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Ferris Bueller's Day Off

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Ferris Bueller's Day Off

1999 DVD cover
Directed by John Hughes
Produced by Arnon Milchan
Written by John Hughes
Starring Matthew Broderick
Alan Ruck
Mia Sara
Jeffrey Jones
Jennifer Grey
Music by Ira Newborn
Arthur Baker
John Robie
Cinematography Tak Fujimoto
Editing by Paul Hirsch
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release date(s) June 11 1986
Running time 102 min
Language English
IMDb profile

Ferris Bueller's Day Off is a 1986 comedy film written and directed by John Hughes and produced by Michael Chinich. It stars Matthew Broderick, Alan Ruck, Mia Sara, Jeffrey Jones and Jennifer Grey. The film was released by Paramount Pictures on June 11, 1986. The film received a PG-13 rating by the MPAA for sexual humour, suggestive images, and for continuous language.

The film follows high school senior Ferris Bueller (Broderick), who, one spring day, decides to skip school and spend the day in downtown Chicago with his friend Cameron Frye (Ruck) and girlfriend Sloane Peterson (Sara) while creatively avoiding his school principal, his resentful younger sister Jeanie (Grey), and his parents. Bueller frequently breaks the fourth wall to explain to the audience his techniques and thoughts.

In 1990, it spawned a short-lived NBC sitcom starring Charlie Schlatter and Jennifer Aniston as Ferris and Jeannie.

Contents

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Ferris Bueller (Broderick) is a wise-cracking high school senior from the fictional Chicago suburb of Shermer, Illinois, who decides to skip school for a day on the town by pretending to be sick. He convinces his nervous friend, Cameron (Ruck) to take his father's 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California out for a spin, although Cameron's father has so little trust in him that he has memorized the car's mileage. Ferris makes the promise to erase any miles they put on the car by running the car in reverse when they return. Masquerading as her father, Ferris springs his junior girlfriend Sloane (Sara) from school on the premise that her grandmother has died.

Meanwhile, school principal Ed Rooney (Jones) doesn’t believe Ferris’ illness excuse, and sets out to catch him in the act. He suffers multiple injuries in his quest.

Word somehow spreads that Ferris is near-terminally ill, and he becomes the town's favorite son.

The three friends enjoy a baseball game at Wrigley Field and dine at an elite restaurant (with Ferris posing as "Abe Frohman, the sausage king of Chicago"). Cameron and Sloane watch in awe as Ferris sneaks onto a float during the Von Steuben Day Parade to lip-sync "Danke Schoen" and The Beatles' version of "Twist and Shout". They enjoy the view from the top of the Sears Tower and visit the Art Institute of Chicago. In one of several running jokes, Ferris narrowly avoids meeting his father a few times. However, while Ferris and his friends enjoy their day, two parking attendants "borrow" the Ferrari and enjoy their own day off in it, raising the odometer reading considerably in the process.

When the trio retrieve the car and Cameron spies the odometer reading, he has a nervous breakdown and enters a catatonic state for a few minutes. It is during this time that Ferris reveals to the audience how upset he is at how little time he and Cameron have left until college. He also reveals that not only is Cameron a virgin, but also estimates that his best friend is so desperate that he will marry the first girl he sleeps with ("because she will have given him what he has built up in his mind as the only reason for God having created human existence"), a woman who will inevitably not respect him. Many critics note this scene as one of the films' most beautiful moments.

After the day of fun, the trio return to Cameron’s house, where Ferris jacks up the Ferrari and puts it in reverse, propping a cement block on the gas pedal in an attempt to make the odometer roll backward. This fails. Cameron refuses to consider Ferris' suggestion to crack open the odometer and roll the numbers back by hand. Out of rage, Cameron kicks the Ferrari repeatedly ("Who do you love?!" he rhetorically asks his absent father. "You love a car!"), causing it to teeter precariously on the jack. Shocked and dismayed at the damage he has done, he bravely decides to take the punishment his father will issue. He leans on the car (still rotating its wheels in reverse), unintentionally knocking it off the jack and sending it roaring backward through the second-story garage’s plate glass window and into the ravine below. Ferris offers to take the blame since Cameron's father hates him anyway, but Cameron decides to stand up to his father for the first time in his life.

Ferris realizes he’s late and dashes home, running through neighbors' backyards and hopping over fences. He arrives back home and manages to get into bed in time for his parents to check on him.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Reception

[edit] Critical

The film was well met by most critics, and was extremely popular with teenagers. Broderick was also nominated for a Golden Globe in 1987, for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.

