3/4  Comedy Romance Drama - A Good Teen Flick
A funny 80s flick with great characters in Ducky (Jon Cryer) and Iona (Annie Potts). James Spader plays an excellent jerk -- you'll love to hate him. Great love story between the girl from the wrong side of the tracks and the boy from a ... (read full)

2.5/4  Could have been better
*sigh* This could have been such a great movie. The cast was good, the story was typical John Hughes and it was perfect 80's but something went wrong. (Spoilers ahead!!) In the original cut, Andy was supposed to end up with Duckie but test... (read full)

3.5/4  Pretty In Pink
He's good. She's good. He's just Duckie.

A girl from the wrong side of the tracks, a geeky new-waver who worships her, a rich High School Hunk who has her eye, and John Hughes

Andie hangs around with Duckie who has a crush on her bu... (read full)

5/5 wifes favorite movie
  by Jonathan Doyle (Frederick)
she watches this over and over again.

great acting, good plot, good actor selections. she watch this in a happy or sad mood.
over all just a feell good movie.

5/5 BECAUSE we all need a little more PINK in our lives!
  by Taylor Jade
One of my fave movies with LOADS of special features! Interviews with the cast in more recent years and commentary, etc. etc. I'm mad at the person who said this didn't have any EXTRAS. It almost made me want to cancel my order til I looked thru more comments and saw that the person was wrong so yeh... LOTS OF EXTRA INTERVIEWS and commentary... and more for you to sink your teeth in if you love "PRETTY IN PINK".

Regarding the fact that they called it the "Everything Duckie Edition" and that the DVD didn't show the alternate ending, well... it didn't really bother me because I never pictured Andie with Duckie in the 1st place. I think they did show pieces of the shooting, though, and they talked about the reasons why they didn't think it worked so... I guess if you really wanted the DVD for that particular reason alone- then don't buy this. However, if you want EXTRA EXTRA PRETTY IN PINK bonus stuff, get this DVD. I love it! (Applause Applause)

2/5 No Duckie...No Way
  by Shelley R. Smith (New York, NY USA)
How can they call this Everything's Duckie if they aren't going to have the original ending on this DVD? Me and my best girlfriend bonded over the fact that we couldn't believe that Andy ran off with Blaine (Blaine, he was like the wallpaper, he was so boring) instead of being with Duckie. I tend to watch the film right up until the end and then just turn it off.

When they release the film on DVD with the original ending of Andy and Duckie together, only then will I buy the DVD.

The soundtrack I don't need, I have that for years. Was a big New Order long before, didn't really like Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. Left of Center (Suzanne Vega/Joe Jackson) was my life story in high school. Oh the memories.

5/5 I just want them to know that they didn't break me
  by C. CRADDOCK (Bakersfield)
Molly Ringwald is pretty in pink, though she is gorgeous no matter what shade she wears. Andie Walsh in PIP is Molly's signature role. You'd think that a film titled Pretty in Pink would be all about the clothes, but apart from the pink prom dress she put together by combining two vintage dresses, I preferred her wardrobe from 16 Candles or The Breakfast Club. Besides, she was out dressed at every turn by Duckie (Jon Cryer) and Iona (Annie Potts).

Duckie is her blatant admirer who rides by her house about 100 times a day on his bike. Does he ever park? No, he is more of a drive-by kind of guy. He appreciates her sense of fashion, because his own is even quirkier. They both like to work those hats.

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Duckie: May I admire you again today?
=============================================

They have a close friendship, though it is obvious that Duckie wants more. "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want" by The Smiths, and heard on the soundtrack, could serve as his anthem. Jon Cryer was a fabulous Duckie with all his ducks in a row. This is his best role, and the one he will be remembered for, apart from playing Alan Harper in the syndicated sit com Two and a Half Men with Charlie Sheen. He was such a cute kid. What happened?

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Andie: So what do you want to drink?
Duckie: Oh you know, beer, scotch, juice box... whatever.
============================================

Cryer had another great sit com but no one saw it, a great show about two architects called Partners that only lasted one season. Cryer was Bob (22 episodes, 1995-1996). Does anyone besides me remember this show?

Besides out dressing Ringwald -- his tuxedo even trumps her pink dress at the prom -- Cryer and Potts almost steal the show with their romance. They nearly hijacked PIP and made it into the sequel to HAM (Harold and Maude).

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Duckie: You know what an older woman does for me?
Iona: Changes your diapers?
Duckie: Touché.
==============================

Iona keeps Duckie at bay with her wisecracks, but after Duckie kisses Iona to make Andie jealous, Duckie and Iona almost hook up. This train derails when she starts dating a yuppie pet shop owner who arrives suddenly like some kind of deus ex machina.

Annie Potts as Iona was the coolest vintage record store owner in Chicago since Rob Gordon in High Fidelity. She is a perpetual adolescent and surrogate mother/cool boss to Andie Walsh, always there for her with a quick quip or a shoulder to cry on. She is the perfect mixture of mother and best friend for a post-date recap:

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Andie: Well, not nothing. I mean, I kissed him...
Iona: Anywhere interesting?
===========================================

Her unique fashion sense is all the stranger coming from someone who would play Interior Decorator Mary Jo Shively in 151 episodes of "Designing Women" from 1986-1993. Iona lives in a Chinese Restaurant converted into her humble abode with a lot of the original decor intact. Besides her outrageous clothes, she also has a passion for wigs that borders on the criminal. Indeed, she was in Ken Russell's Crimes of Passion, and one of her wigs looks like it was stolen from China Blue.

