In 1989, Kylie Minogue was already one of the most famous faces in Australia and the UK. However it was her TV acting career that provided most of her profile - she was only a couple of hits singles into her music career at the time, and wasn't yet being taken seriously as a singer. A career in film must've seemed like the obvious next step. There was no real precedent at the time for the sort of music career that Kylie ending up making for herself, and the '80s had seen some hugely successful teen-oriented movies, from Endless Love and Blue Lagoon to the likes of Pretty In Pink, The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. The '50s/early '60s revival of the '70s – Grease, Happy Days etc. – had well and truly passed, but one of the decade's first big American teen films, 1983's The Outsiders, was set in roughly the same period, perhaps suggesting that the era was of continuing interest to a contemporary teen audience.

The Delinquents was based on the moderately acclaimed novel of the same name, originally published by Melbourne author Deirdre Cash, under the name Criena Rohan. It was first published in London in 1962 and was the only novel that she published in her lifetime – she died of cancer in 1963 at the age of 38, having just completed a second novel. The story was set around two teenage lovers – Lola and Brownie - who are forced to part after Lola falls pregnant. The novel is primarily set in Brisbane, and despite the author being from down south, it is considered a landmark Brisbane novel; one that was later described as pulling "no punches in depicting the rough lives of those on the margins of urban life", and praised for its "critical social realism".

The film wasn't initially conceived as a vehicle for Kylie - first-time producers Alex Cutler and Michael Wilcox had purchased the rights to the novel in 1985 ahead of its reissue, and they had already secured financing before Kylie was cast. This was perhaps achieved by the supposed involvement in some capacity of one David Bowie, although he had apparently disagreements with the producers and disengaged. The film ended up being financed by Village Roadshow and the newly formed Australian Film Finance Corporation, and once Kylie's involvement was confirmed, it became a big-budget local production.

Ben Mendelsohn was originally mooted to star opposite Kylie, but ultimately American, Charlie Schlatter got the job. The producers were looking to appeal to an American audience; in the end, the film wasn't even released there, and the presence of an American playing an Australian character wasn't well-received by critics here. There was, however, an appreciation of it having been made primarily in Queensland.

The film was ultimately considered a flop, despite doing reasonable numbers in Australia, and also in the UK, where Kylie was of course just as well-known as she was here at home. 

The soundtrack album was also just a moderate success: the presence of Kylie's hit version of Little Anthony and the Imperials' 1958 hit "Tears on My Pillow" and Johnny Diesel & The Injectors hit version of Percy Mayfield's evergreen '50s R&B ballad "Please Send Me Someone to Love" got it to #20 on the album charts. But the other material – all of which was used in the film – was classic '50s hits from the likes of Eddie Cochran, Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis. Hardly the sort of material Kylie's young fans were going to play repeatedly.  

In the end, Kylie never became the new Brooke Shields or even the new Molly Ringwald, but it was perhaps for the best. Her career took a turn in 1990 as she moved away from Stock, Aitken & Waterman songs and began to be taken a bit more seriously as a singer. By the mid-'90s she was a genuine icon; not even a heavily criticised second feature film appearance, alongside Jean-Claude Van Damme in the film Street Fighter, could damage her standing.

ILYOS remembers The Delinquents with the Kylie and Diesel hits from the film, and an original 1989 trailer (assumedly for the aborted US release).

The Delinquents Trailer 

Kylie Minogue | "Tears On My Pillow"

Johnny Deisel & The Injectors | "Please Send Me Someone To Love"