Ferris Bueller's Day Off

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	John Hughes
Produced by	John Hughes Tom Jacobson
Written by	John Hughes
Starring	Matthew Broderick Alan Ruck Mia Sara Jeffrey Jones Jennifer Grey Edie McClurg
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
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$6,000,000 USD
Gross revenue	$70,136,369 (domestic) [1]
Followed by	Ferris Bueller (TV series)

Ferris Bueller's Day Off is a 1986 comedy film written and directed by John Hughes. 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 follows high school senior Ferris Bueller, who decides to skip school and spend the spring day in downtown Chicago. Accompanied by his girlfriend Sloane Peterson and his best friend Cameron Frye, he creatively avoids his school's Dean of Students Edward Rooney, his resentful sister Jeanie, and his parents. During the film, Broderick occasionally speaks to the camera to explain to the audience his character's techniques and thoughts.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Production 2.1 Deleted scenes 2.2 Filming locations 3 Primary cast 3.1 Other Characters 4 Reception 4.1 Critique 4.2 Rankings 4.3 Box office 5 Music 6 Television series 7 Academic analysis 8 Cultural impact 8.1 Music 9 DVD releases 10 References 11 See also 12 External links

[edit] Plot

High school senior Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) decides to skip school on a spring day by faking an illness to his parents (Lyman Ward and Cindy Pickett), and then encourages his girlfriend Sloane (Mia Sara) and his pessimistic best friend Cameron (Alan Ruck) to spend the day in Chicago as one of their last flings before they head off to different colleges. Ferris persuades Cameron to let them use his father's restored 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California to travel into the city. The rest of the school and many residents learn of Ferris's exaggerated illness and offer donations to help "Save Ferris". However, only two people are not convinced by Ferris's deception: his sister Jeanie (Jennifer Grey), outraged at Ferris's ability to defy authority easily, and the school's Dean of Students, Edward Rooney (Jeffery Jones), believing Ferris to be truant.

Ferris and his friends arrive downtown and leave the Ferrari with two garage attendants (Richard Edson and Larry Jenkins), who drive off in it a short while later to take a joyride. Ferris, Sloane, and Cameron enjoy many sights of the city, including taking in a game at Wrigley Field, visiting the Sears Tower, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and taking part in the Von Steuben Day Parade, with Ferris lip-syncing to "Danke Schoen" and The Beatles' version of "Twist and Shout." Ferris also uses his ploys to pretend he is the Sausage King of Chicago to dine at an upscale restaurant on Rush Street (while narrowly avoiding Ferris' father, who is on his way to lunch with business associates).

Meanwhile, Mr. Rooney has gone off-campus to try to find Ferris, first at a local hangout, and then traveling to Ferris' home. Mr. Rooney attempts to gain entry, but ends up getting stuck in the mud and losing his shoe and wallet while being chased by the family's dog. Jeanie comes home to try to find Ferris but instead discovers Mr. Rooney, whom she mistakes for a burglar. Jeanie calls the police, forcing Mr. Rooney to flee the scene. When the police show up, they take in Jeanie for prank calling, and while at the police station, she falls in love with a drug dealer (Charlie Sheen). Jeanie's mother shows up later to collect her daughter, upset at having to do so.

At the end of the day, Ferris and his friends retrieve the Ferrari, but discover on the way back that hundreds of miles have been added to the odometer, sending Cameron into a panic attack fearing his father's reaction. After calming Cameron down, Ferris comes up with a plan to run the car in reverse while running in place at Cameron's father's hillside garage, hoping to reverse the odometer. When they realize this is not working, Cameron unleashes his pent-up anger against his father, damaging the front of the Ferrari, but comes to realize that he is long due to stand up to his abusive father and vows to accept the consequences. Cameron calms down and rests himself against the car, but his previous actions have unbalanced it from the jack it was on, and the car hits the floor, races in reverse, and crashes through the glass wall behind the car landing in a ravine behind the house. Despite Ferris' offer to take the blame, Cameron still plans to 'take it' and admit his actions to his father.

