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Speaker 1: Too Much Information is a production of iHeartRadio. Hello everyone,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to Too Much Information, the show that brings

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Speaker 1: you the secret history of little known facts behind your

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Speaker 1: favorite music, movies, tv shows, and more. Where you are

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Speaker 1: your bastions of boomer nostalgia, your leaders of lost innocence,

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Speaker 1: your ace Merril's of melancholia, your tragic train track.

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Speaker 2: Victims of trivia. My name's Jordan run Togg, and I'm

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Speaker 2: Alex Sagel. That's a good one. Thank you. Thank Yeah,

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Speaker 2: we're cut on that one.

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Speaker 1: And today we were going to talk about a movie

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Speaker 1: that dared to ask the question, Hey, you guys want

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Speaker 1: to go see a dead body? I laugh to keep

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Speaker 1: from crying because this movie levels me in so many ways.

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Speaker 1: We are talking about stand by Me, Rob Reiner's adaptation

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Speaker 1: of Stephen King's short story, which explores an element as

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Speaker 1: fleeting and unstable as uranium, straight male friendship, stand by.

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Speaker 2: Me, stand by Me? How you do stand by me?

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Speaker 2: Stand by me? I do stand by me. What's your

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Speaker 2: inflection on the Benny King song stand by Me?

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Speaker 1: Because I think he sings stand by Me like I

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Speaker 1: think it's the emphasis is on me.

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Speaker 2: You know, all I thought of was the Clash song. Actually, really,

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Speaker 2: so you stand by your man? Tell me something I

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Speaker 2: didn't understand? Oh? Oh, Train and Vain Yeah yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: both better songs than this movie. Oh. I was waiting

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Speaker 2: to see how mean I could be as quickly as

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Speaker 2: possible to you about this thing that you love so

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Speaker 2: dearly go ahead.

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Speaker 1: Well, yes, I wanted to pick a movie about friendship

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Speaker 1: for several reasons. One was that we missed a week

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Speaker 1: of TMI recently, and I was shocked to find myself

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Speaker 1: inundated with messages from listeners inquiring about our well being,

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Speaker 1: which was immensely touching. It's seriously still heartening to hear

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Speaker 1: from all of you. I always feel bad when people

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Speaker 1: leave really sweet reviews on Apple podcasts because we can

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Speaker 1: answer back, but thank.

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Speaker 2: You all who do. So.

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Speaker 1: We have a new friend who suggested a bunch of

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Speaker 1: really great episode ideas on the on an Apple podcast review.

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Speaker 2: Thank you so much for that.

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Speaker 1: You better believe we're going to be doing Willy Wonka

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Speaker 1: and Big Trouble in Little China at some point soon.

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Speaker 1: So I figured, you know, what better way to thank

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Speaker 1: you all for checking in and with this movie that

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Speaker 1: is sort of a tribute to friendship. But I also

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Speaker 1: wanted to do stand By Me because it seems pretty

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Speaker 1: adjacent to my beloved Wonder Years, which I've been talking

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Speaker 1: about doing for the last six months, I think, And

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Speaker 1: I've yet to assemble my links outline. Now it's like

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Speaker 1: thirty something pages. Yeah, no, I mean, I gotta whittle

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Speaker 1: it down, don't worry. So while I'm working on that,

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Speaker 1: I figured this was a nice stop gap because it's kind.

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Speaker 2: Of vaguely similar to the Wonder Years.

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Speaker 1: In fact, I think the sort of similarity to the

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Speaker 1: Wonder Years is one of the things that put you

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Speaker 1: off of watching stand by Me. Heigel, I think it's

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Speaker 1: got more edge than the Wonder Years. Well, it has

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Speaker 1: a dead it has a corpse.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean fair So it sounds like you'd never

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Speaker 2: watched it until the other day. I want to know

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Speaker 2: what you thought of it. I must have watched it

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Speaker 2: as a kid. I just didn't have any particularly strong

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Speaker 2: memories of it. I think I missed like the window

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Speaker 2: of time in my life when I would have cared

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Speaker 2: about this. I also like, I'm coming in as like

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Speaker 2: a Stephen King fan, and it's kind of hard for

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Speaker 2: me to not just want this to be it okay.

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Speaker 2: It's like, like, you know, I think he writes kids

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Speaker 2: really well, and I and having read it in like

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Speaker 2: the reread it in like those past six months, I'm like, yeah,

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Speaker 2: really great characterization. Really, you know, beautiful emotions and sentimentality.

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Speaker 2: Where's the cool killer clown? Without that, it's just kids

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Speaker 2: in the woods and Feldman mugging and I hate that

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Speaker 2: so much. No, I don't know. I don't know low

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Speaker 2: Is low Is. My wife was talking about how much

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Speaker 2: she was like, oh, I love this movie because I

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Speaker 2: imagined it was like that I was like getting a

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Speaker 2: secret look into the world of boys. And I was like,

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Speaker 2: I don't know some of the pop cultures for sure,

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Speaker 2: Like you know, the like stuff that now scans is

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Speaker 2: almost an all too obvious influence on like Quentin Tarantino

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Speaker 2: dialogue or the it's like debating pop culture stuff.

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Speaker 1: Well, well, little boys communicate exclusively through movie and TV

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Speaker 1: show quotes like that's yeah.

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Speaker 2: I just don't remember, Like I don't know, dude, if

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Speaker 2: I was at this age, Like I'm trying to remember

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Speaker 2: the friends that I had when I was twelve, and

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Speaker 2: you know, shouts to whoever they were. Really, I don't

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Speaker 2: recall no, I think I remember some of them, perhaps

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Speaker 2: even fondly. Yeah, I just don't remember like crying about

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Speaker 2: my dad with these kids. Well yeah, no, I mean

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Speaker 2: that's you know what I mean. Well, you're lucky. I

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Speaker 2: think I should say sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know,

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Speaker 2: I've had a very trauma well except for all the death,

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Speaker 2: but I had mostly trauma free childhood. But like I

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Speaker 2: didn't talk about like like I wasn't like eleven years old,

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Speaker 2: like in the woods with my friends being like, yeah,

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Speaker 2: you know, like do you guys think about dying. I

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Speaker 2: started only do that really in high school. I'm kind

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Speaker 2: of surprised that it took you that long. No, you know,

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Speaker 2: maybe it was not Yeah, no, I was. I was

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Speaker 2: a goofy kid. I was not particularly morbid and just

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Speaker 2: life just grinds you down. Yeah. I don't know. I

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Speaker 2: don't know why this didn't hit for me. Part of

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Speaker 2: it's just my hatred of the fifties. I you know,

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Speaker 2: anytime you gotta put that Lollipop song in my head,

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Speaker 2: I'm just I'm having a bad time like that.

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Speaker 1: The inclusion of that song when you said I really

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Speaker 1: hate the fifties, that was.

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Speaker 2: The moment that I just keyed in on I knew

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Speaker 2: you were gonna sit that.

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Speaker 1: Them doing the pop sound on the yeah yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: yeah yeah.

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Speaker 2: And I don't like Feldman. I really don't. And I

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Speaker 2: don't think that's that's like the idea. He was a

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Speaker 2: huge star. He was in everything around this. He was

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Speaker 2: in Lost Boys, he was in the One Friday of

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Speaker 2: the One of the Better Friday, the thirteenth. People like Gremlins, Gooonies,

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Speaker 2: people liked him. I was reading about his performance and

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Speaker 2: this people will talk about, like, oh yeah, like he

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Speaker 2: was he went to a really dark place and like

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Speaker 2: blah blah. That scene where he's like yelling at the

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Speaker 2: guy in the junkyard, I'm like, I find that laughable,

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Speaker 2: Like him trying to telegraph like darkness as like a

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Speaker 2: bad kid. I'm like, keep being serious. River Phoenix is

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Speaker 2: like scarier to me in this movie. You had a

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Speaker 2: rough life, I know. That's what I'm saying. It's truly

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Speaker 2: a failure of his acting that he was like unable

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Speaker 2: to transmit any of the awful things that actually happened

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Speaker 2: to him into a compelling portrayal of same of like

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Speaker 2: of that trauma. You know, he's just unable to be

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Speaker 2: anything other than like mugging and grating.

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Speaker 1: Don't you hate when you can't monetize your trauma?

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Speaker 2: Suck?

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Speaker 1: Pros?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, pros, you pros. You know, the kids are all

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Speaker 2: great except for Feldman. Their chemistry feels really good. Yeah yeah,

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Speaker 2: you know, assured direction, some nice landscape shots. Keifer Sutherland

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Speaker 2: has some great silk shirts. Yeah he does. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: John Cusack great almost cameo.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, as like as the late older brother of Gordie,

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Speaker 1: the main character of stand By Me. I kind of

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Speaker 1: forgot he was in it until he has that like

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Speaker 1: one little flashback scene.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, what else? What else? What else? What else? Who's

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Speaker 2: the dad? Is that Ed O'Neill, No, that's not Ed O'Neill.

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Speaker 2: What's that guy's name? How do you know, Marshall Belly?

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Speaker 2: He looks just like Ed O'Neill. That guy's a real dick. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: he does great fifties dickhead dad. You know, I think,

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Speaker 2: I think final thought, I think my my problem with

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Speaker 2: this was that, having consumed a fair amount of Stephen King,

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Speaker 2: I'm not like a super fan, but I've read a

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Speaker 2: lot of it, I did not find this. I found

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Speaker 2: all of these archetypes just reassembled from other Stephen King books,

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Speaker 2: especially it, but like, oh, it's the kid who wants

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Speaker 2: to be a writer. Oh, it's the kid with the

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Speaker 2: bad dad. Oh it's the fat kid. Oh it's the bullies.

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Speaker 2: And then like just it's just it feels like I

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Speaker 2: phoned in draft. And I understand that some of that

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Speaker 2: is because the movie has been so canonized and so

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Speaker 2: becomes so archetypal. But like you know, if you read

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Speaker 2: a lot of Stephen King, you're like, especially again especially it,

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Speaker 2: like this really just feels like a rough draft of

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Speaker 2: it without I think it's the other way around.

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Speaker 1: I think this is the I think this is the

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Speaker 1: biographical stuff that he put in all of his other

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Speaker 1: stories without much fantasy added.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll talk about this. Yeah, that's what I mean.

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Speaker 2: That's what sucks. The put the cloud back in. Uh

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Speaker 2: does he have a weight problem or something thing? There's

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Speaker 2: so much fat kid stuff in his in his books

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Speaker 2: that I don't know. Yeah, there's Ben Hanscomb in it,

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Speaker 2: whose like entire character arc is that he was a

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Speaker 2: fat kid who lost a bunch of weight. There's obviously

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Speaker 2: the book Thinner. There's vern in this, and then of course,

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Speaker 2: and then every protagonist is a writer, you know, so yeah,

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Speaker 2: I mean that's the thing that makes me really like

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Speaker 2: and the ending thing, and the ending thing. I always

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Speaker 2: forget that. Stephen King is like unable to let go

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Speaker 2: of the fact that he has been criticized for having

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Speaker 2: bad endings. So every single one of his like not

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Speaker 2: every single a huge amount of his works have some

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Speaker 2: kind of meta nod to the fact that his endings

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Speaker 2: are bad. It's like someone said that to him once

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Speaker 2: and he was like, he's been like haunted by it

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Speaker 2: for his entire career because like his characters are. There's

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Speaker 2: a line in a bunch of his things where someone's like, yeah,

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Speaker 2: it's a good story, but the ending sucks, or like, yeah,

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Speaker 2: endings are hard, aren't they Like, it's just I don't know.

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Speaker 1: He has a great book on writing with anyone who

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Speaker 1: who interested in the craft of writing, I won't even

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Speaker 1: say wants to be a writer, but it's fascinating even

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Speaker 1: if you don't. It's just so cool to see like

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Speaker 1: him break it down. It's a great book.

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Speaker 2: I don't know.

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Speaker 1: Well, the ending of this movie was at least the

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Speaker 1: quote that it ends on that levels me every time.

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Speaker 1: You know, I never had any friends later on, like

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Speaker 1: the ones I have when I was twelve, she just

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Speaker 1: kicked as anyone that wasn't the kick or to the

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Speaker 1: short story. That was something that the screenwriters added. It

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Speaker 1: was included somewhere in the middle of the short story.

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Speaker 1: So I thought it was a great ending. I mean,

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Speaker 1: in case people listening right now haven't guessed. Right now,

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Speaker 1: I think this is a wonderful movie, and I think

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Speaker 1: one of the things that I love about it is

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Speaker 1: that it's meeting changes depending on where you're at in

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Speaker 1: your life when you see it, and the kind of

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Speaker 1: the best example of this for me is the Beach

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Speaker 1: Boys song Wouldn't It Be Nice? From Pet Sounds, which

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Speaker 1: we absolutely should do on here at some point. When

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Speaker 1: you're a kid, Wouldn't it be Nice? As aspirational, you

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Speaker 1: empathize with the character of the song, dreaming about days

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Speaker 1: when they're grown up and living on their own with

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Speaker 1: their girlfriend, and you know, and then when you listen

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Speaker 1: to it when you get older, it becomes more about

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Speaker 1: you and your own relationship to the song, and you

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Speaker 1: think back to the first couple of times when you

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Speaker 1: heard it and your own and experience in your own

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Speaker 1: naivete and it becomes more about your past. And that's

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Speaker 1: sort of what I feel about stand By Me because

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Speaker 1: as a kid, when I watched it, it was an

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Speaker 1: adventure movie of kids running away from home, and then

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Speaker 1: now watching it, it's a movie about growing up and

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Speaker 1: the inevitable drift that happens in the process when you

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Speaker 1: kind of grow apart from your friends, which at this

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Speaker 1: point in your life become your chosen family. In a

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Speaker 1: lot of ways, it's sort of the beginning of that

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Speaker 1: weird adolescent period when you kind of have a drift

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Speaker 1: from your own family. And yeah, I mean, to me,

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Speaker 1: it's all about that line at the end about the

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Speaker 1: friends that you had when you were twelve.

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Speaker 2: I think that that's incredibly powerful. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: it's good stuff. I mean, it's it's uh. I think

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Speaker 2: that's all accurate. I think you're making an eloquent case

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Speaker 2: for it. I wish there was a cool scary clown,

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Speaker 2: maybe a were wolf, or like a guy with like

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Speaker 2: a hook for a hand or Jack Nicholson. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 2: I was gonna say, yeah, or what about a guy

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Speaker 2: who gets thinner or at least like cowblood running down

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Speaker 2: pigs blood, pigs blood, Excuse me? Do you see that

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Speaker 2: tweet the other day that was like a picture of

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Speaker 2: like Sissy Spacek and Carrie And someone was like, and

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Speaker 2: you're telling me this girl was bullied in high schools

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Speaker 2: like this beautiful ethereal aryan goddess. Anyway, it's neither here

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Speaker 2: nor there.

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Speaker 1: Well, let us begin from the long road from the

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Speaker 1: page to the big screen to the shenanigans the tween

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Speaker 1: leads got up to when the cameras weren't rolling to

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Speaker 1: their own traumatic personal histories. They brought to the roles

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Speaker 1: and the weird role. But Michael Jackson almost played in

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Speaker 1: the soundtrack there's everything you didn't know about stand by Me.

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Speaker 2: And maybe you could be the one who stands by

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Speaker 2: me and defter you're my dead kid in the woods wall.

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Speaker 2: Now that didn't go well. I should have prepared something better.

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Speaker 1: Step by Me is, of course, based on a short

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Speaker 1: story by Stephen King called The Body, which is featured

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Speaker 1: in his nineteen eighty two collection Different Seasons, which also

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Speaker 1: featured Rita Hayward and The Shawshank Redemption, which was adapted

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Speaker 1: into The Shawshank Redemption in nineteen twenty four, and also

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Speaker 1: the story adapted into a Pupil by Brian Singer in

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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety eight, so a rich text, and in the

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Speaker 1: short story of the Body, about a bunch of tweens

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Speaker 1: seeking out a dead body, there were numerous nods to

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Speaker 1: Stephen King's previous works. In fact, the characters in The

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Speaker 1: Body are familiar with Shawshank Prison. The character Teddy Duchamp

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Speaker 1: played by Corey Felman, is mentioned in Stephen King's first book, Carrie,

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Speaker 1: in which Carrie destroys a gas station that Teddy Deuschamp

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Speaker 1: wants worked at. The dog Chomper is compared to Kujo,

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Speaker 1: and the bully character in The Body, Ace Merrill, played

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Speaker 1: by Keither Suttlelan in the movie, later reappeared in the

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Speaker 1: book Needful Things. And So while the film Stand By

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Speaker 1: Me tugs at the heart strings with its bittersweet tale

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Speaker 1: of coming of age growing pains, Stephen King's short story is,

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Speaker 1: as you would probably expect, a little bit darker. It

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Speaker 1: heavily implied that the discovery of the dead body of

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Speaker 1: Ray Brower, the young man had been struck by the train,

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Speaker 1: haunted these kids for the rest of their lives. And

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Speaker 1: also in the short story version, the character of Gordie

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Speaker 1: la Chance, who's the Will Wheaton character. The main character

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Speaker 1: is the only member of the four who survives into adulthood.

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Speaker 1: Like in the movie, it ends by describing the tragic

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Speaker 1: murder of Chris Chambers for Phoenix's character after a fight

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Speaker 1: in a fast food restaurant turns violent, but the story

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Speaker 1: also goes on to detail the untimely deaths of Verne Tessio,

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Speaker 1: It's Jerry O'Connell and Teddy Duchamp as well. Verne dies

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Speaker 1: in a fire after a house party, I think, while

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Speaker 1: the troubled Teddy Deuchamp dies in a drunk driving accident

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Speaker 1: and that kills himself and the passengers in his car.

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Speaker 1: Dark and Stephen King, he was very uneasy about discussing

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Speaker 1: the origin of this story with director Rob Reiner, but

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Speaker 1: he only said that it was deeply.

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Speaker 2: Autobiographical and ment to Rob Riner.

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Speaker 1: The original director signed on to adept Stephen King's short

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Speaker 1: story was the British filmmaker Adrian Lynn, who's best known

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Speaker 1: for sort.

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Speaker 2: Of erotically charged movies.

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Speaker 1: I should say with like Flashdance, Fatal Attraction, in Decent

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Speaker 1: Proposal and the Low Leader remake with Jeremy Irons so

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Speaker 1: that's kind of a weird choice for this coming.

