John Hughes, the director of such classic 1980s films as The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 59. The films of John Hughes captured perfectly the teenage experience of his era.
John Hughes’ other films included Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles, and Home Alone, which he either directed, produced, or wrote. John Hughes’ films were invariably light, but a little bit of a punch inserted just when the audience wasn’t looking for it.
My personal favorites are The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
The Breakfast Club concerns five high school students who are forced to spend a Saturday detention together for various infractions. While the characters have names, they represent the typical teenage archtypes of their era (and perhaps others as well)–the geek, the jock, the outcast, the rich pretty-girl snob, and the future criminal. Anthony Michael Hall and Molly Ringwald, who are in several John Hughe’s films, play the geek and the rich pretty-girl snob respectively. Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, and Ally Sheedy round out the cast.
None of the teenagers really like the roles the high school culture have shoe horned them into. They find, in the course of their enforced society with one another, that they are not so much different from one another after all. Friendships that will last longer than the time in the high school cafeteria are started.
The most laugh out loud funny of John Hughes’ films is Ferris Bueller’s Day off, about the mad cap adventures of the title character, played by Matthew Broderick as he takes his girl friend and his best friend on a mad cap adventure through Chicago while skipping school. The girl friend is played by Mia Sara and the best friend by Alan Ruck.
Ferris Bueller is the clever boy who can get away with just about anything and is thus very popular at school with all but one person, his sister played by Jennifer Grey. Jeffrey Jones plays the long suffering Principle who is determined to catch Ferris Bueller red handed and thus put an end to his shenanigans. Lots of fun ensues and there is a sharp moment toward the end where responsibility for ones actions is taught.
Ferris Bueller also features one scene by Ben Stein, the actor/writer/film maker/game show host/former Nixon staffer with his immortal line, “Bueller…Bueller…Bueller…”
Mark Hemmingway, in his own appreciation of John Hughes, finds a little bit of dialogue that did not make the final cut of Ferris Bueller.
“FERRIS:
My uncle went to Canada to protest the war, right? On the Fourth of July he was down with my aunt and he got drunk and told my Dad he felt guilty he didn’t fight in Viet Nam. So I said, “What’s the deal, Uncle Jeff? In wartime you want to be a pacifist and in peacetime you want to be a soldier. It took you twenty years to find out you don’t believe in anything?”
(snaps his fingers)
Grounded. Just like that. Two weeks.
(pause)
Be careful when you deal with old hippies. They can be real touchy. ”
One suspects that Ferris either grew up to be a notorious crime lord, a happier version of Michael Westen, super spy, or perhaps a little of both.
John Hughes’ production tapered off with the new century, in quantity and in quality. But he leaves this world with an iconic body of work nevertheless.
Sources: John Hughes, IMDB
The Breakfast Club, IMDB
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, IMDB
John Huhes R.I.P., Mark Hemmingway, National Review Online, August 6th, 2009