Ferris walks Sloane home, and then quickly races through the backyards of his neighborhood, attempting to beat his parents home. When he gets there, he finds Mr. Rooney waiting for him. However, Jeanie, who sped home despite her mother's demands, finds the two, thanks Mr. Rooney for driving Ferris back from the hospital, and making sure to show him the wallet he left behind when he broke in earlier. Mr. Rooney is attacked by the family's dog, and Ferris quickly thanks Jeanie for the diversion, making it into bed just as his parents check on him. Mr. Rooney, in his disheveled state, is forced to catch a ride back to school on a school bus as it drives students home.

[edit] Production

The majority of the movie was filmed in and around New Trier High School's Freshman campus in Northfield, formerly known as New Trier West, in the Fall of 1985. Scenes were also filmed at several locations in downtown Chicago and in Winnetka (Ferris's home, his mother's real estate office, etc.). Many of the other scenes, were filmed in Northbrook, Illinois at Glenbrook North High School, and Shermer Drive: the famous long curvy street between Maple Middle School and Glenbrook North High School. The exterior of Ferris' house was shot in Long Beach, California; a discarded palm tree is visible in a garbage can during Ferris' race home.

[edit] Deleted scenes

Several scenes were cut from the final film and were never made available on any DVD version.^{[citation needed]} These scenes included additional screen time with Jeanie in a locker room, Ferris' younger brother and sister (both of whom were completely removed from the film) and additional/alternate lines of dialog throughout the film, all of which can be seen in the original theatrical trailer.

[edit] Filming locations

• Chicago, River Forest, Oak Park, Northbrook, Highland Park, Glencoe and Winnetka, Lake Forest and Long Beach, California, USA

The Bueller house is located at 4160 Country Club Drive, Long Beach, California 90807 at coordinates 33°49′54″N 118°11′56″W / 33.831765°N 118.198991°W / 33.831765; -118.198991. The Bueller house was the childhood home of former Oklahoma legislator Thad Balkman.^{[citation needed]}

The house of Cameron Frye is located at 370 Beech Street, Highland Park, Illinois 60035, and was once owned by photographer Ben Rose.^[2] As of May 2009 it was on the market for $2.3 million.

The baseball game that is playing on the television while Mr. Rooney is searching for Ferris was played on Wednesday, June 5, 1985 at Wrigley Field. The Cubs were hosting the Atlanta Braves, and the score was tied 2-2 in the top of the 11th inning with the Braves batting. Claudell Washington is batting against Lee Smith as Leon Durham holds Paul Zuvella on first base. (In the movie, the fry cook tells Mr. Rooney that the score at that point was 0-0 and that the Bears were winning.) [1]

[edit] Primary cast

• Matthew Broderick as Ferris J. Bueller
• Alan Ruck as Cameron Frye
• Mia Sara as Sloane Peterson
• Jeffrey Jones as Edward R. Rooney, Dean of Students
• Jennifer Grey as Jeanie "Jean/Shauna" Bueller

[edit] Other Characters

• Lyman Ward as Tom Bueller
• Cindy Pickett as Katie Bueller
• Edie McClurg as Grace the Secretary
• Ben Stein as The Economics Teacher (his monotone performance in this role launched his acting career).^[3]
• Charlie Sheen as Teenage Boy In Police Station
• Richard Edson as the Parking Garage Attendant
• Kristy Swanson as Simone Adamley the Economics Student
• Johnathan Schmock as the Snooty Waiter

[edit] Reception

[edit] Critique

The film was received well by most critics. Roger Ebert gave it 3 out of 4 stars.^[4] It has a "Certified Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, having an aggregated critical film review score of 82%.^[5] This movie ranked number 10 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the "50 Best High School Movies".^[6] The film was featured in the VH1 television show I Love the 80s which aired in 2002.

Broderick was nominated for a Golden Globe Award in 1987 for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.

[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 theaters in the United States and had a total weekend gross of $6,275,647, opening in second position to another teen comedy, Rodney Dangerfield's Back to School.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off's total gross in the United States was approximately $70 million making it a smash hit.^[7] It subsequently became the 10th highest grossing film of 1986. Compared to the lean budget of $6 million, it was viewed as a big success.^[8]

[edit] Music

Paramount initially wanted to commission up-and-coming rock bands to write tracks for the film. Studio execs consulted with Welsh post-punk band The Alarm in April 1986, and the band subsequently cut the track "World on Fire" for the soundtrack. Paramount eventually dropped the project in favor of commercially-available songs.

