Cry-Baby: Naughty Nostalgia

Rated PG-13

Did you ever pass out after receiving a vaccination in high school? I did, and this film captures that experience like no other. Here we begin by shivering in that horrid, cold gymnasium as those huge syringes advance straight at us. Deep in our souls, this film suggests, we long to disassemble dehumanizing institutions, brick by brick! Well, lead on, Johnny Depp, in the role of “Cry-Baby” Walker, a young Elvis in the making.

Now, can he find one girl who loves the sad music that makes us delirious? Enter the woman of his dreams: Allison Vernon-Williams. This character creates a high camp version of Janet (Carole Lynley) in Blue Denim (1959), a generational tragedy. In her parody, Amy Locane competes with Olivia Newton-John, as Sandy in Grease (1978). Both goldilocks turn tears into raging stardom as the good girl dying to be bad. Without intervention, of course, both of them would mature into Marian the Librarian in The Music Man (1962).

Little chance of that! Star-crossed lovers, the two barrel relentlessly toward each other. Pulling them in opposite directions, paired grandmothers provide perfect foils based on class and age. The grand dame of the Vernon-Williams clan, though, carries the theme of repressed sexuality across the generations. In this role, Polly Bergen flirts with a judge and illustrates the strength of the sexual revolution to come following the Fifties. The eccentric Walker family, on the other hand, foreshadows troops of hippies and Goths.

Throughout this movie, the sound score takes us back to a time when Johnny Ray began delivering his storm of tears: “Cry” and “Little White Cloud That Cried” (1951). This theme continued with songs such as “Cry Me A River,” sung by Julie London (1955). So the tear that slides down the cheek of our hero in this movie enjoys a very long and celebrated role in musical history. Here, though, his characteristic no-holds-barred performing style leaps straight to rock-n-roll.

More than jazz-inspired legions in the Fifties to wring out rivers. First, we see youngsters crowding under their desks during an air-raid drill. Adults’ obsessions with suburbia, superficiality and sheer conformity have also received dramatic treatment by Stephen King in films like Carrie. Cultural warfare, likewise, divides an entire town into “Squares” and “Criers” here. Pettiness, meanness and even self-parodied ugliness assume their roles in a social milieu not known for kindliness to anyone.

This musical comedy works the magic of jazz on our favorite social ills. Just hearing this cast swing into “A Teenage Prayer,” “Sha-boom,” “Mr. Sandman,” “Love That Girl,” “The Naughty Lady of Shady Lane,” “Jailbird” and “High School Hell Cats” will lift depressed spirits. Try the video out by the pool for relief even from summer’s heat. This movie achieves cool faster than air-conditioning. What a gas to hear self-righteous hypocrites receive the jibes they richly deserve. Risk rock that reaches fever pitch — cure your blues with Depp’s ever-loving Cry-Baby!

Meg Curtis

Meg Curtis leads a triple life as a creative writer, a college professor and a medievalist. From western New York, she gained insights into wildlife and spiritualism. In Appalachia, she learned to love America’s oldest mountains. She has settled happily, with three southern cats and a basset hound named Mr. Willoughby, in Freemansburg, Pennsylvania..