FEATURE
A further scan down the list of players throws up all sorts of surprises. ‘We got everyone we wanted except Mother Teresa!‘ Waters chirps. ‘I like casting people who bring in different associations with them. although I’m often accused ofbeing sensationalist about it. Yeah. yeah. yeah. I admit it. Sure. I‘m a huckster. but how else are you going to get people in to see your movie? Going to the cinema is not a natural act. My mom‘s friend Irma got it right. you know. She describes it as “sitting in the dark with a bunch ofstrangers for two hours and wasting an outfit".‘
So. upping the must-see factor beyond recommended governmental safety levels are cameo roles for godfather of punk Iggy Pop. Warhol movie sexgod Joe Dallesandro. and 50s adolescent hearthrob Troy Donahue. while Martin Scorsese's sometime Christ. Willem Dafoe. pitches in as an evil prison guard. Having been a regular attender at her trial. it was also a thrill for Waters to offer kidnapped newspaper
heiress and Symbionese Liberation Army stalwart Patty Hearst (billed as Patricia) her first film role as a concerned parent. ‘We met in Cannes a couple of years back and she impressed me by being able to hold a normal conversation with. like. eighty photographers snapping away at her. A real pro. that‘s my kinda gal! I don‘t joke with Patty about what happened to her. just common politeness really. but she can now actually laugh about it herself.‘
Even more controversial is the choice ofTraci Lords to play a floozie Drapette because (as Waters explains) ‘she‘s the only porno actress
ever to cross over to bona fide Hollywood movies. What‘s more hers was the most tawdry story you can imagine. At fifteen she‘d starred in maybe hundreds ofhardcore movies. But she hid out from it for two years. went into therapy and now she‘s Katharine Hepburn. a real Catholic convert. She went through so many horrible things. but I really do respect someone who’s had a very negative image and have then been able to flip it over and use it to change the public’s opinion about them.‘
‘I‘m happy Traci‘s doing well because what I rage against is people judging other people. I suppose when you look at them together. my movies are about characters who are too strong for the mainstream because they have their own peculiar style. and yet they always gain the upper hand against the bitter few who are trying to stop them. I hated all that Catholic stuff at school. where the nuns had this annual roster ofmovies you had to take a pledge not to see. I‘d be at the back of the class surreptitiously designing my own posters for the pictures on the list like Love Is My Profession. [still can‘t stand anyone telling me ' what I can and cannot do. Within reason of course. I mean. I don‘t think I should be allowed to go out into the streets and mow people down because I don‘t like their shoes. . .no matter how strong I might feel the urge to do so.‘
Cry Baby (12) plays the Cannons .S'aueht‘ehall Street and Park/lead in Glasgow, the U ( 'Is in Clydebank, East K ilbride and Edinburgh. and the Odeon in Edinburgh from Fri3 August.
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VILE, STUPID AND REPULSIVE? .
These were the adjectives US trade paper Variety used to describe John Waters' trash classic ‘Pink Flamingos'. In response we've chosen a lew morsels oi wit irom the outpourings oi the man hailed as ‘one oi the lew American writers who can successtully legitimise junk culture.’
I ‘I can’t help it. I enjoy the company oi murderers, rapists and child molesters.’
I ‘I get very strange mail. My tavourite is a kid named Freddy who wrote, ‘l’m
in high school and I make iilms like you do. How come I get sent to the school psychiatrist and you get sent to Europe?’
I ‘Think of that obscene stage name, Peter O'Toole. What could be tilthier, Mutt 0’CIit?‘
I ‘As much as I try to understand all deviant behaviour, child abuse always mystities me. Since everybody knows that the whole reason to have sex is because cigarettes taste better atterwards, don’t these molesters teel toolish being there naked as a six-year old hacks away on his tirst Lucky Strike?‘
All quotations taken trom ‘Crackpot'published in paperback at £5.95 by Fourth Estate, who've also issued the screenplays tor ‘Pink Flamingos' and ‘Female Trouble‘ under the title ‘Trash Trio'.
The List 27 July — 9 August WW 5