Songs featured in the film include:

1. "Love Missile F1-11" (Extended Version) by Sigue Sigue Sputnik
2. "Jeannie" (Theme from I Dream of Jeannie)
3. "Beat City" by The Flowerpot Men
4. "Main Title / Rebel Blockade Runner ( From, 'Star Wars' )" by John Williams
5. "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want" (instrumental) by The Dream Academy (a cover of a song by The Smiths)
6. "Danke Schoen" by Wayne Newton
7. "Twist and Shout" by The Beatles - which charted again, 16 years after the Beatles broke up, as a result of its prominent appearance in both this movie and Back To School (where Rodney Dangerfield performs a cover version) which was released the same weekend as FBDO. The re-released single reached #23 in the U.S; its parent album, The Early Beatles, would also re-chart at #197. The version heard in the film includes brass overdubbed onto the original backing track, which (according to Hughes on the DVD commentary) did not go down well with Paul McCartney.
8. "Radio People" by Zapp
9. "I'm Afraid" by Blue Room
10. "Taking the Day Off" by General Public
11. "The Edge of Forever" by The Dream Academy
12. "March of the Swivelheads" (a remix of "Rotating Head") by The (English) Beat
13. "Oh Yeah" by Yello
14. "BAD" by Big Audio Dynamite

No soundtrack was ever released for the film, as director John Hughes felt the songs would not work well together as a continuous album. Some of the music was heard out of a radio, supposedly tuned to 89WLS, Chicago in its "MusicRadio" Top40 days. Fred Winston was a featured voice in the movie (heard coming out of a clock radio).

[edit] Television series

In 1990, a series called Ferris Bueller started for NBC, starring Charlie Schlatter as Ferris Bueller, Jennifer Aniston as Jeanie Bueller and Ami Dolenz as Sloane Peterson. The series served as a prequel to the film, even though, in the pilot episode, we see Schlatter cutting up a carton board of Matthew Broderick, saying that he hated Broderick's performance as him. Apparently, John Hughes, who directed Ferris Bueller's Day Off, disapproved of the series^[9] and tried to fight its production. But he failed and it was produced by Maysh, Ltd. Productions in association with Paramount Television. The series was cancelled after the first thirteen episodes aired, perhaps proving Hughes to being correct on the series being an outright flop. Both Schlatter and Aniston later had success on other TV shows, Schlatter on Diagnosis Murder and Aniston on Friends.

[edit] Academic analysis

Janet Staiger asks, "How can we use a film such as Ferris Bueller's Day Off to consider and reconsider Louis Althusser's theories of ideology, aesthetics, institutions such as schools and families, and mass culture?"^[10] Scholars have identified different aspects of how the film depicts or does not depict teacher and the role of these depictions in popular culture. The authors of Education in Popular Culture write that in "the 1980s, Bauer argues films such as Ferris Bueller's Day Off...represented 'disciplinary intimacy' - the teacher imposes his/her authority, even if...this is masked by an eccentric individualistic persona."^[11] For Martin Morse Wooster, the film simply "portrayed teachers as humorless buffoons."^[12] Tara Brabazon writes that the "impact of...Ferris Bueller's Day Off serves to render invisible the female teacher from popular culture."^[13]

Regarding not specifically teachers, but rather a type of adult characterization in general, Art Silverblatt asserts that the "adults in Ferris Bueller's Day Off are irrelevant and impotent. Ferris's nemesis, the school disciplinarian, Mr. Rooney, is obsessed with 'getting Bueller.' His obsession emerges from envy. Strangely, Ferris serves as Rooney's role model, as he clearly possesses the imagination and power that Rooney lacks....By capturing and disempowering Ferris, Rooney hopes to...reduce Ferris's influence over other students, which would reestablish adults, that is, Rooney, as traditional authority figures."^[14] Nevertheless, Silverblatt concludes that "Rooney is essentially a comedic figure, whose bumbling attempts to discipline Ferris are a primary source of humor in the film."^[15] Indeed, as Thomas Patrick Doherty writes that "the adult villains in teenpics such as...Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) are overdrawn caricatures, no real threat; they're played for laughs."^[16] Yet, Silverblatt also remarks that casting "the principal as a comic figure questions the competence of adults to provide young people with effective direction--indeed, the value of adulthood itself."^[17]

