Curly Sue

 ( 1991 Romantic Comedy-drama Films ) 

Curly Sue is a 1991 American comedy drama film written, produced, and directed by John Hughes, and starring Jim Belushi, Kelly Lynch and Alisan Porter with Steve Carell in his film debut. It tells the story of a homeless con artist and his young orphan companion who gain shelter with a rich divorce lawyer. This was the final film directed by Hughes before his death in 2009. The film received generally negative reviews from critics.

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Plot Bill Dancer and his young companion 7-year-old Curly Sue, an girl who Bill took in as a baby, are homeless folks with hearts of gold. Their scams are aimed not at turning a profit but at getting enough to eat. One night, while they are sleeping at a shelter, Sue's tin ring, which was left to her by her late mother, is stolen and pawned by a drifter.

After moving from Detroit to Chicago, the duo succeed in conning a rich divorce lawyer named Grey Ellison into believing she backed her Mercedes-Benz into Bill. When Grey accidentally collides with Bill for real the following night, she insists on putting the two up for the night over the objections of her snotty boyfriend Walker McCormick. After a confrontation exposing the con, Bill admits the truth and tells Grey it's time for him and Sue to move on. Thinking Bill has been abusing Sue by using her in his cons, Grey demands that the girl stay with her, but Bill will not leave Sue. Grey lets them stay when she understands the precarious position the homeless pair are in.

Walker, out of spite, turns them in, and Sue is taken away by child protective services, while Bill is arrested because he never had custody of the child. While in jail, he encounters the drifter who stole Sue's ring and forces him to reveal what he did with it. Grey arrives to get Bill out of jail and has also gotten Sue out of state care.

After learning that the drifter took the ring to a pawnbroker and sold it, Bill buys it back. Sue and Grey return to their apartment and discover the ring, which Sue takes as a sign that Bill has decided the time has come for them to part. However, the ring is accompanied by a note saying Bill is in the living room.

Grey and Bill adoption Sue and are subsequently married. The film ends with them dropping Sue off on her first day of school.

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Cast

• Alisan Porter as Curly Sue
• Jim Belushi as Bill Dancer
• Kelly Lynch as Grey Ellison
• John Getz as Walker McCormick
• Fred Thompson as Bernard Oxbar
• Branscombe Richmond as Albert
• Gail Boggs as Anise Hall
• Viveka Davis as Trina
• Barbara Tarbuck as Mrs. Arnold
• Cameron Thor as Maître d'
• Edie McClurg as Secretary
• Steve Carell as Tesio (credited as Steven Carell; in his film acting debut)
• Burke Byrnes as Dr. Maxwell
• John Ashton as Mr. Frank Arnold ( uncredited)
• Ralph Foody as Drifter

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Production Lead actress Kelly Lynch agreed to do the film as she saw it as a kind of "throwback to one of those Great Depression-era movies that you'd see Jean Harlow in: A rich lady ends up taking in this little orphan." According to Lynch, at the time she signed on to the project, it was initially intended to co-star Alec Baldwin and Kevin Spacey in the parts later played by Jim Belushi and John Getz, respectively. Though she loved working with Hughes, calling his vision "very precise" but also organic, she claimed that he and Belushi did not get along. "I kind of felt like a mom dealing with two 12-year-old boys," she said. "What I thought would be this cute, sweet little movie experience ended up going on for something like five months, and so much money was spent. It was insane."

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Release The film debuted at No. 2 at the box office with a gross of $4,974,958 on 1,634 screens. The following weekend it increased its weekend gross by seven percent to $5.3million from the same number of screens and remained in second place. In its third weekend it continued on the same number of screens and managed to move into first place, taking more in its third week than in its first or second. Its final gross in the U.S. and Canada was $33,691,313.

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Home media

Warner Home Video released it on VHS and Laserdisc in 1992 and later on DVD on June 1, 2004, with commentary and an introduction by Porter on special features.

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Reception

The film received mostly negative reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, Curly Sue holds a 13% rating based on 15 reviews, with an average rating of 3.7/10. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade of "B+" on scale of A+ to F.

Leonard Maltin gave it one and a half stars out of four in his Movie Guide, and called it "A John Hughes formula movie where the formula doesn't work".

Leonard Maltin (2025). 9780452289789, Signet Books. ISBN 9780452289789

Halliwell's Film Guide calls it "Gruesomely sentimental and manipulative".

(2025). 9780007260805, HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 9780007260805

Nigel Andrews of the Financial Times declared, "John Hughes here graduates from Home Alone to scripting and directing a large piece of non-biodegradable ."

Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars, complimenting "the quiet humor and the warmth of the actors." He said the movie is "not great and it's not deep, but it sure does have a heart."

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External links

Categories: 1991 Romantic Comedy-drama Films, 1991 Films, 1991 Children's Films, American Romantic Comedy-drama Films, Films About Con Artists, Films About Homelessness, Films Directed By John Hughes, Films Produced By John Hughes, Films Set In Chicago, Films Set In A Movie Theatre, Films Shot In Chicago, Films Scored By Georges Delerue, Films With Screenplays By John Hughes, Warner Bros. Films, 1990s English-language Films, 1990s American Films, English-language Romantic Comedy-drama Films

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