The filmography of John Hughes consists largely of movies that are PG-13 at their edgiest. His bread and butter were family comedies and coming-of-age stories, but “The Breakfast Club” proved that he wasn’t afraid to push things into R territory from time to time. It got there entirely because of the movie’s dialogue, which contained not only a healthy dose of profanity but also frank discussions about sex, violence, and other mature topics.
As it turns out, “The Breakfast Club” nearly earned its R rating because of nudity as well. As part of an unfortunate trend in comedies of that era, the movie was going to have a scene that featured a naked woman for no particular reason. Even worse, the naked woman in question was going to be viewed through a peephole that looked into the girls’ locker room. It was at least going to be a grown-up faculty member and not one of the female high school students, for what that’s worth. Fortunately, producer Michelle Manning and stars Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy called out Hughes for the gratuitous and completely unnecessary scene, and he never filmed it. The change went a long way in helping “The Breakfast Club” stand out among its peers both at the time and especially in aging better than so many similar movies of the era.
