Did Writer/Director John Hughes ever write a bad movie?
Among the films he wrote:
Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Home Alone, Weird Science, Pretty in Pink, Home Alone 2, Some Kind of Wonderful, Uncle Buck, National Lampoon’s Vacation, The Great Outdoors, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, She’s having a Baby, and the great Planes, Trains and Automobiles along with a host of other films.
He directed many of those classics, including Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
The man was a vastly under-appreciated genius who gave us many of the best comedies of the 1980′s.
Planes, Trains and Automobiles came out in 1987. I was stationed in England at the time and British Television was not one to run a bunch of commercials hyping newly released American movies, so I had never heard of this movie when it came to the theater in a neighboring town. I figured that between Steve Martin and John Candy, surely it would be a good movie.
It was a great movie and is sill one of my favorite 80′s comedies!
It was made for $15 Million and ended up making over $150 Million at the box office which made it one of the biggest films of John Candy’s career.
John Hughes had made comedies targeting more of a teen audience and this was his first attempt at a “adult” comedy.
The film earned an R-Rating for one notorious and absolutely hilarious scene in which Steve Martin vents his anger at a Rental Car Agent and ends up dropping about 17 “F-Bombs” during his tirade. It has to be the funniest obscene tirade in film history.
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Car Rental Agent: [cheerfully] Welcome to Marathon, may I help you?
Neal: Yes.
Car Rental Agent: How may I help you?
Neal: You can start by wiping that fu**ing dumb-ass smile off your rosey, fu**ing, cheeks! Then you can give me a fu**ing automobile: a fu**ing Datsun, a fu**ing Toyota, a fu**ing Mustang, a fu**ing Buick! Four fu**ing wheels and a seat!
Car Rental Agent: I really don’t care for the way you’re speaking to me.
Neal: And I really don’t care for the way your company left me in the middle of fu**ing nowhere with fu**ing keys to a fu**ing car that isn’t fu**ing there. And I really didn’t care to fu**ing walk down a fu**ing highway and across a fu**ing runway to get back here to have you smile in my fu**ing face. I want a fu**ing car RIGHT FU**ING NOW!
Car Rental Agent: May I see your rental agreement?
Neal: I threw it away.
Car Rental Agent: Oh boy.
Neal: Oh boy, what?
Car Rental Agent: You’re fu**ed!
I had the pleasure of working with John Candy in the early ’80′s. At the time I was an audio engineer working at a radio/TV production facility in Toronto. He and other SCTV alumni provided voice-overs for many commercials being produced at the time. As I recall, John usually showed up for charitable causes. ie: He wasn’t expecting to be paid for his time. He was no different in real-life than he was on-camera. His infectious heh-heh-heh laughter was genuine and he wasn’t really “acting” in any films he appeared in. Such a quality human-being. That’s the lasting memory.