You couldn’t ignore me if you tried
Behind the scenes of the films of John Hughes
By REED TUCKER

Last Updated: 12:48 AM, January 24, 2010

Posted: 12:48 AM, January 24, 2010

John Hughes’ movies “changed everything,” actor Andrew McCarthy says. “They defined a generation.”

Hughes’ movies were at once funny and heartbreaking. They traded in types, but somehow transcended them. His movies made stars out of the most unlikely of people, including a sullen redhead and spindly geek. They provided a memorable soundtrack to the decade and gave millions of awkward teens something to do on Friday nights. They made a pair of polka-dotted, cotton underwear sexy.

In this behind-the-scenes exploration of the writer-director’s 1980s catalog, author Susannah Gora interviews an impressive list of cast members, including Molly Ringwald, Jon Cryer, John Cusack, Matthew Broderick and Anthony Michael Hall, who is indeed still alive.

SIXTEEN CANDLES

Hughes grew up in Michigan and Illinois. His family was of modest means, and he was a bit of a “grimly serious” eccentric in high school. “I think he always felt like he didn’t belong,” Ringwald says. “I remember him telling me something like, ‘I’m a square peg in a round world.’ ” His own circumstances seemed to instill in him a love of underdogs and a hatred of popularity-based hierarchies — themes that feature heavily in his films.

In 1971, at age 21, Hughes took a job writing at an ad agency. While there, he formed friendships with his co-workers’ teen children, and those relationships reminded him of “how things were back then, how deeply you felt about things, and how you couldn’t conceive of a future different from high school.”

A decade later, he began channeling these insights into screenplays. Hughes wrote arguably his greatest movie specifically for Ringwald, whom he’d noticed in 1982’s little-seen film “Tempest.” Hughes had completed another script about five high schoolers spending the day in detention, but studio Universal liked the lighter tone of “Candles,” and opted to make it first.

The film was shot in the summer of 1983 in the suburbs of Chicago. During a day of shooting at the rented mansion that doubled for dreamboat Jake Ryan’s house, actor Gedde Watanabe (who played foreign exchange student Long Duk Dong) found an exercise bike in the attic. Hughes allowed the actor to improv a scene where he rides it with his American girlfriend.

The scene in which Ringwald catches a glimpse of Jake’s girlfriend Caroline (Haviland Morris) in the shower — the only true nude scene Hughes ever shot — required a body double because Morris was supposed to bustier than Ringwald, but in reality was not.

THE BREAKFAST CLUB

“The Breakfast Club,” which opened in February 1985, was shot at Maine North High School in Des Plaines, Illinois. The production rented the then-shuttered school for $25,000 a week, and because the actual library wasn’t large enough to film in, an entire set was built in the gym.

Ringwald and Hall were the first to be cast, followed by Emilio Estevez, whose jock character was changed from a football player to a wrestler because a producer felt there were too many gridiron players in movies at the time. Ally Sheedy got the part of Goth Allison Reynolds in part because she showed up for the audition with two black eyes she got from a construction accident the night before. She had been building a set at USC, where she was a student, and a board hit her in the face. The injury helped cement her image as a dark, brooding person in Hughes’ mind.

Judd Nelson helped win the role as bad boy John Bender by showing up dressed almost exactly as the character would ultimately appear in the movie: wearing flannel and a pair of motorcycle boots that Nelson had soaked in motor oil overnight to break them in. The method-acting Nelson, however, ran afoul of many on the set, including Hughes, by acting like his jerky character whether the camera was rolling or not.

“[Hughes] was used to [compliant] Molly Ringwalds and Anthony Michael Halls,” casting director Jackie Burch recalls in the book. “Judd wasn’t going to be pushed around.”

Another tense moment came when Estevez and Nelson were goofing around while John Kapelos, playing the janitor, was filming close-ups. Kapelos snapped and told the two, “You guys would’ve been great working with Martin Sheen on ‘Apocalypse Now’ when he was having his heart attack. You would have just left him there, not realizing what was happening.” It was Kapelos’ way of saying “pay attention,” but he was unaware Estevez was Sheen’s son. Kapelos apologized but “doesn’t know if it ever took.”

One of the film’s most lasting legacies is the song “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” by Simple Minds, but the band’s frontman, Jim Kerr, initially balked at recording something for a “silly American youth film.” He eventually relented, and the tune became the band’s biggest hit.

PRETTY IN PINK

The film originally had Molly Ringwald ending up with her eccentric best friend, Duckie (Jon Cryer), instead of the wealthy guy (Andrew McCarthy) she’d been chasing the whole movie. Test audiences booed loudly.

“I was horrified,” recalls producer Lauren Schuler Donner. “But then we thought about it, and we decided, ‘Well, we’re making a movie for them.’ ” The decision was made to reshoot the ending.

The problem with the original story stemmed from the lack of romantic chemistry between Cryer and Ringwald. “He should have the girl, Duckie,” says director Howard Deutch. “And it could have ended that way, had I not f - - - ed with one thing. I cast Jon Cryer.”

Michael J. Fox and Robert Downey Jr. (Ringwald’s choice) were considered for the role, but Deutch liked Cryer’s vulnerability. “I think he seemed gay,” Ringwald admits. “If they remade the movie now, he would be, like, the gay best friend who comes out at the end.”

FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF

Hughes, as he did with many of his movies, wrote “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” in just two days. Broderick took the lead, despite a worry that he’d again be playing a character who broke the fourth wall, as he’d done in “Biloxi Blues” and “Brighton Beach Memoirs.” Alan Ruck landed the role of Matthew Broderick’s downer friend Cameron only after Emilio Estevez passed, but the film didn’t lead to other offers at first. Ruck had to take a job at a Sears warehouse after the film’s release. Ben Stein’s famous “Bueller? Bueller?” scene was improvised, and the gag in which the title character bluffs his way into a posh restaurant was taken from Hughes’ teen years, when he and a friend used to lie their way into Chicago’s exclusive Union League Club.

Mia Sara, who played Ferris’ girlfriend, developed a real-life crush on Broderick, and the actress recalls, “I threw myself at him repeatedly, and he very wisely turned me down.” Broderick was involved with his other co-star, Jennifer Grey, at the time. They got engaged, but ultimately broke up. Two actors who did end up together: Lyman Ward and Cindy Pickett, who played Ferris’ parents, met on the set and later married.

Hughes got fabulously wealthy off his work — he once bragged that he’d made $40 million off “Home Alone” but pocketed even more off “101 Dalmatians” because he kept a piece of the merchandising rights — but the director left Los Angeles in the mid 1990s. He moved back to Chicago and became a virtual recluse. His new house could be seen by one other in the distance, so he hired a bulldozer to build a hill to block the view. He abruptly stopped speaking to his closest showbiz friends, including John Candy, Hall and Ringwald. “Hughes discarded him,” says Hall’s mother.

Author Gora doesn’t shed much light on why Hughes disappeared, and we may never know. Last August, he died while taking a morning stroll on West 55th Street. But no one who grew up in the ’80s is likely to (Forget About Him) any time soon.




Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/n...z0dYhhXzFM
[Edited 1/24/10 11:15am]
[Edited 1/24/10 11:16am]

Good read.

PunkMistress said:

i never really bought Jon Cryer as duckie. now that I read Robert Downey Jr was Molly's first choice I can see him playing that character.


I don't think Some Kind of Wonderful was a john hughes film, but I liked that as much as the Hughes's films...

good article sad how he died alone but I guess that is what he wanted.

THANKS SO MUCH for posting this! John Hughes was kind of like a Norman Rockwell of pop culture film... genius. I think that John Hughes and John Landis were both genius comedy filmmakers (Landis of course still potentially working on new things). Landis was more epic and fantastic with his larger than life scope (period piece frat, R&B/Blues fantasy superheroes, Wall Street CinderFella, A Bhudda type tale of royalty in exile finding love, a straight up werewolf in satirically modern times...

But Hughes stuck to his upper class posh neighborhoods, white-bread suburbia tales of idealized emotions, but structured and flavored them so well, that they really hold up as quite timeless in my opinion.

but question....

what is this about: "a pair of motorcycle boots that Nelson had soaked in motor oil overnight to break them in"?

Why soak boots in motor oil?

ufoclub said:

they were new and stiff...he wanted to loosen up the leather

I got Ferris on blu-ray! I'd like 16 Candles... need to see if that is available. A friend of mine saw Planes Trains and Automobiles for the first time... (arguably a departure for Hughes into almost more "Landis" type territory) and loved it! Who can't be touched by that sentimental ending?

Thanks for posting this! Adore those movies.

Uncle Buck is John Hughes perfection

Sixteen Candles is probably one of my favorite movies of his. AND the scene in PRETTY IN PINK where Duckie is in his room listening to THE SMITH'S - PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE LET ME GET WHAT I WANT, broke my heart. I could TOTALLY relate to that scene at the time.

I really liked reading this...I am a huge fan of his work!

MIGUELGOMEZ said:

Mine too! My best friend and I watched that movie so much, we knew our favorite lines by heart!

http://www.dontyouforgeta...movie.com/

This just aired on Bravo or a channel like that. I DVRed it, but have not watched it yet.

Could be good, but I got the feeling it is more self promotion of the doc makers than Hughes.

Mars23 said:

i KNEW you were a big mushy guy deep down!

MoniGram said:

"You yankie my wankie!!!"

Loved his 80s stuff but hated the 90s stuff. A bit like Prince really.

MIGUELGOMEZ said:

I have a love hate relationship with his stuff. 16 Candles is one of my all time favorites, Breakfast Club is good, but gets a little dramatic, then Pretty in Pink kind of nauseates me.

And he also did Home Alone, right? Cute, but that doesn't have the same quality that made the others special.

NDRU said:

He didn't direct Pretty in Pink or Home Alone. You can tell!

ufoclub said:

was he involved in them?

NDRU said:

produced... maybe wrote?

ufoclub said:

right, I see it's wrote & produced. It looks like he didn't actually direct that many films.

NDRU said:

Well he directed Weird Science, 16 Candles, Ferris Bueller's Day Off in that early heyday... then later, Uncle Buck, Planes Trains and Automoblies, She's Having a Baby... these are off the top of my head...

ufoclub said:

but glancing at wiki, he wrote 4 times as many as he directed, which was 8 (you forgot Curly Sue!)

ufoclub said:

weird science was just on. I love the scene where anthony michael hall is drunk in the club, talking about the girl with the "titties" to all the bigger older guys.

She's having a baby is one of my favourites.

Ferris is one of those movies I can't turn off, once i've flipped onto it

BlackAdder7 said:

His flicks are auteur good!

By and large, I'm a huge fan of Hughes' movies, but Randy's "black guy" comment in 'Pretty In Pink' still rankles me to this day.

violator said:

Actually there's one in 16 Candles too...

I never really was a fan of all those cheesy teen movies but Planes, Trains and Automobiles is a.ma.zing.

ufoclub said:

Actually, I meant 'Sixteen Candles'.