John Hughes, Writer of My Favorite Movie

Director John Hughes died of a heart attack yesterday at the age of 59. He was a writer and/or director of a number of very popular movies including Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Home Alone, National Lampoon's Vacation, and Planes, Trains and Automobiles. A lot of people are remembering him for his high school teen angst films like Sixteen Candles or The Breakfast Club (neither of which I've ever seen, but I'll remember him as the writer of my favorite movie, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. That movie still makes me laugh out loud even though I know what's coming.

A number of people have also referred to a piece of the original screenplay for Ferris Bueller that didn't make the final film:

FERRIS
My uncle went to Canada to protest
the war, right? On the Fourth of
July he was down with my aunt and he
got drunk and told my Dad he felt
guilty he didn't fight in Viet Nam.
So I said, "What's the deal, Uncle
Jeff? In wartime you want to be a
pacifist and in peacetime you want
to be a soldier. It took you twenty
years to find out you don't believe
in anything?"

(snaps his fingers)

Grounded. Just like that. Two weeks.

(pause)

Be careful when you deal with old
hippies. They can be real touchy.

That's good stuff and pretty conservative for Hollywood (which might explain why it didn't make the final picture).

He hadn't directed a film since 1991 but his legacy in the business will live on.