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Speaker 2: Of age movie about a bunch of boys looking for

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Speaker 2: a dead body don't want to get into his head.

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Speaker 1: Laney apparently had worked himself into a frenzy during the

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Speaker 1: production of Nine and a Half Weeks with Mickey Rourke

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Speaker 1: and Kimbassenger, and he promised himself a six month break

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Speaker 1: once that wrapped in nineteen eighty four, and that was

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Speaker 1: bad news for the producers of Stand By Me, who

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Speaker 1: wanted to move a little quicker and didn't want to

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Speaker 1: delay at the start of the movie, so they moved

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Speaker 1: on the Rob Reiner, whose storied career we've already discussed

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Speaker 1: on our Princess Brian episode recently. He's the son of

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Speaker 1: comedy royalty Carl Reiner, and by this point he'd already

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Speaker 1: worked as a writer on the groundbreaking Smothers Brother's comedy

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Speaker 1: Hour Show, acted for eight seasons as Michael Meathead Stivic

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Speaker 1: on the equally groundbreaking CBS sitcom All in the Family,

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Speaker 1: and directed the equally groundbreaking music mockumentary This Is Spinal

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Speaker 1: Tap in nineteen eighty four, as well as a movie

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Speaker 1: with John Cust called The Sheer Thing, which as far

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Speaker 1: as I know, was not groundbreaking, Rob Reiner, I've actually

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Speaker 1: never seen that of you. No, Okay, moving on. Rob

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Speaker 1: Reiner had shown serious interest in adapting this short story

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Speaker 1: because it mirrored his own childhood in many ways. Like

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Speaker 1: the characters in the film. He was twelve when the

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Speaker 1: book was set in nineteen fifty nine. Actually the book

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Speaker 1: was set in nineteen sixty, but he changed it to

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Speaker 1: fifty nine guests to get that fifties nostalgia cachet. And

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Speaker 1: but more to the point, Rob Reiner had a difficult

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Speaker 1: relationship with his father, and as you'll recall, Gordy la Chance,

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Speaker 1: the main character, always felt that his dad didn't love

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Speaker 1: him as much as he loved his elder brother, the

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Speaker 1: family golden child, who died in a car accident several

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Speaker 1: months before the story took place. And Gordy's alienation from

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Speaker 1: his own family provides the motivation for his character to

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Speaker 1: prove himself and find the body of this boy and

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Speaker 1: become a talent hero.

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Speaker 2: You know, that's kind of the through line of the movie.

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Speaker 2: They want to be heroes.

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Speaker 1: And at the end of the movie, when they finally

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Speaker 1: find him and they decide to leave him in peace.

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Speaker 1: In the Woods and Vern's like, don't you want to

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Speaker 1: be heroes? And Gordy says, not like this. So that's

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Speaker 1: kind of that stokes his whole desire for this quest

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Speaker 1: to find a dead body.

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Speaker 2: It's really hard.

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Speaker 1: This movie pulls off an interesting trick about romanticizing the

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Speaker 1: quest for a dead body. I will say it sounds

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Speaker 1: almost like quaint and sweet until it's not. Yeah, But anyway,

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Speaker 1: Rob Reiner really related to this hole, sort of wanting

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Speaker 1: to prove himself to his father because his dad, Carl Reiner,

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Speaker 1: was a legend, didn't it. He really struggled to step

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Speaker 1: out from his shadow. Carl Reiner was responsible for The

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Speaker 1: Dick Van Dyke Show, one of the most popular and

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Speaker 1: long running sitcoms, and he had this incredible partnership with

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Speaker 1: mel Brooks, and he directed Steve Martin in The Jerk

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Speaker 1: and All of Me and The Man with Two Brains.

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Speaker 1: He really has an incredible career. And for everything that

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Speaker 1: Rob was able to do, you know, a lot of

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Speaker 1: people still saw him as Carl Reiner's son. So daddy

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Speaker 1: issues becomes an ever deepening part of tmi's lore. So

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Speaker 1: Stephen King's The Body was adapted by screenwriters Bruce A.

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Speaker 1: Evans and Raynold Gideon. That's an incredible name. The only

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Speaker 1: previous script had been the sci fi romance Starman.

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Speaker 2: That seems like something you'd be into. Yeah, it's John Carpenter.

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Speaker 2: Is it really? You might like Starman? Actually, it's it's

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Speaker 2: a weird little movie. It's Jeff Bridges plays the titular Starman.

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Speaker 2: It's an odd duck in his filmography. But it's you

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Speaker 2: might like it.

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Speaker 1: Actually, Yeah, yeah, all right, you watched this for me,

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Speaker 1: I'll watch Starman for you. But their script adaptation of

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Speaker 1: the Body closely resembled Stephen King's short story, which presented

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Speaker 1: all four of the central boys, as you know, sort

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Speaker 1: of equally important. But when Rob Reiner came on board,

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Speaker 1: he made some changes, and some of these are relatively minor.

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Speaker 1: We talked about him moving the movie back a year

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Speaker 1: from nineteen sixty to nineteen fifty nine, and he also

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Speaker 1: shifted the setting from Stephen King's beloved fictional town of

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Speaker 1: Castle Rock, Maine, to Oregon.

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Speaker 2: The funniest thing about that to me is that Rob

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Speaker 2: Brinder then took the name Castle Rock for his production company.

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Speaker 1: I forget if the town in the movie is still

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Speaker 1: castle Rock, and it's just a set in Oregon rather

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Speaker 1: than Maine or Castle Rock. Feels very main to me though.

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Speaker 1: But Rob also softened the material so that it wasn't

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Speaker 1: quite so brutal, which is the characters of Teddy and

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Speaker 1: Vern don't die at the end as they do in

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Speaker 1: the story. But Reiner's most important change the script was

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Speaker 1: making the character of Gordy the focal point. As we

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Speaker 1: said in the initial version of the script, Gordy was

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Speaker 1: just an observer. He was kind of like the Nick

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Speaker 1: Carraway character in this movie and not the chief protagonist,

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Speaker 1: and this left the script with a real problem. Rob

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Speaker 1: said that they had great characters, but the movie just

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Speaker 1: lacked a focus. It needed a central character to drive

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Speaker 1: the plot forward. And Rob Reiner he spent days aimlessly

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Speaker 1: driving around la which is also Lionel Richie's preferred method

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Speaker 1: of writing songs, to figure out how to make the

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Speaker 1: script work, and he said, I agreed to direct it

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Speaker 1: without really knowing what it was going to be about.

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Speaker 1: In the book, it was about four boys, but after

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Speaker 1: about five days of driving around, I realized it was

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Speaker 1: really Gordy's story. In the book, Gordy was kind of

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Speaker 1: a dispassionate observer. But once I made Gordy the central

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Speaker 1: focus of the piece, then it made sense to me.

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Speaker 1: This movie was all about a kid who didn't feel

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Speaker 1: good about himself and whose father didn't love him. One

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Speaker 1: became about an insecure kid looking for something. And Ryaner

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Speaker 1: further explains he's driven to go see this body because

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Speaker 1: he never cried at his brother's funeral and his father

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Speaker 1: always paid more attention to his older brother who died.

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Speaker 2: Oh, I was just gonna say, just seems like a

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Speaker 2: weird thing to transmute into like your goals, you know,

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Speaker 2: going to find a dead body, but just like you know,

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Speaker 2: you didn't you didn't cry at your brother's funeral. No,

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Speaker 2: I guess that makes sense. I don't know.

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Speaker 1: The other major change Rob Ryner made to the original

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Speaker 1: script was the film's title. The movie was originally called

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Speaker 1: The Body after Stephen King's short story, but this was

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Speaker 1: not well loved among the producers of the film. Ryan

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Speaker 1: Or wisely observed calling it the Body with Stephen King

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Speaker 1: attached would have meant that people would have thought it

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Speaker 1: was a horror movie, and screenwriter Raynold Gideon agreed, commenting

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Speaker 1: that it quote sounded either like an adult film, a

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Speaker 1: bodybuilding film, or another Stephen King horror movie. So Rob

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Speaker 1: Ryder suggested the name stand by Me, based on the

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Speaker 1: Benny King song that he chose to play at the

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Speaker 1: end of the movie. Co writer Raynald Gideon said that

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Speaker 1: Reiner's suggestion was the least unpopular opinion, which leads me

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Speaker 1: to believe that it was kind of reluctantly embraced by

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Speaker 1: everybody when they couldn't think of anything better. Uh. The

430
00:22:15,200 --> 00:22:17,639
Speaker 1: only drawback to the title was that Benny King's stand

431
00:22:17,640 --> 00:22:19,840
Speaker 1: By Me was released in nineteen sixty.

432
00:22:19,560 --> 00:22:26,040
Speaker 2: One, two years after the film takes place. Oops, yeah,

433
00:22:26,160 --> 00:22:29,959
Speaker 2: that's you know, fine, that's fine. What about her name?

434
00:22:30,000 --> 00:22:33,280
Speaker 2: I spitball and I was trying to spitball. I don't

435
00:22:33,280 --> 00:22:35,840
Speaker 2: have anything. I mean, you guys want to see a

436
00:22:35,840 --> 00:22:38,160
Speaker 2: dead Body is a good name. That's a really good

437
00:22:38,240 --> 00:22:41,479
Speaker 2: name for a movie. Especially. This was like the you know,

438
00:22:41,600 --> 00:22:44,480
Speaker 2: the era of like Don't Tell Mom, the Babysitters, dead Stop,

439
00:22:45,000 --> 00:22:46,880
Speaker 2: I Will Shoot You know, you had these long run

440
00:22:46,920 --> 00:22:48,960
Speaker 2: on titles. They should have gone with you guys want

441
00:22:48,960 --> 00:22:49,800
Speaker 2: to see a dead body?

442
00:22:50,560 --> 00:22:54,520
Speaker 1: Is this the origin of that phrase? Like, Hey, you

443
00:22:54,520 --> 00:22:56,440
Speaker 1: guys want to see a dead body, Like is that?

444
00:22:56,920 --> 00:22:59,200
Speaker 1: I think I hear that in like Family Guy or

445
00:22:59,280 --> 00:23:01,959
Speaker 1: Robot Chicken stuff. It's like, oh, Family Guy loved this.

446
00:23:02,119 --> 00:23:04,800
Speaker 2: They did. They did that when they did their King episode.

447
00:23:04,840 --> 00:23:07,639
Speaker 2: This was one of the ones that they parodied. Oh

448
00:23:07,680 --> 00:23:12,000
Speaker 2: really yeah, yeah, yeah, Simpsons did that. There was a

449
00:23:12,000 --> 00:23:15,040
Speaker 2: Simpsons bit on this where they find the corpse in

450
00:23:15,080 --> 00:23:20,080
Speaker 2: the reservoir. Yeah. I was watching this again. I was like,

451
00:23:20,280 --> 00:23:22,480
Speaker 2: really shocked by how much of stuff is just like

452
00:23:22,520 --> 00:23:24,720
Speaker 2: taken for granted. That kind of comes from this movie,

453
00:23:24,920 --> 00:23:28,239
Speaker 2: you know, archetypal, it really is.

454
00:23:30,640 --> 00:23:32,840
Speaker 1: We're gonna take a quick break, but we'll be right

455
00:23:32,920 --> 00:23:35,480
Speaker 1: back with more, too much information in just a moment.

456
00:23:48,560 --> 00:23:49,159
Speaker 2: Well, even with a.

457
00:23:49,160 --> 00:23:51,600
Speaker 1: Big up and coming director like Rob Ryan Are attached

458
00:23:51,640 --> 00:23:54,280
Speaker 1: to stand By Me, it was a hard sell to studios.

459
00:23:54,960 --> 00:23:57,400
Speaker 1: Ryder hoped that it could quote find a small audience

460
00:23:57,440 --> 00:23:59,840
Speaker 1: that would enjoy it, but he also felt there's no

461
00:24:00,080 --> 00:24:02,159
Speaker 1: way this picture is going to do business because no

462
00:24:02,200 --> 00:24:04,800
Speaker 1: one who went to see Rambo will go see our film.

463
00:24:05,440 --> 00:24:05,760
Speaker 2: True.

464
00:24:06,920 --> 00:24:10,160
Speaker 1: Stand By Me's co writer and producer Bruce Evans explained

465
00:24:10,160 --> 00:24:13,200
Speaker 1: in an interview with Variety, every studio in town had

466
00:24:13,200 --> 00:24:15,919
Speaker 1: turned us down. The consensus was that no one was

467
00:24:15,960 --> 00:24:18,440
Speaker 1: interested in a story about four twelve year old boys

468
00:24:18,480 --> 00:24:22,159
Speaker 1: on a railroad track. He further observed that studio executives

469
00:24:22,160 --> 00:24:24,240
Speaker 1: didn't know how to market the film because the central

470
00:24:24,280 --> 00:24:27,040
Speaker 1: theme of stand By Me is very dark and there's

471
00:24:27,080 --> 00:24:30,200
Speaker 1: no romantic subplot. Evans and the rest of the production

472
00:24:30,359 --> 00:24:32,800
Speaker 1: argued that this was actually the movie's selling point because

473
00:24:32,840 --> 00:24:35,080
Speaker 1: it was a coming of age drama that didn't fall

474
00:24:35,119 --> 00:24:39,159
Speaker 1: back on cliches like first kisses. As Evans explained, it

475
00:24:39,200 --> 00:24:42,199
Speaker 1: was about kids becoming aware of their own mortality and

476
00:24:42,200 --> 00:24:46,920
Speaker 1: there really wasn't a movie like that. Eventually, Embassy Pictures

477
00:24:46,960 --> 00:24:49,520
Speaker 1: agreed to finance the film, and as Evans put it,

478
00:24:49,600 --> 00:24:52,920
Speaker 1: Embassy was the last station before the desert. After that

479
00:24:53,240 --> 00:24:56,640
Speaker 1: there was nothing. And Embassy was co owned by TV

480
00:24:56,720 --> 00:25:00,239
Speaker 1: producer Norman Lear, who had produced All the Family in

481
00:25:00,240 --> 00:25:03,119
Speaker 1: which Rob Reiner had starred all throughout the seventies, so

482
00:25:03,200 --> 00:25:08,440
Speaker 1: I imagine that was helpful. But then Norman Lear sold Embassy

483
00:25:08,640 --> 00:25:11,280
Speaker 1: just after the deal for standby Me was signed in

484
00:25:11,359 --> 00:25:15,120
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty five, and the new owners of Embassy Pictures,

485
00:25:15,680 --> 00:25:20,119
Speaker 1: Coca Cola, which is weird, saw very little potential for

486
00:25:20,200 --> 00:25:22,840
Speaker 1: this movie about kids seeking out a dead body. So

487
00:25:22,880 --> 00:25:26,119
Speaker 1: they pulled the plug something like two to three days

488
00:25:26,160 --> 00:25:29,679
Speaker 1: before shooting was set to begin. Rob Reiner explained that

489
00:25:29,680 --> 00:25:32,680
Speaker 1: the entire cast and crew are already on location in Oregon,

490
00:25:33,240 --> 00:25:35,639
Speaker 1: with purpose built sets all ready to go, when they

491
00:25:35,680 --> 00:25:38,119
Speaker 1: were told that the financing had run dry, which I

492
00:25:38,119 --> 00:25:39,879
Speaker 1: think is the same thing that happened to John Hughes

493
00:25:39,920 --> 00:25:41,760
Speaker 1: doing Home alone.

494
00:25:43,280 --> 00:25:46,160
Speaker 2: I thought that happened. Chris Columbus rather did that happen.

495
00:25:46,520 --> 00:25:48,800
Speaker 2: I can't remember where that happened in the production process,

496
00:25:48,840 --> 00:25:52,040
Speaker 2: but yeah, God, that's I think theyre just suck ass.

497
00:25:52,320 --> 00:25:55,320
Speaker 1: I know. Reiner said it was nerve wracking because we

498
00:25:55,320 --> 00:25:57,280
Speaker 1: had all these people up here and we got nothing.

499
00:25:57,320 --> 00:26:01,639
Speaker 1: We had no financing. But Norman Lear, presumably flush with

500
00:26:02,240 --> 00:26:07,119
Speaker 1: Coke bucks from selling his studio to the Sugar Water people,

501
00:26:07,160 --> 00:26:09,560
Speaker 1: he believed in the film, or at least he felt

502
00:26:09,640 --> 00:26:12,439
Speaker 1: his e owed his former star Rob Reiner, and he

503
00:26:12,520 --> 00:26:15,359
Speaker 1: put in around, as he described it, eight million in

504
00:26:15,480 --> 00:26:18,199
Speaker 1: change of his own money to finance Stand by Me,

505
00:26:18,600 --> 00:26:21,280
Speaker 1: later telling New York Times, I liked the script, I

506
00:26:21,440 --> 00:26:25,720
Speaker 1: liked Rob, I liked the boys. That's nuts that he's

507
00:26:25,760 --> 00:26:28,080
Speaker 1: still alive. He just turned one hundred Norman Leear.

