GCS 022: "Breakfast Club" by John Hughes

They only met once, but it changed their lives forever.

Teen movies, I should have a teen movie in the GCS series, most of you would problably think, how could a teen movie have a Great Cinematic Scene that stays in our minds, well, why not start with this one, the "beginning of teen" movies:

Breakfast Club (1985) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088847/

Five high school students, all different stereotypes, meet in detention, where they pour their hearts out to each other, and discover how they have a lot more in common than they thought.

Fun Facts:

• The library in which this movie takes place was actually constructed in the gymnasium of Maine North High School specifically for the film. The school closed down in 1982, two years before filming began. The building had been used for park district purposes and the Chicago Blitz before the Illinois state police bought it, turning it into a police station, which it still is to this day.

• The joke that Bender tells but never finishes (while crawling through the ceiling) actually has no punchline. According to Judd Nelson, he ad-libbed the line. Originally, he was supposed to tell a joke that would end when he came back into the library and said, "Forgot my pencil", but no one could come up with a joke for that punchline.

• Most teenage movies that John Hughes has written are also take place in Shermer Illinois and involve a Shermer High School. Weird Science, written by Hughes and also starring Anthony Michael Hall, also takes place in Shermer.

• John Hughes wrote the screenplay to this movie in just two days (4 and 5 July 1982).

• The theme song, "Don't You (Forget About Me)", was written for the film by Keith Forsey. It was a number one hit for Simple Minds, and both Billy Idol and Bryan Ferry turned down offers to record it first (although in 2001, Billy Idol recorded Don't You (Forget About Me) as a bonus track for his Greatest Hits album). The song was also turned down by Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders who then suggested they offer it to the band fronted by her husband at the time, Simple Minds.

• The original running time of The Breakfast Club was about two and a half hours. Thinking the film would not be a hit, Universal Pictures trimmed the running time down to the modern 97 minute version. The studio then destroyed the negatives of the deleted scenes. John Hughes said in a "Premiere" magazine article that he has the only complete copy.

And the scene I chose is the "dance scene". Enjoy!

Video:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=pWtK5EFtzqg