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Friday March 29th 2024

The Breakfast Club | 1985

Archetypal John Hughes teen-movie with the five principals whiling away an afternoon’s detention. This being Hughes, the setting is inevitably Chicago, and the fictitious suburb of 'Shermer'.

Most of the film takes place in the library of 'Shermer High School', which was a set created in the gymnasium of what was then Maine North High School, 9511 Harrison Street in Des Plaines, about 20 miles northwest of Chicago itself. It closed in 1981 and was empty at the time of filming. The building is now used as a district headquarters for the Illinois State Police and other offices.

Maine North's entrance on Harrison Street was used for the school's exterior, seen as the Breakfasters are dropped off by their parents.

Some of the hallways and corridors are John Hughes's own school, Glenbrook North High School, 2300 Shermer Road, further north in Northbrook. This is of course the school attended by Ferris (Matthew Broderick) in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

Shermer Road recalls the old name of Northbrook which was originally called Shermerville, the inspiration for Hughes's fictitious suburb.