508
00:26:28,640 --> 00:26:34,560
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Mel Brooks is ninety seven today today, Yeah yeah,

509
00:26:34,840 --> 00:26:38,720
Speaker 2: which brings us to the boys who were not back

510
00:26:38,720 --> 00:26:46,879
Speaker 2: in town because they never left the Yeah. My favorite

511
00:26:46,880 --> 00:26:50,480
Speaker 2: thing about this movie the kid's chemistry. We have Will

512
00:26:50,560 --> 00:26:56,440
Speaker 2: Wheaton as Gordie. We have a young Jerro pre Kangaroo Jack,

513
00:26:56,560 --> 00:27:02,400
Speaker 2: Jerry O'Connell as Vern. We've got the doomed young Indiana

514
00:27:02,520 --> 00:27:06,880
Speaker 2: Jones star. We got to do Indiana Jones. Why haven't

515
00:27:06,920 --> 00:27:09,600
Speaker 2: we fast tracked that? We got River Phoenix in there

516
00:27:10,080 --> 00:27:19,320
Speaker 2: as Chris Chambers, and we have Feldman full stop your

517
00:27:19,320 --> 00:27:23,920
Speaker 2: hare I just warm us my heart. Do you think

518
00:27:24,160 --> 00:27:31,479
Speaker 2: child actors can be good? How about River Phoenix is great? Yeah? Uh,

519
00:27:31,880 --> 00:27:39,480
Speaker 2: Jodie Foster, that's true. Uh, Kurt Russell in The Computer

520
00:27:39,480 --> 00:27:46,160
Speaker 2: War Tennis Shoes. Anyway, Reiner had nearly three hundred auditions

521
00:27:46,160 --> 00:27:48,800
Speaker 2: looking for these leads, and he wanted to find kids

522
00:27:48,840 --> 00:27:51,800
Speaker 2: whose actual real life personalities mirrored the characters that they

523
00:27:51,840 --> 00:27:56,320
Speaker 2: were playing. You've got Chris the natural Leader, Teddy the

524
00:27:56,359 --> 00:28:03,240
Speaker 2: glasses wearing rage A Hollick obsessed with Normandy Vern, who

525
00:28:03,359 --> 00:28:08,000
Speaker 2: is the annoying one, and Gordie the cat. The cat

526
00:28:10,520 --> 00:28:16,040
Speaker 2: We're going for the same joke. Oh man, umm. Reiner

527
00:28:16,080 --> 00:28:19,000
Speaker 2: considered casting Sean Aston, who had previously worked with Corey

528
00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:21,680
Speaker 2: Feldman on The Goonies, and Ethan Hawk, who had worked

529
00:28:21,680 --> 00:28:26,080
Speaker 2: with River Phoenix in nineteen eighty five Explorers, and also

530
00:28:26,240 --> 00:28:29,040
Speaker 2: Stephen Dorf, who would make his film debut in nineteen

531
00:28:29,080 --> 00:28:32,119
Speaker 2: eighty seven's The Gate. But man, can you imagine if

532
00:28:32,119 --> 00:28:34,159
Speaker 2: Sean Aston had done all of this stuff he did

533
00:28:34,200 --> 00:28:37,120
Speaker 2: in the eighties and also stand by me, he would

534
00:28:37,119 --> 00:28:39,600
Speaker 2: have just crushed that. The whole decade would have belonged.

535
00:28:39,680 --> 00:28:42,120
Speaker 2: It would have been the decade of Aston instead of

536
00:28:42,120 --> 00:28:45,400
Speaker 2: the decade of Feldman. What else did he do after Goonies?

537
00:28:45,520 --> 00:28:50,280
Speaker 2: I mean, aside from all the load of Rudy? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,

538
00:28:50,280 --> 00:28:52,400
Speaker 2: Actually Rudy might have been nineties now, yeah, it was

539
00:28:52,440 --> 00:28:57,719
Speaker 2: ninety three. Ultimately, Reiner went with the future reviled character

540
00:28:57,800 --> 00:29:01,120
Speaker 2: of Wesley Crusher on Star Trek, The next gen Will Wheaton.

541
00:29:01,800 --> 00:29:05,160
Speaker 1: Is he reviled? Oh yeah, David Long, please get in touch.

542
00:29:06,120 --> 00:29:09,800
Speaker 2: I think it's I mean, I think it's it's it's

543
00:29:09,840 --> 00:29:13,400
Speaker 2: sort of like the like Normy, It's like the Galaxy

544
00:29:13,400 --> 00:29:15,680
Speaker 2: Brain take, like the p Brain take is to be

545
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:18,400
Speaker 2: like Will Wheaton is annoying and Star Trek the next generation,

546
00:29:18,480 --> 00:29:21,400
Speaker 2: and then it gets progressively into like reassessing him. But

547
00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:23,240
Speaker 2: I believe at the time he was that character was

548
00:29:23,280 --> 00:29:26,960
Speaker 2: pretty disliked. He was well. I think people were just like,

549
00:29:26,960 --> 00:29:29,560
Speaker 2: why is there a kid in Star Trek and he's

550
00:29:29,600 --> 00:29:33,360
Speaker 2: like precocious, and so that's an easy reason to easy

551
00:29:33,400 --> 00:29:38,680
Speaker 2: reason to hate. Wheaton had previously played Susan Sarandon's son

552
00:29:38,760 --> 00:29:41,960
Speaker 2: in The Buddy System and Start in The Last Starfighter,

553
00:29:42,000 --> 00:29:47,160
Speaker 2: another deeply reviled movie. Uh. He described himself in this

554
00:29:47,240 --> 00:29:50,600
Speaker 2: era to moviefone by saying I was awkward and nerdy

555
00:29:50,640 --> 00:29:53,840
Speaker 2: and shy and uncomfortable in my own skin and really

556
00:29:53,880 --> 00:29:57,600
Speaker 2: really sensitive. Uh there was a similar I found a

557
00:29:57,640 --> 00:30:02,000
Speaker 2: similar quote. Corey fell Will was from la and he

558
00:30:02,120 --> 00:30:07,480
Speaker 2: was very conservative, a geek if you will. Yeah, there's

559
00:30:07,480 --> 00:30:09,320
Speaker 2: a strange connection. In one of the numerous pop culture

560
00:30:09,320 --> 00:30:13,040
Speaker 2: references that Dot stand by me, Gordi La Schance mentions

561
00:30:13,080 --> 00:30:17,320
Speaker 2: the old Western TV show Wagon Train, Will, Wheaton's actual

562
00:30:17,440 --> 00:30:20,000
Speaker 2: grandfather was the prop master on the show back in

563
00:30:20,040 --> 00:30:24,840
Speaker 2: the fifties, and that nod in the script is allegedly

564
00:30:25,040 --> 00:30:27,520
Speaker 2: a reference to him. I love how you say Wheaton

565
00:30:27,720 --> 00:30:30,600
Speaker 2: as Stewie does Yeah, it's a family guy bit. I

566
00:30:30,640 --> 00:30:32,120
Speaker 2: was waiting to see how many times I could do

567
00:30:32,160 --> 00:30:33,280
Speaker 2: it before you I did it.

568
00:30:35,800 --> 00:30:37,960
Speaker 1: Oh, you're very precise in your speech, so I thought

569
00:30:37,960 --> 00:30:39,200
Speaker 1: maybe that was just how you speak.

570
00:30:41,760 --> 00:30:46,080
Speaker 2: In the film, Wheaton's character Gordi la Schance, I gotta

571
00:30:46,080 --> 00:30:48,400
Speaker 2: say the whole thing every time, just like a tribe

572
00:30:48,440 --> 00:30:51,960
Speaker 2: called Quest. In the film, Wheaton's character Gordie la Chance

573
00:30:52,040 --> 00:30:54,320
Speaker 2: is the narrator, but the actual voice used was an

574
00:30:54,360 --> 00:30:56,720
Speaker 2: adult because the story is being told from his grown

575
00:30:56,760 --> 00:31:00,760
Speaker 2: up perspective in the framing device of a writer. Like

576
00:31:01,080 --> 00:31:03,920
Speaker 2: so many other Stephen King books, the original voice actor

577
00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:09,240
Speaker 2: was David the unfortunately named David Dukes. Yeah one say

578
00:31:09,400 --> 00:31:13,560
Speaker 2: from hate Monger. But Er didn't feel like his voice

579
00:31:13,640 --> 00:31:16,560
Speaker 2: was right, so he replaced him with Michael McKean aka

580
00:31:16,640 --> 00:31:20,000
Speaker 2: the Immortal Nigel Saint Hubbins from Spinal Tap, which did

581
00:31:20,040 --> 00:31:23,480
Speaker 2: not go well. Too much mugging. Do you think.

582
00:31:23,640 --> 00:31:27,200
Speaker 1: Hearing his voice like devoid from anything I know about

583
00:31:27,200 --> 00:31:30,040
Speaker 1: Michael McKean, I could see it working, yeah, but yeah,

584
00:31:30,080 --> 00:31:32,760
Speaker 1: maybe he just like couldn't play it completely straight.

585
00:31:32,800 --> 00:31:35,200
Speaker 2: I don't know. Yeah, Well, Ryner went to his old

586
00:31:35,240 --> 00:31:37,360
Speaker 2: high school buddy Richard Dreyfus, who at that point had

587
00:31:37,400 --> 00:31:40,600
Speaker 2: just won the Oscar for the Goodbye Girl, and those

588
00:31:40,600 --> 00:31:42,880
Speaker 2: two had known each other since they were fifteen years old,

589
00:31:42,920 --> 00:31:46,480
Speaker 2: which is adorable and very appropriate for the movie. One

590
00:31:46,480 --> 00:31:49,720
Speaker 2: of the biggest stretches in the casting process was actually

591
00:31:49,800 --> 00:31:57,880
Speaker 2: Jerry O'Connell. Apparently Vern is the weak one. He's Piggy, right, Yeah,

592
00:31:57,920 --> 00:32:01,719
Speaker 2: I was gonna say he's an archetype embody by Piggy

593
00:32:01,800 --> 00:32:05,240
Speaker 2: sucks to your asthmar Jones. I don't remember if that

594
00:32:05,320 --> 00:32:08,600
Speaker 2: kid had a last name. Uh Reiner told The New

595
00:32:08,680 --> 00:32:12,200
Speaker 2: York Times, Jerry O'Connell is not scared and nerdy like Vern,

596
00:32:12,320 --> 00:32:15,720
Speaker 2: but he sounded like Vern. He had no experience. Could

597
00:32:15,760 --> 00:32:18,080
Speaker 2: he do on film what he did in the reading.

598
00:32:18,360 --> 00:32:19,960
Speaker 2: I wasn't going to pick him, but he was so

599
00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:22,880
Speaker 2: Vern in his attitude that at the last minute I said,

600
00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:25,240
Speaker 2: let's take a chance. Jerry O'Connell had been in a

601
00:32:25,280 --> 00:32:28,600
Speaker 2: commercial before this that was the extent of his acting experience,

602
00:32:29,600 --> 00:32:32,600
Speaker 2: and he was excited to swear as any young child

603
00:32:32,640 --> 00:32:37,360
Speaker 2: would be. The rest of the cast, as you wrote,

604
00:32:37,480 --> 00:32:41,240
Speaker 2: helpfully chipped in ways to make Vern seem like a loser.

605
00:32:41,800 --> 00:32:44,000
Speaker 2: The scene where he can't remember the secret knock to

606
00:32:44,040 --> 00:32:46,200
Speaker 2: the clubhouse was ad libbed by the rest of the

607
00:32:46,280 --> 00:32:49,640
Speaker 2: kids as on the day it was shot to stick

608
00:32:49,680 --> 00:32:54,560
Speaker 2: it to him and Jerry O'Connell, though, had one hell

609
00:32:54,600 --> 00:32:57,840
Speaker 2: of a yeah man, he got hot and he married

610
00:32:57,840 --> 00:33:01,640
Speaker 2: Rebecca Romaine. Jerry O'Connell later said her high school best

611
00:33:01,640 --> 00:33:03,880
Speaker 2: friend said to me, you know, stand By Me is

612
00:33:03,920 --> 00:33:06,640
Speaker 2: Rebecca's favorite movie of all time. She had posted of

613
00:33:06,680 --> 00:33:09,040
Speaker 2: it all over her room growing up. She never told

614
00:33:09,120 --> 00:33:13,240
Speaker 2: me that. That's akin to Jason Momoa. Was like watching

615
00:33:13,280 --> 00:33:15,160
Speaker 2: Cosby Show as a kid and was like, I'm gonna

616
00:33:15,200 --> 00:33:19,040
Speaker 2: marry Lisa Bonnet and then he did. It's good to

617
00:33:19,040 --> 00:33:28,000
Speaker 2: have goals. Fantastic quote from Keifer Sulluin regarding Feldman. I'd

618
00:33:28,040 --> 00:33:29,760
Speaker 2: never met a twelve year old with that kind of

619
00:33:29,840 --> 00:33:40,280
Speaker 2: rage inside of him, and that's coming from Keier Sutherland. Yeah.

620
00:33:40,320 --> 00:33:42,960
Speaker 2: Feldman related a little too well to his tortured character

621
00:33:43,040 --> 00:33:46,240
Speaker 2: of Teddy, self destructive kid who yells at trains and

622
00:33:47,280 --> 00:33:50,719
Speaker 2: has a janky ear It's not a book men who

623
00:33:50,800 --> 00:33:58,000
Speaker 2: yell at trains. Yeah, has glasses? What else does he do?

624
00:34:00,680 --> 00:34:02,880
Speaker 1: I mean the ear thing is really like the main

625
00:34:03,560 --> 00:34:06,120
Speaker 1: thing I remember from him, Yeah, and talking about.

626
00:34:05,880 --> 00:34:09,359
Speaker 2: Normandy's dad being at Normandy Yeah. Feldman told The Telegraph,

627
00:34:09,440 --> 00:34:11,440
Speaker 2: I was a very disturbed kid. I had a lot

628
00:34:11,440 --> 00:34:13,880
Speaker 2: of parental abuse in my home and a trouble upbringing.

629
00:34:14,080 --> 00:34:16,360
Speaker 2: I think that's what Rob saw in me. It's funny

630
00:34:16,360 --> 00:34:19,400
Speaker 2: because there's another interview in here where Feldman was like,

631
00:34:19,680 --> 00:34:22,279
Speaker 2: I basically did this movie because my parents made me

632
00:34:22,360 --> 00:34:24,719
Speaker 2: do it like they they It was like when he

633
00:34:25,120 --> 00:34:28,000
Speaker 2: was being heavily stage managed for the sake of honesty

634
00:34:28,040 --> 00:34:29,879
Speaker 2: and to be really brash. What drew me to stand

635
00:34:29,920 --> 00:34:31,880
Speaker 2: by me was that my parents were my managers, and

636
00:34:31,920 --> 00:34:37,600
Speaker 2: I did what they told me to do. Anyway, let's

637
00:34:37,600 --> 00:34:39,959
Speaker 2: get into the deckenzie and horrors of a young Corey

638
00:34:39,960 --> 00:34:43,239
Speaker 2: Feldman's life. He was the second of five children born

639
00:34:43,280 --> 00:34:45,799
Speaker 2: to a record producer father who co wrote My Boyfriend's

640
00:34:45,840 --> 00:34:48,800
Speaker 2: Back and I Want Candy and co produced the garage

641
00:34:48,840 --> 00:34:52,279
Speaker 2: rock standard hang On Sloopy by the McCoy's Is That Nuts? Yeah,

642
00:34:52,239 --> 00:34:55,640
Speaker 2: I wrote My Boyfriend's Back and I Want Candy. Feldman

643
00:34:55,680 --> 00:34:59,040
Speaker 2: comes by his musical skill honestly, and his mother was

644
00:34:59,040 --> 00:35:01,919
Speaker 2: a playboy playmate, and they basically forced him into acting

645
00:35:01,960 --> 00:35:04,360
Speaker 2: when he was three years old. His first appearance was

646
00:35:04,360 --> 00:35:06,759
Speaker 2: in a McDonald's commercial in which he stole cookies from

647
00:35:06,760 --> 00:35:10,719
Speaker 2: Santa Claus so forced into the meat grinder of Hollywood

648
00:35:10,719 --> 00:35:15,600
Speaker 2: and learning Santa is fake at three, Oh man, I

649
00:35:15,640 --> 00:35:19,520
Speaker 2: didn't even think of that tremendous stuff. Feldman would appear

650
00:35:19,560 --> 00:35:23,120
Speaker 2: in over one hundred television commercials and fifty TV shows,

651
00:35:23,120 --> 00:35:26,799
Speaker 2: including The Bad and Bad Newspairer's a TV show. I

652
00:35:26,840 --> 00:35:27,440
Speaker 2: think they did.

653
00:35:27,480 --> 00:35:29,799
Speaker 1: It was like a one season kind of deal. After

654
00:35:29,840 --> 00:35:31,440
Speaker 1: the movie was a success, I'm I'll look bat.

655
00:35:31,560 --> 00:35:34,000
Speaker 2: Feldman would appear in over one hundred television commercials and

656
00:35:34,200 --> 00:35:37,840
Speaker 2: fifty TV series, including the short lived Bad News Bears series,

657
00:35:37,920 --> 00:35:40,080
Speaker 2: Mork and Mindy eight is Enough, One Day at a Time,

658
00:35:40,239 --> 00:35:43,120
Speaker 2: Madam's Plays and Cheers. He was in the films Time

659
00:35:43,160 --> 00:35:45,520
Speaker 2: after Time and Disney's The Fox and the Hound, making

660
00:35:45,560 --> 00:35:47,440
Speaker 2: the jump to the big screen in other films like

661
00:35:47,480 --> 00:35:52,840
Speaker 2: Friday the Thirteenth, The Final Chapter, and Gremlins and Goonies,

662
00:35:52,920 --> 00:35:57,600
Speaker 2: both of which have the fingerprints of one Steven Spielberg

663
00:35:58,080 --> 00:36:04,480
Speaker 2: all over them. Spielberg turned Feldman vegetarian one day when

664
00:36:04,480 --> 00:36:07,759
Speaker 2: he casually commented that he was eating a lunch that

665
00:36:07,960 --> 00:36:12,680
Speaker 2: quote was once walking. Ah. I was watching some behind

666
00:36:12,680 --> 00:36:15,120
Speaker 2: the scenes stuff from a Temple of Doom the other day,

667
00:36:15,160 --> 00:36:18,319
Speaker 2: and Man Spielberg could be a real dick. Just his

668
00:36:18,360 --> 00:36:22,520
Speaker 2: stuff was like no, no, no, not like James Cameron levels,

669
00:36:22,520 --> 00:36:25,120
Speaker 2: but just like with Kate Capshaw on that and she's

670
00:36:25,120 --> 00:36:27,319
Speaker 2: like deathly afraid of bugs and he's like, get in

671
00:36:27,320 --> 00:36:29,960
Speaker 2: the box with the bugs, and then he married her.

