Curly Sue

If you go to movies much, you doubtless see John Hughes' name on what seems to be every other film. Hughes wrote and produced last year's monster hit "Home Alone," as well as this year's "Career Opportunities" and "Dutch." In his spare time he also produced "Only the Lonely."

Among his biggest hits are "Planes, Trains & Automobiles," "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and "Uncle Buck," all of which he wrote, produced and directed.

And since he turned out only four other films in the past 12 months, Hughes apparently felt he needed to pick up the pace, so he also wrote, produced and directed "Curly Sue," which opened in Salt Lake theaters Friday.

Hughes specializes in "cute," and he's gone from the cute teens that dominated his early films ("Pretty in Pink," "The Breakfast Club") to cute kids.

The problem is that Hughes is really just a recycle artist — all of his movies tend to look alike: poor kids in rich circumstances, rich kids in poor circumstances, kids outsmarting adults, kids in adult situations, kids who have to fend for themselves in an adult world and down-to-earth blue-collar folks letting the air out of pompous white-collar jerks.

"Career Opportunities" was "Home Alone" with teens. "Dutch" was "Planes, Trains & Automobiles" with a blue-collar adult and a spoiled rich kid.

And so it goes.

So, it should come as no surprise that "Curly Sue" has all of these elements — being on the road, blue collar vs. white collar, poor vs. rich, dumb adults and a very smart kid . . . a very smart cute kid.

Alison Porter is the 9-year-old orphan of the title, and she's got an awful lot of charisma. To put it in cliche Hollywood terms — thecamera loves her.

Hughes is great at spotting young talent — Molly Ringwald, Ally Sheedy, Macaulay Culkin. And this time he seems to have come up with a modern-day Shirley Temple. So, naturally, he wrote a Shirley Temple vehicle for her.

Orphaned Porter, raised since infancy by itinerant John Belushi, now rides the rails, living the life of the homeless with him. They are con artists with a sense of conscience — they'll pull a scam for a free meal but they won't steal.

But when they scam high-rolling Chicago lawyer Kelly Lynch, she does more than merely feed them — she takes them into her home, complete with housemaid. Pricked by his conscience, Belushi goes out and gets a job . . . but he keeps watching those railroad cars roll by with a wistful look in his eye.

Eventually, Porter is taken away by welfare officials and Belushi has to decide whether to settle down and stay with her, or give her up to rich Lynch.

Predictable, occasionally amusing and very sentimental — we're talking extra layers of schmaltz here, aided by a thick George Delerue score — "Curly Sue" is predictable from the first frame to the last — the kind of comfortable movie Hughes specializes in and audiences seem to enjoy (with fewer cheap, vulgar jokes than usual).