Taglines: He never knew what hit him.
Secret Admirer movie storyline. On the last day before summer vacations Michael receives a glowing, but anonymous, love-letter. He suspects, or better: hopes, it’s from Deborah, the girl he’s after since a while, but who dates college students only. However she shows him a cold shoulder again. So his and her best friend Toni advises him to write her an anonymous letter in return. However these letters get in the wrong hands and cause lots of confusion in their families, until it’s revealed, who wrote which letter to whom.
Secret Admirer is a 1985 American teen romantic comedy film written and directed by David Greenwalt in his feature film directorial debut, and starring C. Thomas Howell, Lori Loughlin, Kelly Preston and Fred Ward. The original music score was composed by Jan Hammer. The film was produced at the height of the teen sex comedy cinema craze in the mid-1980s.
About the Story
Michael Ryan is a high school student who receives an anonymous love letter. Michael is obsessed with Deborah Ann Fimple, the class beauty, and his best friend, Roger, convinces him that the letter is from her. However, he is totally oblivious that his friend Toni Williams is in love with him. Michael writes Deborah Ann an anonymous love letter in return, and asks Toni to give it to her. Toni reads the letter and realizing it’s poorly written and unromantic (since Michael had copied words from greeting cards), she rewrites it.
Elizabeth Fimple, Deborah Ann’s mother, discovers the letter. Her jealous police officer husband, Lou Fimple, sees her reading it. He steals the letter, and believes that his wife is having an affair. He suspects his neighbor (and bridge partner) George Ryan. George also reads the letter (although by mistake) because Lou’s wife is his night school teacher and it somehow ends up in his book. When George asks her about it, he assumes she wants to have an affair with him, despite the fact his wife and she are friends. Meanwhile, Lou shows the letter to George’s wife, Connie, and proposes that they expose the adulterers. Receiving no response from Deborah Ann, Michael writes a second letter, which Toni again rewrites.
Michael experiences a series of wacky adventures with his friends throughout the summer before his Senior year in High School. After Toni arranges a meeting between the two, he tells Deborah Ann that he wrote the love letters, and she finally agrees to a real date, during which they are almost caught by Debbie’s jock college “quasi boyfriend” Steve, but Toni intervenes by pretending to seduce him and later ditches him.
After a short while Michael realizes Deb is snobby and shallow, not like he expected her to be and begins to realize his true feelings for Toni. Eventually, Michael and Deb break up at his birthday party, refusing to sleep with her when she intends for his birthday present. Eventually, Lou and Connie cannot control themselves at a bridge party: Lou assaults George, and Connie has a breakdown in front of her friends.
Secret Admirer (1985)
Directed by: David Greenwalt
Starring: C. Thomas Howell, Lori Loughlin, Kelly Preston, Dee Wallace, Leigh Taylor-Young, Geoffrey Blake, Corey Haim
Screenplay by: Jim Kouf, David Greenwalt
Production Design by: William J. Cassidy
Cinematography by: Victor J. Kemper
Film Editing by: Dennis Virkler
Costume Design by: Mary E. Vogt
Set Decoration by: Barbara Krieger
Music by: Jan Hammer
Distributed by: Orion Pictures
Release Date: June 14, 1985
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