Stand by Me is a 1986 American coming of age 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 (Dreyfuss). After reading a newspaper article about the death of his friend, 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. Young Gordie (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 (Cusack). Denny paid Gordie much more attention than his parents did.

 

Gordie spends his time with three friends: Chris Chambers (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 (Feldman) who is eccentric and physically scarred after his mentally unstable father held his ear to a stove; and Vern Tessio (O'Connell) who is overweight, timid, and often picked on.

 

Vern overhears his older brother Billy (Siemaszko) and his friend Charlie Hogan (Riley) talking about finding the body of Ray Brower while dumping a stolen car. Brower was a boy whose disappearance and subsequent police search was a big news story in Castle Rock. Gordie, Chris, Teddy, and Vern decide to embark upon a journey to see if they can find Ray's body and become local heroes.

 

The boys set out, first encountering Milo Pressman 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 body and it reminds Gordie that his father liked his brother better than him. At this point, local bully "Ace" Merrill (Sutherland) and his gang consisting of "Eyeball" Chambers (Gregg), Vince Desjardins, 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. 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 to Castle Rock and say goodbye to each other.

 

Gordie 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 and his son's friend swimming.

 

Cast

• Richard Dreyfuss as Gordie Lachance (adult)

• Wil Wheaton as Gordie Lachance (age 12)

• River Phoenix as Chris Chambers

• Jerry O'Connell as Vern Tessio

• Corey Feldman as Teddy Duchamp

• John Cusack as Denny Lachance

• Kiefer Sutherland as "Ace" Merrill

• Bradley Gregg as "Eyeball" Chambers

• Casey Siemaszko as Billy Tessio

• 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 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 opinion."

 

Reception

Stand by Me has received nearly universal acclaim, 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