I think the movie is pretty close to perfect, though Rotten Tomatoes is only 89% and 94% from the Audience.
This was during an almost impossible run of great movies by Rob Reiner. The casting was pretty great also.
The 4 friends were River Phoenix, Wil Wheaton (probably his best role), Corey Feldman & Jerry O’Connell. The nemesis was Kiefer Sutherland. The late older brother was John Cusack and grown-up Gordie was Richard Dreyfuss.
BTW: The train track used in the movie were featured in The General. Kind of cool.
I liked the section about the scene where they had to pretend to be scared of the train behind them. I can barely imagine Rob Reiner having cursed and threatened to kill them to instill fear.
Thanks for making me feel old . Yeah, it’s a perfect movie, and 40 years ago I was 18 and still in the right age bracket to enjoy the movie very much (not that only adolescent boys can enjoy the movie, I think it’s perfect nostalgia fare for everyone).
I’ve read some Stephen King, some great things, some not so great, but never this story. Is it as good as the movie? Does the movie follow the story closely?
As in best Book to Movie staying true to the book or best movie based on a King Story.
I would say best it is best at staying true and being a great movie.
But I am firmly in the Shawshank is the best Stephen King movie camp.
BTW: both stories were in the same book. 3 of the 4 novellas were excellent.
As good as the movie? I would say no, but it was very good. I read it just before the movie came out by happy coincidence. I had no clue there was a movie in the works.
For me it’s both: best adaptation in faithfulness of the source material and the best movie just to sit and watch. I don’t like some of the changes in Shawshank. I found it a little cartoony and too bleak, bouncing between the two, while the novella is neither.
It’s very good, but somewhat different. The novella (The Body) really evoked my childhood for me. I swear I could smell the dust in the air in my hometown. We used to hang out at the railroad tracks in the summer, goofing off and climbing up under the trestle. I was very hopeful when I saw that Reiner was going to direct, as some adaptations of King’s work just plain suck. I wasn’t disappointed. The casting was perfect, right down to the junkyard man.
In the train-dodge scene on the trestle, Reiner was having trouble getting the right emotion out of Wheaton and O’Connell. After several takes he screamed at them about what a lousy job they were doing. Both boys started to cry, so Reiner had them get on the trestle and shoot immediately. The fear and distress we see on their faces in the film was the result of the director laying into them so strongly.
I’ve read that Rob Reiner did a remarkable job of matching the characters of the four boys to the personalities of the actors portraying them. Wil Wheaton said as much here (written almost exactly seventeen years ago)
I’ve always said that Stand By Me was so successful because Rob cast four young actors who were so much like their characters, but I think it’s spooky how the four of us ended up being so much like our characters: River died too young, Corey struggled like crazy to get his personal demons under control, Jerry found success and happiness, and I’m a writer.
Wheaton goes more into how Reiner drew out those remarkable performances here (written after Rob and Michele died)
When I was turning 13, and realizing that my own father didn’t care about me, that my mother didn’t see me as a son, but as a thing she could put to work, Rob Reiner made me feel loved, valued, seen, and respected. He made sure I knew that I was important to him and his movie. He made sure I knew that he saw every actor he could for my role, and he chose me because he saw so much of Gordie in me. Back then, I didn’t know what that meant, only that he made me feel like I was enough.
Finally, here’s a gift link to a forty-year-old New York Times article about how Reiner got those performances out of those young actors.
I saw the film at about twenty, I think in college at the second-run shows run by a student group.
Then watch it. It’s really one of the few flawless movies I can think of. Except for one thing maybe: if you’re queasy about vomiting scenes, this is not the movie for you. Though it’s played for laughs.
I saw it as a youngish teen (girl). And remembered very little. So after the Reiners died, I watched it with my 80 year old parents.
It was darker and scarier and sadder than I remembered. And while my parents had some nostalgia for the era in which it was set. Neither would choose to watch it again.
Same here… so I finally did. I found it on HBOMax and watched it this afternoon. And yeah, great movie.
I’m sure I had a copy of Different Seasons back in college, and I remember reading Rita Hayworth… but I don’t remember The Body or the other two stories. Not sure I ever finished the book or whatever happened to it.
I’ve thought about this movie quite a bit recently. It’s one of the few times when all the stars aligned. The right director, the right story, the right cast. It’s a classic, an almost perfect movie.
I watched it on cable not long after it came out and was enthralled by it. I excitedly told my wife about it, and she wanted to watch it too. I told her, “You might not enjoy it as much as I did.” “Why,” she asked. I replied “Because it’s a GUYS movie. You might enjoy it, but you won’t really get it, because you were never a 12 year-old GUY.” Well, she liked it, but she really didn’t get it like I did.
If you were a boy in 1959 when the story takes place, or in 1986 when the movie came out, it’s almost certain you will see yourself or someone you knew in one of those characters.
I said it was “almost perfect.” As I recall, the only thing that sometimes took me out of the story was the profanity. Me and my friends didn’t talk that way when we were 12 - or at least that much. Otherwise, a perfect movie.
I only ever saw the movie in the German dub, but I don’t remember any outstanding profanity, so that might have been lost in translation. I was about that age 25 years after the movie was set in, and we cursed like sailors. What was the strongest swear word they used in the original script?
Dunno if these examples are exactly what you’re asking for, but George Lucas did it all over the place for the Star Wars special editions. Temuera Morrison’s voice replaced whoever did Boba Fett’s original voice.
Hayden Christensen replaced Sebastian Shaw as Anakin Skywalker’s force ghost. Ian McDiarmid replaced whoever played the Emperor in The Empire Strikes Back.
On TV, on the Sopranos, an actor whose character has a small introduction scene at the end of a season finale was not able to continue in the role for the next season. Naturally, they replaced the original actor with a new actor for the following season, but they also went back and reshot the introduction scene with the new actor in place of the original actor. The reshot version is the one you see in reruns, DVD, streaming, etc.
. Yeah, it’s a perfect movie, and 40 years ago I was 18 and still in the right age bracket to enjoy the movie very much (not that only adolescent boys can enjoy the movie, I think it’s perfect nostalgia fare for everyone).