''Pretty Smart'' is a 1987 American

comedy-drama Comedy drama (also known by the portmanteau dramedy) is a hybrid genre of works that combine elements of comedy and Drama (film and television), drama. In film, as well as scripted television series, serious dramatic subjects (such as death, il ...

film starring

Tricia Leigh Fisher Tricia Leigh Fisher (born December 26, 1968) is an American actress and singer. Early life Fisher was born in Burbank, California to singer Eddie Fisher and actress Connie Stevens. Her older sister is actress and singer Joely Fisher. She ha ...

and

Patricia Arquette Patricia Arquette (; born April 8, 1968) is an American actress. She made her feature film debut as Kristen Parker in ''A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors'' (1987) and has since received several awards, including an Academy Award, two P ...

. It was directed by

Dimitri Logothetis Dimitri Logothetis is a filmmaker and actor. Early life Logothetis was born in Athens, the son of Anna and Euthymios Logothetis. His father had previously lived with family in Los Angeles, where he became an American citizen and worked as a mech ...

. It was Arquette's first film. It was mostly filmed in

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

with most interiors and some exteriors at the

Hotel Grande Bretagne The Hotel Grande Bretagne () is a luxury hotel in Athens, Greece. It is located on Syntagma Square, on the corner of Vasileos Georgiou A' and Panepistimiou Streets. It is owned presently by Lampsa Hellenic Hotels. History The original structu ...

. Music was written and produced by Jay Levy and Ed Arkin.

Plot

In an effort to curb her wild antics after a recent arrest, the parents of Daphne “Zig” (

) send her to the Ogilvy Academy, an elite

boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. They have existed for many centuries, and now extend acr ...

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

, along with her well-behaved

fraternal twin Twins are two offspring produced by the same pregnancy.MedicineNet > Definition of Twin Last Editorial Review: 19 June 2000 Twins can be either ''monozygotic'' ('identical'), meaning that they develop from one zygote, which splits and forms two e ...

sister Jennifer (Lisa Lörient). Determined to be expelled at the earliest opportunity, Zig will go to extreme lengths to have her way. Unbeknownst to the two sisters and the other students, the male headmaster, Richard Crawley, is involved in drug trafficking and recording surveillance videos of the students engaging in sexual acts. The school itself does not have a traditional curriculum as would be seen in most prep schools, with a sexist tendency. For example, the girls are taught proper dining etiquette, ballroom dancing, and diction lesson from an Indian who cannot speak English well. The only decent teacher is Sara Gentry, who teaches literature. Consequently the school has two major cliques: the Preens and the Subs. The Preens conform to the sexist curriculum of the school and dress feminine, while the Subs (short for Subhuman) object to the infrastructure of the school. Daphne is welcomed into the Subs, while Jen joins the Preens. After a PR event involving a nearby boys’ prep school (where the Preens are secretly recorded having sex with the boys in question), the Preens are rewarded with a day trip to Paris. The trip is actually a ruse for Crawley to smuggle drugs. Sympathizing with the Subs, Ms. Gentry secretly does a field trip around the island for them. Crawley finds out and fires her. Sometime later the girls throw a birthday party for Daphne and gift her a boombox. However, Crawley confiscates it. When Daphne and her fellow Subs sneak into his office to get it back, they discover the surveillance videos and find out about his drug trafficking operation. The Preens are informed about the situation and team up with the subs to expose him. Crawley leaves the campus and Gentry returns to become the new administrator of the school. Seeing that things will get better under Gentry’s leadership, Daphne enthusiastically decides to stay at the school.

Cast

as Daphne "Zig" Ziegler * Lisa Lörient as Jennifer Ziegler *

as Zero *

Dennis Cole Dennis Lee Cole (July 19, 1940 – November 15, 2009) was an American actor in film and television. Cole worked mostly on television, with numerous guest appearances in the 1960s and '70s. After the 1991 murder of his only son, Joe Cole, he ...

as Richard Crawley * Elizabeth Davis as Diane * Kimberly B. Delfin as Yuko *

Joely Fisher Joely Fisher ( ; born October 29, 1967) is an American actress and singer, the daughter of singer Eddie Fisher and actress Connie Stevens, and half-sister of actress Carrie Fisher. Her breakthrough came in 1994, starring as Paige Clark in the Ame ...

as Averil * Charlotte-Michele Grenzer as Michelle * Syndle Kirkland as Andrea * Holly Nelson as Jessica * Julie Kristen Smith as Samantha Falconwright * Paris Vaughan as Torch * Kim Waltrip as Sara Gentry *

Philece Sampler Debra Philece Sampler (July 16, 1953 – July 1, 2021) was an American actress. She began her career on the soap operas '' Days of Our Lives'' as Renée DuMonde and '' Another World'' as Donna Love Hudson. In addition to her acting career, Sa ...

as Beth

DVD release

''Pretty Smart'' was released on

Region 2 DVD DVD region codes are a digital rights management technique introduced in 1997. It is designed to allow rights holders to control the international distribution of a DVD release, including its content, release date, and price, all according to t ...

in 2005 by Boulevard Entertainment.

References

External links

* * 1987 films 1980s coming-of-age comedy-drama films 1980s teen comedy-drama films American coming-of-age comedy-drama films American independent films American teen comedy-drama films 1987 independent films New World Pictures films Films set in Greece Films shot in Athens Films directed by Dimitri Logothetis 1980s English-language films 1980s American films English-language comedy-drama films English-language independent films {{1980s-US-film-stub