John Hughes week continues in Back to School month, with this third teen classic that was actually not directed by him (Howard Deutch did the honors here), just written and produced, but his fingerprints were all over it nonetheless. His third collaboration with Molly Ringwald, the teen queen of the 80's, was about a girl from the wrong side of the tracks (literally in this case), who falls for pasty rich boy Blane (ugh). I never liked Andrew McCarthy in that role, and always wanted Ringwald's Andie to end up with Duckie (Jon Cryer), no matter how much of dork he was. But the best reason to see this is for James Spader, who casually steals every single scene as Blane's best friend Steff, with that smug Spader superiority fully in place. He's unintentionally hilarious, which just makes the movie better. (One more thing about this film- the clothes are particularly out of control here, it's almost like an 80's parody movie even though it came out in '86. People seriously dressed like this? Yikes).
Original Trailer from 1986:
