Psycho's Movie Reviews #87: Stand By Me (1986)

Stand by Me is a 1986 American coming-of-age film directed by Rob Reiner. It is based on Stephen King's 1982 novella The Body, and the title derives from the Ben E. King song. Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, and Jerry O'Connell star as four boys who, in 1959, go on a hike to find the dead body of a missing boy and confront a bully, played by Kiefer Sutherland.

The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and two Golden Globe Awards: one for Best Drama Motion Picture and one for Best Director.

Plot:

Writer Gordie Lachance reads a newspaper article about a man stabbed in a restaurant. Gordie recalls a childhood incident when he, his best friend, Chris Chambers, and two other friends, Teddy Duchamp and Vern Tessio, journeyed to find the body of a missing boy near the town of Castle Rock, Oregon, during Labor Day weekend in September 1959.

Twelve-year-old Gordie's parents are too busy grieving the recent death of older brother Denny to give Gordie much attention. While looking for money that he buried beneath his parents' porch, Vern overhears his older brother Billy talking with his friend Charlie about finding the body of the missing boy, Ray Brower, outside of town. Billy does not want to report the body because it could draw attention to the fact he and Charlie recently stole a car. When Vern tells Gordie, Chris, and Teddy what he heard, the four boys—hoping to become local heroes—decide to go looking for the body. After Chris steals his father's pistol, he and Gordie run into local hoodlum "Ace" Merrill and Chris's older brother, "Eyeball" Chambers. Ace threatens Chris with a lit cigarette and steals Gordie's Yankees cap, which was a gift from Denny.

The four boys begin their trip. After stopping at a junkyard for water, they are caught trespassing by owner Milo Pressman and his dog, Chopper. They escape over a fence, and Milo calls Teddy's mentally-ill father a "loony". (The elder Duchamp fought in Europe during World War 2, but then suffered battle neurosis.) An enraged Teddy goes to attack Milo, but is restrained by the other three boys. The four continue their hike, and Chris encourages Gordie to fulfill his potential as a writer despite his father's disapproval. When they cross a railroad bridge, Gordie and Vern are nearly killed by an approaching train, but jump off the tracks and escape serious injury.

That evening, Gordie tells the fictional story of David "Lard-Ass" Hogan, an obese boy who is constantly bullied. Seeking revenge, Lard-Ass enters a pie-eating contest and throws up deliberately, inducing mass vomiting among contestants and the audience (which Gordie dubs a "barf-o-rama"). That night, Chris confides to Gordie that he hates being associated with his family's reputation. He admits he stole milk money at school, however, he tells Gordie he later confessed and returned the money to a teacher. Despite this, Chris was suspended, and the teacher did not turn the money in to her superiors. Devastated by the teacher's betrayal, Chris breaks down and cries.

The next day, the boys swim across a pond and discover it is filled with leeches. Gordie faints after finding a leech in his underwear. After more hiking, the boys locate Ray Brower's body. The discovery is traumatic for Gordie, who asks Chris why his brother Denny had to die and claims his father hates him. Chris disagrees, asserting that Gordie's father simply does not know him.

Ace and his gang arrive, announce that they are claiming the body, and threaten to beat the four boys if they interfere. When Chris insults Ace and refuses to back down, Ace draws a switchblade. Gordie gets the gun and fires a warning shot. Ace demands the weapon, but Gordie refuses, calling Ace a "cheap dime-store hood." Ace asks Gordie whether he plans to shoot the entire gang, and Gordie responds, "No, Ace. Just you.” Ace and his gang retreat, vowing revenge. The four boys, agreeing that it would not be right for anyone to claim credit for finding the body, report it to the authorities via an anonymous phone call. They walk back to Castle Rock and part ways.

Back in the present day, adult Gordie is writing a memoir of the journey. He states that Teddy and Vern ultimately drifted away from him and Chris, after entering middle school.

After his high-school graduation, Teddy attempted to follow in his dad's footsteps by joining the military. Teddy failed his physical due to poor eyesight and a bad ear. He still lives in Castle Rock, doing odd jobs; he has also served a stretch in jail for a minor offense.

Vern married his high-school sweetheart shortly after graduating. The couple promptly started a family and Vern currently works as a forklift-driver.

