Stand by Me (film)

Stand by Me
File:Stand By Me 1986 American Theatrical Release Poster.jpg American theatrical release poster, August 1986
Directed by	Rob Reiner
Produced by	Bruce A. Evans Andrew Scheinman
Written by	Bruce A. Evans Raynold Gideon
Based on	The Body by Stephen King
Starring	Wil Wheaton River Phoenix Corey Feldman Jerry O'Connell Kiefer Sutherland
Narrated by	Richard Dreyfuss
Music by	Jack Nitzsche
Cinematography	Thomas Del Ruth
Edited by	Robert Leighton
Production company	Act III Productions
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release dates	August 8, 1986 (1986-08-08)
Running time	88 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$8 million
Box office	$52.3 million

Stand by Me is a 1986 American coming of age drama adventure film directed by Rob Reiner and starring Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, and Jerry O'Connell. Based on Stephen King's novella The Body the title is derived from the Ben E. King song of the same name, which plays over the opening and end credits. The film tells the story of four boys who go on a hike across the countryside to view the dead body of a missing child.

Plot

Author Gordie Lachance (Richard Dreyfuss) writes about a childhood incident when he and three buddies undertook a journey to find the body of a missing boy near the town of Castle Rock, Oregon over Labor Day weekend in 1959.

Young Gordie (Wil Wheaton) is a quiet, bookish boy with a penchant for writing and telling stories. His parents, grieving the recent death of Gordie's older brother, neglect their youngest son. To cope, Gordie spends much time with his friends: Chris Chambers (River Phoenix), whose family are criminals and alcoholics; Teddy Duchamp (Corey Feldman), an eccentric and physically scarred boy; and Vern Tessio (Jerry O'Connell), who is overweight and timid, often making him the target of bullying.

Vern overhears his older brother, Billy (Casey Siemaszko), and Billy's friend, Charlie Hogan (Gary Riley), discussing Ray Brower, a young boy who was reportedly struck and killed by a train. They want to search for the body, but Gordie, Chris, Teddy, and Vern decide to follow the local rail line and find Ray first, and making them local heroes.

After a series of misadventures and much self-revelation, the boys locate the body. However, local hoodlum "Ace" Merrill (Kiefer Sutherland) and his gang including Chris' older brother "Eyeball" (Bradley Gregg), Billy, Charlie, Vince Desjardins (Jason Oliver) and two other gang members arrive in cars to claim the body and the credit for finding it. When Chris refuses to step aside, Ace attempts to kill him until Gordie threatens to shoot Ace with an M1911 pistol the boys brought with them. Outmatched, Ace and his gang retreat. The boys agree to report the body via an anonymous phone call to the authorities. They hike back to Castle Rock, bid each other farewell until they see each other in a few days at Junior High School.

The present-day Gordie writes that the friends drifted apart shortly thereafter. Vern married immediately after high school, had four children, and drives a forklift at a local lumber yard. Teddy tried enlisting in the army but was turned down due to his ear injury and impaired eyesight. He had served some time in prison and now does odd jobs around Castle Rock. Chris went on to college and became a lawyer. When attempting to break up a fight in a fast-food restaurant, he was fatally stabbed in the neck. Gordie finishes his memoir and takes his son and friend swimming.

Cast

• Wil Wheaton as Gordie Lachance (aged 12)
  • Richard Dreyfuss as Gordie Lachance (adult; credited as "The Writer")
• River Phoenix as Chris Chambers
• Corey Feldman as Teddy Duchamp
• Jerry O'Connell as Vern Tessio
• Kiefer Sutherland as John "Ace" Merrill, gang member
• Casey Siemaszko as Billy Tessio, gang member
• John Cusack as Denny Lachance
• Marshall Bell as Mr. Lachance
• Frances Lee McCain as Mrs. Lachance
• Gary Riley as Charlie Hogan, gang member
• Bradley Gregg as Richard "Eyeball" Chambers, gang member
• Jason Oliver as Vince Desjardins, gang member
• Bruce Kirby as Mr. Quidacioluo, store owner
• William Bronder as Milo Pressman, junkyard owner
• Scott Beach as Mayor Grundy
• Andy Lindberg as David "Lard Ass" Hogan

Production

In a 2011 interview with NPR, 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" game 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 that 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 option."

Music

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

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

Reception

Box office

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

Critical response

Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, reports that 91% of 53 surveyed critics gave the film a positive rating; the average rating was 8/10.

King, whose story this film was adapted from, was very impressed with the finished result and indicated, on the special features of the 25th anniversary Blu-ray set, that he considered the film to be the first successful translation to film of any of his works.

Accolades

Nominations

• Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama
• Golden Globe Award for Best Director (Rob Reiner)
• Academy Award for Best 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)

• 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

Legacy

In 1987, following the success of Stand by Me, Reiner co-founded a film and television production company and named it Castle Rock Entertainment, after the fictional setting of the story.

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

The opening track to the seventh album of the Welsh post hardcore band, Funeral for a Friend, titled Chapter and Verse, makes reference to Stand by Me with the line: "I've sat and watched Stand by Me for the millionth time, it's a lifeline. I wish I was Chris Chambers, but in truth I'm more like Vern".

In Pokémon Red, Blue, and Yellow, Stand By Me is the film playing on the television set at the character's house. The description reads, "There's a movie on TV. Four boys are walking down a railroad track."

External links

• Stand by Me at IMDb
• Stand by Me at Box Office Mojo
• Stand by Me at Rotten Tomatoes
• 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