Photo: Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection
Pretty in Pinkisn’t just a good ’80s movie. It isn’t just a good teen movie. And it isn’t just a good romantic movie. It’s just a good movie, period. The John Hughes classic first hit theaters on Feb. 28, 1986, and it turns 30 years old this weekend.
The film featuredMolly Ringwaldas Andie, a high school student whose style belies her working-class roots. She’s captured the eye of seemingly every guy in school — among them, preppy dreamboat Blane (Andrew McCarthy) and her little hipster buddy, Duckie (Jon Cryer). And the process of Ringwald’s character trying to figure out some very grown-up feelings made for one of the better coming-of-age stories ever to light up a movie screen.
People have loved this John Hughes classic for 30 years, but we’re willing to bet that even superfans might not know everything there is toPretty in Pink. So let’s celebrate the film’s big 3-0 with that most hallowed of pop culture offerings: a listicle.
1. It’s one of those cult films that was a success from the get-go
With a lot of films that gain obsessive followings, they start small and grow big long after they’ve ended their theatrical run. This is not the case withPretty in Pink, which made $40 million on a comparatively teensy $9 million budget. But more than that, it was also well-reviewed. Even today, it holds a 79 percent “fresh” ratingon Rotten Tomatoes. (But don’t tell that to our PEOPLE critic, who gave it a less-than-glowing review upon its release. Whoops!)
2. The role of Andie was written specifically for Molly Ringwald
3. Jon Cryer was not the first choice to play Duckie, however
Fresh off his turn as the super brain inThe Breakfast Club, which was released one year earlier,Anthony Michael Hallwas worried about being typecast andturned down the role of Duckieeven though it was written specifically for him. Hall says he alsoturned down the lead roleinFerris Bueller’s Day Off, which Hughes had also written for him.
Allegedly Huston was offered the part of Andie’s cool girl mentor but opted not to take it. In the end, Hughes decided the part should go toAnnie Potts, whom he enjoyed as Janine inGhostbusters.
5. James Spader relished playing the bad guy
6. Sci-fi fans might recognize Benny
7. And you might also recognize Benny’s dark-haired friend
That’s a young Gina Gershon in one of her first film roles, though she’d played a dancer inGirls Just Want to Have Funthe previous year.
8. Kristy Swanson’s character had a name
The foxy blonde making eyes with Duckie at the end of the film? She’s listed in the credits as “Duckette.”
9. It was one of the final films of Alexa Kenin
Kenin played Jenna, Andie’s gym buddy, but Kenin didn’t live to see the film’s release. The actress was found dead in her Manhattan apartment on Sept. 10, 1985. No cause of death was ever publicly released, andThe New York Timesobituarysimply states that “the cause of death was not immediately known.”
10. There’s aYo Gabba Gabbaconnection
The would-be shoplifter whom Iona nails in the face with a staple gun is Christian Jacobs, a man familiar to some as the lead singer of the Aquabats and to others as the creator of the kid’s showYo Gabba Gabba.
11. There’s a Zappa family connection as well
12. Yes, in fact, the movie is named after the Psychedelic Furs song
A modest hit in both the U.S. and the U.K., the song “Pretty in Pink” came out in 1980.
13. But the soundtrack version of the song is different than the original
The Psychedelic Furs actually re-recorded the track for the movie soundtrack, and the new version features saxophones more prominently. You can hear the difference in the opening riffs of the song.
14. But that’s not the song the movie ended up making famous
“If You Leave,” the love ballad that closes outPretty in Pink, was written specifically for the film. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark wrote the song in just two days, and it ended up becoming one of OMD’s biggest hits.
15. And it wasn’t even intended to be in the movie
As weird as it might be to think ofPretty in Pinkending to the tune of any other song, the finale track was going to be a different selection from the OMD catalog, “Goddess of Love.”
16. There’s a reason that the film had a different closing anthem
In the original ending, Andie chose Duckie, not Blane. In fact, this ending was the one that test audiences originally saw, and when they objected that Andie had picked the wrong guy, the original ending was scrapped and the one we all know today was filmed instead.
