Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead

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Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead
Image:Don't Tell Mom The Babysitters Dead.jpg Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead film poster
Directed by	Stephen Herek
Produced by	Julia Phillips Brian Reilly Jeffrey Silver
Written by	Neil Landau Tara Ison
Starring	Christina Applegate Joanna Cassidy Keith Coogan John Getz and Josh Charles
Music by	David Newman
Cinematography	Tim Suhrstedt
Editing by	Larry Bock
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	June 7, 1991
Running time	102 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	N/A
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead is a 1991 comedy film directed by Stephen Herek. Christina Applegate (Married... with Children) stars as a teenager whose mother leaves for a two-month summer vacation in Australia, putting all five siblings in the care of an elderly babysitter. When the babysitter dies, Applegate, as the eldest, assumes the role as head of household to keep the freedom of having no parents around. She fakes a resume to get a job in the fashion industry, but proves capable and lucky enough to succeed.

The film is a classic teen fantasy, where the teen is thrust into the role of adult, to great success.

Although released in 1991, Don't Tell Mom is often considered the last of the 1980's-style teen comedies, and has become a cult classic. A modest box-office success at the time of its release, it is a perennial favorite on television and cable TV.

The film also features Joanna Cassidy, Keith Coogan, Josh Charles, Danielle Harris, and a then-obscure actor named David Duchovny, later of The X-Files fame.

Tag Line: No rules. No curfews. No nagging. No pulse..

Contents 1 Plot summary 2 Main cast 3 Trivia 4 External links

Plot summary

Seventeen-year-old high-school dream teen Sue Ellen "Swell" Crandell (Christina Applegate) fantasizes of a fun-filled summer of freedom in the Los Angeles suburbs, with her mother planning a summer-long vacaton to Australia. Her deams, however, are abruptly curttailed upon the arrival of elderly Mrs. Sturak, whom Mrs. Crandell has hired as a live-in babysitter for Sue Ellen and her younger siblings: Kenny, a death metal-loving stoner; Zach, a romantic lady's man; Melissa, an athletic tomboy; and wide-eyed Walter, the youngest. Sue Ellen is horrified at the notion of being baby-sat, but Mrs. Crandell says that none of her children are responsible enough to live without adult supervision for the summer, and quickly departs for her vacation without further discussion.

Although initially seeming gullible and innocuous, Mrs. Sturak reveals her true colors the moment Mrs. Crandell departs: she is nothing short of an iron-fisted, whistle-blowing, no-nonsense disciplinarian. Although Kenny avoids confrontation (due to Mrs. Sturak being genuinely scared of him), the other Crandell children are quickly forced to live by overly strict rules: Sue Ellen isn't allowed any freedom, Zach isn't allowed to date, Melissa has to wear feminine clothes, and Walt has to write long book reports all summer.

Eventually, Sue Ellen inspires her siblings to rise up against Mrs. Sturak and end their babysitter's reign of terror. The moment they move in to confront her, however, they discover Mrs. Sturak dead in her chair (the exact cause is never revealed, but presumably she simply expired from extreme old age). The Crandells panic and debate calling the police, or their mother in Australia, but Sue Ellen realizes that doing so jeopardizes any chance for summer fun. They finally decide to seal Mrs. Sturak's body in a trunk, and drop it off anonymously at the local morgue with a note reading: "Nice old lady inside. Died of natural causes."

Rid of their nightmarish babysitter, Sue Ellen and her siblings breathe a collective sigh of relief - until realizing that all the cash their mother left them for the summer was in an envelope that Mrs. Sturak kept about her person at all times. The Crandell kids now have no money and starvation seems iminent. Sue Ellen again vetoes calling Mom, believing that they can survive and have fun on their own; all she needs is a job to make ends meet and put food on the table

Unfortunately, due to her youth and lack of experience, the only place that hires her is Clown Dog, a fast-food restaurant, where she performs drudging grunt labor in miserable conditions. In spite of befriending Bryan, a handsome and supportive coworker, Sue Ellen gets quickly fed up with working at Clown Dog and quits. She then craftily forges for herself the resume of a midlevel fashion executive (with most of the material lifted verbatim from a resume-writing guidebook). Posing as a 28-year-old, she then applies at General Apparel West (GAW), a local clothing manufacturer, for an open receptionist position. Although initially scorned by Carolyn, the bitter, sarcastic receptionist, Sue Ellen's resume garners the attention of Rose Lindsey, the vice president of marketing at GAW, who was planning to advance Carolyn to be her new Executive Administrative Assistant. Suitably impressed by the much friendlier Sue Ellen, and smitten by her outstanding resume, Rose gladly offers the executive administrative assistant position to her. Sue Ellen is hired on the spot, solidifying Carolyn's contempt for her.