Gordie and Chris became college roommates following high-school; Chris went on to law school and became an attorney. While attempting to break up a fight in a restaurant, Chris was stabbed to death. Despite having not seen Chris for over a decade, Gordie types that he will miss him forever.

Gordie ends his story with the following words: "I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?"

Production

Development:

The film was adapted from the Stephen King novella The Body. Bruce A. Evans sent a copy of The Body to Karen Gideon, the wife of his friend and writing partner Raynold Gideon, on August 29, 1983 as a gift for her birthday. Both Gideon and Evans quickly became fans of the novella and shortly thereafter contacted King's agent, Kirby McCauley, seeking to negotiate film rights; McCauley replied that King's terms were $100,000 and 10% of the gross profits. Although the money was not an issue, the share of gross profits was considered excessive, especially considering that no stars could be featured to help sell the movie. In response, Evans and Gideon pursued an established director, Adrian Lyne, to help sell the project.

After reading the novella, Lyne teamed up with Evans and Gideon, but all the studios the trio approached turned the project down except for Martin Shafer at Embassy Pictures. Embassy spent four months negotiating the rights with McCauley, settling on $50,000 and a smaller share of the profits, and Evans and Gideon spent eight weeks writing the screenplay. Evans and Gideon asked to also produce the film, but Shafer suggested they team up with Andy Scheinman, a more experienced producer. Embassy was unwilling to meet Lyne's salary for directing the film until Evans and Gideon agreed to give up half of their share of profits to meet Lyne's asking price.

Lyne was going to direct the film, but had promised himself a vacation following the production of 9½ Weeks, and would not be available to start production until the spring of 1986. Reiner was better known at the time for playing Michael Stivic in All in the Family and had just started a directing career, making comedies like This Is Spinal Tap and The Sure Thing. He was sent the script by Scheinman, and his initial reaction was the script had promise but "no focus". After Lyne withdrew from the project, Reiner signed on to direct in September 1984. In a 2011 interview, Reiner discussed his realization that the film should focus on the character of Gordie:

"In the book it was about four boys, but...once I made Gordie the central focus of the piece then it made sense to me: this movie was all about a kid who didn't feel good about himself and whose father didn't love him. And through the experience of going to find the dead body and his friendship with these boys, he began to feel empowered and went on to become a very successful writer. He basically became Stephen King."

Reiner has said that he identified with Gordie, as he himself struggled with the shadow of fame cast by his comedian father, Carl Reiner. The writers incorporated Reiner's suggestions, producing a new script by December 1984 for Embassy's review and approval.

Days before shooting started in the summer of 1985, Embassy was sold to Columbia Pictures, who made plans to cancel the production. Norman Lear, one of the co-owners of Embassy and the developer of All in the Family, gave $7.5 million of his own money to complete the film, citing his faith in Reiner and the script. However, since Embassy also would have distributed the film, once the film was completed it had no distributor. The producers showed a print to Michael Ovitz, head of the powerful Creative Artists Agency, and Ovitz promised to help them find a distributor. Paramount, Universal Pictures, and Warner Bros. all passed on the film; Columbia Pictures production head Guy McElwaine screened the film at his house because he was feeling ill, and the positive reaction of his daughters convinced him to distribute the film. In March 1986, Columbia Pictures, concerned that the original title, The Body, was misleading, renamed the film Stand by Me. According to screenwriter Raynold Gideon, The Body "sounded like either a sex film, a bodybuilding film or another Stephen King horror film. Rob came up with Stand by Me, and it ended up being the least unpopular option."

Casting:

In a 2011 interview with NPR, Wil Wheaton attributed the film's success to the director's casting choices:

"Rob Reiner found four young boys who basically were the characters we played. I was awkward and nerdy and shy and uncomfortable in my own skin and really, really sensitive, and River was cool and really smart and passionate and even at that age kind of like a father figure to some of us, Jerry was one of the funniest people I had ever seen in my life, either before or since, and Corey was unbelievably angry and in an incredible amount of pain and had an absolutely terrible relationship with his parents."