Harry Dean Stanton was good as Andie's father, who is still not over Andie's mother leaving. Andie has to push him to get out of bed in the morning and look for a better job. She has taken over the parent role, in a way, and dishes out the tough love. Still, they have great rapport. Repo Man and Paris, Texas are the must-see Harry Dean Stanton roles.

Andrew McCarthy was OK but not great as Blane, the richie who faced a lot of pressure when he tried to date a poorie. The issue was would he go against the grain and date Andie in spite of parental and peer pressure, but what did Andie see in Blane, anyway?

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Andie: You know you're talking like that just because I'm going out with Blane.
Duckie: His name is Blane? Oh! That's a major appliance, that's not a name!
=========================================

I don't know about a major appliance, but Blane is kind of a tool. McCarthy and Ringwald were also together in Fresh Horses, where Molly is even poorer, and Ben Stiller is the rich friend who tries to steer him away from Ringwald. Fresh Horses focuses much more on McCarthy, with Ringwald's Jewell being a mysterious figure that may or may not be married. Is she a real Jewell or merely costume jewelry? In Fresh Horses, the gap between the two is much wider, and harder for McCarthy's character to bridge. He is studying to be an architect, but she is a backwoods yahoo. Even the test audiences felt that they shouldn't get together.

James Spader was good in PIP as the rich jerk, Steff. Spader has a similar role to the one he played in PIP in The Rachel Papers, were he plays the rival for Ione Skye's affections. He makes a good jerk, but would later branch out to more sympathetic and complex roles, like the naive innocent under the Bad Influence of Rob Lowe. His break out role would have to be sex, lies, and video tape.

John Hughes wrote Pretty in Pink but didn't direct it. Don't fall for that trick trivia question. Howard Deutch was the director, and it was Deutch's directorial debut. Since PIP is practically a sequel to 16 Candles it is fitting that Deutch would go on to direct three sequels for which he hadn't directed the original films (Grumpier Old Men, The Odd Couple II, & The Whole Ten Yards).

The audience at the test screening didn't buy Duckie and Andie getting together at the end, so the studio made them change it. They had to call back the actors to reshoot, even though McCarthy had shaved his head for his next film. He had to wear one of Iona's wigs. Hughes wanted to keep his original ending, and later made Some Kind of Wonderful (1987), almost a remake of PIP, just so he could do the ending he wanted. Hughes wanted Ringwald to do SKOW, but she wisely refused to reprise her role yet again, resulting in a falling out and they never worked together afterwards.

If Robert Downey Jr. had been cast as Duckie, it might have ended with Andie and Duckie getting together, because Downey, unlike Cryer, didn't give Molly a brotherly vibe. Downey Jr. is the only one I can think of who could have escaped the friend bag Duckie was stuck in. Anthony Michael Hall couldn't get out of his friend bag in 16 Candles, and he was offered the role of Duckie but wisely turned it down. Dweezil Zappa, who played Simon in PIP, was actually Molly's boyfriend at the time. Would the test audience have bought them as a couple?

Besides Dweezil, keep your eye out for Gina Gershon and Andrew 'Dice' Clay. Clay is the bouncer at Trax, the night club where the PIP crew hang. If you are ever asked who the bouncer in Flashdance was, it wasn't the dice man, but Lee Ving, the singer of So Cal punk group Fear. I could have sworn it was Andrew.

New Order, Echo & the Bunnymen, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, INXS, along with the title track by The Psychedelic Furs gave this film the quintessential 80's vibe, but it also used older songs like "Copacabana (At the Copa)" by Barry Manilow, "Try a Little Tenderness" by Otis Redding, and "Cherish" by The Association to its advantage.

Pretty in Pink is a classic High School romance, and it also owns the 80's. Pretty in Pink is to the 80's what Reality Bites is to the 90's. It is a high point of the Hughes oeuvre, even if he didn't direct, but merely wrote it. I think the ending is fine, even if Hughes didn't. Besides Molly Ringwald being so pretty in pink, you also have Cryer and Potts. Who could ask for more?

Crash (1996) .... James Spader was James Ballard
Malicious (1995) .... Molly Ringwald was Melissa Nelson
Bad Influence (1990) .... James Spader was Michael Boll
The Rachel Papers (1989) .... James Spader was Deforest
sex, lies, and videotape (1989) .... James Spader was Graham Dalton
Fresh Horses (1988) .... Molly Ringwald was Jewel and Andrew McCarthy was Matt Larkin
The Breakfast Club (1985) .... Molly Ringwald was Claire Standish (written and directed by John Hughes)
Sixteen Candles (1984) .... Molly Ringwald was Samantha Baker (written and directed by John Hughes)
Paris, Texas (1984) .... Harry Dean Stanton was Travis Henderson
Repo Man (1984) .... Harry Dean Stanton was Bud

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Andie: I just want them to know that they didn't break me.
==========================

3/5 2.5 stars out of 4
  by One-Line Film Reviews (Easton, MD)
The Bottom Line:

It's a John Hughes teen film starring Molly Ringwald, so you know what you're getting before you walk in: there'll be some drama, some overacting, some unmanipulative and interesting material undermined by attempts at broad humor, and an ending designed to make everyone leave with a smile on his or her face, regardless of the logical contortions required to make it happen: watch it if that appeals to you.