Sue Ellen is overwhelmed at first by her swanky new office environment, the confusing technology she must work with daily, and the large workload requested of her by Rose. Adding to her frustration is Gus, Rose's boyfriend and a fellow GAW employee, who proves himself to be much the slimeball and begins hitting on Sue Ellen behind Rose's back. Sue Ellen, however, manages to keep her cool; she successfully delegates much of her work to Cathy, an eager-to-help technical writer, and also manages to fight off Gus's sleazy advances. She also begins a romantic relationship with Bryan, her former Clown Dog coworker, who turns out to be noneother than Carolyn's brother. Although vindictive Carolyn continually takes swipes at Sue Ellen in an attempt to get the latter fired, her attempts repeatedly fail and only ingratiate Sue Ellen to Rose more and more. Sue Ellen, however, struggles more and more to keep the truth about her double life hidden from Bryan and GAW.

Much to her chagrin, Sue Ellen's first paycheck has a huge percentage taken out for income taxes. With her siblings running out of food at home, Sue Ellen resorts to "borrowing" money from her office's petty cash box to buy groceries. Her less-than-scrupulous siblings quickly follow suit and, in turn, steal cash from Sue Ellen's purse for their own shopping ventures: Zach buys a diamond ring for his girlfriend, Melissa buys new sports equipment, and Walter orders a state-of-the-art home entertainment center for himself. Sue Ellen is horrified at this discovery, but Kenny points out that what they did is no different than what Sue Ellen did in "borrowing" from the petty cash box to begin with.

Sue Ellen becomes genuinely scared upon realizing that none of her siblings' purchases are returnable, and she wil be held accountable for the missing petty cash. Compounding her distress is bad news from Rose: the company is going under because GAW's dowdy, generic fashions aren't selling amid their buyers, and soon all of them will be out of a job. Around the same time, Sue Ellen and Bryan have a fight and stop speaking for a while.

In a moment of epiphany, Sue Ellen goes out on a limb for GAW and takes a calculated risk by designing brand-new, high-end fashions on her own for the GAW label. She convinces Rose and the other senior staff members that her cutting-edge clothes could pull GAW back out of bankruptcy. Rose is impressed and wants to hold a gala event-type show to reveal GAW's new fashion line to their buyers. Realizing there isn't enough petty cash to rent a hall, Sue Ellen convinces Rose to hold the fashion show at the Crandells' house.

Sue Ellen inspires her siblings to clean up their act and get their home cleaned, furnished and ready to host the GAW event; they use the remaining petty cash to spruce up the house and garden. Sue Ellen gets her high-school friends to work as runway models for the show; Zach, Melissa and Walter act as waiters and servers; and Kenny becomes cook and caterer for the event. The evening goes off swimmingly, with the audience loving the new GAW clothing line. Right at at the show's finale, however, Bryan shows up unexpectedly, quickly followed by a furious Mrs. Crandell - back early from Australia and wondering what on earth is going on in her house.

Finally overwhelmed with living her double life, Sue Ellen can't take it anymore and publicly announces the truth to everyone: she's only 17, not 28, and had been lying to everyone. She runs off and apologizes deeply to Rose in person, but Rose reassures her that the buyers loved the new fashions and don't care about Sue Ellen's personal life. With GAW's future secured, Rose gladly offers the "real" Sue Ellen another position at GAW, but Sue Ellen declines in favor of finishing high school and pursuing college first. Rose and Sue Ellen exchange a friendly hug before bidding adieu and going their separate ways.

With the party ended and the guests departing, Mrs. Crandell begins to lose her temper, but is quickly calmed down by a now-much-more-mature Sue Ellen. Sue Ellen further impresses her mother by getting her younger siblings to clean up and go to bed. Mrs. Crandell walks around the house alone, impressed by the cleanliness and expensive new furnishings.

Sue Ellen and Bryan go off alone; she apologizes to him and he forgives her. Just as they embrace and kiss, Mrs. Crandell asks about the whereabouts of Mrs. Sturak. The credits then begin to roll as the film cuts to a scene at the local cemetary, where Mrs. Sturak's tombstone simply reads: "Nice Old Lady Inside. Died, Of Natural Causes."

Main cast

• Christina Applegate - Sue Ellen "Swell" Crandell
• Joanna Cassidy - Rose Lindsey
• John Getz - Gus Brandon
• Josh Charles - Bryan
• Jayne Brook - Carolyn
• Keith Coogan - Kenny Crandell
• Danielle Harris - Melissa Crandell
• David Duchovny - Bruce
• Michael Kopelow - Hellhound
• Jeff Bollow - Mole
• Christopher Pettiet - Zach Crandell

Trivia

• The original script had all of the children suspects due to all having a reason. Walter had to do a book report, Melissa had to wear a dress, and Zach lost Cynthia. The suspects idea was dropped, but the motives remained.
• The original title was The Real World, but they didn't want to have people confused with the MTV show The Real World.
• Some of Pettiet's scenes were never shot, due to his drug use.

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