Daily Dialogue — October 24, 2016

Richard Vernon: Well, well. Here we are. I want to congratulate you for being on time.
Claire Standish: Excuse me, sir. I think there’s been a mistake. I know it’s detention but I don’t think I belong in here.

Vernon ignores her, carrying on with his speech.

Richard Vernon: It is now 7:06. You have exactly 8 hours and 54 minutes to think about WHY you are here — to ponder the error of your ways. You will not talk… You will now move from these seats.

Richard Vernon: [addressing Bender, who has his feet on a chair] And YOU… will not sleep.

Pulls the chair out from under Bender’s feet.

Richard Vernon: All right people, we’re going to try something a little different today. We are going to write an essay of no less than a thousand words describing to me who you think you are.
John Bender: Is this a test?
Richard Vernon: And when I say ‘essay’, I mean ‘essay’. I do not mean a single word repeated a thousand times. Is that clear, Mr. Bender?
John Bender: Crystal.
Richard Vernon: Good. Maybe you’ll learn a little something about yourself. You might even decide whether or not you’d care to return.
Brian Johnson: Uh, you know, I can answer that right now, sir. That’d be no… No from me, ‘cause…
Richard Vernon: Sit down, Johnson.
Brian Johnson: Thank you, sir.

Sits down.

Richard Vernon: My office is right across that hall. Any monkey business is ill-advised. Any questions?
John Bender: Yeah, I got a question. Does Barry Manilow know that you raid his wardrobe?
Richard Vernon: You’ll get the answer to that question, Mr. Bender, next Saturday. Don’t mess with the bull, young man — you’ll get the horns.

Walks away.

John Bender: That man… is a brownie hound.

— The Breakfast Club (1985), written by John Hughes

The Daily Dialogue theme next week: Discipline.

Trivia: John Hughes wrote the screenplay to this movie in just two days (4 and 5 July 1982).

Dialogue On Dialogue: Detention. A common form of discipline in high school, at least in a Chicago suburb in the 80s as imagined by John Hughes. Ironically the members of ‘The Breakfast Club do learn something about themselves through the process, although not in the way Richard Vernon imagined.