Cry-Baby by Richard Natale Musicals are considered box office anathema these days and movie send-ups, particularly camp movie send-ups, are what close on Friday night. So Cry-Baby, a spoof/homage to Elvis Presley MGM movies by the balmy John Waters, can hardly be considered a mass audience film. Even the casting of TV teen-dream cop Johnny Depp doesn't ensure crowds: Small screen giants like Roseanne Barr and Bill Cosby mean diddly at the box office; Michael J. Fox scores only in comedies. Sure, the plot of Cry-Baby is close to that of Grease--the largest grossing movie musical ever. But Grease was a fluke, owing its enormous popularity to John Travolta mania following the phenomenon of Saturday Night Fever. Still, Cry-Baby is far more energetic than Grease (which is virtually unwatchable today) and more consistently enjoyable than any of Presley's oeuvre. (Depp is a scrubbed puppy dog compared with the raw, early Elvis. And Amy Locane, a dead ringer for Diane Lane--and that ain't bad--can't shine Tuesday Weld's or Ann-Margret's spiked heels.) The musical numbers are swell. Waters fluidly combines real '50s tunes with period-influenced original material. Otherwise, the film is a bit jerky, as if entire scenes were dropped at the last minute (since it runs under 90 minutes, that might be the case). Cry-Baby is not as mirthful and shaggy as Hairspray, the director's best film to date. Waters's humor has been watered-down, probably to get studio backing. Yet the film's best and most memorable moments are those invested with the director's delectable subversive wit: A tart and tasteless saliva-filled tongue-kissing orgy; an absurd sequence in an orphanage in which all the kids are confined to department store display windows; and a hilarious chain-smoking, irate mom who is wheeled around town in an iron lung. While teenage girls may pant at Depp running around in his briefs, and Locane should elevate their dates' hormone levels, the real treasures of Cry-Baby are the supporting players. In addition to Waters regulars like Mink Stole and that orotund charmer, Ricki Lake--who should have been given more to do--the real casting coups are Patty Hearst and David Nelson as the square parents of former porn-star Traci Lords. This is a sublime moment in movie trivia history, reason enough to see the film. Other giggly treats include Willem Dafoe in a cameo appearance as a slimy, sadistic prison guard; former sex bombs Joey Heatherton and Joe Dallesandro as Bible-thumpers; and unrestrained turns by Susan Tyrrell, Iggy Pop, and Troy Donahue. Even diluted Waters is better than no Waters at all. What did you think of this movie? Sound off in the Movie Forum.