672
00:36:32,160 --> 00:36:35,080
Speaker 2: Reiner had to quote mixed and matched a dozen boys

673
00:36:35,360 --> 00:36:38,560
Speaker 2: phrasing in his final auditions for the movie, but he

674
00:36:38,600 --> 00:36:40,600
Speaker 2: said Feldman was the only one who was a keeper

675
00:36:40,640 --> 00:36:42,920
Speaker 2: all the way through. When he walked in the doors

676
00:36:42,920 --> 00:36:45,400
Speaker 2: and I looked in his eyes, I saw pain and anger,

677
00:36:45,719 --> 00:36:47,200
Speaker 2: and he was the only kid that could play that

678
00:36:47,320 --> 00:36:49,839
Speaker 2: kind of pain and anger. I mean, the character's father

679
00:36:49,920 --> 00:36:51,520
Speaker 2: took his head and put it to the stove and

680
00:36:51,560 --> 00:36:54,040
Speaker 2: almost burned his ear off. These kids are having to

681
00:36:54,080 --> 00:36:55,960
Speaker 2: live with that kind of abuse. And while we only

682
00:36:56,000 --> 00:36:58,040
Speaker 2: touch on that, it's clear this isn't just some fun

683
00:36:58,120 --> 00:37:01,439
Speaker 2: romp through the forest to go on unadventure. Feldman, who

684
00:37:01,480 --> 00:37:05,920
Speaker 2: was just thirteen, agreed later, saying I was playing a

685
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:08,680
Speaker 2: character that was similar in some ways. I was bullied,

686
00:37:08,719 --> 00:37:11,359
Speaker 2: I was suicidal, but unlike Teddy, I was filled with

687
00:37:11,400 --> 00:37:14,120
Speaker 2: fear and was embarrassed about those kinds of things. His

688
00:37:14,160 --> 00:37:15,920
Speaker 2: father was a soldier, so he thought he was a

689
00:37:15,960 --> 00:37:18,799
Speaker 2: soldier too, And although Felderman's childhood was a painful one,

690
00:37:18,840 --> 00:37:20,640
Speaker 2: he says the experience of working on Stand By Me

691
00:37:20,760 --> 00:37:23,719
Speaker 2: was ultimately liberating, like a bird being let out of

692
00:37:23,760 --> 00:37:31,680
Speaker 2: a cage. Sure ah. Unfortunately, as is so often the case,

693
00:37:32,120 --> 00:37:35,880
Speaker 2: the cycle of violence was perpetuated in a young Corey Feldman.

694
00:37:36,000 --> 00:37:38,000
Speaker 2: Relations on the set between the four boys were generally

695
00:37:38,040 --> 00:37:42,240
Speaker 2: pretty warm, but Will Wheaton later talked about Fedman teasing

696
00:37:42,360 --> 00:37:45,040
Speaker 2: him until he was in tears. He later told Variety,

697
00:37:45,200 --> 00:37:46,879
Speaker 2: Corey picked on me all the time, to the point

698
00:37:46,880 --> 00:37:49,680
Speaker 2: of it being like cruel. I remember River telling him

699
00:37:49,719 --> 00:37:54,200
Speaker 2: to stop. But Wheaton doesn't harbor any ill will towards

700
00:37:54,239 --> 00:37:57,600
Speaker 2: Feldman for his behavior. He later said he had a

701
00:37:57,600 --> 00:38:00,600
Speaker 2: really childhood and he suffered a lot as a forty

702
00:38:00,600 --> 00:38:02,440
Speaker 2: four year old father. I can see he was a

703
00:38:02,480 --> 00:38:04,520
Speaker 2: young person who was just in an incredible amount of

704
00:38:04,600 --> 00:38:06,560
Speaker 2: pain and didn't have a way of dealing with it.

705
00:38:08,280 --> 00:38:11,400
Speaker 2: Feldman and Ryan apparently went through thirty different laughs before

706
00:38:11,480 --> 00:38:14,360
Speaker 2: landing on the one that they went with, which was

707
00:38:15,239 --> 00:38:21,360
Speaker 2: presumably the most annoying thirty laughs. Imagine being trapped in

708
00:38:21,360 --> 00:38:24,680
Speaker 2: a room with Corey Feldman trying out thirty laughs.

709
00:38:25,800 --> 00:38:27,760
Speaker 1: And that's just being forced to come up with thirty

710
00:38:27,840 --> 00:38:32,800
Speaker 1: laughs at age twelve, and I being the more appealing

711
00:38:32,840 --> 00:38:34,000
Speaker 1: option than going home.

712
00:38:35,280 --> 00:38:37,480
Speaker 2: Jesus yeah.

713
00:38:37,520 --> 00:38:39,759
Speaker 1: And this leads us to, in my opinion, the hero

714
00:38:39,840 --> 00:38:45,280
Speaker 1: of stand By Me Chris Chambers, expertly played by River Phoenix. Weirdly,

715
00:38:45,360 --> 00:38:48,040
Speaker 1: this part very nearly went to Corey Ham, which would

716
00:38:48,040 --> 00:38:50,160
Speaker 1: have made stand By Me an early vehicle for the

717
00:38:50,200 --> 00:38:53,719
Speaker 1: two Corey's, but the day Rob Reiner offered him the role,

718
00:38:53,760 --> 00:38:56,279
Speaker 1: I guess Corey Haym was also offered the title role

719
00:38:56,360 --> 00:39:00,080
Speaker 1: in David Seltzer's tragic comedy Lucas, which he decided to

720
00:39:00,200 --> 00:39:03,919
Speaker 1: take instead, and sadly, like River Phoenix, he would also

721
00:39:03,960 --> 00:39:07,319
Speaker 1: die a premature death. Corey Ham died in twenty ten

722
00:39:07,360 --> 00:39:09,840
Speaker 1: of a drug induced pneumonia at the age.

723
00:39:09,560 --> 00:39:10,319
Speaker 2: Of thirty eight.

724
00:39:11,880 --> 00:39:14,920
Speaker 1: River had initially auditioned for the part of Gordy, played

725
00:39:14,920 --> 00:39:17,640
Speaker 1: by Will Wheaton, but Rob Rahner felt that he was

726
00:39:17,680 --> 00:39:20,280
Speaker 1: better suited for the part of the troubled but tender

727
00:39:20,440 --> 00:39:21,000
Speaker 1: tough guy.

728
00:39:22,160 --> 00:39:23,120
Speaker 2: This is just nuts.

729
00:39:23,120 --> 00:39:25,640
Speaker 1: To me because the only part that River had played

730
00:39:25,640 --> 00:39:28,200
Speaker 1: at this point in a movie was in the movie Explorers,

731
00:39:28,880 --> 00:39:30,520
Speaker 1: which I don't know if you've ever seen it. It's

732
00:39:30,520 --> 00:39:32,480
Speaker 1: one of my I love this movie as a kid.

733
00:39:32,640 --> 00:39:36,239
Speaker 1: He's this kind of like nerdy Warriwort who wears like

734
00:39:36,360 --> 00:39:39,759
Speaker 1: tweed suits all the time. And yeah, he's not a

735
00:39:39,800 --> 00:39:41,920
Speaker 1: cool character at all. So it's kind of amazing to

736
00:39:41,960 --> 00:39:44,760
Speaker 1: me that they saw like tough guy potential in him.

737
00:39:45,160 --> 00:39:47,120
Speaker 2: Have you ever seen that movie? Nope?

738
00:39:47,560 --> 00:39:49,920
Speaker 1: I think I've talked about it on here. Aliens like

739
00:39:50,000 --> 00:39:55,400
Speaker 1: transmit a spaceship schematic to Ethan Hawk's character, who's like

740
00:39:55,560 --> 00:39:59,000
Speaker 1: twelve or thirteenth the time, And so these kids build it,

741
00:39:59,040 --> 00:40:00,480
Speaker 1: and they build it out of they go to a

742
00:40:00,560 --> 00:40:04,120
Speaker 1: junkyard and they get an old tilted whirl car from

743
00:40:04,160 --> 00:40:06,680
Speaker 1: a carnival and they like trick it all out to

744
00:40:06,719 --> 00:40:09,480
Speaker 1: make it look like this cool spaceship. Oh, it's a

745
00:40:09,480 --> 00:40:11,160
Speaker 1: great movie, and then they take it to like a

746
00:40:11,239 --> 00:40:12,920
Speaker 1: drive in I forgot.

747
00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:16,840
Speaker 2: Corey Feldman produced a movie called My Truth, The Rape

748
00:40:16,880 --> 00:40:17,720
Speaker 2: of Two Coreys.

749
00:40:19,360 --> 00:40:23,080
Speaker 1: Oh did that get a wide release yet? Is it

750
00:40:23,080 --> 00:40:24,560
Speaker 1: one of those things that he's been trying to release

751
00:40:24,600 --> 00:40:25,280
Speaker 1: for like a decade.

752
00:40:25,320 --> 00:40:33,440
Speaker 2: No, it came out in twenty twenty. Oh did it? Eh?

753
00:40:33,880 --> 00:40:37,719
Speaker 2: Hell of a title? Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

754
00:40:37,760 --> 00:40:40,800
Speaker 1: But in Chris Chambers, River Phoenix was able to exude

755
00:40:40,800 --> 00:40:44,120
Speaker 1: that tenderness, vulnerability, and understated cool that.

756
00:40:44,080 --> 00:40:45,320
Speaker 2: Would become his trademark.

757
00:40:46,760 --> 00:40:50,360
Speaker 1: River U kind of famously had a hell of a

758
00:40:50,440 --> 00:40:53,319
Speaker 1: life before going to Hollywood. He was born in a

759
00:40:53,400 --> 00:40:56,360
Speaker 1: log cabin in a forest to parents who were traveling

760
00:40:56,360 --> 00:41:00,000
Speaker 1: along the West coast together, picking berries and veggies along

761
00:40:59,880 --> 00:41:03,480
Speaker 1: the way to survive. They named him River after the

762
00:41:03,480 --> 00:41:07,240
Speaker 1: Hermann Hesse novel Sidharta, and four other siblings would follow

763
00:41:07,520 --> 00:41:12,560
Speaker 1: Rain Leaves later, Joaquin, Liberty, and Summer, all of whom

764
00:41:12,560 --> 00:41:14,520
Speaker 1: have some involvement in the entertainment industry.

765
00:41:15,280 --> 00:41:19,200
Speaker 2: And I just made myself laughing of a bit that

766
00:41:19,280 --> 00:41:23,000
Speaker 2: you could do where you're like, you have five so no,

767
00:41:23,080 --> 00:41:26,160
Speaker 2: you have like five hippie kids, and you're like, you're like, yeah,

768
00:41:26,200 --> 00:41:29,360
Speaker 2: this is my older brother River, my younger sister Leaves,

769
00:41:30,000 --> 00:41:34,040
Speaker 2: the middle child, Phoenix, and the baby of the family. Piss.

770
00:41:37,000 --> 00:41:41,800
Speaker 2: My dad really fell off the wagon for that one.

771
00:41:44,760 --> 00:41:48,600
Speaker 2: Oh man, I forgot that. Corey Feldman accused Charlie Sheen

772
00:41:48,840 --> 00:41:50,279
Speaker 2: of raping Corey Ham.

773
00:41:51,239 --> 00:41:55,759
Speaker 1: I forgot that too in like eighties era. Yeah, on

774
00:41:55,840 --> 00:42:00,200
Speaker 1: the set of Lucas Actually, Jesus, Yeah, then she's due

775
00:42:00,200 --> 00:42:04,640
Speaker 1: to the National Inquirer when they printed it. Apparently haimed

776
00:42:04,840 --> 00:42:07,919
Speaker 1: Corey Heim's family and Corey Feldman.

777
00:42:07,640 --> 00:42:10,200
Speaker 2: Are not on good terms. Oh. His mom like sent

778
00:42:10,320 --> 00:42:12,200
Speaker 2: him like cease and desist letters and was like, you

779
00:42:12,239 --> 00:42:14,520
Speaker 2: need to keep my son's name out of your mouth.

780
00:42:14,680 --> 00:42:18,000
Speaker 2: WHOA were they close before he died. I don't know

781
00:42:18,040 --> 00:42:21,120
Speaker 2: if they had patched things up or whatever. Do they

782
00:42:21,120 --> 00:42:23,680
Speaker 2: have a falling out? I know very little about the Corey's.

783
00:42:24,320 --> 00:42:27,239
Speaker 2: My knowledge extends to the Phoenix family. Yeah, I mean

784
00:42:27,320 --> 00:42:29,200
Speaker 2: they were obviously close back in the day. I'm not

785
00:42:29,640 --> 00:42:33,640
Speaker 2: really sure what happened. This is all just old page

786
00:42:33,640 --> 00:42:36,360
Speaker 2: six stuff. I was googling. Yeah, I guess he's Feldmon

787
00:42:36,480 --> 00:42:39,439
Speaker 2: promised to stop dragging this stuff up to his mom

788
00:42:39,480 --> 00:42:42,200
Speaker 2: and then I guess went back on it. But Charlie

789
00:42:42,239 --> 00:42:45,840
Speaker 2: Sheen thinks crazy, Yeah, grim almost like Hollywood has a

790
00:42:45,920 --> 00:42:46,719
Speaker 2: dark side, you know.

791
00:42:47,840 --> 00:42:52,000
Speaker 1: Well, now to an equally tempestuous upbringing, uh River Phoenix.

792
00:42:52,480 --> 00:42:55,080
Speaker 1: When Phoenix was just three years old, the family moved

793
00:42:55,080 --> 00:42:59,440
Speaker 1: to Venezuela after joining a controversial. H we'll call it

794
00:42:59,800 --> 00:43:03,120
Speaker 1: new religious movement and not a cult for legal reasons,

795
00:43:03,120 --> 00:43:06,480
Speaker 1: called The Children of God, where I believe Rose McGowan

796
00:43:06,600 --> 00:43:09,799
Speaker 1: was also raised in it. It's been described, I can

797
00:43:09,880 --> 00:43:13,360
Speaker 1: say like that as an authoritarian cult in media, following

798
00:43:13,400 --> 00:43:18,320
Speaker 1: accusations from former members that it encourages both pedophilia and incest,

799
00:43:18,960 --> 00:43:19,319
Speaker 1: and I.

800
00:43:19,239 --> 00:43:21,000
Speaker 2: Think you've actually talked about it on the show.

801
00:43:21,000 --> 00:43:24,759
Speaker 1: They use a method of evangelism called flirty fishing that

802
00:43:24,920 --> 00:43:28,000
Speaker 1: used sex to quote show God's love and mercy and

803
00:43:28,080 --> 00:43:29,120
Speaker 1: win converts.

804
00:43:30,800 --> 00:43:31,759
Speaker 2: Didn't really expect this.

805
00:43:31,719 --> 00:43:33,880
Speaker 1: To become one of the darkest episodes we've had, but

806
00:43:34,000 --> 00:43:38,120
Speaker 1: it's starting to trend that way. The Phoenix family left

807
00:43:38,120 --> 00:43:40,879
Speaker 1: the organization in nineteen seventy seven, when River was around

808
00:43:40,960 --> 00:43:43,560
Speaker 1: seven years old, and he rarely spoke about this period

809
00:43:43,600 --> 00:43:46,040
Speaker 1: of his life. Later, though, he did reveal that he'd

810
00:43:46,080 --> 00:43:48,440
Speaker 1: been assaulted at the age of four and tried to

811
00:43:48,560 --> 00:43:52,080
Speaker 1: quote block out the experience. The family returned to the

812
00:43:52,160 --> 00:43:55,640
Speaker 1: United States penniless and pointed their station wagon to Hollywood,

813
00:43:55,680 --> 00:43:59,080
Speaker 1: where they basically tried to make a living off Their kids.

814
00:44:00,040 --> 00:44:02,400
Speaker 1: Often played guitar while he and his sister sang on

815
00:44:02,440 --> 00:44:05,360
Speaker 1: street corners. For money and food and whatever else they

816
00:44:05,360 --> 00:44:07,720
Speaker 1: could get from people passing by to support their family,

817
00:44:08,200 --> 00:44:10,279
Speaker 1: and ironically that's how they got their first talent.

818
00:44:10,480 --> 00:44:10,719
Speaker 2: Rap.

819
00:44:11,160 --> 00:44:13,000
Speaker 1: This guy was just saw them singing on the street

820
00:44:13,000 --> 00:44:16,799
Speaker 1: and was impressed, and he started getting acting roles, as

821
00:44:16,920 --> 00:44:20,799
Speaker 1: did Leaf Slash Joaquin, who started in the movie Space Camp,

822
00:44:20,880 --> 00:44:23,040
Speaker 1: which is also one of my favorite mid eighties movies.

823
00:44:24,200 --> 00:44:27,279
Speaker 1: River appeared in commercials and in short lived sitcoms, and

824
00:44:27,400 --> 00:44:31,000
Speaker 1: was even an audience warm up performer with his siblings,

825
00:44:31,040 --> 00:44:34,040
Speaker 1: which is kind of hilarious to me. My favorite early

826
00:44:34,160 --> 00:44:36,960
Speaker 1: role was when he played Robert F. Kennedy Junior in

827
00:44:37,000 --> 00:44:41,759
Speaker 1: a TV movie about RFKH, which is weird. All this

828
00:44:41,840 --> 00:44:44,000
Speaker 1: to say, River Phoenix had lived quite a life when

829
00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:46,080
Speaker 1: he came to the production of Stand By Me, and

830
00:44:46,120 --> 00:44:48,719
Speaker 1: he brought that maturity to the role, and he also

831
00:44:48,760 --> 00:44:50,240
Speaker 1: brought his own ideas to the character.

832
00:44:50,400 --> 00:44:52,400
Speaker 2: He told Rob Reiner that he wanted to play.

833
00:44:52,280 --> 00:44:53,960
Speaker 1: Him as if he were a year older than the

834
00:44:53,960 --> 00:44:57,000
Speaker 1: others because he'd been held back in school and he

835
00:44:57,160 --> 00:44:58,799
Speaker 1: was I think the oldest on the set in his

836
00:44:58,920 --> 00:45:01,719
Speaker 1: gentle paternal and was clear to the other boys in

837
00:45:01,760 --> 00:45:04,560
Speaker 1: the cast. We just talked earlier about him stepping in

838
00:45:04,600 --> 00:45:07,240
Speaker 1: when Corey Hamm was going too far teasing Will Wheaton.

