The Live Up Podcast team reviewed 1985's The Breakfast Club, and - surprise, surprise - we thought it lived up. We did call out that this film depicts bullying, sexual harassment, and derogatory language; we don't recommend showing this film to younger children. However, these cringier moments did feel authentic to the 1980s. They were not enough to sink our opinions of the overall brilliance of the film.
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| John Hughes with the cast of The Breakfast Club |
Writer/director John Hughes wrote The Breakfast Club as a 143 page screenplay (which would have had the run time of almost 2.5 hours!), but then allowed the actors to go off script and ad lib in their own voices. Letting the teens speak naturally might be the actual genius of this film. Adding their own language resulted in a shorter film that packed a bigger punch.
The ad libbed dialogue also led to some of the most quotable lines of the 1980's.
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| This line was not in the original script. |
John Hughes also did an excellent job pairing down that 143 page script. The original script contains the same themes of breaking down stereotypes and finding common ground, but sometimes it undermines itself with juvenile humor. Other times, it feels overstuffed or repetitive. For example, in the original opening Brian's voiceover reads the letter to the principal in its entirety. Here's an excerpt from page 3 (the "Voice" is Brian):
In the actual film, Brian doesn't read the labels Brain, Athlete, Basket Case, Princess, Criminal until the ending. It has a bigger impact there. By reading their letter in full at the beginning, it takes away from the drop off scene where we learn about each character from their quick interactions with their parents.
John Hughes cut other scenes from his original script, including:
- Bender getting dropped off by his abusive father (and angrily throwing his lunch at his father's truck) - it makes more sense that his father wouldn't care enough to drive him, and he never had a lunch
- Repeated cut aways to the clock to portray how slowly the time is passing
- A Boredom Montage that goes on, and on, and on for a significant chunk of the first act
- Allison having a dream sequence that turns into Japanese anime; Andy having a dream sequence of explosions, fighter jets, and boobs - dream sequences usually suck.
- Scenes in the bathrooms where the boys and girls gross each other out.
- Bender making even dirtier comments about Claire, asking the Principal for nude photos of his wife
- Carl the janitor's lengthy monologue where he tells each of the kids where they will end up - he just wouldn't seem as cool if he spent that much time thinking about them.
- An extended scene of Andy and Allison breaking into a teacher's locker
- Bender shaking 1 of 5 soda cans in a sort of Coke roulette. Allison gets the shaken can and shotguns it
- All the kids acting out their lives at home, not just Bender - this would reveal too much too quickly, and it doesn't seem like they are comfortable enough with each other yet to do that
- A lot of jokes about Brian's genitals getting high after Bender shoves the weed down his pants
- The principal reads a Playboy while he has Bender locked in the closet
- Brian and Allison get in a fist fight
- Bender breaking the 4th wall to look at the camera before he sticks his face between Claire's legs
- Bender forcibly kissing Claire when she goes to smoke a joint with him
- Brian performing a parody of Flashdance when he gets high; Andy strips down to his underwear and runs around when he gets high
- A lengthy inspection of a nude photo in Brian's wallet
- Brian playing with a tampon from Allison's handbag
- A lot of intercutting with Principal Vernon leering at a female teacher who is also in the building (on a Saturday?) and injuring himself in the weight room - intercutting the confession scene with this slapstick perviness makes everything the teens say to each other so unserious
- Allison shocking everyone by singing in a baritone - did we steal this joke from Space Balls?
- The teens talking about whether they would be upset if their parents died
- A confession that Claire stole the driver's ed car and then crashed it
- Bender hitting on the female teacher when she comes to check on them... the female teacher delivers lengthy exposition about the importance of this time in their lives - don't let an adult tell them what's important to them
- Principal Vernon catches John out of the supply closet
- Principal Vernon catches Claire with John in the supply closet
- Principal Vernon ends his day with deep admiration for the letter they wrote, and a possible date with the female teacher - we do not need a redemption arc for the principal
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| The actors got to ad-lib some of their "how I got here" stories |
By whittling down his original script, John Hughes cut an hour of the run time off this film. People call him a genius for writing The Breakfast Club; we would take it one step further by saying John Hughes is a genius for letting go of his writing. He trusted the actors enough to ad lib in their own voices, and he knew when to cut the scenes the didn't work.
Listen to all of our thoughts on The Breakfast Club here, on YouTube, or on your favorite podcasting platform.
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