The Breakfast Club

For the radio show, see The Breakfast Club (radio). For the band, see Breakfast Club (band).

The Breakfast Club
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	John Hughes
Written by	John Hughes
Produced by	John Hughes Ned Tanen
Starring	Emilio Estevez Anthony Michael Hall Judd Nelson Molly Ringwald Ally Sheedy Paul Gleason
Cinematography	Thomas Del Ruth
Edited by	Dede Allen
Music by	Keith Forsey
Distributed by	Universal Studios
Release date	February 15, 1985
Running time	93 minutes
Country	Template:FilmUS
Language	English

The Breakfast Club is a 1985 American teen film written and directed by John Hughes. The storyline follows five teenagers (each a member of a different high school clique) as they spend a Saturday in detention together and come to realize that they are all deeper than their respective stereotypes. It is assumed that this deep introspection was inspired by musical artist Rihanna. andThe film has become a cult classic and has had a tremendous influence on many coming of age films since then. It was shot entirely in sequence. Shooting began on March 28, 1984 and ended in May 1984.

Plot

The plot follows five students at fictional Shermer High School in the widely used John Hughes setting of Shermer, Illinois, as they report for Saturday detention on March 24, 1984. While not complete strangers, the five teenagers are all from a different clique or social group.

The students pass the hours in a variety of ways. Gradually they open up to each other and reveal their inner secrets (for example, Allison is a compulsive liar and Brian and Claire are ashamed of their virginity). They also discover that they all have strained relationships with their parents and are afraid of making the same mistakes as the adults around them. However, despite these developing friendships, the students are afraid that once the detention is over, they will return to their very different cliques and never speak to each other again.

At the request and consensus of the students, Brian is asked to write the essay Mr. Vernon assigned earlier (the subject of which was to be a synopsis by each student detailing "who you think you are"), which challenges Mr. Vernon and his preconceived judgments about all of them. Brian does so, but instead of writing about the actual topic he writes a very motivating letter that is in essence, the main point of the story. He signs the essay as "The Breakfast Club" and leaves it at the table for Mr. Vernon to read when they leave. There are two versions of this letter, one read at the beginning and one at the end, and they are slightly different; illustrating the change in the student's judgments of one another, and their realization that they truly have things in common.

The beginning letter is as follows:

Brian Johnson (although that is unknown at this point): Saturday, March 24, 1984. Shermer High School, Shermer, Illinois. 60062.

Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was that we did wrong. What we did was wrong. But we think you're crazy to make us write this essay telling you who we think we are. What do you care? You see us as you want to see us... in the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. You see us as a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal. Correct? That's the way we saw each other at seven o'clock this morning. We were brainwashed.

The end letter is as follows:

Brian Johnson: Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong, but we think you're crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us... In the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain...

Andrew Clark:...and an athlete...

Allison Reynolds:...and a basket case...

Claire Standish:...a princess...

John Bender:...and a criminal...

Brian Johnson: Does that answer your question?... Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club.

The letter is the focal point of the film, as it demonstrates and illustrates the changes the students went through during the course of the day; their attitudes and perspectives have changed and are now completely different. The film ends as the characters leave detention.