839
00:45:07,840 --> 00:45:10,600
Speaker 1: Will Wheaton told movie Phone in twenty eleven River was

840
00:45:10,640 --> 00:45:13,439
Speaker 1: cool and really smart and passionate and even at that age,

841
00:45:13,520 --> 00:45:16,040
Speaker 1: kind of a father figure to some of us. But

842
00:45:16,600 --> 00:45:20,640
Speaker 1: his authentic emotional performance came at a high cost. River

843
00:45:20,719 --> 00:45:22,600
Speaker 1: told the Chicago Tribune at the time that he was

844
00:45:22,680 --> 00:45:25,040
Speaker 1: quote a total wreck by the end of the shoot,

845
00:45:25,440 --> 00:45:28,240
Speaker 1: and said that were it not for the stabilizing influence

846
00:45:28,280 --> 00:45:32,480
Speaker 1: of his family, he would have sought psychological treatment. His

847
00:45:32,560 --> 00:45:35,200
Speaker 1: standout moment in the film comes when Chris tells the

848
00:45:35,239 --> 00:45:38,359
Speaker 1: story where he's accused of stealing by a teacher who

849
00:45:38,360 --> 00:45:40,840
Speaker 1: doesn't believe him. To get him in the headspace for

850
00:45:40,880 --> 00:45:42,920
Speaker 1: this scene, Rob Ryaner told him to think of a

851
00:45:42,960 --> 00:45:46,919
Speaker 1: time when he'd been let down by an adult he trusted, and,

852
00:45:48,040 --> 00:45:51,200
Speaker 1: considering his parents had joined the religious organization rife with

853
00:45:51,280 --> 00:45:56,360
Speaker 1: accusations of incest and pedophilia, this was probably a loaded problem.

854
00:45:56,160 --> 00:45:58,440
Speaker 2: Little too close to the bone. Yes.

855
00:45:59,520 --> 00:46:03,720
Speaker 1: After apturing this scene, River reportedly could not stop crying

856
00:46:03,760 --> 00:46:05,839
Speaker 1: to such an extent that Rob had to go over

857
00:46:05,960 --> 00:46:10,960
Speaker 1: and give him a hug until he calmed down. Ah Well,

858
00:46:10,960 --> 00:46:13,720
Speaker 1: where there's trauma, there's also trauma bonding.

859
00:46:14,880 --> 00:46:20,319
Speaker 2: Let me take that again. Yeah, well, I mean thought

860
00:46:20,880 --> 00:46:22,600
Speaker 2: they all had. They all had really sweet things to

861
00:46:22,600 --> 00:46:25,919
Speaker 2: say about him. Keifer Sutherland told The Guardian. He said

862
00:46:26,080 --> 00:46:28,759
Speaker 2: River Phoenix specifically had such an appetite to learn and

863
00:46:28,800 --> 00:46:30,799
Speaker 2: be good. He was a year older than I and

864
00:46:30,840 --> 00:46:33,239
Speaker 2: I think it made a pretty significant difference. When the

865
00:46:33,239 --> 00:46:35,640
Speaker 2: others were doing age appropriate things. River was a guy

866
00:46:35,680 --> 00:46:39,799
Speaker 2: asking questions like would you mind running lines with me? Yeah?

867
00:46:39,840 --> 00:46:42,799
Speaker 2: And then and in that same article, Rob Reiner said

868
00:46:42,800 --> 00:46:46,000
Speaker 2: that River was thirteen and like a young James Dean,

869
00:46:46,480 --> 00:46:48,920
Speaker 2: there was so much soul there. He had this great

870
00:46:48,960 --> 00:46:51,800
Speaker 2: wisdom for a guy that age. I really like River Phoenix.

871
00:46:51,840 --> 00:46:53,279
Speaker 2: I know you're not as big of a fan. I

872
00:46:53,320 --> 00:46:57,200
Speaker 2: just don't like. I don't. I've seen this and last Crusade.

873
00:46:57,280 --> 00:47:00,840
Speaker 2: Oh my own Private Idaho is really good. Mmm, I

874
00:47:00,920 --> 00:47:03,120
Speaker 2: think you'd enjoy that. I love a coming of age,

875
00:47:03,440 --> 00:47:05,040
Speaker 2: I do. I do. Yeah.

876
00:47:05,120 --> 00:47:08,480
Speaker 1: But yeah, the cast obviously, the chemistry you can't fake that,

877
00:47:08,600 --> 00:47:11,040
Speaker 1: and Rob Reiner went to great lengths to ensure that

878
00:47:11,080 --> 00:47:14,799
Speaker 1: his young stars developed real friendship between them. Soon after

879
00:47:14,840 --> 00:47:17,640
Speaker 1: casting was finalized in June nineteen eighty five, they met

880
00:47:17,719 --> 00:47:20,000
Speaker 1: up at a hotel suite and oregone, where the film

881
00:47:20,040 --> 00:47:22,760
Speaker 1: was shot, for a week of what were basically drama

882
00:47:22,800 --> 00:47:26,840
Speaker 1: nerd games based on Viola Sportland's improvisations for the theater.

883
00:47:27,719 --> 00:47:31,120
Speaker 1: Rob Reiner would later explain theater games developed trust among people,

884
00:47:31,440 --> 00:47:32,920
Speaker 1: and her book is the Bible.

885
00:47:33,600 --> 00:47:35,399
Speaker 2: And funnily enough, he formed an.

886
00:47:35,280 --> 00:47:38,320
Speaker 1: Improvisational theater group with Richard Dreyfuss when they were nineteen,

887
00:47:38,560 --> 00:47:42,000
Speaker 1: so again it all goes back to those early adolescent memories.

888
00:47:43,800 --> 00:47:46,000
Speaker 1: For a week, they did stuff like pretend that another

889
00:47:46,040 --> 00:47:49,279
Speaker 1: boy was a mirror and mime his gestures, continue a

890
00:47:49,400 --> 00:47:52,360
Speaker 1: story that another had started, be let around a hotel

891
00:47:52,400 --> 00:47:55,839
Speaker 1: lobby blindfolded, and remember what everyone in the circle had

892
00:47:55,920 --> 00:47:58,919
Speaker 1: chosen to pack in a trunk. And it wasn't until

893
00:47:58,960 --> 00:48:00,960
Speaker 1: the second week that they even cracked the script.

894
00:48:01,080 --> 00:48:04,120
Speaker 2: I love that and support to remember that these boys

895
00:48:04,120 --> 00:48:04,840
Speaker 2: were young.

896
00:48:05,640 --> 00:48:09,560
Speaker 1: River was fourteen, Corey Feldman was thirteen, Will Wheaton was twelve,

897
00:48:09,640 --> 00:48:12,640
Speaker 1: and Jerry O'Connell, who again just had one commercial to

898
00:48:12,719 --> 00:48:16,799
Speaker 1: his CV, was eleven. While filming began, and they all

899
00:48:16,800 --> 00:48:20,040
Speaker 1: remember Rob ryaner Is being unusually gifted at connecting with them,

900
00:48:20,280 --> 00:48:22,960
Speaker 1: Jerry O'Connell later said, Rob was so great with kids.

901
00:48:23,200 --> 00:48:25,160
Speaker 1: He was like the fifth boy and stand by me.

902
00:48:25,600 --> 00:48:27,560
Speaker 1: For the first two weeks, we didn't say a line,

903
00:48:27,640 --> 00:48:29,799
Speaker 1: we didn't rehearse. He locked us in a room and

904
00:48:29,800 --> 00:48:32,280
Speaker 1: we just played games and hung out and we became friends.

905
00:48:33,000 --> 00:48:34,960
Speaker 1: And on the set, Ryaner had a habit of standing

906
00:48:35,040 --> 00:48:37,960
Speaker 1: behind the camera and reading lines, which is kind of

907
00:48:37,960 --> 00:48:40,560
Speaker 1: surprising to me because that's something that directors aren't supposed

908
00:48:40,600 --> 00:48:42,640
Speaker 1: to do. But he said I would stand behind the

909
00:48:42,680 --> 00:48:44,960
Speaker 1: camera and act nearly every scene out for them so

910
00:48:45,000 --> 00:48:47,359
Speaker 1: they could hear what the parts would sound like. That's

911
00:48:47,400 --> 00:48:49,680
Speaker 1: part of the benefit of being an actor myself. I

912
00:48:49,719 --> 00:48:52,239
Speaker 1: didn't want the kids acting. I had some trouble with

913
00:48:52,280 --> 00:48:54,960
Speaker 1: Corey No Surprise, who would say, you're not letting me

914
00:48:55,000 --> 00:48:57,840
Speaker 1: act Rob, and I would say, this has to be real.

915
00:48:58,800 --> 00:49:01,920
Speaker 1: Filming began on July seventeenth, nineteen eighty five, and as

916
00:49:01,920 --> 00:49:03,719
Speaker 1: we said earlier, the movie was shot in and around

917
00:49:03,760 --> 00:49:08,200
Speaker 1: the Oregon towns and cities of Eugene, Vnetta, Franklin, Cottage Grove,

918
00:49:08,239 --> 00:49:10,840
Speaker 1: and Brownsville, and in fact, the only part of the

919
00:49:10,840 --> 00:49:13,120
Speaker 1: movie shot in California was the scene where the boys

920
00:49:13,120 --> 00:49:14,239
Speaker 1: outrun the train on.

921
00:49:14,239 --> 00:49:15,840
Speaker 2: The Bridge, which we'll talk about later.

922
00:49:16,880 --> 00:49:20,279
Speaker 1: Brownsville was heavily featured as the fictional Castle Rock due

923
00:49:20,280 --> 00:49:23,960
Speaker 1: to its fifties aesthetic, and the town remains immensely proud

924
00:49:23,960 --> 00:49:26,880
Speaker 1: of its role in the movie. At the Brownsville Visitors

925
00:49:26,880 --> 00:49:29,160
Speaker 1: Center today, there's a map that displays all of the

926
00:49:29,200 --> 00:49:32,920
Speaker 1: movie's locations in five different languages, and on both the

927
00:49:32,960 --> 00:49:35,880
Speaker 1: twenty fifth and thirtieth anniversary of the movie, the town

928
00:49:36,000 --> 00:49:39,600
Speaker 1: was the site of enormous celebrations, featuring guided tours, cast

929
00:49:39,600 --> 00:49:43,960
Speaker 1: and crew reunions and yes, pie eating contests.

930
00:49:44,080 --> 00:49:49,400
Speaker 2: You're gonna be like? And yes, corpses the body of

931
00:49:50,360 --> 00:49:51,640
Speaker 2: many dead teenagers.

932
00:49:53,480 --> 00:49:57,920
Speaker 1: It's amazing, good pat be if they did like a

933
00:49:58,480 --> 00:49:59,840
Speaker 1: like a scavenger art.

934
00:50:01,239 --> 00:50:04,280
Speaker 2: Here's a question, how you get hit by a train?

935
00:50:09,480 --> 00:50:12,759
Speaker 2: Jerry Seinfeld voice, Last time I checked, you know where

936
00:50:12,800 --> 00:50:18,320
Speaker 2: it's gonna be? You know, I forget.

937
00:50:18,320 --> 00:50:20,120
Speaker 1: Did they talk about that? I actually you've seen the

938
00:50:20,160 --> 00:50:23,080
Speaker 1: movie more recently than me. Did they talk about what happened?

939
00:50:23,160 --> 00:50:25,040
Speaker 1: They just say it knocked him out of his kids?

940
00:50:25,400 --> 00:50:29,480
Speaker 2: Well those kids? Yeah, I don't know.

941
00:50:29,800 --> 00:50:32,200
Speaker 1: I mean, I the only thing I can think of

942
00:50:32,280 --> 00:50:34,840
Speaker 1: unless his car stalled on it, which it sounds like

943
00:50:34,960 --> 00:50:40,479
Speaker 1: wasn't the case was that it was intentional on his part,

944
00:50:40,800 --> 00:50:43,400
Speaker 1: which changes the tone of a lot of things.

945
00:50:44,920 --> 00:50:50,200
Speaker 2: But that doesn't that doesn't seem right. Hmmm. Yeah, I

946
00:50:50,200 --> 00:50:50,480
Speaker 2: don't know.

947
00:50:50,480 --> 00:50:52,480
Speaker 1: That's a good question. I mean, is it weird that

948
00:50:52,560 --> 00:50:54,239
Speaker 1: my first thought was that he put like pennies on

949
00:50:54,280 --> 00:50:56,040
Speaker 1: the train track and was something and was like trying

950
00:50:56,080 --> 00:50:58,960
Speaker 1: to retrieve them. I or no, Look it was a

951
00:50:59,040 --> 00:51:00,600
Speaker 1: dam Did you grow up? Did you grow up by

952
00:51:00,600 --> 00:51:01,160
Speaker 1: train tracks?

953
00:51:01,320 --> 00:51:04,799
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, yeah, same, spent a lot of time on them.

954
00:51:05,840 --> 00:51:13,560
Speaker 2: I didn't. And they're in say what did you do? Oh?

955
00:51:13,640 --> 00:51:18,840
Speaker 2: You know, through rocks and stuff, had fires all the

956
00:51:18,880 --> 00:51:22,360
Speaker 2: train tracks in the overpass? Would you do that?

957
00:51:22,360 --> 00:51:24,839
Speaker 1: That's the one place where you absolutely know someone's gonna

958
00:51:24,880 --> 00:51:25,560
Speaker 1: be at some point.

959
00:51:26,760 --> 00:51:31,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah for sure. Well I was stupid. Yeah,

960
00:51:31,760 --> 00:51:33,719
Speaker 2: but you know when they're coming is the thing?

961
00:51:34,280 --> 00:51:40,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, I you know, I never in all the years

962
00:51:40,719 --> 00:51:42,160
Speaker 1: I've seen this movie, I never really.

963
00:51:41,960 --> 00:51:45,040
Speaker 2: Thought of that. It's a great question. Yeah, yeah, lines

964
00:51:45,080 --> 00:51:45,480
Speaker 2: are open.

965
00:51:45,800 --> 00:51:48,439
Speaker 1: I'm it seems like a bet in the same way

966
00:51:48,520 --> 00:51:51,280
Speaker 1: that Teddy like tries to play a game of chicken

967
00:51:51,320 --> 00:51:54,280
Speaker 1: with the train like that. That's kind of my only

968
00:51:54,400 --> 00:51:57,680
Speaker 1: guess oh, I will say, you know what. I was

969
00:51:57,760 --> 00:51:59,399
Speaker 1: going to save this for when we were talking about

970
00:51:59,480 --> 00:52:02,759
Speaker 1: the the scene on the bridge, But go on.

971
00:52:03,120 --> 00:52:04,800
Speaker 2: My dad had a similar.

972
00:52:04,760 --> 00:52:07,560
Speaker 1: Incident with a train in It was some stupid frat

973
00:52:07,600 --> 00:52:10,320
Speaker 1: thing when he was in college in like nineteen seventy,

974
00:52:10,560 --> 00:52:12,960
Speaker 1: and the fraternity brothers when they were pledging, would like

975
00:52:12,960 --> 00:52:17,640
Speaker 1: blindfold you and drop you off somewhere in town. And

976
00:52:17,680 --> 00:52:20,080
Speaker 1: you had and you were blindfolded, so you had no

977
00:52:20,120 --> 00:52:21,480
Speaker 1: idea where you were, and you had to find your

978
00:52:21,520 --> 00:52:24,880
Speaker 1: way back to the frat house. But sure all the

979
00:52:24,880 --> 00:52:26,600
Speaker 1: brothers will be driving around the streets all night. If

980
00:52:26,600 --> 00:52:28,560
Speaker 1: they found you, they'd put you in the car again,

981
00:52:28,640 --> 00:52:30,799
Speaker 1: blindfold you, drive you somewhere else, and you just start

982
00:52:30,800 --> 00:52:32,719
Speaker 1: from scratch, and you had to find your way back

983
00:52:32,719 --> 00:52:36,480
Speaker 1: to the frat house by morning. And my dad and

984
00:52:36,760 --> 00:52:39,200
Speaker 1: whoever he was with, I don't know whose idea it was.

985
00:52:39,560 --> 00:52:43,040
Speaker 1: Probably my dad's was if we cut across the train

986
00:52:43,160 --> 00:52:46,960
Speaker 1: tracks on the bridge. They can't drive across that, and

987
00:52:47,040 --> 00:52:48,600
Speaker 1: I shortcut back to school.

988
00:52:49,040 --> 00:52:51,759
Speaker 2: Let's do that. And it was the same deal as

989
00:52:51,760 --> 00:52:53,440
Speaker 2: and stand by me. They were midway.

990
00:52:53,160 --> 00:52:58,360
Speaker 1: Across and all of a sudden, the train came and yeah, interesting,

991
00:52:58,400 --> 00:53:01,440
Speaker 1: but they made it and here I am, so maybe

992
00:53:01,719 --> 00:53:07,799
Speaker 1: there was some kind of weird Yeah, teenage stupidity is

993
00:53:07,840 --> 00:53:08,799
Speaker 1: the only guess I have.

994
00:53:09,880 --> 00:53:13,600
Speaker 2: Sure, sure, sure, sure, yeah, yeah yeah yeah. That tracks

995
00:53:16,239 --> 00:53:18,680
Speaker 2: as you meditate on that. We'll be right back with

996
00:53:18,760 --> 00:53:33,640
Speaker 2: more too much information after these messages, and.

997
00:53:33,600 --> 00:53:37,840
Speaker 1: Speaking of teenage stupidity, the production for the Young cast

998
00:53:38,120 --> 00:53:41,759
Speaker 1: was as idyllic as one would hope. Will Wheaton later said,

999
00:53:41,800 --> 00:53:43,440
Speaker 1: all of us have described it in some way or

1000
00:53:43,440 --> 00:53:45,759
Speaker 1: another as a sort of summer camp, and I think

1001
00:53:45,760 --> 00:53:46,479
Speaker 1: it's really true.

1002
00:53:46,520 --> 00:53:47,320
Speaker 2: It's one of those.

1003
00:53:47,160 --> 00:53:50,000
Speaker 1: Experiences that, just as it changed the characters of the movie,

1004
00:53:50,160 --> 00:53:50,840
Speaker 1: changed all.

1005
00:53:50,719 --> 00:53:51,839
Speaker 2: Of us a little bit too.

1006
00:53:52,520 --> 00:53:54,279
Speaker 1: And he also added, when you saw the four of

1007
00:53:54,360 --> 00:53:57,719
Speaker 1: us being comrades, that was real life, not acting. And

1008
00:53:57,760 --> 00:53:59,800
Speaker 1: some of this was thanks to Rob Ryan is fastidious

1009
00:53:59,800 --> 00:54:04,000
Speaker 1: fors on all the team building, you know, games and stuff.

1010
00:54:04,239 --> 00:54:05,680
Speaker 2: But also he put together a lot of.

