Cry-Baby
John Waters on Cry Baby
By Mary Vivian Pearce
Film Threat, Issue 21
August 1989
John discussed some
of the actors and his directing style in a recent
interview
with me at his
home in North Baltimore. According to John, directing the professionals
is not
very different than directing the Dreamlanders. “When we first started,
I
didn’t know any different . . . I just directed, like how in my mind I
expected
people to do it. And I still do that, the difference is, not with you,
I’m not
saying . . . But with people who have been in 10 movies and made TV
shows . . .
They know completely how to make a movie, you don’t have to explain
about
marks, eye lines or all the technical stuff. And because they have done
it
more, they basically . . . I’m not saying they take direction any
better . . .
but they are professional . . . so they . . . they . . .” John threw up
his
arms and exclaimed, “I don’t think it’s any different.”
The rehearsals were also very much like those of the early
films. “We had rehearsals here, Johnny Depp was here, Polly (Bergman),
Patty
Hearst . . . they all were here. And we did it like how we did it with
you all
. . . We did a reading of the whole script, sitting down. By the day
before we
started shooting . . . you know . . . the couch was the car . . . we
were
acting it out.” John went on, “And then on the set, you always have a
run
through or two, before you shoot, so really it’s not really different.
But some
of the people from the old days, who were basically my friends . . . 
I can
think of a few I’m not going to name . . . they weren’t exactly stellar
performances . . . Some of the actors, like Polly Bergman, who has been
in show
business for forty years . . . you still direct her . . . I guess if
there is
any difference it is that they know the techniques, which we discovered
ourselves. I didn’t know it either when we started,” John explained.
Patty Hearst, the newspaper heir, was kidnapped by the
Symbionese
Liberation Army in 1974. She participated in bank robberies with them,
and then
served a prison sentence. John had been obsessed with her and had gone
to her
trial. She has a small role in Cry Baby,
opposite David Nelson. Patty Hearst was at the Cannes Film Festival,
promoting
the movie Patty Hearst. It was there
that John met her. “I went over to her at a dinner party and said, ‘I’m
John
Waters, I was at your trial, and the movie (Patty
Hearst), made me believe you for the first time’ . . . We sat
down together
and the photographers went insane . . . we pretended we didn’t notice
them . .
.” Later, John contacted her about being in the film. “She read for us,
the
reading was not great . . . because she didn’t know she had to read.”
After
Hearst had practiced the part she was much better. “She had really
worked on
it, and was funny the first time. Patty Hearst was the only person I
was
starstruck by. I couldn’t believe Patty Hearst was sitting in my living
room,”
John said. Patty Hearst’s arrest record became a joke on the set, with
everyone
asking who else had been arrested. 
“It was amazing,” John said
with a laugh,
“everyone had a record . . .
people you never suspect . . .” One
exception;
David Nelson, but he told the crew, “My brother Ricky was arrested.” “I
think
he was sorta embarrassed because he hadn’t been arrested,” John added.
Traci Lords, who acted in sexually explicit films as a minor, is trying to make it as a straight actress. John thinks that she will be the first porno star to cross over. “She showed up for the reading wearing blue jeans, a tee-shirt and no makeup and gave us a funny reading,” John recalled. “The studio did not balk, which I thought they might, (about hiring Lords.) Everyone liked her and she got to be a kid again. God knows, we don’t judge people . . . we all have pasts. I hope she turns it around. In a way it happened to us. I love the idea of taking something negative—what people think of as negative—and goofing on it, making a joke about the whole thing and turning it around.” Lords is, as john describes her, beautiful. “It’s a sin how beautiful she is, she has a body that is just amazing, a 50s kind of va va voom, you just don’t see people like her. People do double takes when she walks by. I think it’s hardly surprising that Traci and I are making a movie together, people could have predicted that.”
Joey Heatherton, a singer-dancer-actress who was well known in the 60s, is in Cry Baby. John described her as “odd.” “She was very professional, she always showed up on time, and she knew all her lines, but she was just odd. Her part was to speak in tongues and the problem was to get her to stop speaking in tongues.”
Directing the actors
in the “real” movies may not have been different, but
securing the vintage
vehicles certainly was. In the Dreamland days when John spotted an old
luxury
car, usually a Cadillac, he wanted to use, he flagged the motorist down
and
simply begged for the use of the vehicle. Just why anyone would hand
over a
priceless collector’s item to an underweight twenty-year-old, with long
stringy
hair, claiming to be a “movie director,” could be debated endlessly.
For Cry Baby, Frank Tamburo of Props and Sets was responsible for getting the vintage vehicles and having them in running order. “We advertised in the newspaper and the car clubs, then we held a rally. We used over 200 cars, “ Tamburo explained, as we lunched in a trendy Fells Point bar. And because the cars are so old, a mechanic was hired to work full time at location. Tamburo did, however, have difficulty finding the school bus. After a harrowing two and a half month search, he finally found one, via a contact, in a field, deep in the Maryland countryside. “The bus had been painted black, with red flames, and it had no motor,” Tamburo went on. “It (the bus) had to be completely restored and then we had to return it to its original condition,” Tamburo lamented. “The problem is no one collects school buses. We found a museum in North Carolina which had them, but they didn’t lend them out.” The nightmarish search still haunts him: “Every time I see a school bus I have to know what year it is.”
