Stand by Me (film): Difference between revisions

Stand By Me
Stand By Me
	File:Standbyme.jpg Special Edition DVD
Directed by	Rob Reiner
Written by	Raynold Gideon; Bruce A. Evans
Produced by	Bruce A. Evans
Starring	Wil Wheaton; River Phoenix; Corey Feldman; Jerry O'Connell; Kiefer Sutherland; Richard Dreyfuss;
Cinematography	Thomas Del Ruth
Edited by	Robert Leighton
Music by	The Chordettes; Buddy Holly; Jerry Leiber; Jack Nitzsche; Ben E. King; The Coasters
Distributed by	Columbia TriStar
Release dates	August 8, 1986
Running time	90 min.
Language	English

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Stand By Me is a 1986 film directed by Rob Reiner; the title comes from a song with the same title by Ben E. King (which plays during the closing credits) and is based on the novella The Body by Stephen King.

Plot

Template:Spoiler Stand by Me is a coming of age film set in 1959. The four main characters are the narrator Gordie Lachance and his three friends Chris Chambers, Teddy Duchamp, and Vern Tessio, all 12-year-old boys. Each is burdened with either a physical or emotional affliction: Chris belongs to a family of criminals and alcoholics and, despite his intelligence, is usually stereotyped accordingly. Teddy is physically deformed after his mentally unstable father, whom he sees as a war hero who "stormed the beach at Normandy," abused him by putting his ear to a stove and nearly burning it off, thus forcing him to wear a hearing aid. Vern is overweight and easily scared, and thus often picked on. Gordie, the most complex of the four main characters, is a quiet, bookish boy with a penchant for telling stories; however he has been rejected by his father after his older brother, Denny, was killed in a road accident.

The four set out to locate the body of Ray Brower (a boy killed after being struck by a train) after over-hearing a conversation among older youths. Much of the film is concerned with this journey as they encounter adventures and interact with each other along the way.

Primary cast

Actor	Role
Wil Wheaton	Gordie Lachance
River Phoenix	Chris Chambers
Corey Feldman	Teddy Duchamp
Jerry O'Connell	Vern Tessio
Kiefer Sutherland	Ace Merrill
Richard Dreyfuss	The Writer
John Cusack	Denny Lachance
Casey Siemaszko	Billy Tessio

Response

"Stand By Me" premiered in a limited release in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and various other major US cities on August 8, 1986. Bolstered by rave reviews and acclaimed word-of-mouth, the film's release was broadened by Columbia, and by the end of its US cinema run, the film had grossed $51 million at the US box office. It then premiered in Australia on March 19, 1987 and was a huge success in the country. It later premiered in Europe (selected countries such as France, Germany and Sweden) and Japan.

Since its release, it has become a major cult classic. It has a 93/100% (7.5/10) fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, and is currently on the IMDb top 250 films, with a rating of 8.1/10, with 40,785 votes.

It has been released onto VHS, Laserdisc and DVD. In 2005 it was re-released into a deluxe special edition DVD with the following features:

Director Rob Reiner's Commentary
Exclusive Featurette: Walking The Tracks: The Summer Of Stand By Me
Ben E. King Music Video (featuring the song Stand by Me)
Isolated Music Score
Filmographies
Exclusive Collectible 32 Page Booklet and Music CD.

Book discrepancies

Template:Spoiler

While Stand by Me is, in general, very faithful to the original Stephen King novella, the film still has some notable discrepancies from its source material. A few general details are changed, including the time setting, which is moved back a year from 1960 to 1959. And although both stories take place in a town called "Castle Rock", the original Stephen King story is set in Maine, while the film takes place in Oregon.

Parts of the story’s timeline are altered in the film. Chris and Gordie’s conversation about his writing career and what will be different when they are in junior high, the scene where Chris tells Gordie the truth about the milk money incident, and Gordie’s story about Lardass all take place at completely different moments than they did in the film. The book also features more events that occur shortly after the journey. It describes what happened when the boys came back to their homes, and an incident where Gordie was attacked by Ace but refused to turn him in.