1011
00:54:05,600 --> 00:54:08,600
Speaker 1: Bonding activities for the four while on location too, which

1012
00:54:08,600 --> 00:54:13,120
Speaker 1: included visits to carnivals also whitewater rafting, but most of

1013
00:54:13,160 --> 00:54:17,279
Speaker 1: the bonding went down outside of the watchful eyes of adults.

1014
00:54:17,800 --> 00:54:20,440
Speaker 1: In an interview with The Rap, Corey Feldman explained that

1015
00:54:20,520 --> 00:54:24,040
Speaker 1: the film marked a number of personal firsts for him, said,

1016
00:54:24,080 --> 00:54:26,120
Speaker 1: I went to my first night club, got drunk for

1017
00:54:26,160 --> 00:54:28,640
Speaker 1: the first time, kissed the girl for the first time,

1018
00:54:29,080 --> 00:54:31,680
Speaker 1: shot a music video for the first time with River

1019
00:54:31,800 --> 00:54:34,320
Speaker 1: for his music and even smoked weed for the first

1020
00:54:34,320 --> 00:54:37,120
Speaker 1: time again with River, and it was also his first time.

1021
00:54:38,040 --> 00:54:39,680
Speaker 2: And he also added.

1022
00:54:39,360 --> 00:54:42,040
Speaker 1: That he and River, who were the two oldest members

1023
00:54:42,080 --> 00:54:45,520
Speaker 1: of the main four, rented Penthouse videos at their hotel

1024
00:54:45,600 --> 00:54:50,480
Speaker 1: suite and also Caligula, the erotic historical drama produced by

1025
00:54:50,640 --> 00:54:56,080
Speaker 1: Penthouse publisher Bob Juconi, which is kind of unusually highbrow

1026
00:54:56,200 --> 00:54:57,440
Speaker 1: for a.

1027
00:54:57,360 --> 00:54:58,920
Speaker 2: Bunch of teens trying to find porn.

1028
00:54:58,960 --> 00:55:02,240
Speaker 1: It's got, you know, Malcolm mc dal ellen, Mirren Peter O'Toole,

1029
00:55:02,320 --> 00:55:03,680
Speaker 1: John Gilgod.

1030
00:55:03,600 --> 00:55:07,000
Speaker 2: Script by Gorvidal. That's just then impressed. That's much more

1031
00:55:07,080 --> 00:55:14,560
Speaker 2: cultured than like scrambled Cable of our Youth, right, yeah yeah, yeah,

1032
00:55:14,640 --> 00:55:15,600
Speaker 2: yeah yeah.

1033
00:55:17,160 --> 00:55:20,359
Speaker 1: And even the shy, sensitive goodest boy Will Wheaton got

1034
00:55:20,360 --> 00:55:22,640
Speaker 1: into the act in his own way. He was something

1035
00:55:22,640 --> 00:55:25,279
Speaker 1: of a tech prodigy, and so River Phoenix put him

1036
00:55:25,320 --> 00:55:27,640
Speaker 1: up to rigging the arcade games at the hotel on

1037
00:55:27,719 --> 00:55:30,800
Speaker 1: away where they didn't have to pay, he say, promised

1038
00:55:30,840 --> 00:55:32,279
Speaker 1: him that if they got caught, he.

1039
00:55:32,280 --> 00:55:33,480
Speaker 2: Would take the heat for it.

1040
00:55:35,000 --> 00:55:38,280
Speaker 1: He was very busy during the after hours on the set.

1041
00:55:38,800 --> 00:55:40,719
Speaker 1: Rob Ryiner remembers that he came to the set one

1042
00:55:40,800 --> 00:55:43,440
Speaker 1: day quote with a big smile on his face after

1043
00:55:43,440 --> 00:55:47,160
Speaker 1: spending the night with a family friend. He was fourteen,

1044
00:55:47,200 --> 00:55:52,480
Speaker 1: about to turn fifteen. He said it happened under the stars.

1045
00:55:53,120 --> 00:55:58,160
Speaker 1: And this is adding another quote from Ryaner. He said

1046
00:55:58,160 --> 00:55:59,880
Speaker 1: it was with a family friend and that it happened

1047
00:55:59,880 --> 00:56:01,360
Speaker 1: to under the stars.

1048
00:56:00,960 --> 00:56:02,640
Speaker 2: And she had shown him what to do.

1049
00:56:03,719 --> 00:56:07,920
Speaker 1: But he still found time for less adult pursuits. He

1050
00:56:07,960 --> 00:56:10,359
Speaker 1: would fondly remember the pranks during the first few weeks

1051
00:56:10,360 --> 00:56:13,080
Speaker 1: of filming when they took the hotel pool chairs and

1052
00:56:13,120 --> 00:56:16,400
Speaker 1: threw them into the pool and also quote soaked Corey's

1053
00:56:16,440 --> 00:56:19,720
Speaker 1: clothes full of beer and they dried and he smelled.

1054
00:56:19,360 --> 00:56:25,640
Speaker 2: Like a whino charming. Good. Yeah, what is a family

1055
00:56:25,760 --> 00:56:30,080
Speaker 2: friend in a virginity losing situation? Yeah?

1056
00:56:30,080 --> 00:56:31,960
Speaker 1: I didn't like that that was the word that was used,

1057
00:56:32,280 --> 00:56:34,160
Speaker 1: especially given his history.

1058
00:56:35,280 --> 00:56:39,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, the family in question. Yeah, I don't know. I

1059
00:56:39,960 --> 00:56:44,160
Speaker 2: don't like that. I don't like that at all, Okay,

1060
00:56:44,400 --> 00:56:47,520
Speaker 2: just checking. Yeah, no, but thank you for pointing that out. Yeah,

1061
00:56:47,520 --> 00:56:48,040
Speaker 2: you're welcome.

1062
00:56:48,440 --> 00:56:51,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, even sweet little Jerry O'Connell got up to his

1063
00:56:51,960 --> 00:56:55,400
Speaker 1: share of mischief. He was ratted out by Keifer Sutherland,

1064
00:56:55,400 --> 00:56:57,520
Speaker 1: who played the part of Bully Ace in the film.

1065
00:56:57,840 --> 00:57:01,120
Speaker 1: During an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live and twenty, Keith

1066
00:57:01,280 --> 00:57:04,560
Speaker 1: claimed that Jerry O'Connell had tied his babysitter to a

1067
00:57:04,600 --> 00:57:08,960
Speaker 1: banister in order to escape to a renaissance fair nearby,

1068
00:57:09,560 --> 00:57:12,560
Speaker 1: and then accidentally eight cookies that were laced with pot

1069
00:57:13,200 --> 00:57:16,000
Speaker 1: and as the story goes, Keifer Sutherland found him later

1070
00:57:16,040 --> 00:57:18,120
Speaker 1: in a parking lot, woozy and crying.

1071
00:57:19,680 --> 00:57:27,280
Speaker 2: Who among us to a renaissance face And on a semi.

1072
00:57:26,960 --> 00:57:29,680
Speaker 1: Related note, Rob Ryiner is known for his strong anti

1073
00:57:29,760 --> 00:57:31,720
Speaker 1: smoking stance and was one of the members of the

1074
00:57:31,760 --> 00:57:35,680
Speaker 1: Hollywood community who pushed for California's smoking band. So for

1075
00:57:35,760 --> 00:57:38,720
Speaker 1: his production on stand By Me, all the cigarettes smoked

1076
00:57:38,720 --> 00:57:41,040
Speaker 1: on camera were made out of cabbage leaves.

1077
00:57:41,920 --> 00:57:46,840
Speaker 2: Hmm. Yeah, I did wonder about that, did you know?

1078
00:57:46,920 --> 00:57:50,280
Speaker 2: You didn't? No, I did, because there's the movie opens

1079
00:57:50,280 --> 00:57:52,760
Speaker 2: with him smoking you know mineus the flashback scene. I

1080
00:57:52,840 --> 00:57:54,919
Speaker 2: was just like, oh, yeah, like you don't really see

1081
00:57:54,920 --> 00:57:59,800
Speaker 2: that that much anymore. Yeah, Keifer Sutherland was excited to

1082
00:57:59,800 --> 00:58:01,640
Speaker 2: work with Rob Ryner because he was a big fan

1083
00:58:01,680 --> 00:58:05,880
Speaker 2: of spinal tap as any right thinking adult is. The

1084
00:58:05,920 --> 00:58:07,920
Speaker 2: two of them got along great, and they agreed that

1085
00:58:07,960 --> 00:58:12,120
Speaker 2: the character Ace Merrill had essentially no inner life. Talking

1086
00:58:12,160 --> 00:58:14,240
Speaker 2: to the Guardian, Keifer said, Rob and I both agreed

1087
00:58:14,320 --> 00:58:16,520
Speaker 2: very strongly. There was no mushy side to this guy.

1088
00:58:16,960 --> 00:58:19,480
Speaker 2: This is an ass to the marrow of his bones.

1089
00:58:19,960 --> 00:58:23,120
Speaker 2: Unfortunately every town seems to have one. He was a

1090
00:58:23,120 --> 00:58:25,120
Speaker 2: bully and the only way to make that character work

1091
00:58:25,240 --> 00:58:28,160
Speaker 2: was if you hated him. Keifer went on a sort

1092
00:58:28,160 --> 00:58:30,720
Speaker 2: of method during the production of Sand by Me. He

1093
00:58:31,000 --> 00:58:33,920
Speaker 2: rolled a car off a sand bank with John Cusack

1094
00:58:34,440 --> 00:58:37,360
Speaker 2: and also said about intimidating the younger boys even when

1095
00:58:37,400 --> 00:58:42,880
Speaker 2: the cameras weren't rolling. The three more seasoned actors among

1096
00:58:42,920 --> 00:58:46,280
Speaker 2: the Kid's cast didn't seem to care. River retaliated by

1097
00:58:46,360 --> 00:58:51,439
Speaker 2: covering Keifer's car with mud. Although you said that River

1098
00:58:51,560 --> 00:58:54,880
Speaker 2: didn't have any idea that that was Keifer's car, so

1099
00:58:54,960 --> 00:58:59,720
Speaker 2: it probably made it worse. Yeah, Jerry O'Connell was legitimately frightened.

1100
00:59:00,280 --> 00:59:02,080
Speaker 2: He said, I wasn't scared of anyone on the set

1101
00:59:02,080 --> 00:59:05,439
Speaker 2: except Kiefer. He really made himself very menacing to us.

1102
00:59:06,280 --> 00:59:09,680
Speaker 2: Speaking of mud, there is, of course the iconic leech scene.

1103
00:59:10,240 --> 00:59:14,120
Speaker 2: Ah yeah, it's it's the worst part in the movie man,

1104
00:59:14,480 --> 00:59:19,400
Speaker 2: Ye yes, yeah. Stephen King has not commented on the

1105
00:59:19,480 --> 00:59:22,600
Speaker 2: veracity of it, but he says that it was based

1106
00:59:22,640 --> 00:59:26,280
Speaker 2: on a childhood experience of his and those were not

1107
00:59:26,320 --> 00:59:28,920
Speaker 2: real leeches, despite what the Internet will frequently tell you.

1108
00:59:29,720 --> 00:59:33,439
Speaker 2: But some of the fauna in that scene were real.

1109
00:59:33,920 --> 00:59:37,400
Speaker 2: For the swamp, the production team created a man made

1110
00:59:37,480 --> 00:59:40,080
Speaker 2: pond that they filled with water in the middle of

1111
00:59:40,120 --> 00:59:42,800
Speaker 2: the forest and then just left alone for two weeks.

1112
00:59:43,520 --> 00:59:46,040
Speaker 2: So as a result, Corey Feldon recalled all the worms

1113
00:59:46,040 --> 00:59:48,400
Speaker 2: and bugs and the leaves and the raccoons. They were

1114
00:59:48,400 --> 00:59:52,720
Speaker 2: all in there. Nature took its course. The leeches themselves, though,

1115
00:59:52,760 --> 00:59:56,720
Speaker 2: were just robber molds. Ah yes. Now the real centerpiece

1116
00:59:56,720 --> 01:00:00,600
Speaker 2: of this movie the pie eating scene the bar for rama.

1117
01:00:00,840 --> 01:00:04,400
Speaker 2: I hate this so much. It's awful. It's awful, and

1118
01:00:04,440 --> 01:00:08,680
Speaker 2: it's doesn't need to be there. It's so bizarre, man,

1119
01:00:08,800 --> 01:00:11,200
Speaker 2: it just it. I can't tell if they were going

1120
01:00:11,320 --> 01:00:14,800
Speaker 2: for like a dream sequence kind of thing, because the

1121
01:00:14,840 --> 01:00:17,040
Speaker 2: fat suit that they put that guy in is so

1122
01:00:17,240 --> 01:00:20,600
Speaker 2: distractingly bad. It's like amazing to me that they went

1123
01:00:20,640 --> 01:00:23,200
Speaker 2: through the trouble of like doing this train thing with

1124
01:00:23,320 --> 01:00:25,920
Speaker 2: stunts and blah blah blah, and then they for this

1125
01:00:25,960 --> 01:00:28,280
Speaker 2: scene they just put a pillow in this guy's shirt,

1126
01:00:28,760 --> 01:00:34,240
Speaker 2: Like we're like, yeah, looks great, looks amazing. Anyway, is

1127
01:00:34,280 --> 01:00:37,840
Speaker 2: this is a campfire story that it's also hilarious that

1128
01:00:38,040 --> 01:00:44,200
Speaker 2: like such hilarious, like writer brain, that the crux of

1129
01:00:44,240 --> 01:00:47,440
Speaker 2: this emotional film where River Phoenix is like you're you're

1130
01:00:47,480 --> 01:00:50,120
Speaker 2: a writer, you have like a great talent. You're really

1131
01:00:50,200 --> 01:00:52,720
Speaker 2: gonna be something. And the evidence that we have of

1132
01:00:52,720 --> 01:00:55,120
Speaker 2: that is a story about a guy barfing on purpose

1133
01:00:55,160 --> 01:01:02,960
Speaker 2: at a pie eating contest. Like your friends, how would you?

1134
01:01:03,560 --> 01:01:06,320
Speaker 2: Here's a question you get asked a lot by people

1135
01:01:06,360 --> 01:01:10,400
Speaker 2: for advice on their stuff. What if somebody in a

1136
01:01:10,720 --> 01:01:13,840
Speaker 2: like the movie Yesterday, in which the Beatles don't exist,

1137
01:01:14,400 --> 01:01:17,480
Speaker 2: in a world where stand by Me doesn't exist? I

1138
01:01:17,640 --> 01:01:22,120
Speaker 2: come to you and I'm like, Jordan, this podcast is

1139
01:01:22,160 --> 01:01:25,320
Speaker 2: really great, and I have been a professional writer for

1140
01:01:25,560 --> 01:01:29,040
Speaker 2: twelve years, but I'm really trying to get into short fiction.

1141
01:01:30,080 --> 01:01:35,560
Speaker 2: I have this story. Would you read it? What would

1142
01:01:35,560 --> 01:01:39,360
Speaker 2: you do? You've read far worse of mine. That's not

1143
01:01:39,400 --> 01:01:43,600
Speaker 2: true anyway. This story sucks, and it's a weird thing

1144
01:01:43,680 --> 01:01:47,600
Speaker 2: to make the centerpiece of the film anyway. At an interview

1145
01:01:47,720 --> 01:01:50,919
Speaker 2: with Entertainment Weekly, Rob Reiner said he was conflicted about

1146
01:01:50,920 --> 01:01:53,680
Speaker 2: whether or not to include the scene. I wrestled with

1147
01:01:53,760 --> 01:01:56,000
Speaker 2: including it, not because it was too graphic, but because

1148
01:01:56,000 --> 01:01:58,200
Speaker 2: we'd established that Gordy is going to turn into a

1149
01:01:58,240 --> 01:02:01,480
Speaker 2: great writer someday. Would he really tell a story about vomiting?

1150
01:02:01,840 --> 01:02:03,880
Speaker 2: So I went back and forth, but I made peace

1151
01:02:04,040 --> 01:02:10,560
Speaker 2: and I said, okay. The screenwriter says he makes a

1152
01:02:10,560 --> 01:02:14,880
Speaker 2: compelling point. Oh no, sorry. The actor who played Lardass,

1153
01:02:14,880 --> 01:02:18,480
Speaker 2: Andy Lindberg, makes a compelling point to Entertainment Weekly, he

1154
01:02:18,480 --> 01:02:20,760
Speaker 2: says that story is the kind of thing that would

1155
01:02:20,760 --> 01:02:25,480
Speaker 2: win the Pulitzer if twelve year olds could vote fair.

1156
01:02:27,080 --> 01:02:30,320
Speaker 2: The vomit was created with large quantities of large curd,

1157
01:02:30,360 --> 01:02:35,240
Speaker 2: cottage cheese and blueberry pie, filling a sentence that turns

1158
01:02:35,280 --> 01:02:37,520
Speaker 2: my stomach. It is funny, though, that they didn't pick

1159
01:02:37,560 --> 01:02:42,040
Speaker 2: another fruit because blueberries are so extremely main do blueberries

1160
01:02:42,080 --> 01:02:46,680
Speaker 2: growing in Oregon? They don't, oh well to achieve the

1161
01:02:46,680 --> 01:02:50,000
Speaker 2: requisite projectile vomit effect. The crew employed quote four or

1162
01:02:50,040 --> 01:02:52,720
Speaker 2: five guys to press down on a giant plunger on

1163
01:02:52,800 --> 01:02:56,160
Speaker 2: top of a cylinder, which pushed all five gallons of

1164
01:02:56,200 --> 01:03:01,240
Speaker 2: pie filling up a vacuum hose. That's horrifying. Andy Lindberg,

1165
01:03:01,280 --> 01:03:04,920
Speaker 2: who played Lardass, I think he said originally that the

1166
01:03:04,960 --> 01:03:08,240
Speaker 2: first time they tried it, they used a powerwasher and

1167
01:03:08,280 --> 01:03:11,280
Speaker 2: it was like five hundred pounds per square inch of pressure.

1168
01:03:11,320 --> 01:03:16,280
Speaker 2: That just like nailed the guy next to him, Jesus.