But in some ways, securing
the Harley Davidson motorcycles,
was similar to the old days. Tamburo told me about clandestine meetings
with
bikers. 
They took place in “Pigtown,” a run-down section of West
Baltimore,
infested with crack houses. The motorcycle enthusiasts had acted
paranoid, and
Tamburo suspected they were under the influence of PCP, and/or the
bikes were
stolen.
Finding locations for the “real” movies is also quite different, with a department which does just that. Bob Mayer was location manager. It was his job to get permission from the land owners and cooperation from the local police. In the Dreamland days, we often ran from the cops. For example, in Mondo Trasho an actor performs nude. Without bothering to ask permission, we filmed the scene on the Johns Hopkins campus. Not surprisingly, a student complained, probably a jock or a business major, and the police were called. Incredibly, Divine, wearing gold lame and driving a fire engine red ’59 Cadillac, eluded police. But other actors were arrested, Mink Stole in the bathtub. Always one for a quotable quip, Mink told the press: “There was more indecent exposure in the arrest than in the incident.”
We also used the hit and run technique in Mondo’s pigsty scene. As John puts it, “I guess that farmer looked out his window and thought; ‘Oh well, there’s a 400 pound man dressed in gold toreador pants (Divine) crawling through pig shit and a girl dressed as the Blessed Virgin Mary, and another character with monster feet in my pigsty. On Sunday morning, in a sleet storm.’ To hell with location! Of course, I didn’t ask. It never crossed my mind to ask,” John said with a chuckle.
Although animals have
had roles in many of John’s movies, for the first time in Cry
Baby their treatment came under the
Humane Society scrutiny. Because the Hollywood Humane Society didn’t
know the
trainer of Harriet, a woodchuck in the movie, they asked Mrs. Kitty
Thornton of
the Baltimore Humane Society to go to location and observe the
treatment of the
animal. Mrs. Thornton, who happens to know John, told me on the phone:
“Well, I
enjoyed it, everything was fine and Harriet did her scene in just two
takes—the
first time she ran the wrong way. I had a wonderful time . . . I had
lunch . .
. I met the star . . . what’s his name? (Johnny Depp) I didn’t know
him, but
the girl I had with me did.”
Fortunately, the Humane Society was not alerted when we
filmed the “chicken scene” in Pink
Flamingos. In that famous scene, Crackers (Danny Mills) makes
love to
Cookie (Mueller), in a chicken coop, which doubles as Crackers’ room.
As part
of the foreplay, Crackers pops off a couple of chickens’ heads, while
Cotton
(me) spies through the wire window in voyeuristic ecstasy. But don’t be
alarmed;
Danny and I dined on the chickens. However, we did alarm our driver,
Rick, (not
his real name) who had taken us home. Under the influence of speed and
grass,
Rick had become paranoid and stricken with amnesia. 
When he opened the
trunk of
his car and saw the bloody headless chickens, he recoiled in horror,
thinking
that the Mafia had planted them there as a warning.
Susan Lowe, who starred in Desperate Living, is an extra in Cry Baby. She worked with Patty Hearst, Polly Bergman, David Nelson and other stars. She described her part to me in a telephone conversation: “I’m a square and I think I’m a mother. I don’t know. I had no lines. I just do lots of facial expressions—I look shocked . . . I cover my mouth with my hand . . . I sat next to Polly Bergman, (in the scene) so I guess I’ll be in the movie.” Susan, not known to be shy, boldly asked Patty Hearst if she had had any “meaningful relationships” while serving time in prison. “I was a bit shocked when she told me she liked the prostitutes.” Beyond that, Hearst had not elaborated. According to Susan, David Nelson is a gentleman of the old school, untarnished by feminist propaganda. “When he’s around you just don’t open a door,” Susan explained.
Not only did Susan meet interesting stars, she claims to have turned in a stellar performance: “I think I deserve the Academy Award for best extra.”
If there is an Academy Award
for best extra, Susan will have
to compete with me.
During the Cold War in the fifties there was an hysterical fear of Atomic Attack. States set up defense programs in which citizens were taught how to protect themselves. In the text Civil Defense for Maryland (1952), you are told the chances of survival are greatly enhanced if you get under cover immediately. If no cover is available, fall flat on your face. Remember, a split second may save you from radiation. And don’t look at the blast—it will blind you. If you are indoors and you don’t have time to get away from the windows, get under any “suitable” piece of furniture. During the attack, CD for MD advises you keep your home free of unnecessary junk, especially the attic because old papers and old rags will just add fuel to the fire. (Never mind you would have about two seconds to do this.) Don’t make phone calls, and don’t start rumors. Don’t go outside to see what’s going on. Presumably to settle your nerves, and rinse the radiation away, the text advises you to take a hot bath, “paying particular attention to your hair,” as soon as possible. So that citizens would learn to do these things instinctively, Air Raid Drills were held often.
In my scene, Cry Baby is being pursued by a cop. They are both on motorcycles. When they rush by squares having a picnic, air raid sirens are heard. Everyone “ducks and covers,” except Cry Baby, who reasons, correctly, that it is a stupid square practice. The civic minded cop of course, immediately “ducks and covers,” allowing Cry Baby to get away. I jump up from the picnic table and yell, “Air Raid!”
May I have the envelope, please?
Mary Vivian Pearce lives in Baltimore and works at a race track in between acting in films.