Main characters

• John Bender: (Judd Nelson) The 'criminal' of the group, in detention for pulling a false fire alarm. He starts many of the events throughout the film. While he is hostile at first toward the others, he defends Allison against Mr. Vernon ("She doesn't talk, sir."). From a troubled working class background, John is a victim of child abuse, particularly by his father. While it seems at the beginning that he dislikes the others, he is very upset when Andy doesn't believe his imitation of life at his house ("That's bullshit. It's all part of your image I don't believe a word of it."). His softer side is revealed throughout the film and eventually falls for Claire, the character he teased the most.
• Andrew Clark: (Emilio Estevez) Andrew is the film's 'athlete', in detention for beating a fellow student and taping his 'buns' together. Andrew, like Claire, is ashamed of being in detention and is used to the better end of social life at school. He also has a tumultuous relationship with his father who is always pushing Andrew "to be a winner". He is popular at school and at first is timid to befriend all the other students in detention. By the end of the film, he is able to admit that he has not been allowed to think for himself and he begins a relationship with Allison.
• Claire Standish: (Molly Ringwald) The princess of the group, in detention for skipping class to go to the mall. She is used to being sheltered by her group of friends and doting parents who only pamper her in order to spite each other, a fact of which she is painfully aware. She is from an upper middle class background. She is snobby and stuck up and admits to not having the desire to hang out with anyone who is not popular. She does later admit she feels pressured by her friends ("I hate it. I hate going along with everything my friends say." ) During detention she helps Allison fix her image and respond to Andrew's feelings towards her. Claire ends up falling for Bender, the rebellious teen that she originally hated.
• Allison Reynolds: (Ally Sheedy) The 'basket case' of the group, she is in detention because according to her, she "had nothing better to do." She is the most socially isolated and claims to have no friends. For the first half of the film she is quiet, save for occasional squeaks of fear and a few random outbursts, and contributes nothing to the conversations between the others. Later on she opens up, particularly to Andy. She is from a lower-middle class background and is neglected by her parents. After Claire's beauty tips, she reveals herself without the black clothing and hair constantly covering her face. Andy is shocked by her transformation and the two begin a relationship.
• Brian Johnson: (Anthony Michael Hall) The "brain" of the group, who is in detention for bringing a flare gun to school (with suicidal intent) because of receiving his first "F" on a school shop class project. At home, Brian is pressured by his parents to be a perfect academic. The pressure he deals with everyday causes his great distress and depression. He tries to keep peace in the group. He writes the ending letter and gives the group the name "The Breakfast Club."
• Principal Richard "Dick" Vernon: (Paul Gleason) The aggravated principal who mainly dislikes Bender because of his smart mouth and disrespect that he shows towards authority. He is uptight and always in attempt to get the students in trouble. Vernon is caught by Carl reading the private school files, for which Carl blackmails him $50. Despite this, he bonds with Carl, confessing various fears about the current generation. "Someday these kids are gonna be running the country. This is the thought that wakes me up in the middle of the night."
• Carl Reed: (John Kapelos) A school janitor who is "the eyes and ears of this institution" ('this institution' being Shermer High School). Carl seems to know the students at the school very well, and when Vernon tells him, "Someday, these kids are gonna take care of me," he replies, "I wouldn't count on it." During the beginning sequence of shots of Shermer High School, a portrait of a younger Carl Reed in the part of the alumni gallery (Man of the year) can been seen, establishing that Carl previously attended the school.

Background

Cast

Each of the film's young stars became part of the Brat Pack (whose other members include Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy and Demi Moore), a group of actors who found fame at the same time and were sometimes cast in films together. John Hughes appeared in an uncredited role as Brian's father. Of the entire cast, only Hall and Ringwald were actually high school age upon the film's release; Nelson was twenty-five while Sheedy and Estevez were both twenty-two years old.

Casting

Emilio Estevez was originally cast to play John Bender, but because Hughes couldn't find anyone to play Andrew Clark, Estevez agreed to take the role. Nicolas Cage was being considered for the role of John Bender. Bender was the last role to be cast, and it was between John Cusack and Judd Nelson. Hughes eventually cast Cusack to play John Bender but decided to replace him with Nelson before shooting began because Cusack didn't look threatening enough for the role. Molly Ringwald also wanted to play Allison Reynolds, but Ally Sheedy had already been promised the part. Rick Moranis was originally cast as the janitor; he left due to creative differences and was replaced by John Kapelos.

Judd Nelson's performance was influenced by his method style technique of staying in character off set. He was accused of bullying Molly Ringwald due to his insistence on remaining in character when the camera was not rolling. This behavior nearly forced Hughes to fire Nelson, but Nelson was defended by Paul Gleason, his on-screen nemesis, who stated that Nelson was just trying to stay in character and did not mean anything by it.

Ringwald and Hall dated briefly after filming ended.

Filming

Shooting began on March 28, 1984 in Des Plaines, Illinois and ended in May 1984. Maine North High School was used in the filming of The Breakfast Club, the same school used for some of the school-based scenes in John Hughes's Ferris Bueller's Day Off, which was released just a year after The Breakfast Club. Some of the posters on the walls during filming of The Breakfast Club were still there when Ferris Bueller was filmed. On the Ferris Bueller's Day Off DVD commentary (featured on the 2004 DVD version) John Hughes reveals that he shot the two films back to back to save time and money, and some outtakes of both films feature elements of the film crews working on the other film in each case. Hughes has never disclosed, however, whether Ferris Bueller was intended to be a student at the same school as The Breakfast Club students a year later.

Maine North High School was closed for two years before John Hughes stepped in and used it as a filming location for The Breakfast Club.

