But now consider these two titles: "Sixteen Candles" and "The Breakfast Club." They are both about fairly typical American teenagers, kids you can like even when you can’t always stand them, kids who are vulnerable and serious and spend infinitely more time speculating about sex than actually experiencing it. Both movies are set near Chicago – which, after "Risky Business," "Bad Boys," "My Bodyguard," "Class" and the upcoming "Streets of Fire," is becoming the teenage Hollywood.

"Sixteen Candles" will open Friday in Chicago, and "The Breakfast Club" is currently in production in the northern suburbs. "Candles" is about the 16th birthday of Molly Ringwald, whose family totally forgets what day it is, plunging her into the worst day of her life and into a hopeless crush on a good-looking senior boy. "The Breakfast Club" spends a long Saturday in detention class with five students who think they have nothing in common, but find out that they do.

Both movies were written and directed by a 34-year-old Northbrook resident named John Hughes, who is one of the hottest writers in the movie business right now (after "National Lampoon’s Vacation" and "Mr. Mom," both big box-office hits, even though he feels they fouled up his screenplays).

Hughes turned down a chance to direct "Mr. Mom" because he didn’t want to work in Hollywood "and get all chewed up." His contract with Universal gives him the right to make all of his movies in Chicago.

"I don’t like being around the people in the movie business," Hughes was explaining to me the other day. "In Hollywood you spend all of your time having lunch and making deals. Everybody is trying to shoot you down. I like to get my actors out here where we can make our movies in privacy."

So he has taken over Maine North High School near Des Plaines, which was closed in a consolidation, and turned it into a movie studio.

In the gymnasium, he has constructed the gigantic main set for "The Breakfast Club," a two-level high school library where his five characters will spend their long day together. Other rooms in the high school are being used as a production office, dressing rooms, makeup rooms and for smaller sound stages.

Almost all of the action takes place on the one set, where five very different kids have to spend all day cooped up together under the eye of the dean. The actors include some of the best young talent in Hollywood today. Emilio Estevez, 22, who plays the hard-driving young jock, starred in "Tex," "The Outsiders" and "Repo Man." Anthony Michael Hall, 16, who plays the smart kid, was Chevy Chase’s son in "National Lampoon’s Vacation," and is the co-star of "Sixteen Candles." Judd Nelson, 22, who plays the punk, stars in "Fandango" and "Making the Grade," two other teenage pictures set for release this summer. Molly Ringwald, 16, who plays the lonely rich kid, starred in a stage version of "Annie," played John Cassavetes’ daughter in "Tempest," and has the lead in "Sixteen Candles." And Ally Sheedy, 22, who plays an introspective, goofy stu¬dent, was Sean Penn’s girlfriend in "Bad Boys" and the co-star of "WarGames."