Thread by @ATRightMovies

STAND BY ME was released 38 years ago this week. Acclaimed as one of the ‘80s great coming-of-age movies and among River Phoenix’s best-remembered roles, the tale of how it was made is a reminder we never had any friends like the ones we had when we were 12…

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In 1982, acclaimed horror author Stephen King published a collection of four dramatic novellas called Different Seasons. It included Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, Apt Pupil, Breathing Method and The Body. It wasn’t long before Hollywood came calling…

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In 1983, screenwriter Bruce A. Evans came across the book, and liked The Body. The story of four 12-year-old boys who, in the 1950s, go on an adventure to find a dead body, Evans showed it to his writing partner, Raynold Gideon, and they decided to buy the rights.

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A deal was reportedly struck with King where Evans and Gideon would pay $100k for the rights, and King would also receive 10% of the movie’s gross profits. Feeling they needed a big name to sell the idea to a studio, they contacted Adrian Lyne (Fatal Attraction) to direct.

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Lyne had a hit with Flashdance in 1983 and was in currently making 9½ Weeks. He agreed to work on the King adaptation, and the trio began pitching. They were turned down by studios time and again until Embassy Pictures, after long negotiations, agreed to fund the film.

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Embassy wanted to begin shooting in 1985 but, exhausted from the 9½ Weeks production, Lyne wanted to take a break between films, which would’ve pushed production back until 1986. The studio said they couldn’t wait, and Lyne left the project.

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Embassy had hired Andrew Scheinman to co-produce with Evans and Gideon and he recommended Rob Reiner, who he had worked with on The Sure Thing. Reiner had also helmed Embassy’s This Is Spinal Tap to great success and, on being sent the script, he agreed to direct.

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Disaster struck when, days before shooting was to begin, Embassy was bought out by Columbia Pictures, and they weren’t keen on proceeding with the film. Luckily, Embassy co-founder Norman Lear had loved the project and agreed to personally fund it for $7.5m.

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One of Reiner’s first decisions was to amend the script from an ensemble piece to make young writer, Gordie Lachance the lead character. Reportedly, Stephen Dorff and Ethan Hawke were considered before Wil Wheaton was cast.

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Chris Chambers is the unofficial leader of the group. Sean Astin auditioned but, unfortunately for him, he was right after River Phoenix. Astin said when he walked into the room, the casting team were all in tears from Phoenix’s audition and he knew he had no chance.

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Corey Feldman successfully auditioned to play the troubled Teddy Duchamp and later said Teddy’s life was the closest to his own of any character he ever played. Feldman worked closely with Reiner, especially on creating Teddy’s distinct laugh.

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Feldman said the film will always hold a place in his heart. During filming he “went to my first club, drank for the first time, kissed a girl for the first time, and shot a music video with River.” He also said he and Phoenix smoked weed together for the first time.

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Jerry O’Connell completed the foursome by playing Vern Trussio. O’Connell would go on to marry actress/model Rebecca Romijn who, as a teen girl, had been a big fan and had posters of Stand By Me all over her bedroom wall. She kept it from O’Connell for months.

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Kiefer Sutherland played the antagonist of the piece in Ace Merrill, a vicious gang leader several years older than the boys. He would apparently stay in character between takes and pick on the young cast. O’Connell later said he was scared of Sutherland.

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Before shooting began, Reiner set up bonding sessions for the four boys. They met at a hotel in Oregon and played games based on theatre academic’s improv training techniques. Reiner also gave them tapes of ‘50s music and had them learn slang terms from the time.

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During production, the young actors also got up to some mischief. Wheaton fixed arcade games in the hotel they were staying at so they could play for free, and said they threw the hotel’s poolside furniture into the pool.

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John Cusack (Reiner’s lead in The Sure Thing) also shows up in a small role. In two flashback scenes, he plays Gordie’s older brother, Denny, who had died when Gordie was an even younger child.

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The original plan was for the movie to have the same name as the novella – The Body. However, Columbia disliked the title, telling Raynold Gideon it “sounded like either an adult film, a bodybuilding film or another Stephen King horror.”

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Reiner had planned to use the Ben E. King hit Stand By Me on the soundtrack, and thought it worked as a title for the movie. Sutherland also told a story about teaching the song to Phoenix on guitar on the set, and Reiner overheard it.

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The success of the film led to a renewed interest in Ben E. King’s song. Originally released in 1961, Stand By Me was re-released when the film came out, and got as high as number 9 in the US charts. Today, it is regarded a classic.

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Wil Wheaton's grandfather starred in 1950s TV hit Wagon Train and asked if it could be put into the script. Reiner gave Gordie the line: “Wagon Train's a really cool show, but have you ever noticed they don't really get anywhere? They just keep on wagon-training.”

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There are Stephen King references too. When the boys add their money, they have $2.37. The number 237 appears in many King stories, like The Shining. Also, the Royal River is the same river Andy Dufresne tosses his gun in the opening of The Shawshank Redemption.

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At one point, the boys also sing The Ballad Of Paladin, which was the theme song to another 1950s western TV hit, Have Gun - Will Travel. The studio did not get permission to use the song and its writer, Johnny Western, successfully sued them afterwards.