In 2005, MTV announced that the film would be rewarded with the Silver Bucket of Excellence Award in honor of its twentieth Anniversary at the MTV Movie Awards. To coincide with the event, MTV attempted to reunite the original cast. Sheedy, Ringwald, and Hall appeared together on stage, with Kapelos in the audience, and Gleason personally gave the award to his former castmates. Estevez could not attend the reunion because of other commitments, and Nelson appeared earlier in the show but left before the on-stage reunion for reasons unknown, prompting Hall to joke that the two were "in Africa with Dave Chappelle." This show was taped on May 28, 2005 and aired on June 9.

Deleted scenes

John Hughes' first draft of the film was originally scripted out to be a 2-1/2 hour film. However, many of the scenes were cut out and the negatives destroyed. John Hughes had stated that he has the only complete copy of The Breakfast Club, albeit in a VHS copy. Following his death, however, the location of the VHS is unknown. This copy was shown by Hughes to a staff member of Premiere magazine for an article. Among the cut scenes from the movie (some filmed, some only written) are:

• The janitor Carl talks with Vernon about where the five kids will be in the future. Bender will have killed himself, Claire will have had "two boob jobs and a face lift," Brian will have become very successful but die of a heart attack due to the stress of the high paying job. Allison will be a great poet but no one will care, and Andy will marry a gorgeous airline stewardess who will become fat after having kids.
• In a dream sequence, Allison imagines Andy as a gluttonous Viking, Bender as a prisoner, Claire as a bride, Brian as an astronaut, and herself as a vampire. In an unfilmed alternative to this dream sequence, all five kids imagine random things, including cars, naked women, Godzilla, beer, and fighter planes, and these things end up filling the room until Vernon interrupts.
• John Bender was not going to walk to school in the original script. He was going to be driven by his dad in a rusty tow truck, and have a brief fight with him before his dad drives off. Bender is also tossed a bagged lunch, his father saying "You are a waste of lunch-meat!"
• After Bender demonstrates "Life at Big Bri's house" Brian stops Bender and corrects him with a much more pessimistic version of the skit. Claire then proceeds to act out her life before asking Bender to demonstrate his version. Bender's routine changes as well here. After Bender mimics his mom, he stops, commenting that "then they make me work to pay off the dentist for the teeth HE busts."
• In the scene where Bender is inspecting Brian's lunch, there is a note in the lunch from his mom and John reads it.
• The scene where Andy and Allison are walking to get the sodas is extended to a point where Allison pulls out a pack of cigarettes and smokes one.
• After getting the sodas, Bender shakes his can violently and places it among the five to see who gets the rigged one. Allison ends up getting it, and when she opens the can, all the soda squirts directly into her mouth.
• After Vernon asks who has to use the lavatory, the five go to the bathroom. Vernon gives the boys two minutes and the girls three minutes. Claire catches Allison in a stall eating a bag of chips, repulsing her. Bender mocks Brian for sitting down to urinate instead of using a urinal.
• When Allison says "I can write with my toes", she actually does so. This was filmed.
• Several staff members were cut out of the script before filming. Dr. Lange, a social studies teacher who dresses oddly, and Robin, a gym teacher. Robin helps Vernon on a few workout machines until Vernon injures his back, and she eventually visits the students while they are in their circle in the library. Robin initially replaced many of Carl's scenes and Carl was originally set to be a minor character with only two scenes.
• John and Claire's kissing scene in the closet was cut because Hughes felt that "screen kissing wears thin very quickly." Molly Ringwald described it as a "great kiss".

Soundtrack

Untitled

1. "Don't You (Forget About Me)" – Simple Minds
2. "Waiting" – E.G. Daily
3. "Fire in the Twilight" – Wang Chung
4. "I'm the Dude" (instrumental) – Keith Forsey
5. "Heart Too Hot to Hold" – Jesse Johnson, Stephanie Spruill
6. "Dream Montage" (instrumental) – Keith Forsey
7. "We Are Not Alone" – Karla DeVito
8. "Reggae"(instrumental) – Keith Forsey
9. "Didn't I Tell You?" – Joyce Kennedy
10. "Love Theme" (instrumental) – Keith Forsey

Cultural impact

The Breakfast Club was ranked number 1 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the 50 Best High School Movies and has had a tremendous impact on both the teen film genre and on popular culture since the 1980s.

In addition, its theme song titled "Don't You (Forget About Me)", performed by Simple Minds, reached #1 on the U.S. Hot 100 in 1985, where it stayed for 1 week, and has since then become a symbol of teen films. Yellowcard performed a cover of the song during a special tribute to the film The Breakfast Club at the 2005 MTV Movie Awards. New Found Glory also remade the song on their From The Screen To Your Stereo Part II album, which is composed entirely of covers the band has chosen from various film soundtracks. The song has also been repeatedly used in several teen films as well as television programs and in a 2008 back-to-school commercial for the clothing store JC Penney.

