Secret Admirer (1985)

Touches You

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

I wanted to but couldn't!

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

It's the last day of school. Michael Ryan (C. Thomas Howell) receives an anonymous love letter. His buddies convince him that it's from hot Deborah Fimple (Kelly Preston). Roger Despard (Casey Siemaszko) and Michael crash a college party to talk to her but she dismisses him. The guys get kicked out and they crash their van. Michael goes to talk to Deborah's friend Toni (Lori Loughlin) who seems to like him. He writes his own anonymous letter which is stolen by his brother Jeff (Corey Haim) leading to misunderstandings by everybody who reads it. Toni keeps rewriting Michael's letter before passing it on to Deborah.I don't particularly find the misunderstandings other than the core trio all that funny. It's probably funny as a concept but not in the execution. I just keep wanting to return to the teen rom-com anyways. C. Thomas Howell and Lori Loughlin are nice young stars. They are functional together as long as the movie stays with them. They make a nice trio Cyrano de Bergerac with Kelly Preston. I just don't care about large chunks of this movie.

Back in the day what C. Thomas Howell got stuffed in his school locker door would be called a mash note. An expression for a more earthy form courtship that has gone out of style. Often times they were unsigned as this one was.Except in Secret Admirer Tom gets it wrong about who sent the note and he assumes its one girl rather than another. And he asks the right girl to send the wrong girl an anonymous note back. Which the dumb thing actually does. The girls are Kelly Preston and Lori Loughlin and I'll not say which is which.But then the notes get passed around inadvertently and people start thinking they are meant for them and of course coming to their own conclusions about who sent them.Now I'm not sure this kind of sophomoric behavior would have worked in a Cary Grant picture much less a Brat Pack one. Adults and packers all look a little foolish here. One of the Brat Pack in the film is the late Corey Haim. The young man had much better and much worse in store for him in his short life.If you grew up with the Brat Pack this might be a film you'd like. Those of another generation ought to skip it.

A very formulaic teen movie. The only halfway original thing going for it was to develop a few of the adult characters and involve them in the farce. And, actually that worked reasonably well. But even so, every plot turn could be seen coming from miles away. Kelly Preston seemed to be in a lot of these films back then, she was pretty, had a great rack, and would show it. Lori Loughlin was the pleasant surprise of the film. She was total eye-candy, and a pretty good actress to boot. Too bad I haven't seen more of her in the years since. C. Thomas Howell's career seems to have sunken into well-deserved obscurity. Fred Ward badly overplayed his character. I have to agree with the local critic who wrote something to the effect of, "If your monthly Clearasil consumption is down below a quarter-tube per month, you're too old for this film."

I watched this film for the first time when it was released, back in the 80s. Now, more than 15 years later, I've watched it again. My curiosity was high, because I remember I enjoyed it when I was a teenager, and now I wished to check how this movie has been affected by time.First of all, this film suffers the typical "teen style" which can also be seen in other titles from the 80s. This is perhaps the worst point in the movie, because the plot has interesting points, but the film style makes it seemingly look as yet another "Porky's"-like movie. In my opinion, this plot (based on a lost love letter) should have been more elaborate, and the movie should have been made with a higher quality style (for example, closer to "Never been kissed" rather than "Porky's").Anyway, the movie is enjoyable if you can forgive this "teen style".Moreover, it has valuable virtues: It exalts honesty and humbleness, and despite its seemingly "Porky's"-like sexual freedom, it exalts marriage and fidelity, and even chastity. It's quite refreshing to see all this in a film.I voted it as a 5 in 1-10 scale, because I consider it as a "satisfactory movie", with a draw between the weak teen style and some good points (charming love letter plot and exaltation of virtues which are mostly forgotten by Hollywood nowadays).Anyway, this film makes me feel a bit nostalgic (I've kind memories from the time when I first watched it), so my opinion is perhaps not as objective as it should be.