Stand by Me (film)

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Stand By Me

Directed by	Rob Reiner
Produced by	Bruce A. Evans
Written by	Raynold Gideon Bruce A. Evans
Starring	Wil Wheaton River Phoenix Corey Feldman Jerry O'Connell Kiefer Sutherland and Richard Dreyfuss
Music by	The Chordettes Buddy Holly Jerry Leiber Jack Nitzsche Ben E. King The Coasters
Cinematography	Thomas Del Ruth
Editing by	Robert Leighton
Distributed by	Columbia TriStar
Release date(s)	August 8, 1986
Running time	90 min.
Language	English
IMDb profile

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.

1 Plot
2 Primary cast
3 Response
4 Book discrepancies
5 Trivia
6 Parodies and References
7 Award nominations
8 See also
9 External links

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

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, while Teddy is physically deformed after his mentally unstable father, who 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 having 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, 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.

[edit] 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

[edit] 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.

[edit] Book discrepancies

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The time setting is moved back a year, from 1960 to 1959.
Though 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.
The opening scene, where Gordie recalls his childhood while sitting in his car as an adult, was not in the book.
In the book, only Gordie is alive; in film, Chris is the only deceased member of the "gang."
There were two additional boys in Gordie's "gang" (John and Marty DeSpain) who were out of town during the story. They are never mentioned in the movie.
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).
The boys had no “secret knock” in the book.
In the book, Vern had been looking for his jar of pennies for four years instead of just nine months.
In the book, Vern's nickname was "Penny" (because of the penny incident); he had no nickname in the movie.
Gordie's short story entitled "Stud City" isn't in the movie.
When Mr. Lachance calls Gordie’s friends “a thief and two feebs”, in the book it was Vern and not Chris that he defended.
Gordie was 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 makes it highly unlikely.
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.
In the book, Denny and Gordie were not entirely close to each other; in the movie, Denny and Gordie were like best friends, rather than brothers.
Most of the scenes involving the older gang are unique to the movie. This includes the scenes where Ace steals Gordie’s cap, when they play “mailbox baseball,” and when they have a race together on the highway.
The "pinky swearing" wasn't in the book.
In the movie the characters often give each other "two for flinching" by softly punching each other. They never do this in the book.
Vern didn't bring a comb with him in the book.
The boys never sang the theme song from Have Gun — Will Travel in the book.
In the book, it was Gordie, not Chris, who wrestled Teddy off the tracks before he could attempt a train dodge.
The store clerk’s character is significantly different. In the movie, he is a kind and sympathetic man who is curious about Gordie’s personal life. 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.
Gordie’s two flashbacks- of his brother giving him a lucky cap and of a family dinner- weren’t in the book.
The boys don’t threaten to inform the police about Milo trying to sic his dog on Gordie in the movie.
The line "…going to see a dead kid, maybe it shouldn’t be a party" was actually spoken by Vern in the book, not Gordie.
Teddy and Vern never discussed who would win in a faceoff between Mighty Mouse and Superman in the book.
In the book, Teddy hung by the wooden planks between the rails to demonstrate what to do if a train came while they were crossing the bridge. He doesn’t do this in the movie.
Vern didn't cross the bridge on all fours in the book.
Gordie’s tells the story of Lardass to his friends during an afternoon break from the walk, not during a nighttime campfire.
The name of the mayor who serves as the announcer during the pie contest is changed from “Charbonneau” to “Grundy.”
In the book, all Lardass did to prepare himself for the pie contest was drink a bottle of castor oil ; he didn’t swallow a raw egg.
The “Benevolent Order of Antelopes” weren’t in the book.
The pie contest is never declared a draw in the movie.
Chris and Gordie’s conversation about his writing career and what will be different when they are in junior high takes place at a different time in the book.
In the book, Chris tells Gordie the truth about the milk money incident while they are walking on the train tracks, not while they are standing guard while the others are sleeping around the fire.
In the book, Chris did not cry while talking about the milk money; he cried later when he tripped over Ray Brower's body after the older kids leave. In the movie, he cried after talking about the money and did not trip over Ray Brower's body.
The boys never talked about what kind of animal Goofy is.
The boys never went across a field as a shortcut.
The boys don’t find a beaver dam at the swamp in the movie.
The boys never argued whether or not they should go back after the leech attack in the book.
Minor differences: When the boys find the body, it is not raining, and Ray Brower’s face doesn’t have any insects crawling across it.
Gordie didn’t break down crying after they found the body in the book.
The gang member who threatened the boys with a knife in the book was actually Jackie Mudgett, and not Ace.
In the book it was Chris who pulled out the gun, but Gordie does it in the movie.
In the book, Teddy argues quite a bit in the attempt to bring the body back with them, whereas in the movie, he quietly agrees to leave it where they found it.
The book presents more details of the journey’s aftermath. It described what happened when the boys came back to their houses, and an incident where Gordie was attacked by Ace but refused to turn him in.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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 are four boys walking on some train tracks. I'd better get going, 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 in the Hood, and the parody of the same film Don't be a Menace, 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.