Stand by Me (film)

Stand by Me
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Rob Reiner
Produced by	Bruce A. Evans Andrew Scheinman
Screenplay by	Bruce A. Evans Raynold Gideon
Based on	The Body by Stephen King
Narrated by	Richard Dreyfuss
Starring	Richard Dreyfuss Wil Wheaton River Phoenix Jerry O'Connell Corey Feldman
Music by	Jack Nitzsche
Cinematography	Thomas Del Ruth
Editing by	Robert Leighton
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	August 8, 1986 (limited) August 22, 1986 (wide)
Running time	88 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$8 million
Box office	$52,287,414

Stand by Me is a 1986 American drama film directed by Rob Reiner. Based on the novella The Body by Stephen King, the film takes its title from the Ben E. King song of the same name, which plays over the end credits.

Plot

The film is narrated by an author, Gordie Lachance (Richard Dreyfuss). After reading a newspaper article about the death of his friend Chris Chambers, Lachance recounts a childhood journey to find the body of a missing boy near the fictional town of Castle Rock, Oregon, over Labor Day weekend in September 1959. In 1959, young Gordie (Wil Wheaton) is a quiet, bookish boy with a penchant for telling stories and writing. He is rejected by his father, following the death of his football-star older brother Denny (John Cusack) in a Jeep accident. Denny paid Gordie much more attention than his parents did.

Gordie spends his time with three friends: Chris Chambers (River Phoenix) who is from a family of criminals and alcoholics and is usually stereotyped accordingly, even though he does not conform to the perceptions and stigmas attached to his family; Teddy Duchamp (Corey Feldman) who is eccentric and physically scarred after his mentally unstable father held his ear to a stove; and Vern Tessio (Jerry O'Connell) who is overweight and timid and often picked on.

Gordie, Chris and Teddy learn from Vern that Ray Brower's dead body has been found, apparently killed by being struck by a train. Ray Brower was a young boy whose death and subsequent police search created a big news story in Castle Rock. Vern overhears his older brother Billy (Casey Siemaszko) and his friend Charlie Hogan (Gary Riley) talking about finding the body while dumping a stolen car. The younger boys decide to embark upon a journey to see if they can find it and become local heroes.

The boys set out to find the body, first encountering Milo Pressman (William Bronder) and his dog Chopper when they pause to fill their canteens from a well located in his junkyard. They then walk along a train bridge and Vern and Gordie are nearly run over by a passing train. At the end of the day, the boys set up camp and Gordie tells the boys a story of his invention. Later on in the night, Chris reveals to Gordie his fear of being stereotyped as a criminal and never making anything of himself. They continue by taking a short-cut through a swamp only to discover that it is infested with leeches. While desperately removing them from each other, Gordie faints after finding one in his underpants, causing the other boys to wonder if they should go on. Gordie ends up being the decisive one, knowing that they have put in too much work not to see the body.

They locate the dead body (Kent W. Luttrell) and it reminds Gordie that his father liked his brother better than him. At this point, local bully "Ace" Merrill (Kiefer Sutherland) and his gang consisting of "Eyeball" Chambers (Bradley Gregg), Vince Desjardins (Jason Oliver), Charlie Hogan, Billy Tessio and two other hoods show up in their cars to take the body, but Gordie threatens Ace with a handgun that Chris had brought on the trip (this is in retaliation to an earlier confrontation when Ace took Gordie's New York Yankees baseball cap which was a gift from Denny). Gordie decides that no one will get credit for finding the dead body and reports it via an anonymous phone call to the authorities. The boys return home to Castle Rock and say goodbye to each other.

The narrator states that Vern later married straight out of high school, had four children and became a forklift driver at a local lumber yard. Teddy tried to join the Army, but was refused entry because of his poor eyesight and ear injury. He eventually served jail time and now was doing odd jobs around Castle Rock. Chris was able to stick it out and get by in the advanced classes with Gordie and later moved out of Castle Rock and became a lawyer. However, as revealed in the opening scene, Chris was recently stabbed and killed when he tried to break up a fight in a fast food restaurant. Gordie then finishes his memoir, and takes his son (Chance Quinn) and his son's friend (Jason Naylor) swimming.