Of course, adults are not the stars or main characters of the film, and as such Roz Kaveney notes that what "Ferris Bueller brings to the teen genre, ultimately, is a sense of how it is possible to be cool and popular without being rich or a sports hero. Unlike the heroes of Weird Science, Ferris is a computer savvy without being a nerd or a geek - it is a skill he has taken the trouble to learn."^[18]

[edit] Cultural impact

Phrases from Ferris Bueller's Day Off such as Ben Stein's nasally voiced "Bueller? ...Bueller? ...Bueller?" and "Anyone? Anyone?" as well as Kristy Swanson's cheerful "No problem whatsoever!" permeated popular culture.^[19]

[edit] Music

The film's influence in popular culture extends beyond the film itself to how musical elements of the film have been received as well, for example, Yello's "Oh Yeah." As Jonathan Bernstein explains, "Never a hit, this slice of Swiss-made tomfoolery with its varispeed vocal effects and driving percussion was first used by John Hughes to illustrate the mouthwatering must-haveness of Cameron's dad's Ferrari. Since then, it has become synonymous with avarice. Every time a movie, TV show, or commercial wants to underline the jaw-dropping impact of a hot babe or sleek auto, that synth-drum starts popping and that deep voice rumbles, 'Oh yeah . . .'"^[20] Concerning the influence of another song used in the film, Roz Kaveney writes that some "of the finest moments in later teen film draw on Ferris's blythe Dionysian fervour - the elaborate courtship by song in 10 Things I Hate About You (1999) draws usefully on the 'Twist and Shout' sequence in Ferris Bueller's Day Off."^[21]

The bands Save Ferris and Rooney were named in allusion to Ferris Bueller's Day Off.^{[citation needed]} Project Bueller mimicked the parade scene from the film in New York City in 2008.

[edit] DVD releases

The film has been released on DVD three times; including the original DVD release, the "Bueller... Bueller" edition, and the "I Love the '80s" edition. The original DVD, like most Paramount films released on DVD for the first time, had very few bonus features. It did, however, feature a commentary by Hughes. The "Bueller... Bueller" release has several more bonus features, but does not contain the commentary track the earlier DVD release had. The "I Love the '80s" edition is identical to the first DVD release (no features aside from commentary), but includes a bonus CD with songs from the 1980s. The songs are not featured in the film. The "Bueller... Bueller" edition, however, has multiple special features such as interviews with the cast and crew, along with a clip of Ben Stein's commentaries on the film's philosophy and impact. The Blu-ray Disc release (which is a port of the Bueller Bueller Edition, with the same bonus material) was released on May 5, 2009.

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Project Bueller, an effort to recreate the parade scene
• Ferrari 250 GT Spider California SWB
• Ferrari California

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

• Ferris Bueller's Day Off at the Internet Movie Database
• Ferris Bueller's Day Off at Allmovie
• Ferris Bueller's Day Off at Box Office Mojo
• Ferris Bueller's Day off at the 80s Movie Gateway
• Read about Ben Stein's debut as an actor at AMC's DVD_TV blog
• Blu-ray Disc Review

v • d • e John Hughes As director and writer Sixteen Candles (1984) • The Breakfast Club (1985) • Weird Science (1985) • Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) • Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987) • She's Having a Baby (1988) • Uncle Buck (1989) • Curly Sue (1991) As writer only National Lampoon's Class Reunion (1982) • Mr. Mom (1983) • National Lampoon's Vacation (1983) • Nate and Hayes (1983) • Pretty in Pink (1986) • Some Kind of Wonderful (1987) • The Great Outdoors (1988) • National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989) • Home Alone (1990) • Career Opportunities (1991) • Dutch (1991) • Beethoven (1992) • Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) • Dennis the Menace (1993) • Baby's Day Out (1994) • Miracle on 34th Street (1994) • 101 Dalmatians (1996) • Flubber (1997) • Home Alone 3 (1997) • Reach the Rock (1998) • Just Visiting (2001) • Maid in Manhattan (2002) • Drillbit Taylor (2008)