Get a Clue

Get a Clue
DVD cover
Genre	Comedy, mystery, teen
Written by	Alana Burgi Sanko
Directed by	Maggie Greenwald
Starring	Lindsay Lohan Brenda Song Bug Hall Ian Gomez
Theme music composer	David Mansfield
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
Production
Producer(s)	Josette Perrotta
Running time	83 minutes
Distributor	Disney Channel/Buena Vista Home Entertainment/Disney-ABC Domestic Television
Budget	$1 million
Release
Original release	June 28, 2002 (2002-06-28)

Get a Clue is a 2002 Disney Channel Original Movie starring Lindsay Lohan as Lexy Gold, a teenage high school student who investigates a mystery after one of her teachers goes missing. The movie stars Bug Hall as a boy who helps her, Ian Gomez as the missing teacher, Brenda Song as Lexy's best friend, Ali Mukaddam as another student, and Dan Lett as Lexy's father. The film premiered on the Disney Channel on June 28, 2002. It was directed by Maggie Greenwald and was written by Alana Sanko.

Plot

Lexy Gold (Lindsay Lohan) lives amongst the wealthy and elite of Manhattan, New York. Clad in Prada, she prides herself on her ability to get the scoop and serve it up in her school newspaper's gossip column. She competes for status on the newspaper with middle-class Jack Downey (Bug Hall), the editor (who has a crush on Lexy as shown throughout the whole movie). When a photograph Lexy has taken of her teacher, Mr. Orlando Walker (Ian Gomez), is published in the city's daily paper, he goes missing and his car is found in the East River. With help from Lexy's best friend Jen (Brenda Song) and one of her schoolmates Gabe (Ali Mukaddam), Lexy and Jack set out to solve the mystery behind the disappearance.

Their teacher, Miss Gertrude Dawson (Amanda Plummer), becomes involved as she and Mr. Walker were having an affair. Jack receives a message from Mr. Walker about a scholarship. Lexy and Jack search his old apartment, where they run into Detective Charles Meany (Charles Shaughnessy), who is searching for Mr. Walker. Jenn and Gabe watch Miss Dawson at Gabe's house with a video camera to keep an eye on her. Lexy and Jack later meet Mrs. Petrossian (Sylvia Lennick), who is Mr. Walker's mother, at her house. They discover that Mr. Walker changed his identity after being accused of stealing $10,000,000. Mr. Walker later receives a letter from the real person who stole the money, framing Mr. Walker.

The group and Mr. Walker meet at a hotel to pretend to receive the money. Miss Dawson shows up at the hotel and is taken hostage by the real thief. Lexy and Jack search the halls for the man, who is revealed to be Detective Meany, whose real name is Falco Grandville, Mr. Walker's boss when he worked at a bank in Arizona, and the man who had framed Mr. Walker for the money theft. The team catch up with him and he is later arrested. It's later revealed Mr. Walker's mother found a brooch worth the money at Falco's office by chance and decided to keep it; Falco blamed Walker. After Mr. Walker is pronounced a free man at last, he later asks Miss Dawson to marry him. At the end it shows the wedding with Jack, Lexy, Jen, and Gabe. Jack and Lexy share a moment between themselves before the four teens walk down the street talking about going bowling.

Cast

• Lindsay Lohan – Alexandra "Lexy" Gold, a teenage amateur journalist^[1]
• Brenda Song - Jennifer "Jen", Lexy's fashion-conscious best friend
• Bug Hall – Jack Downey, editor of the school newspaper. He seems to have a small crush on Lexy in the beginning; it seems to have grown stronger toward the end of the movie.
• Ian Gomez – Nicholas Petrossian aka Mr. Orlando Walker, one of Lexy's teachers
• Ali Mukaddam – Gabe, an amateur photographer
• Dan Lett – Frank Gold, Lexy's father, a journalist with the New York Times
• Amanda Plummer – Miss Gertrude Dawson, a teacher who is in love with Mr. Walker
• Charles Shaughnessy – Detective Charles Meany aka Falco Grandville, the main antagonist of the film.
• Kim Roberts – Mrs. Stern
• Eric Fink – Mr. Goldblum
• Jennifer Pisana – Taylor Gold, Lexy's tech-savvy little sister
• Sylvia Lennick – Mrs. Petrossian
• Cheryl MacInnis – Mrs. Sommerville
• Timm Zemanek – Mr. Greenblatt
• Gerry Quigley – Detective Potter
• Craig Lamar Traylor (unconfirmed)
• Keenan MacWilliam – Karen

Production

Production began in May 2001. Get a Clue was written by Alana Sanko; the script was still unfinished by the time filming had begun. Maggie Greenwald was confirmed to direct and Lindsay Lohan was cast as Lexy Gold, ending her three-movie deal with The Walt Disney Company. The film was primarily filmed in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, with some of the exterior scenes filmed on location in Manhattan, New York. Millington Prep, the school Lexy and her friends attend, was filmed at Bishop Strachan School in Canada.

The film was originally to be released in January 2002 as the Disney Channel Movie of the Month.^[2] A well-concealed reshoot took place in late 2001 to film a different ending concluding that the villain in the film was Meany. In the original ending, the villain turned out to be Mrs. Stern, a teacher at Lexy's school who had known Mr. Walker while he was living in Arizona. This ending was shown on the DVD (though the viewer has the option to watch either ending when the movie reaches 61 minutes, with the Mrs. Stern ending shown in a different aspect ratio than the rest of the movie).^[3] The film was heavily promoted and frequently re-aired during its initial summer. A song by the band Prozzak, "Get a Clue", appeared in the film and the music video was shown on Disney Channel at the time of its release. The name of the band was changed to "Simon and Milo", the characters depicted in the music video so their band name would not be associated with the drugs.

Notes

External links

• Get a Clue at the Internet Movie Database