The Breakfast Club is referenced many times in television shows created by cartoonist Matt Groening. The phrase "eat my shorts" (see Official Preppy Handbook) occurs in the film and was later popularized by Bart Simpson of The Simpsons. The character "Bender" in Futurama is named after Judd Nelson's Breakfast Club character, John Bender. An LP record of the film's soundtrack appears in the Futurama episode "The Luck of the Fryrish," and "Don't You (Forget About Me)" is played over the same episode's end credits.

Alvin and the Chipmunks did an episode as a homage to the film called "Brunch Club" in their sixth season in 1988. Starting with the collapse of the school's statue of Thomas Edison, the Chipmunks and Chipettes all hear the crash and investigate. When they're discovered by the principal, they are put into detention. Despite squabbling, they all eventually break out of detention and work together to discover who actually destroyed the statue. It turns out that all of them (except for Jeanette) accidentally helped cause the incident.

In the Family Guy episode "Let's Go to the Hop", direct and indirect references to the film are made, i.e. when Peter walks into the cafeteria and sees "The Breakfast Club", which literally is a club of cereal box characters: Tony the Tiger, Captain Crunch, the Trix rabbit, Toucan Sam, and the Lucky Charms leprechaun. The final scene in the episode features "Don't You (Forget About Me)", and it shows Peter doing what Bender did at the end of the film, where he walks over the football field and throws his fist in the air.

In the episode of Disney's The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, "First Day of High School", while serving detention, Cody asks a fellow male detention inmate on why he was in detention. The male student tells him, "He had nothing better to do", a reason similar to the one Allison Reynolds gives for being in detention.

In Disney's Lizzie McGuire, an episode directly parodied The Breakfast Club where the characters had to be in detention. The episode ended with the characters writing a letter similar to the one at the end of the film, calling themselves "The Lunch Bunch" (one of The Breakfast Club's working titles). The episode ended with the song "Don't You (Forget About Me)".

Nickelodeon's As Told by Ginger referenced extensively to the film in the first half of the episode "Detention", Disney's Lizzie McGuire did the same in "She Said, He Said, She Said". The latter one also had references to Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

The promotional poster for the 2008 documentary American Teen has its cast members in the same poses as The Breakfast Club. and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 promotional poster spoofed the Breakfast Club poster.

G4TV's X-Play had a retro themed episode where various G4 personalities played out roles from The Breakfast Club (Kevin Pereira as John Bender, etc.). However, the ending letter was revealed to be a suicide note as they all come to be involved in a suicide pact.

In the spoof comedy Not Another Teen Movie, one of the characters in detention argues with the principal while he is in detention. Paul Gleason plays the principal and wears the suit he has in The Breakfast Club. The scene where Bender is in the ceiling is also spoofed.

A JC Penney commercial aired on TV and in theaters beginning in June 2008 pays homage the film. Several scenes are reenacted at a similar library by the commercial's actors, to the tune of a cover of "Don't You" by New Found Glory. The commercial shows a shot of the school with the name Shermer High School on the exterior of the building.

On Degrassi: The Next Generation, Sean (the criminal), Hazel (the princess), Jimmy (the athlete), Toby (the brain), and Ellie (the basket case) all end up in detention.

In the trailer for the 2009 film Bandslam, there was a very short snippet where they spoofed the dance scene on the banister from The Breakfast Club, though this was not actually in the film.

In a scene in the 2004 film, "Along Came Polly", a poster for the fictional film Crocodile Tears is shown, with the characters in the same pose as the poster for The Breakfast Club. The Simple Minds song Don't You (Forget About Me) is also playing during this scene.

The TV show Psych references The Breakfast Club, along with other John Hughes flicks in the episode "Murder?... Anyone?... Anyone?... Bueller?"

Potential sequel

Regarding a potential sequel to The Breakfast Club, John Hughes stated in 1999 that he was against it, saying "I thought about it. I could do it in prose. I know what will happen to them. I know them. But to do it with real actors ... they'd never come back together again. There's no excuse that could ever put them in the same room ever again. There isn't anything in their lives after high school relevant to that day."

In 2005, Emilio Estevez stated that Hughes had an idea for a Breakfast Club 2, with the characters now attending college and "doing time again." Estevez looked forward to the project at the time, saying "If it happens, I'm there."

External links

• The Breakfast Club at IMDb
• The Breakfast Club at AllMovie
• The Breakfast Club DVD official Universal Studios website
• Entertainment Weekly commentary