1169
01:03:18,680 --> 01:03:20,840
Speaker 2: Lindbergh later claimed that a friend of his who worked

1170
01:03:20,840 --> 01:03:23,400
Speaker 2: in a California movie theater told him that during nearly

1171
01:03:23,520 --> 01:03:26,280
Speaker 2: every showing of Stand By Me, someone would throw up

1172
01:03:26,360 --> 01:03:29,240
Speaker 2: during that scene. He said that, of course, for me,

1173
01:03:29,320 --> 01:03:31,600
Speaker 2: is a point of pride. I've made people throw up

1174
01:03:31,760 --> 01:03:32,960
Speaker 2: all over the world.

1175
01:03:33,240 --> 01:03:35,560
Speaker 1: And that's very interesting to me because in another Corey

1176
01:03:35,560 --> 01:03:38,840
Speaker 1: Feldman movie, The Goonies, the character of Chunk tells the

1177
01:03:38,920 --> 01:03:41,080
Speaker 1: story of vomiting in a theater and setting off a

1178
01:03:41,120 --> 01:03:42,200
Speaker 1: similar Jane reaction.

1179
01:03:42,520 --> 01:03:52,000
Speaker 2: Speaking of train reactions, pause for applause. The other centerpiece

1180
01:03:52,000 --> 01:03:54,920
Speaker 2: of the film is the train scene. The boys attempt

1181
01:03:54,920 --> 01:03:56,800
Speaker 2: to save time by crossing a railroad bridge, only to

1182
01:03:56,840 --> 01:03:59,480
Speaker 2: discover midway across that a train was in fact coming

1183
01:04:00,080 --> 01:04:04,960
Speaker 2: sending all four scrambling for their lives. I would have

1184
01:04:04,960 --> 01:04:07,240
Speaker 2: been so pissed at Jerry O'Connell man. They probably could

1185
01:04:07,280 --> 01:04:10,120
Speaker 2: have made it if he hadn't crawled and then just

1186
01:04:10,200 --> 01:04:18,360
Speaker 2: froze up like a hedgehog. God, I hate hedgehogs. As

1187
01:04:18,400 --> 01:04:21,080
Speaker 2: one might expect, rob Ryder went to great lanes to

1188
01:04:21,200 --> 01:04:23,760
Speaker 2: ensure that the child actors were safe. This wasn't a

1189
01:04:23,840 --> 01:04:29,520
Speaker 2: John Landis production. Some of the long shots. Some of

1190
01:04:29,560 --> 01:04:33,480
Speaker 2: the long shots were completed, just google that later. Some

1191
01:04:33,560 --> 01:04:35,320
Speaker 2: of the long shots were completed with the help of

1192
01:04:35,400 --> 01:04:38,680
Speaker 2: female stunt doubles with short cropped hair, while others were

1193
01:04:38,720 --> 01:04:41,320
Speaker 2: achieved with the help of camera tricks like what they

1194
01:04:41,360 --> 01:04:44,960
Speaker 2: call image compression, not the like digital file compression, but

1195
01:04:46,040 --> 01:04:49,560
Speaker 2: use a six hundred millimeter lens that compresses the distance

1196
01:04:49,560 --> 01:04:51,800
Speaker 2: that it's being filmed at. Is it like a zoom trick?

1197
01:04:52,200 --> 01:04:54,000
Speaker 2: I talk about this like I know what I'm talking about.

1198
01:04:54,480 --> 01:04:56,600
Speaker 2: Is it like the Scorsese pool where you're like physically

1199
01:04:56,640 --> 01:04:59,280
Speaker 2: moving the lens and also moving the camera away from it.

1200
01:04:59,440 --> 01:05:02,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess the depth of field, like you can't tell.

1201
01:05:02,240 --> 01:05:04,960
Speaker 1: I think it's I think it's similar to what Hitchcock

1202
01:05:05,040 --> 01:05:08,880
Speaker 1: did in Vertigo when he did the whole like, oh, sure, yeah,

1203
01:05:08,880 --> 01:05:10,800
Speaker 1: they could move the camera forward, but moved the zoom

1204
01:05:10,800 --> 01:05:11,720
Speaker 1: out and it crazy.

1205
01:05:11,760 --> 01:05:17,760
Speaker 2: That's the effects, yeah, because he which uh or the

1206
01:05:18,040 --> 01:05:19,880
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just a dolly zoom. But I don't know.

1207
01:05:19,960 --> 01:05:23,600
Speaker 2: I don't know anything about the compression thing, even though

1208
01:05:23,600 --> 01:05:26,240
Speaker 2: I just was talking about it like I was. The

1209
01:05:26,240 --> 01:05:28,040
Speaker 2: results of which meant that the train looked like it

1210
01:05:28,080 --> 01:05:29,720
Speaker 2: was bearing down on the boys when it was in

1211
01:05:29,760 --> 01:05:34,680
Speaker 2: fact in the distance, because that's how perspective works. Because

1212
01:05:34,720 --> 01:05:36,920
Speaker 2: of this, the young actors had a hard time summoning

1213
01:05:37,000 --> 01:05:41,640
Speaker 2: up an appropriate expression of fear, and Reiner reached the

1214
01:05:41,760 --> 01:05:44,320
Speaker 2: edge of his patients with them after they did not

1215
01:05:44,600 --> 01:05:48,040
Speaker 2: summon the requisite terror filming this scene. Kids blue take

1216
01:05:48,080 --> 01:05:50,720
Speaker 2: after take, and Reiner came down on him screaming that

1217
01:05:50,760 --> 01:05:55,120
Speaker 2: they were fing this thing up. It's a hilarious thing

1218
01:05:55,200 --> 01:05:58,560
Speaker 2: to scream at kids. Well, it was ninety degrees and

1219
01:05:58,640 --> 01:06:01,760
Speaker 2: the grips on the film where we're pushing this dolly

1220
01:06:01,840 --> 01:06:05,000
Speaker 2: back and forth on the train tracks, Reiner later told

1221
01:06:05,040 --> 01:06:07,400
Speaker 2: the Telegraph it was very hot. The guys were pushing

1222
01:06:07,440 --> 01:06:09,600
Speaker 2: this dolly down the track to follow these boys. Running

1223
01:06:09,920 --> 01:06:12,960
Speaker 2: and they were supposed to be hysterical, just crying and panicking.

1224
01:06:13,240 --> 01:06:14,680
Speaker 2: We did it a bunch of times and they kept

1225
01:06:14,680 --> 01:06:17,760
Speaker 2: not getting worked up. Finally I started screaming, the crew

1226
01:06:17,840 --> 01:06:20,120
Speaker 2: are exhausted because you guys keep messing up, and if

1227
01:06:20,160 --> 01:06:21,880
Speaker 2: you're not worried the train is going to kill you,

1228
01:06:22,160 --> 01:06:24,560
Speaker 2: I'll kill you. So some of the tears in the

1229
01:06:24,600 --> 01:06:28,520
Speaker 2: scene are actually real. Will Wheaton recalled, we weren't taking

1230
01:06:28,560 --> 01:06:30,840
Speaker 2: it seriously, and it was hot and it was hard.

1231
01:06:31,160 --> 01:06:33,600
Speaker 2: I remember Rob yelling at us that we're running phrasing.

1232
01:06:33,920 --> 01:06:36,280
Speaker 2: I remember Rob yelling at us that were ruining his movie.

1233
01:06:36,360 --> 01:06:40,560
Speaker 2: We immediately burst into tears. Rob rolled the cameras it worked.

1234
01:06:40,680 --> 01:06:43,400
Speaker 2: When it was over, I just couldn't stop crying. All

1235
01:06:43,440 --> 01:06:47,479
Speaker 2: the adrenaline, everything was overwhelming. Rob hugged us and thanked

1236
01:06:47,520 --> 01:06:50,160
Speaker 2: us for our good work, and I still couldn't stop crying.

1237
01:06:51,320 --> 01:06:56,080
Speaker 2: You'll notice that River Phoenix's voice has changed and his

1238
01:06:56,080 --> 01:06:59,040
Speaker 2: physical appearance as well, because this was shot towards the

1239
01:06:59,160 --> 01:07:01,760
Speaker 2: end of the movie and Puberty hit that kid like

1240
01:07:01,760 --> 01:07:02,440
Speaker 2: a ton of bricks.

1241
01:07:03,640 --> 01:07:05,920
Speaker 1: And now we got to talk about the dead body.

1242
01:07:05,960 --> 01:07:09,080
Speaker 1: The whole reason for this quest. The mortal remains of

1243
01:07:09,160 --> 01:07:13,320
Speaker 1: Ray Brower are as is probably the intent sort of undramatic.

1244
01:07:14,240 --> 01:07:19,240
Speaker 1: He was kind of terrifyingly normal seeming, which made the

1245
01:07:19,280 --> 01:07:21,440
Speaker 1: concept of death hit a lot closer to home for

1246
01:07:21,520 --> 01:07:25,040
Speaker 1: these kids. Rather than focusing on the gore, the kids,

1247
01:07:25,160 --> 01:07:27,959
Speaker 1: or at least Gordy and Chris get very introspective upon

1248
01:07:28,040 --> 01:07:30,920
Speaker 1: finding him. The role of Ray Brower, or at least

1249
01:07:31,000 --> 01:07:34,080
Speaker 1: Ray Brower's body, was played by Kent Latrell, who was

1250
01:07:34,080 --> 01:07:36,560
Speaker 1: a college freshman who answered an ad in the school

1251
01:07:36,600 --> 01:07:39,560
Speaker 1: paper seeking stand ins and doubles for Stand by Me,

1252
01:07:40,280 --> 01:07:42,120
Speaker 1: and after three auditions, he was given the role of

1253
01:07:42,200 --> 01:07:44,600
Speaker 1: Corey Feldman's stand in, and that was all he was

1254
01:07:44,600 --> 01:07:47,120
Speaker 1: supposed to be until the day they were shooting the

1255
01:07:47,160 --> 01:07:49,720
Speaker 1: body scene. The scene where they discovered the body, the

1256
01:07:49,760 --> 01:07:52,520
Speaker 1: mannequin they planned to use looked too fake, so they

1257
01:07:52,560 --> 01:07:54,800
Speaker 1: asked Kent if he'd be willing to sub in as

1258
01:07:54,840 --> 01:07:58,440
Speaker 1: a corpse. And during the first take they had black

1259
01:07:58,520 --> 01:08:01,680
Speaker 1: beetles crawling out of this kid his mouth, which is

1260
01:08:01,720 --> 01:08:03,840
Speaker 1: so gross, and one of them bit his lip.

1261
01:08:04,960 --> 01:08:07,920
Speaker 2: Duh, I thought you were gonna be like during the

1262
01:08:07,960 --> 01:08:13,520
Speaker 2: first take he nailed it. Yeah.

1263
01:08:13,520 --> 01:08:16,360
Speaker 1: It was apparently so gross that one of the cameramen

1264
01:08:16,479 --> 01:08:19,400
Speaker 1: rewarded him with a shot of whiskey after the beatle

1265
01:08:19,439 --> 01:08:22,320
Speaker 1: bit him, and then for the second take they decided

1266
01:08:22,360 --> 01:08:25,640
Speaker 1: to go without the beatles, and I think that's the

1267
01:08:25,640 --> 01:08:28,040
Speaker 1: one that ended up in the final movie. But in

1268
01:08:28,120 --> 01:08:31,080
Speaker 1: order to get a more authentic reaction, Rob Reiner forbade

1269
01:08:31,080 --> 01:08:33,879
Speaker 1: the four leads from seeing Kent in his corpse makeup

1270
01:08:33,960 --> 01:08:36,759
Speaker 1: until the cameras were rolling, which is what Dick Donner

1271
01:08:36,840 --> 01:08:39,040
Speaker 1: did to Corey Feldman and the rest of the cast

1272
01:08:39,080 --> 01:08:41,320
Speaker 1: of the Goonies when it came to one Eyed Willy's

1273
01:08:41,360 --> 01:08:43,240
Speaker 1: pirate ship right. He wouldn't let him see it so

1274
01:08:43,320 --> 01:08:45,400
Speaker 1: he could get their authentic reaction on camera.

1275
01:08:45,960 --> 01:08:46,800
Speaker 2: Goodah.

1276
01:08:48,760 --> 01:08:50,960
Speaker 1: And since this movie is set in nineteen fifty nine,

1277
01:08:51,120 --> 01:08:54,799
Speaker 1: stand By Me makes use of era appropriate music, but weirdly,

1278
01:08:55,560 --> 01:08:59,280
Speaker 1: the producers reportedly considered hiring Michael Jackson to contribute to

1279
01:08:59,320 --> 01:09:05,280
Speaker 1: the soundtrack. The story comes from Corey Felman, who was close.

1280
01:09:05,240 --> 01:09:07,519
Speaker 2: With Michael at the time. I'll go with close.

1281
01:09:08,280 --> 01:09:10,439
Speaker 1: He says he heard from Michael soon after the film's

1282
01:09:10,479 --> 01:09:13,920
Speaker 1: rough cut was first screens. Feldman recalled Michael sent me

1283
01:09:13,920 --> 01:09:15,920
Speaker 1: a message saying, hey, I just saw your movie.

1284
01:09:16,000 --> 01:09:16,559
Speaker 2: Great work.

1285
01:09:16,840 --> 01:09:18,360
Speaker 1: They were asking if they could use one of his

1286
01:09:18,400 --> 01:09:20,080
Speaker 1: songs in the film, or maybe he was going to

1287
01:09:20,120 --> 01:09:22,360
Speaker 1: write an original song for it, but it was around

1288
01:09:22,400 --> 01:09:24,599
Speaker 1: that time they decided to go with an all fifties

1289
01:09:24,640 --> 01:09:25,679
Speaker 1: soundtrack instead.

1290
01:09:26,240 --> 01:09:27,800
Speaker 2: And I've also heard the theory that they were going

1291
01:09:27,840 --> 01:09:28,920
Speaker 2: to record a cover of.

1292
01:09:29,120 --> 01:09:32,439
Speaker 1: Stand By Me with Michael Jackson, but the producers decided

1293
01:09:32,479 --> 01:09:35,120
Speaker 1: to stick with the original version and just you know,

1294
01:09:35,240 --> 01:09:37,040
Speaker 1: keep everything steeped in the fifties.

1295
01:09:37,720 --> 01:09:41,760
Speaker 2: I we just score that they used the cue that

1296
01:09:41,800 --> 01:09:44,160
Speaker 2: they used because it's all fifties. And then you just

1297
01:09:44,240 --> 01:09:49,519
Speaker 2: hear like gauzy eighties since like gently kind of quoting

1298
01:09:49,560 --> 01:09:54,120
Speaker 2: the stand by Me, you know, melody and stuff. Interesting.

1299
01:09:54,160 --> 01:09:57,960
Speaker 2: I don't remember that. Yeah, yeah, is it? Who did

1300
01:09:58,000 --> 01:10:00,400
Speaker 2: it was? I think Jack Neatsch actually did. Oh, yeah,

1301
01:10:00,400 --> 01:10:01,120
Speaker 2: you're right, you're right.

1302
01:10:01,280 --> 01:10:08,200
Speaker 1: Jack Nietzsche was actually a member of Phil Spector's inner squad.

1303
01:10:08,280 --> 01:10:10,040
Speaker 1: I think he did a lot of arrangements for stuff

1304
01:10:10,040 --> 01:10:12,599
Speaker 1: like the Ronets and the Crystals, and then I think

1305
01:10:12,640 --> 01:10:15,680
Speaker 1: he won the Oscar I think for one Full over

1306
01:10:15,680 --> 01:10:17,920
Speaker 1: the Cuckoo's Nest for his work on the score for

1307
01:10:18,000 --> 01:10:21,600
Speaker 1: that work with a lot of people, work with like

1308
01:10:21,640 --> 01:10:27,360
Speaker 1: Neil Young, the Rolling stones, but apparently they blew it

1309
01:10:27,400 --> 01:10:27,680
Speaker 1: with this.

1310
01:10:29,680 --> 01:10:31,880
Speaker 2: I know. I just it's funny because like the fifty

1311
01:10:31,920 --> 01:10:34,120
Speaker 2: stuff is really evocative, but then you'll just hear like

1312
01:10:34,240 --> 01:10:37,439
Speaker 2: synthesizers doing like the the baseline or like some of

1313
01:10:37,479 --> 01:10:39,920
Speaker 2: the I just thought it was because I think I

1314
01:10:40,000 --> 01:10:42,200
Speaker 2: remembered that stand by Me doesn't actually appear in the

1315
01:10:42,240 --> 01:10:44,360
Speaker 2: movie until the end credits, but they're quoting it in

1316
01:10:44,400 --> 01:10:48,240
Speaker 2: the in some of the cues. Anyway, his eighties were

1317
01:10:48,280 --> 01:10:50,240
Speaker 2: a terrible time for film scoring.

1318
01:10:51,479 --> 01:10:54,840
Speaker 1: On a related musical note, the Western TV show theme

1319
01:10:54,920 --> 01:10:57,879
Speaker 1: that the boys repeatedly saying, you know have gone well travel.

1320
01:10:58,280 --> 01:10:59,240
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no.

1321
01:10:59,479 --> 01:11:02,040
Speaker 1: I think it's actual called the Ballot of Paladin, was

1322
01:11:02,160 --> 01:11:05,439
Speaker 1: used without permission, and Johnny Western, the guy who actually

1323
01:11:05,479 --> 01:11:08,240
Speaker 1: sings the song, managed to sue the producers for not

1324
01:11:08,360 --> 01:11:09,440
Speaker 1: asking his permission.

1325
01:11:09,800 --> 01:11:13,000
Speaker 2: Hmmmm. I hope he got a payday off it.

1326
01:11:13,360 --> 01:11:16,479
Speaker 1: I'm sure he did well, even if the whole embassy

1327
01:11:16,520 --> 01:11:19,839
Speaker 1: kerfuffle when production of this movie started, when Rob Reiner's

1328
01:11:19,880 --> 01:11:22,760
Speaker 1: old TV executive buddy Norman Lear had to pony up

1329
01:11:22,960 --> 01:11:26,040
Speaker 1: millions of dollars to get this thing made. The process

1330
01:11:26,080 --> 01:11:28,679
Speaker 1: to find someone to distribute the final version of stand

1331
01:11:28,720 --> 01:11:32,040
Speaker 1: By Me was not easy. It was, after all, an

1332
01:11:32,160 --> 01:11:34,200
Speaker 1: R rated movie centered on children.

1333
01:11:35,080 --> 01:11:39,320
Speaker 2: Tough Cell. Tough Cell. Reportedly, every studio passed.