17. This is not news if you were more of a bookworm than a movie buff
Back in the day, most major films had novelizations, apparently to appease people who wanted to keep up with Hollywood but who didn’t actually like moving pictures.Pretty in Pinkwas no different, but because the book was based on the original ending, it also had Andie ending up with Duckie — and that must have been a pretty major surprise to anyone who saw the movie first and then read the book.
18. The original ending was un-romantic for a wholly unrelated reason to boot
Ringwald was suffering from horrible stomach flu when the original ending was shot. She was so weak, that she actually fainted onto Cryer while they were dancing together. As Cryer explainsin this interview, Ringwald was bedridden for half a day. As he recalls it, her illness prevented the crew from shooting the movie the way they’d intended, and he posits that this could be a reason that test audiences didn’t react well to that ending.
19. “If You Leave” wasn’t the only ’80s hit recorded specifically for the movie, either
The Echo & the Bunnymen track, released just a few months beforePretty in Pinkhit theaters, was also written for the film. It ultimately hit No. 21 on the U.K. singles chart.
20. The soundtrack did well, independently of the movie
It’s a good listen, even if you’ve never seenPretty in Pink, and has served as many a young movie-goer’s primer to the new wave hits of the ’80s. It peaked as high as No. 5 on theBillboard 200chart.
21.Rolling Stonenamed it the 11th-best movie soundtrack of all time
Ranked squarely between the breakthrough hip hop soundtrack toWild Styleand the old-school folksiness of’O Brother, Where Art Thou?', thePretty in Pinksoundtrack stands up even today. “Most 1980s teen flicks had soundtracks full of corporate-rock filler, but John Hughes curated this one into one of the finest new wave anthologies,” the magazine notes. “It’s all lavish sadness, with tunes from Echo and the Bunnymen, New Order and the Smiths — the kind of music Duckie needs to hear when he’s sitting alone in his room.”
22. Curiously, there’s one importantPretty in Pinksong that didn’t make it onto the soundtrack
Duckie lip-syncing to Otis Redding’s 1967 hit “Try a Little Tenderness” is probably one of the film’s more famous scenes, but for whatever reason, it’s never appeared on any version of the film’s soundtrack.
23. And a second not-on-the-soundtrack song has an interesting Ringwald family connection
The Rave-Ups appear in the film as themselves, performing the songs “Positively Lost Me” and “Rave-Up/Shut-Up.” Both songs are curiously missing from the official soundtrack as well, but they remained part of Molly Ringwald’s life in one key way: Her sister Beth Ringwald dated the band’s frontman, Jimmer Podrasky, and the couple had a son together, Chance, for whomthe band’s 1990 singlewas named.
24. And in 2013, the soundtrack got the new vinyl release it always deserved
Yep, the record was bright pink.
25. Ringwald, Cryer and Potts reunited for the film’s 25th anniversary
26. Cryer reprised the role of Duckie — kinda-sorta
In the premiere of the final season ofTwo and a Half Men, Cryer’s character dresses up as Duckie for Halloween. The clip isn’t embeddable but watch ithere.
27. And that’s not the last time he did it, either
A 2015 skit onThe Late Late Showhad Cryer andJames Cordendoing dueling Duckies, each with his own take on his famousPretty in Pinkdance.
28. Ringwald, meanwhile, revisited her Hughesian days in a very different way
29. It’s Molly Ringwald’s final John Hughes movie, but it almost wasn’t
30. John Hughes finally got his “Andie and Duckie” ending inSome Kind of Wonderful
This is just speculation, but it’s worth considering: Hughes wrotePretty in Pinkinitially as a story about two friends realizing they’re in love. Ultimately, however, Andie ended up with Blane and not Duckie. The next year, however, Hughes wroteSome Kind of Wonderful, which features a similar love triangle with the genders switched: Eric Stoltz is Molly Ringwald (red hair and all), Mary Stuart Masterson is Duckie (the buddy whose feelings may be more than platonic) andLea Thompsonis the Andrew McCarthy (the attractive kid who’s popular in a way the other two aren’t). And in that movie, Stoltz and Masterson’s characters end up together. Andie and Duckie finally found love — just in a different movie.
source: people.com