Some scenes are added to or removed from the movie. Stand by Me has well more scenes involving the older gang than The Body, as the scenes where Ace steals Gordie’s cap, when the gang plays “mailbox baseball,” when they discuss Ray Brower’s body together in the junkyard, and when they have a race together on the highway were not in the book. The film ignores Gordie’s short story entitled Stud City, and adds two of his flashback scenes, in which his brother gives him a baseball cap and when he takes part in a family dinner. The film’s two scenes with also Gordie as an adult at the beginning and the end were not in the book.

There are a number of repeated elements that are added into the film, including the boys continually singing the theme song from Have Gun — Will Travel, Vern’s comical obsession with his comb, Gordie and Chris doing "pinky swearing" when they give each other promises, and the characters giving each other "two for flinching" by softly punching each other. In addition, Gordie’s relationship with his brother is much more intense in the film, while in the novella Denny and Gordie were not entirely close to each other.

The film includes some additional conversations between the boys that weren’t in the book, including their discussions around the campfire, their argument over whether or not they should go back after the leech attack, whether to cross the field as a shortcut to the Royal River, what kind of animal Goofy is, and who would win in a faceoff between Mighty Mouse and Superman. Other debates are trimmed down. In the book, the boys threatened to inform police about Milo trying to sic his dog on Gordie during the argument that arose after he called Mr. Duchamp a lunatic, and Teddy later argued quite a bit in the attempt to bring Ray Brower’s body back with them.

There are some actions in the plot that are performed by different characters in the book than in the film. In the book, it was Gordie, not Chris, who wrestled Teddy off the tracks before he could attempt a train dodge, while in the book it was Chris who pulled out the gun, but Gordie does it in the movie. Also, the gang member who threatened the boys with a knife in the book was actually Jackie Mudgett, and not Ace. Some lines of dialogue are spoken by different characters. In the book, the line "…going to see a dead kid, maybe it shouldn’t be a party" was spoken by Vern, and the line ”you won't mind if we check the seat of your jockies for Hershey squirts” was spoken by Teddy. In the movie, both of these lines are spoken by Gordie.

The movie features some characters that weren’t in the book, and vice versa. For instance, in the book there were two additional boys in Gordie's "gang" named John and Marty DeSpain who were out of town during the story, but they are never mentioned in the movie. In turn, the book didn’t feature the various members in the crowd during the pie contest that the movie identifies.

Some of the characteristics of the people in the story are changed. For instance, both of Teddy's ears had been burned in the book, but in the movie only his left one is. (The book also gives a more thorough description of the events leading up to Teddy's father being institutionalized, including said burnings). Chopper was a mongrel dog, while in the movie he is a golden retriever, The name of the mayor who serves as the announcer during the pie contest is changed from “Charbonneau” to “Grundy”, and Vern’s nickname “Penny” (because of the incident where Vern spends nine months looking for pennies, and not four years as in the book) is never brought up. Gordie was also a huge Red Sox fan in the book, and his admiration for Ted Williams was noted. This trait is never stated in the movie, and since Gordie is willing to wear a New York Yankees cap, it is highly unlikely.

Another notable difference between the book and the movie is the character of the store clerk. In the book, he was a grumpy person who tried to cheat Gordie of his money twice and yelled angrily at him as he left the shop. In the movie, he is a kind and sympathetic man who is curious about Gordie’s personal life, and who empathizes with Gordie over Denny’s demise, as he himself lost a brother during the Korean War. However, in the movie, it can be noticed that the grocer attempts to put his thumb on the scale, until learning of Gordie's relation to Denny. The incident serves as a further example of Gordie's world, caught between untrustworthy adults and reliance on the memory of his brother Denny.

Stand By Me establishes much less about Gordie’s family than the book does. In the book, the ages of Gordie's parents are mentioned during the time the boys searched for the body and the age of Gordie's mother was when she became pregnant with Dennis is also mentioned; none of this was mentioned in the movie. In the book, Denny was in the military at the time of his death. The movie doesn't establish this, although props in Denny's room gives the idea that he was probably out of high school and maybe even in college when the accident took place.