1334
01:11:39,000 --> 01:11:41,240
Speaker 1: On the completed movie, and the only friend had had

1335
01:11:41,280 --> 01:11:44,960
Speaker 1: in Hollywood was Mike Ovitz, the head of CIA Creative

1336
01:11:45,000 --> 01:11:46,800
Speaker 1: Artists Agency, which is, like you know, one of the

1337
01:11:46,840 --> 01:11:50,040
Speaker 1: most powerful agencies in Hollywood. He made his mission to

1338
01:11:50,080 --> 01:11:52,559
Speaker 1: find a studio to release it, and ultimately he found

1339
01:11:52,560 --> 01:11:56,000
Speaker 1: the taker in Columbia, whose new president warmed to the

1340
01:11:56,040 --> 01:11:58,599
Speaker 1: movie after he watched it at his home one night

1341
01:11:58,640 --> 01:12:01,439
Speaker 1: when he was sick and his kids were crazy about it.

1342
01:12:01,800 --> 01:12:05,280
Speaker 1: Screenwriter and producer Bruce Evans said, what happened was Columbia's

1343
01:12:05,280 --> 01:12:06,840
Speaker 1: production had a guy named Guy.

1344
01:12:08,400 --> 01:12:09,599
Speaker 2: No, No, I'm not kinda.

1345
01:12:10,160 --> 01:12:13,320
Speaker 1: What happened was Columbia's production head wasn't feeling good, so

1346
01:12:13,360 --> 01:12:15,759
Speaker 1: he had the movie shown at his house. He brought

1347
01:12:15,800 --> 01:12:18,360
Speaker 1: all the marketing people and the executives, but the crucial

1348
01:12:18,360 --> 01:12:21,599
Speaker 1: members of the audience was two daughters. About halfway through,

1349
01:12:21,880 --> 01:12:26,040
Speaker 1: they were in love with River Phoenix. Older and slightly

1350
01:12:26,040 --> 01:12:29,240
Speaker 1: more discerning audiences would agree stand By Me was a

1351
01:12:29,280 --> 01:12:32,439
Speaker 1: sleeper hit upon its release in August nineteen eighty six,

1352
01:12:32,760 --> 01:12:35,280
Speaker 1: making over fifty two million dollars off the back of

1353
01:12:35,320 --> 01:12:38,960
Speaker 1: a seven point five million dollar budget. In addition to

1354
01:12:38,960 --> 01:12:42,040
Speaker 1: his financial success, the film was received well by critics.

1355
01:12:42,640 --> 01:12:45,200
Speaker 1: Sheila Benson of the Los Angeles Times called the film

1356
01:12:45,280 --> 01:12:48,599
Speaker 1: quote one of those treasures absolutely not to be missed

1357
01:12:48,720 --> 01:12:52,439
Speaker 1: and quote a perfectly performed look at the real heart

1358
01:12:52,479 --> 01:12:56,839
Speaker 1: of youth, and unsurprisingly, the majority of the critical plaudits

1359
01:12:56,880 --> 01:12:59,680
Speaker 1: were heaped on the young actors. Carrie Ricker of the

1360
01:12:59,680 --> 01:13:02,799
Speaker 1: film Helphi inquired dubbed stand by Me Quote a small,

1361
01:13:02,880 --> 01:13:07,920
Speaker 1: quiet film that walks tall and resonates long after, currently

1362
01:13:08,000 --> 01:13:10,599
Speaker 1: has a Rotten Tomatoes rating of ninety one percent and

1363
01:13:10,640 --> 01:13:13,400
Speaker 1: earned a nomination for Best Adopted Screenplay.

1364
01:13:13,760 --> 01:13:17,120
Speaker 2: With those kind of numbers, in this current climate, we

1365
01:13:17,120 --> 01:13:22,519
Speaker 2: would have gotten two sequels and a prequel. Yeah, oh yeah,

1366
01:13:23,720 --> 01:13:28,679
Speaker 2: stand by Me too, stand harder, stand harder, walk the line.

1367
01:13:30,600 --> 01:13:32,880
Speaker 1: Oh, there's a cute Stephen King's story. Though here you

1368
01:13:32,920 --> 01:13:34,840
Speaker 1: talk about this, it's your beloved Stephen King.

1369
01:13:35,600 --> 01:13:39,960
Speaker 2: Oh well, I mean yeah, he's a sweet boy. King

1370
01:13:40,000 --> 01:13:41,640
Speaker 2: is famously a harsh critic when it comes to the

1371
01:13:41,680 --> 01:13:44,599
Speaker 2: filmed adaptations of his work, the big one, of course,

1372
01:13:44,640 --> 01:13:46,880
Speaker 2: being the Shining In an interview with Rolling Stone. King

1373
01:13:46,880 --> 01:13:49,280
Speaker 2: admitted he's never been fond of movie adaptations of his

1374
01:13:49,360 --> 01:13:51,920
Speaker 2: work because I see them as a lesser medium than

1375
01:13:51,920 --> 01:13:57,519
Speaker 2: fiction just right out the gate, God love him, a

1376
01:13:57,560 --> 01:14:01,640
Speaker 2: more ephemeral medium. According to King, stand By Me was

1377
01:14:01,680 --> 01:14:03,840
Speaker 2: the first film adaptation of one of his stories that

1378
01:14:04,000 --> 01:14:07,200
Speaker 2: got it right, and he was moved to tears by

1379
01:14:07,200 --> 01:14:10,120
Speaker 2: the side of it. Rob Reiner recalled, we showed the

1380
01:14:10,120 --> 01:14:12,439
Speaker 2: film to Stephen alone in a screaming room, and when

1381
01:14:12,439 --> 01:14:14,839
Speaker 2: it was over he was pretty broken up. He excused

1382
01:14:14,920 --> 01:14:17,760
Speaker 2: himself for about fifteen minutes. When he came back, he said,

1383
01:14:17,880 --> 01:14:20,320
Speaker 2: that's the best film ever made out of anything I've written.

1384
01:14:20,680 --> 01:14:24,519
Speaker 2: You've really captured my story. It is autobiographical. All that

1385
01:14:24,640 --> 01:14:26,160
Speaker 2: was made up was the device of the Hunt for

1386
01:14:26,160 --> 01:14:29,800
Speaker 2: the Body. And King and Reiner have had one of

1387
01:14:29,800 --> 01:14:36,200
Speaker 2: the most fruitful adaptation collaborations they've done nineteen nineties Misery,

1388
01:14:37,000 --> 01:14:40,880
Speaker 2: which nabbed a Best Actress Oscar for Kathy Bates, who

1389
01:14:40,920 --> 01:14:44,639
Speaker 2: I think is seventy five today actually. Oh and Castle

1390
01:14:44,760 --> 01:14:49,920
Speaker 2: Rock has produced a further six adaptation of King's works,

1391
01:14:50,360 --> 01:14:54,880
Speaker 2: Needful Things, The shawsh Ank Redemption, Dolores Clayburne, The Green Mile, Hearts,

1392
01:14:54,880 --> 01:14:58,479
Speaker 2: and Atlantis and DreamCatcher, which he could definitely plot on

1393
01:14:58,520 --> 01:15:04,200
Speaker 2: a downward a downward trend, a brief tick up for

1394
01:15:04,240 --> 01:15:07,960
Speaker 2: Green Mile, Hearts in Atlantis, DreamCatcher. God, those movies suck.

1395
01:15:08,600 --> 01:15:11,000
Speaker 2: Of all the films rob Riiner has made, he does say, though,

1396
01:15:11,200 --> 01:15:12,840
Speaker 2: that stand By Me is the one of which he

1397
01:15:12,920 --> 01:15:13,880
Speaker 2: is most proud.

1398
01:15:13,880 --> 01:15:15,920
Speaker 1: And you forget He's got a good track record, a

1399
01:15:15,960 --> 01:15:21,160
Speaker 1: few good men's Spinal Tap, Princess Bride, Misery Thereah. The

1400
01:15:21,240 --> 01:15:24,120
Speaker 1: emotional gut punch of stand By Me was given extra

1401
01:15:24,200 --> 01:15:27,519
Speaker 1: oomph following the death of River Phoenix on Halloween nineteen

1402
01:15:27,600 --> 01:15:31,080
Speaker 1: ninety three. This is especially true with a scene where

1403
01:15:31,120 --> 01:15:34,720
Speaker 1: his character walks off into the distance and disappears as

1404
01:15:34,760 --> 01:15:38,880
Speaker 1: the voiceover shares his tragic fate. Ryner would later say,

1405
01:15:38,920 --> 01:15:41,320
Speaker 1: it's so sad every time I see that scene when

1406
01:15:41,320 --> 01:15:43,519
Speaker 1: he disappears at the end of the movie, it's chilling.

1407
01:15:44,000 --> 01:15:45,559
Speaker 1: I never thought River was going to be one who

1408
01:15:45,560 --> 01:15:48,520
Speaker 1: would struggle. He was a good kid who was so talented.

1409
01:15:48,960 --> 01:15:52,280
Speaker 1: He would have been like Johnny depp ooh or Leonardo DiCaprio.

1410
01:15:52,880 --> 01:15:56,600
Speaker 1: It's such a tragic loss. Richard Dreyfus, who provided the

1411
01:15:56,640 --> 01:16:00,080
Speaker 1: voice of the older Gordy echoed the sentiment, saying he was,

1412
01:16:00,120 --> 01:16:02,439
Speaker 1: without question, the best of that group of actors that

1413
01:16:02,520 --> 01:16:05,960
Speaker 1: came up at that time. Movie stardom isn't just acting talent.

1414
01:16:06,080 --> 01:16:08,320
Speaker 1: It's not just your ability to move an audience. It's

1415
01:16:08,320 --> 01:16:10,639
Speaker 1: a combination of a lot of things, and he had it.

1416
01:16:11,120 --> 01:16:13,080
Speaker 1: He passed so young, and it was a real shame.

1417
01:16:14,120 --> 01:16:16,599
Speaker 1: Bill Wheaton, his co star, later said I stayed mad

1418
01:16:16,600 --> 01:16:19,240
Speaker 1: at River for a long time after he died. He

1419
01:16:19,320 --> 01:16:20,720
Speaker 1: was the one who was going to have the Tom

1420
01:16:20,840 --> 01:16:27,040
Speaker 1: Hanks career. I don't know about that, but it's.

1421
01:16:26,880 --> 01:16:29,960
Speaker 2: Strange thing to say too, that you stayed mad at him.

1422
01:16:30,280 --> 01:16:32,519
Speaker 1: No, a lot of people say that about people who've

1423
01:16:32,640 --> 01:16:35,760
Speaker 1: died early, and I feel like things are unresolved or

1424
01:16:35,800 --> 01:16:38,080
Speaker 1: abandoned or but.

1425
01:16:38,080 --> 01:16:39,800
Speaker 2: Tom Hanks, and I don't know if you would have.

1426
01:16:39,880 --> 01:16:42,759
Speaker 1: I don't think he would have. What's the most ridiculous

1427
01:16:42,800 --> 01:16:46,240
Speaker 1: Tom Hanks thing? Phoenix and Castaway?

1428
01:16:46,439 --> 01:16:51,760
Speaker 2: Whoa River Phoenix and Turner and Hooch River Phoenix and

1429
01:16:51,800 --> 01:16:56,680
Speaker 2: nothing you do? River Phoenix and the Lady Killers? Is

1430
01:16:56,680 --> 01:16:57,080
Speaker 2: it weird?

1431
01:16:57,120 --> 01:16:58,920
Speaker 1: That was one of the first things I thought of, too,

1432
01:16:59,000 --> 01:17:01,240
Speaker 1: And there was no way anyone knows what I'm talking about.

1433
01:17:02,400 --> 01:17:05,080
Speaker 1: It's really nuts to think that River Phoenix actually only

1434
01:17:05,080 --> 01:17:08,200
Speaker 1: made thirteen films, and it's interesting to think of the

1435
01:17:08,280 --> 01:17:10,320
Speaker 1: roles that he was going to play and projects that

1436
01:17:10,360 --> 01:17:12,640
Speaker 1: never got off the ground because he wasn't around to

1437
01:17:12,640 --> 01:17:15,639
Speaker 1: attach himself. He was supposed to play the Christian Slater

1438
01:17:15,760 --> 01:17:19,160
Speaker 1: role in Interview with the Vampire, and Slater ultimately donated

1439
01:17:19,200 --> 01:17:22,240
Speaker 1: his entire two hundred and fifty thousand dollars fee for

1440
01:17:22,320 --> 01:17:25,439
Speaker 1: that film to two of River's favorite charities, Earth Save

1441
01:17:25,600 --> 01:17:28,800
Speaker 1: and Earth Trust. He was a big environmentalist and very

1442
01:17:28,840 --> 01:17:34,400
Speaker 1: active with the PTA organization. Also, Leonardo DiCaprio's in the

1443
01:17:34,479 --> 01:17:39,960
Speaker 1: Basketball Diaries, Total Eclipse, and most notably, although I'd never

1444
01:17:40,000 --> 01:17:44,280
Speaker 1: really heard this, Titanic were reportedly earmarked for River Phoenix

1445
01:17:44,320 --> 01:17:48,200
Speaker 1: early on before he died. Interestingly, Leo also claimed that

1446
01:17:48,240 --> 01:17:50,760
Speaker 1: he actually saw River at a Hollywood party.

1447
01:17:50,520 --> 01:17:51,519
Speaker 2: On the night he died.

1448
01:17:52,080 --> 01:17:54,680
Speaker 1: Leo said that it was as if Phoenix quote disappeared

1449
01:17:54,680 --> 01:17:57,479
Speaker 1: in front of my very eyes, and he also said

1450
01:17:57,520 --> 01:18:00,080
Speaker 1: he was quote struck by the sense of tragedy. I

1451
01:18:00,080 --> 01:18:03,360
Speaker 1: felt afterwards having lost this great influence for me and

1452
01:18:03,400 --> 01:18:06,400
Speaker 1: all my friends. But the ending of the movie felt

1453
01:18:06,479 --> 01:18:09,400
Speaker 1: especially poignant to Will Wheaton, who, as we said, was

1454
01:18:09,400 --> 01:18:12,240
Speaker 1: close to River during filming, but the pair fell out

1455
01:18:12,280 --> 01:18:16,400
Speaker 1: of touch, as is the case when people grow up,

1456
01:18:16,560 --> 01:18:20,479
Speaker 1: and in a sense, Will became his character. He later said,

1457
01:18:20,479 --> 01:18:22,760
Speaker 1: around the time River died, I hadn't talked to him

1458
01:18:22,760 --> 01:18:24,799
Speaker 1: for years, so I carry a little bit of guilt.

1459
01:18:25,400 --> 01:18:27,360
Speaker 1: But we do what we can, and enough time has

1460
01:18:27,360 --> 01:18:29,519
Speaker 1: elapse now that when we watch it, I recall with

1461
01:18:29,600 --> 01:18:33,920
Speaker 1: tremendous fondness the experiences we had shooting it. So the

1462
01:18:33,960 --> 01:18:37,160
Speaker 1: takeaway for this episode, aside from the fact that this

1463
01:18:37,240 --> 01:18:39,680
Speaker 1: movie rules on a care what Heigel says and that

1464
01:18:39,800 --> 01:18:43,400
Speaker 1: life corrodes us, all reach out to your friends, even

1465
01:18:43,439 --> 01:18:45,800
Speaker 1: if and especially if you've fallen out of touch and

1466
01:18:45,840 --> 01:18:48,280
Speaker 1: you haven't talked for a while. It will always make

1467
01:18:48,320 --> 01:18:50,639
Speaker 1: them happy and make you happy as well.

1468
01:18:51,120 --> 01:18:54,360
Speaker 2: Heidel final thoughts, No, I mean, I just it's it's

1469
01:18:54,400 --> 01:18:56,320
Speaker 2: it is really important to take time out of your

1470
01:18:56,400 --> 01:18:59,760
Speaker 2: day to reconnect with those people who meant a lot

1471
01:18:59,800 --> 01:19:04,240
Speaker 2: to you, you and who you promised to return to your

1472
01:19:04,240 --> 01:19:08,479
Speaker 2: hometown after thirty years if a carnivorous ancient evil clown

1473
01:19:09,840 --> 01:19:19,360
Speaker 2: ever returned and well read it. Instead of watching this movie,

1474
01:19:21,680 --> 01:19:24,640
Speaker 2: take us home. No, I was trying to I was

1475
01:19:24,680 --> 01:19:27,960
Speaker 2: trying to pull out a penny Wise impression. I couldn't

1476
01:19:27,960 --> 01:19:34,800
Speaker 2: do it. Can you do what, Georgie? Ha, that's amazing, Yeah,

1477
01:19:34,840 --> 01:19:36,200
Speaker 2: I have one. I was just trying to think of

1478
01:19:36,240 --> 01:19:38,280
Speaker 2: a stand by me line that I can't use for it.

1479
01:19:39,880 --> 01:19:44,439
Speaker 2: Do kids want to see your dead body? How have

1480
01:19:44,520 --> 01:19:51,400
Speaker 2: I never heard your Pennywise impression? And sucks to your

1481
01:19:51,439 --> 01:19:59,439
Speaker 2: asthmar just every time it keeps on giving. That's what

1482
01:19:59,439 --> 01:20:05,960
Speaker 2: they should have this movie. Folks, thank you for listening.

1483
01:20:05,960 --> 01:20:09,040
Speaker 2: This has been too much information. I'm Alex Heigel.

1484
01:20:09,240 --> 01:20:17,200
Speaker 1: And I'm Jordan Runtogg. We'll catch you next time. Too

1485
01:20:17,240 --> 01:20:20,720
Speaker 1: Much Information was a production of iHeartRadio. The show's executive

1486
01:20:20,720 --> 01:20:24,200
Speaker 1: producers are Noel Brown and Jordan Runtogg. The show's supervising

1487
01:20:24,240 --> 01:20:26,080
Speaker 1: producer is Michael Alder June.

1488
01:20:26,320 --> 01:20:29,400
Speaker 2: The show was researched, written and hosted by Jordan Runtogg

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Speaker 2: and Alex Heigel.

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Speaker 1: With original music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra.

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Speaker 1: If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave

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Speaker 1: us a review. For more podcasts on iHeartRadio, visit the

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Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

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Speaker 1: favorite shows