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The movie was largely shot over approximately 60 days in Oregon, which stood in for the book’s fictional setting of Castle Rock. Reiner chose Oregon for its look of small-town 1950s America. And roughly 100 locals were employed as extras.

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Filming the flashback scene when Ace takes Gordie’s cap (a present from Denny), Sutherland improvised putting the cap on. But Reiner told him not to do that as he wanted it to appear Ace didn’t want the hat, he just wanted to be cruel to Gordie.

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The moment near the start when Vern can’t remember the secret knock to enter the clubhouse wasn’t in the script. Wheaton said the four young actors came up with it on the day as a way to show Vern’s status as the klutz of the gang.

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In the scene where Chris shows Gordie his gun, Chris turns up on the back of a pick-up truck. The truck driver was apparently a friend of Phoenix, and the woman in the passenger seat was Phoenix’s mother.

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We also see the boys smoking cigarettes. Reiner was a non-smoker who had actively campaigned for anti-smoking laws to be passed in California. As such, he made sure fake cigarettes were created from cabbage and lettuce leaves for the actors to puff on.

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The scene where Gordie interacts with a deer wasn’t easy to pull off. The crew enticed the deer from the bushes with grapes but then, when the scene was shot, she wouldn’t leave. Rew members had to bang and shout to get her to run away.

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The water the boys fall into was constructed specifically for the film for safety reasons. However, it was built at the start of production and, by the time it came to film there, nature had taken its course and raccoons, worms and bugs had made the pool their new home.

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A myth has persisted that real leeches were used on the boys. That’s untrue, though. The leeches were moulded latex models and were stuck to their skin by using rubber cement mixed with red colouring to simulate blood.

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The leeches scene came straight from the novella, and Stephen King later said it was based on a real incident that happened to him when he was a child.

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To coax the moment Chris breaks down from Phoenix, Reiner asked him to think of a time when an adult had let him down. Phoenix tapped into the memories so well that he was crying uncontrollably after the scene was finished, and had to be comforted by Reiner.

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The ‘Lardass’ pie-eating scene is a story told by Gordie. Reiner said he imagined Gordie as being Stephen King, so decided to present it over the top and pretty graphic. Reiner had been unsure whether to cut it but when test audiences went crazy for it, he left it in.

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The scene was made up of Oregon residents, appearing as extras, and the pies bought from local bakers. The vomit was created as a mix of cottage cheese and blueberry and there was a crew-operated contraption that created the projectile vomit.

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One night, a fair came to town, but the boys couldn’t go. Sutherland said Jerry O’Connell tied his babysitter up and went to the fair. He bought some cookies, not knowing they were laced with pot. He was found in the woods but production shut down for two days.

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The train sequence took a whole week to film. For safety reasons, the boys couldn’t perform the stunt of leaping clear of the train themselves, so were replaced by stuntwomen dressed as the actors.

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A front-projection system called Introvision was used. This let Reiner see a composite of live footage and the background in-camera. And the shot where the train is behind Gordie and Vern was done with a 600mm long-focus lens to make the train look closer than it was.

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Filming the scene, Reiner thought the boys did not look scared enough and grew annoyed when the actors didn’t seem to take it seriously. Reiner reportedly yelled “You kids are f***ing this thing up” at them, making them cry, and then spurring them into action.

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The moment the boys eventually find the body of Ray Brower wasn’t rehearsed as Reiner wanted to capture the actors’ reactions as realistically as possible. Kent W. Luttrell played Ray and the cast were kept away from him for maximum impact.

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At the time of filming, Reiner was engaged to American actress Elizabeth McGovern. He managed to get her into the movie; she adorns the cover of a movie magazine we see at one point.

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The ending was changed from the novella. In King’s book, Ace’s gang get revenge on the boys when they return home and beat them up. And we found out all the boys except Gordie are dead. Reiner thought this didn’t fit tonally with his film, and changed it up.

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The story begins and ends with The Writer (adult Gordie). The first person Reiner hired was David Dukes but he was released when Reiner realised he didn’t have the right voice. Michael McKean tried out too, before Reiner hired his high school pal Richard Dreyfuss.

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After the film was finished, Reiner gave Stephen King a special screening. King was moved to tears. He hugged Reiner and said it was the best adaptation of one of his books yet. A few years later, King only agreed to sell the rights to Misery if Reiner directed it.

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As the film had been funded by Norman Lear, the race was then on to find a distributor, but studios again passed. Columbia producer Guy McElwaine came on board after he showed it to his young daughters and they were “crazy about it… and in love with River Phoenix.”

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On a production budget of $7.5m, Stand By Me was a huge success, taking $52.3m at the box office. It was also nominated at the Oscars for Best Adapted Screenplay and is still fondly remembered as among Reiner’s greatest movies.

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Finally… Stand By Me catapulted Rob Reiner’s reputation as a Hollywood filmmaker. He would later say it was the film that meant the most to him, and led to him forming his own production company, which he called Castle Rock.

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