers or too-small dresses and despised by middle-class society) and Nerds (who don’t get much airtime). Previously accustomed to shooting midnight movies with barely any money, the director was astounded to find himself with a huge budget that could secure him things like “trailers, cranes and giant lights”, as well as an enormous, wonderfully varied cast. In 1989, filmmaker John Waters, fresh from the success of his musical comedy, Hairspray – which saw the Pope of Trash break through into the mainstream – set about making Cry-Baby, a musical ode to the 1950s and its teenage rebels. ![]()
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