Feldman recalled how his home life translated into his onscreen character: "Most kids aren't thinking they're going to get hit by their parents because they're not doing well enough in school, which will prevent them from getting a work permit, which will prevent them from being an actor." O'Connell agreed that he was cast based on how his personality fit the role, saying "Rob really wanted us to understand our characters. He interviewed our characters. I tried to stay like Vern and say the stupid things Vern would. I think I was Vern that summer." Reiner and the producers interviewed more than 70 boys for the four main roles, out of more than 300 who auditioned; Phoenix originally read for the part of Gordie Lachance. Ethan Hawke auditioned for Chris Chambers. Sean Astin also auditioned for the role of Chris.

Before filming began, Reiner put the four main actors together for two weeks to play games from Viola Spolin's Improvisation for the Theatre (which Reiner called "the bible" of theatre games) and build camaraderie. As a result, a friendship developed between the actors. Wheaton would recall "When you saw the four of us being comrades, that was real life, not acting."

Before settling on Richard Dreyfuss as the narrator (and the role of the adult Gordie), Reiner considered David Dukes, Ted Bessell, and Michael McKean.

Filming:

Principal photography began on June 17, 1985 and ended in late August 1985.

Parts of the film were shot in Brownsville, Oregon, which stood in for the fictional town of Castle Rock. The town was selected for its small-town 1950s ambience. Approximately 100 local residents were employed as extras.

The "barf-o-rama" scene was also filmed in Brownsville. A local bakery supplied the pies and extra filling, which was mixed with large-curd cottage cheese to simulate the vomit. The quantity of simulated vomit varied per person, from as much as 5 US gallons (19 l) during the triggering event to as little as 1⁄16 US gallon (0.24 l).

The McCloud River Railroad trestle across Lake Britton in California, which was used for the train chase scene (2012)

The scene where the boys outrace a steam train engine across an 80-foot tall trestle was filmed on the McCloud River Railroad, above Lake Britton Reservoir near McArthur-Burney Falls Memorial State Park in California. The scene took a full week to shoot, making use of four small adult female stunt doubles with closely cropped hair who were made up to look like the film's protagonists. Plywood planks were laid across the ties to provide a safer surface on which the stunt doubles could run. The film crew even brought a brand-new camera for use in the shot, only for it to jam between the rails on the first shot. The locomotive used for the scene, M.C.R.R. 25, is still in daily operation for excursion service on the Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad. Telephoto compression was used to make the train appear much closer than it actually was. The actors did not feel a sense of danger until Reiner threatened them as follows: "You see those guys? They don't want to push that dolly down the track any more. And the reason they're getting tired is because of you... I told them if they weren't worried that the train was going to kill them, then they should worry that I was going to. And that's when they ran."

Music:

Jack Nitzsche composed the film's musical score. On August 8, 1986, a soundtrack album was released containing many of the 1950s and early 1960s oldies songs featured in the film:

1. "Everyday" (Buddy Holly)

2. "Let the Good Times Roll" (Shirley and Lee)

3. "Come Go with Me" (The Del-Vikings)

4. "Whispering Bells" (The Del-Vikings)

5. "Get a Job" (The Silhouettes)

6. "Lollipop" (The Chordettes)

7. "Yakety Yak" (The Coasters)

8. "Great Balls of Fire" (Jerry Lee Lewis)

9. "Mr. Lee" (The Bobbettes)

10. "Stand by Me" (Ben E. King)

The movie's success sparked a renewed interest in Ben E. King's song. Initially a #4 pop hit in 1961, the song re-entered the Billboard Hot 100 in October 1986, eventually peaking at #9 in December of that year.

Release/Reception/Box Office:

Stand by Me was released on VHS on March 19, 1987 by RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video. A DVD was issued on August 29, 2000 with a director's commentary, multiple language options (subtitles and audio), and a featurette called "Walking The Tracks- The Summer Of Stand by Me." The film was re-issued on Blu-ray in 2011 by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, and again on 4K Blu-ray in 2019.

Reviewing the film for The New York Times, Walter Goodman opined that Reiner's direction was rather self-conscious, "looking constantly at his audience". Goodman called the film a "trite narrative" and said that "Reiner's direction hammers in every obvious element in an obvious script." In his review for the Chicago Tribune, Dave Kehr wrote that there was "nothing natural in the way Reiner has overloaded his film with manufactured drama". In contrast, Sheila Benson called the film "a treasure absolutely not to be missed" in her review for the Los Angeles Times. Paul Attanasio, reviewing for The Washington Post, called the acting ensemble "wonderful" and particularly praised the performances by Wheaton and Phoenix.