Significantly, the book provides an epilogue that kills off not just the protagonist's best friend, but all of the supporting characters. Both of the two characters whose fates are ignored in the movie meet the least distinguished of fates in King's book: Vern passes out on a cigarette and sets a blaze, and Teddy is unceremoniously killed following a race-induced car crash in which he is propelled through what was then called the "death seat" (passenger-side front seat -- before airbags -- was notorious for sending the unfortunate over the dashboard and through the windshield without interference). In both the book and the movie, the tragic figure is Chris Chambers. King engages in ample foreshadowing by establishing Chris as preternaturally and essentially good, the more so because of his "diamond in the rough" nature: his family is composed of criminals, in a time and a town where the apple rarely fell far from the tree. Chris is tough and well-grown, but uses his maturity to be a peacemaker rather than a warrior. His peacemaking tendency and maturity are established repeatedly: He is throughout the book and movie the voice of reason, saving his mates from both physical and emotional harm. Chris's death is an early but fitting sacrifice: in a fast food restaurant, he instinctively steps between two men who have engaged in a knife-fight. Chris is stabbed in the throat, being granted an instant death. Gordie is the sole survivor, an intentionally transparent representation of King himself, who lives on and writes, but without his friends. Note that in a dream sequence following the infamous leech sequence in the book, King shows his ambivalence to childhood friends--envisioning his friends as grasping to his limbs and drowning him, and declaring that friends only "hold you down." The loss of his best friend Chris reminds him that he will "never have friends like that again."

The ultimate punishment is only shown in the book: the fate of the antagonist, Ace. Rather than the quick death granted to Chris, Teddy, and Vern, Ace is seen by Gordie years later in a local bar: his sharp features softened by fat, grown old before his time. Gordie's victory is that of living well.

Template:Endspoilers

Trivia

The narrator's word processor at the end is running on an IBM PC, possibly an XT.
Kiefer Sutherland and Corey Feldman both costarred in the 1987 film The Lost Boys.
In the Television series So Little Time, Larry has the leeches from the film in a jar.
The film was shot in Brownsville, Oregon where Castle Rock is, other parts of the film where shot in locations in Oregon.
Stephen King told the cast and crew after a private screening of the film that it was his favorite adaptation of any of his works up to that point.
Sean Parlaman received permission from King to make a short, independent sequel, entitled Stud City. A script was written, but the film was never actually produced. Stud City Homepage

Parodies and References

The Andy Milonakis Show parodies the movie, in a sketch where Andy says to Ralphie,"There's a dead body down by the train tracks, wanna go see it?" They enter Andy's living room, where Larry is laying on the floor next to a model train layout. Andy pokes him with a stick, causing him to wake up and the two are easily freaked out.
On The Simpsons episode The Blunder Years, Homer flashes back to his childhood, camping with 3 of his friends, and finding a dead body in the sewer. Also, in another episode when Nelson comes running to the boys to tell them that the lemon tree has been stolen, he does the same stalling and gasping for breath act as Vern did.
There is a reference to the film in the Game Boy games Pokemon Red and Pokemon Blue. In the house of the main character of the game, press the A button while facing the TV there. The main character will say to himself: "There's a movie on TV. Four boys are walking on railroad tracks. I better go too."
In the series "Kids in the Hall" the film is parodied when in a scene where a couple come out of a theater and her boyfriend asks her: "Wanna see a dead body?" This is done numerous times afterwards and after those times it was done, the body strangled the boyfriend. This is a reference to where all the boys die in the book.
In both films Boyz N the Hood, and the parody of the same film Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood, make references to 4 boys, and one says, "Y'all want to see a dead body?"
In the episode of Beavis and Butthead, "Mr. Andersons Balls", Butthead says "Beavis, we're looking for that dead kid so we can get our faces on milk cartons."
In the episode of Family Guy where Peter's father is working in the toy factory, the action figure they're making says "*cough, cough,* you kids wanna see a dead body?"
In the second episode of Clerks: The Animated Series, the ending of the movie is parodied when Dante, Randal, Jay and silent Bob all walk home as the narrator (Jay, now much older) tells us what happens to each in the future as they each enter their homes. Stand by Me plays in the background and a previously unshown character, now part of the gang, is listed as having died in Vietnam.
The 1995 movie Now and Then has a similar plot and characters to Stand by Me.
In the first season of Kiefer Sutherland's TV series 24, there was a character named "Milo Pressman."

Award nominations

External links

@@ Line 2: / Line 2: @@
   name     = Stand By Me|
   image          = Standbyme.jpg |
+  caption        = Special Edition DVD |
   imdb_id        = 0092005 |
   producer       = [[Bruce A. Evans]] |