Cast

• Richard Dreyfuss as Gordie Lachance (adult) - He narrates the whole story.
• Wil Wheaton as Gordie Lachance (age 12) - The main protagonist of the film, he has a passion for writing; following the death of his brother, he is rejected by his parents who seem to cherish his brother more than him.
• River Phoenix as Chris Chambers - He comes from a family of alcoholics and rejects and is labelled as one, he does what he can to try and break that tradition and hopes to go to college with Gordie someday. There was a time he stole lunch money from someone but tried to give it back, he confesses this tale to Gordie in tears. He makes it as a lawyer later in life but is killed.
• Jerry O'Connell as Vern Tessio - He is a shy overweight preteen, while trying to finds some pennies under his house, he heard his brother talking about finding a dead body, he convinces his friends to set out to try and find the body, he is often ridiculed and picked on by the others. It's revealed that after high school, he married and became a fork-lift operator at the local lumber mill.
• Corey Feldman as Teddy Duchamp - He is somewhat unstable, his father held his ear to a stove and nearly burnt it off, he thinks his father's a war hero for storming the beach at Normandy, while everyone thinks his father is crazy, Teddy often loses his cool when someone insults him. Later on in life, he tries to get into the army but his eyes and ears get him rejected. He ends up spending some time in prison.
• John Cusack as Denny Lachance - Gordie's older brother, Gordie loved him and looked up to him a lot. He mainly listened to the stories that Gordie wrote. He is killed in an automobile accident where this causes a rift between Gordie and his parents.
• Kiefer Sutherland as "Ace" Merrill - the main antagonist, he mainly picks on Gordie and his friends.
• Bradley Gregg as "Eyeball" Chambers - Chris' older brother and Ace's right hand man
• Casey Siemaszko as Billy Tessio - Vern's older brother
• Gary Riley as Charlie Hogan -
• Marshall Bell as Mr. Lachance
• Frances Lee McCain as Mrs. Lachance
• Bruce Kirby as Mr. Quidacioluo
• Jason Oliver as Vince Desjardins
• William Bronder as Milo Pressman
• Kent W. Luttrell as Ray Brower (the body)

Production

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.

Parts of the film were shot in Brownsville, Oregon, which stood in for the fictional town of Castle Rock. Scenes that include the mailbox baseball and the junkyard scenes were filmed in Veneta, Oregon. The junkyard is still in operation. The campout/standing-guard scene was filmed in Eugene, Oregon, just a few miles from Veneta. The general store is in Franklin, Oregon, just north of Veneta. Scenes along the railroad tracks were shot near Cottage Grove, Oregon, along the right-of-way of the Oregon, Pacific and Eastern Railway, now used as the Row River National Recreation Trail. The scene where the boys outrace a locomotive across a trestle was filmed at Lake Britton on the McCloud River Railroad, near McArthur-Burney Falls Memorial State Park, California.

Title

In March 1986, Columbia pictures, concerned the original title The Body was misleading, renamed the film Stand By Me. According to screenwriter Raynold Gideon, "...it 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 opinion."

Reception

Stand by Me has extremely positive reviews, receiving a 91% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Stephen King indicated, on the special features of the 25th anniversary Blu-ray set, that this is the first successful translation to film of any of his works.

Soundtrack

1. "Everyday" (Buddy Holly) – 2:07
2. "Let the Good Times Roll" (Shirley and Lee) – 2:22
3. "Come Go with Me" (The Del-Vikings) – 2:40
4. "Whispering Bells" (The Del-Vikings) – 2:25
5. "Get a Job" (The Silhouettes) – 2:44
6. "Lollipop" (The Chordettes) – 2:09
7. "Yakety Yak" (The Coasters) – 1:52
8. "Great Balls of Fire" (Jerry Lee Lewis) – 1:52
9. "Mr. Lee" (The Bobbettes) – 2:14
10. "Stand by Me" (Ben E. King) – 2:55

Awards and nominations

Nominations

• Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Drama
• Golden Globe Award for Best Director (Rob Reiner)
• Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay (Raynold Gideon & Bruce A. Evans)
• WGA Award for Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium (Raynold Gideon & Bruce A. Evans)
• Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures (Rob Reiner)

American Film Institute Lists

• AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs:
  • Lollipop - Nominated
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers - Nominated
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) - Nominated

25th Anniversary Celebration

On July 24, 2010, Brownsville, Oregon held a 25th Anniversary Celebration of the filming of Stand by Me. Activities included: a cast and crew Q&A session, an amateur blueberry pie eating contest, and an outdoor showing of the film.

External links

• Stand by Me at the Internet Movie Database
• Stand by Me at AllRovi
• Stand by Me at Box Office Mojo
• Brownsville, Oregon Stand by Me film locations from Brownsville Chamber of Commerce
• Stand by Me at 25 -- The Stars' Oral History of Their Beloved Classic
• Film study lecture of Stand by Me