Stephen King was very impressed with the film. On the special features of the 25th anniversary Blu-ray set, King indicated that he considered the film to be the first successful translation to film of any of his works. According to a later interview with Gene Siskel, Reiner recalled that after a private early screening of the film, King excused himself for fifteen minutes to compose himself; he later returned to remark, "'That's the best film ever made out of anything I've written, which isn't saying much. But you've really captured my story. It is autobiographical."

In a Reddit "Ask Me Anything" chat in 2017, Reiner said that Stand by Me is his personal favourite of his own films.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 91% based on 57 reviews and a rating average of 8/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Stand by Me is a wise, nostalgic movie with a weird streak that captures both Stephen King's voice and the trials of growing up." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 75 out of 100 based on 20 critics, indicating "generally favourable reviews." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.

The film was a box office success in North America. It opened in a limited release in 16 theatres on August 8, 1986, and grossed $242,795, averaging $15,174 per theatre. The film then had its wide opening in 745 theatres on August 22 and grossed $3,812,093, averaging $5,116 per theatre and ranking #2. The film's widest release was 848 theatres, and it ended up earning $52,287,414 overall, well above its $8 million budget.

My Review:

Brilliant. I watched this movie about a month ago and I can't get it out of my head. *Spoiler Warning* This movie is truly amazing in every way. If you don't like this movie then I think you just can't appreciate film genius. This movie delivered some classic or iconic lines such as: "I don't shut up, I grow up, and when I look at you I throw up", "I'll see ya" "Not if I see you first", and "I never had any friends later on like the ones I did when I was 12. Jesus, does anyone?". The plot seems a bit simple but when you dig deeper and think-this movie really makes you think- you realize that it is rather complex, actually. Gordie became increasingly obsessed with finding the dead body as a way to come to peace with the death of his older brother Denny. Gordie is ignored by his parents and in the shadow of Denny. Wil Wheaton does a great job being sensitive and I applaud his performance. Chris-this movie shows perhaps the first great working of River Phoenix and this role is my personal favourite of his- is looked at by everyone as a bad kid because his older brother "Eyeball" set a bad reputation to the last name Chambers. Phoenix's performance is absolutely stunning and brought a tear to my eye. A truly amazing actor cut short at the potential height of his career. Vern is the comical relief and he had me laughing many times, great work Jerry O'Connel! Teddy is probably the most crazy friend and Corey Feldman does a great job portraying this. Overall amazing movie and I will never forget it. Also, it's rare and impressive that this work manages to be hilarious ("Vern! Go! We're gonna die, get the h*** up Vern!) tragic(the death of Chris and the realization that the boys fell apart), and dramatic (Gordie threatening to shoot Ace and more) at the same time. Also, I love when Gordie holds up the gun. It really shows how his character developed considering Gordie most likely wouldn't have held it up before discover Ray Brower.

{Oh yeah and Keifer Sutherland graces us with his presence once again - if you remember, he was also in 'The Lost Boys' (I've already done a review on that movie previous)}

I used to think this classic meant something only to the generation it embraces. That such a journey, the boys on a quest to seek out another boy killed by a train, couldn't be made today. But of course it's timeless and classless. The comradery, the ribbing, playfighting, secret language, swearing with abandon as no adults are around and sheer joy of just being out with friends, is a rite of passage now as it was then, albeit in more "sophisticated" times (perhaps!?) So many moments to treasure from '' sick balls " to "larders", leeches and the stand off at the end with bad guy Kiefer Sutherland, which produces one of the greatest lines in movie history (Suck my.....) The ensemble acting is superb, the sense of a summer long forgotten beautifully captured, dramatic moments like the train on the bridge skilfully constructed, and overriding it all a soundtrack which even for today's youth {Like myself} evokes singing along to songs they have heard all their lives as oldies have because they are themselves timeless. The story even references, via the larders tale, the eternal question of what happens next in books, movies, plays that we come to the end of and find it tough to let go.

Stephen King said it was the best adaptation of his work ever and like a fine wine it grows better with age - naturally because we all want to recapture our youth at times, but also because the more you experience life the more you appreciate perfection, and this movie is just that; 10/10.

{That and the theme tune, although it came out way before this film - which is the primary reason why the song has become as popular and iconic as it is now - is a belter!}