The film is now seen as one of the best comedies of the 1980s. It was featured in the BBC television show I Love the 80s which aired in 2001. The film has a high rating of 89% on Rotten Tomatoes, an Internet site which collects critical film reviews, and a 7.8/10 rating on the IMDb. This movie ranked number 10 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the 50 Best High School Movies.

[edit] Rankings

As an influential and popular film, Ferris Bueller's Day Off has been included in many film rating lists. This film is number 54 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies", and came 26th in the British 50 Greatest Comedy Films poll.

The film was short-listed by the American Film Institute as part of the AFI 100 Years... series celebration in the category of AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs.

In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted Ferris Bueller's Day Off the 23rd greatest comedy film of all time, and in 2005 an Empire magazine article declared Ferris Bueller's Day Off the number one teen film of all time.

[edit] Box office

The film opened in 1,330 theatres in the United States and had a total weekend gross of $6,275,647, opening in second position to Rodney Dangerfield's Back to School.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off's total gross in the United States was approximately $70 million. It subsequently became the 10th highest grossing film of 1986. Compared to the lean budget of $6 million, this was viewed as a big success. [1]

[edit] Negative

A small percentage of American educators declared the film to provide a very negative role model for students, as the film's protagonist openly advocates skipping school, lying and tricking parents, and hacking into a school mainframe to alter records. It was also noted that the American high school tradition of "Senior Skip Day" drastically increased in the late 1980s and early 1990s, some say as a direct result of so many teenagers viewing the film.[citation needed] The United States Department of Education, however, never made any official statements, one way or the other, regarding the impact of the film on teenagers' views towards education.

[edit] Trivia

In order to meet Wikipedia's quality standards, this article's trivia section requires cleanup.
Content in the trivia section should be integrated into other appropriate areas of the article.

[edit] In-jokes

  • Sloane is based on a high school version of Nancy Hughes, John's wife. Cameron and Garth Volbeck (Charlie Sheen's druggie character) are based on acquaintances of Hughes from high school.
  • The detective at the police station is named Steven Lim, the same name as the First Assistant Director.
  • The fancy restaurant Ferris visits in the Abe Frohman scene is the fictional Chez Quis, a pun which when said aloud would be "Shakey's".
  • Cameron's fake "Mr. Peterson" voice was based on a drama coach under whom Ruck and Broderick studied. Hughes never met the man and did not understand the in-joke, but it cracked up the two actors so much they used it for the voice.
  • Many of the license plates are acronyms for John Hughes' other films. For instance, Mr. Bueller's being "MMOM" for Mr. Mom and even including "FBDO" for the film itself.
  • Ben Stein, who actually holds a degree in economics, ad-libbed the scene where he discusses the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act.
  • In the scene where Ferris is on his computer while talking on the phone to Cameron, Ferris illustrates a picture of a nude woman on his computer [2]. When the film was aired on television, that part of the scene was cut along with his quote, "If I get caught, I won't graduate."

[edit] Cast

  • At the time of filming, only Mia Sara was near the age of a high school student at 18 (although her character was likely only 16 or 17), while Matthew Broderick was 23, Jennifer Grey was 25, and Alan Ruck was 29.
  • Charlie Sheen, who played the drug addict at the police station to which Jeanie is taken, stayed awake for more than 48 hours before the scene was shot to produce the desired drugged-out effect.
  • Cindy Pickett and Lyman Ward, who played Ferris's parents, married in real life after filming this movie, although they subsequently divorced.
  • Matthew Broderick and Jennifer Grey were an actual real-life couple during the making of the movie.
  • Mia Sara would later admit she was actually tickled by Matthew Broderick in the taxicab scene.
  • Johnny Depp turned down the role of Ferris Bueller.
  • Jim Carrey was considered for the role of Ferris Bueller.
  • Michael J. Fox was the original choice for the role of Ferris Bueller.

[edit] Filming details

  • The red hockey jersey that Cameron wears in the film is that of Detroit Red Wings ice hockey legend Gordie Howe. Hughes stated on the dvd commentary that this is a nod to his childhood living in Michigan.
  • In an early draft of the script Ferris had two additional younger siblings, but were eliminated for the film's final release.
  • In a deleted scene, Ferris calls a local Chicago radio station saying that he would like to ride in the space shuttle at some point in his life before he dies, but it was cut from the film and the trailers (which had to be retrieved from the theaters they were already sent to) due to the Challenger's destruction in January 1986. (This entire subplot is explained on the FBDO DVD commentary.)
  • Ferris wears a different outfit in each scene before he and Cameron go to pick up Sloane.
  • The filmmakers joined the real Von Steuben Day Parade in Chicago, which just happened to take place during shooting. In actuality, Von Steuben Day is in September, while the movie is set in the spring.
  • In the scene where Ferris is attempting to run the odometer of Cameron's father's Ferrari backwards, the leaves in the background were painted green as it was autumn when the film was shot.
  • All the interior school scenes were filmed inside Maine North High School, the same location where The Breakfast Club was filmed. The exterior school scenes were filmed at Glenbrook North High School where John Hughes graduated from High School.
  • While driving into Chicago in Cameron's father's car, Ferris, Cameron, and Sloan are seen exiting Interstate I-90/94, followed by a drive down Lake Shore Drive. These two roads are, in fact, on opposite sides of downtown Chicago from one another, and both run mainly North-South.
  • It is of some considerable debate as to what kind of car Cameron really destroys when his dad's Ferrari shoots out the garage in reverse onto the ground below, but Ferrari fans can rest assured it was NOT a real 250 GT California, or even a Ferrari. There are some claims that it was a highly modified MG. The DVD documentary does explain however, that they made models of Ferarris for uses like this.
  • The band playing during the parade is the Lockport Township High School marching band.
  • John Hughes thought that the song, Danke Schoen by Wayne Newton was awful and made him want to scream and claw on his face.
  • The 'sick sounds' were replayed on a E-mu Emulator II sampler.

[edit] References in popular culture

  • In the episode of Scrubs, "My American Girl", Dr. Cox uses the exact same line used by Ferris when he described Cameron.
  • In an episode of the 2006 Channel 4 sitcom The IT Crowd entitled "Fifty-Fifty," the character Moss' online dating profile lists one of his turn-ons as "Ferris Bueller's Day Off".
  • In a 2006 television commercial for DirecTV, Ben Stein reprises his role as Ferris' economics teacher, mimicking the "roll call" scene from the movie. After calling out Ferris' name several times as he did in the movie, he then breaks the fourth wall to pitch DirecTV to the audience, after which he goes on to call out "Frye...Frye..."
  • In an episode of the Adult Swim show Robot Chicken, there is a parody of the scene where the Ferrari is stolen by two parking attendants - here the car stolen is KITT from Knight Rider.
  • Comic book writer Brian Michael Bendis has often referred to Ferris Bueller's Day Off as well as several other John Hughes films in the Marvel comic book series Ultimate Spider-Man, which he writes along with artist Mark Bagley. For instance in one issue, one of Peter Parker's teachers (who looks suspiciously like Ben Stein) recites the entire "Voodoo Economics" speech.
  • In an episode of Veronica Mars, Veronica calls her boyfriend who is absent from school and asks if he is indeed sick or if he is going to show up on a float singing "Twist and Shout", a direct reference to the film.
  • The character Ferris the Rat in the webcomic Newshounds is named after Ferris Bueller.
  • In the Family Guy episode Let's Go to the Hop, Peter tries to fool Lois with a recording of himself trying to make her leave him alone.
  • The Family Guy direct-to-DVD animated film Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story climaxes in a sequence where Stewie Griffin races through his suburban neighborhood in a parody of Ferris' dash to get home before his parents at the end of the film, using the same "March of the Swivelheads" music and featuring a brief scene where he introduces himself to two sunbathing women.
  • In The Kleptones mash-up album A Night at the Hip Hopera, soundbites of various characters from the film can be heard on the tracks "See", "Ride", "Sniff" and "Jerk".
  • On ESPN's Sportscenter, NBA basketball player Mo Peterson is sometimes referred to as "The Sausage King of Chicago". It should be noted, however, that even though the sausage king's name was actually Abe Frohman, it is usually said with an impersonated Peterson voice.
  • In an episode of Degrassi: The Next Generation Ellie's pet Ferret Bueller dies.
  • In an episode of Spin City, Alan Ruck's character wears a Detroit Red Wings jersey to a hockey game, referencing his role as Cameron.
  • In the episode "Very Bad Things" of My Name Is Earl Joy mistakes a clothes puppet for an unconscious person and says "Son-of-a-bitch Ferris-Buellered me!"
  • In an episode of Family Guy, the music that plays in the background when Brian meets Chris' teacher Shauna is from the scene in the Police station when Ferris' sister says goodbye to Charlie Sheen.

[edit] Soundtrack

Director John Hughes refused to release a soundtrack album because he thought the eclectic collection of songs in the movie would not work together.

Songs featured in the film include:

[edit] Filming locations

[edit] References

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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es:Todo en un día fr:La Folle Journée de Ferris Bueller nl:Ferris Bueller's Day Off ja:フェリスはある朝突然に pt:Ferris Bueller's Day Off ru:Феррис Бьюллер берёт выходной (фильм) sv:Fira med Ferris zh:咪走堂

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