Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Ferris Bueller's Day Off is a 1986 American teen comedy film written, co-produced, and directed by John Hughes. The film stars Matthew Broderick, Mia Sara, and Alan Ruck, with supporting roles from Jennifer Grey, Jeffrey Jones, Cindy Pickett, Edie McClurg, Lyman Ward and Charlie Sheen. It tells the story of the eponymous character, a charismatic high school slacker who lives in Chicago and skips school with his best friend Cameron and his girlfriend Sloane for a day, regularly breaking the fourth wall to explain his techniques and inner thoughts.
Hughes wrote the screenplay in less than a week. Filming began in September 1985 and finished in November, featuring many Chicago landmarks including the Sears Tower, Wrigley Field, and the Art Institute of Chicago. The film was Hughes's love letter to Chicago: "I really wanted to capture as much of Chicago as I could. Not just in the architecture and landscape, but the spirit."
Released by Paramount Pictures on June 11, 1986, the film became the tenth-highest-grossing film of 1986 in the United States, grossing $70.7 million over a $5 million budget. The film received generally positive reviews from critics and audiences alike, who praised Broderick's performance, and the film's humor and tone. In 2014, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The film was followed by a television series, starring Charlie Schlatter as the title character.
Plot
Two months before his graduation, high school senior Ferris Bueller fakes illness to stay home from school, regularly breaking the fourth wall to describe his senioritis. While his sister Jeanie sees through the ruse, he fools their parents, Katie and Tom. After learning Ferris has been absent nine times that semester, the school's dean, Edward R. Rooney, and his secretary Grace become determined to expose Ferris's chronic truancy. Ferris hacks into the school's computer system and reduces his absence count to two, making it appear that he attends school regularly.To excuse Ferris's girlfriend Sloane Peterson from school, he persuades his hypochondriac best friend Cameron Frye to impersonate Sloane's father and call the school with claims that her grandmother died. Knowing Sloane is dating Ferris, Edward feels suspicious and responds dismissively. Ferris simultaneously calls the school to confirm his absence, thereby fooling Edward into believing he offended Sloane's father. When picking up Sloane, Ferris disguises himself as her father and borrows the prized possession of Cameron's father, a 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder. However, Edward becomes suspicious upon seeing Sloane kiss Ferris. Fearing his father's wrath, Cameron becomes paranoid when Ferris takes the car on a day trip into Chicago, even with assurances of preserving its condition and original odometer mileage.
Ferris, Cameron, and Sloane leave the car with two parking attendants, who promptly take it on a long joyride. The three visit the Sears Towers observatory, eat lunch at an upscale restaurant, visit the Chicago Stock Exchange, the Art Institute of Chicago, go to a Chicago Cubs baseball game, and attend the Von Steuben Day Parade, where Ferris jumps on a float and lip syncs to "Danke Schoen" by Wayne Newton and "Twist and Shout" by The Beatles. They manage to hide from his father, who works in the city.
Meanwhile, Edward prowls the Bueller home for Ferris, becoming victim to some pratfalls and pursued by the family's pet Rottweiler. When Jeanie skips class and returns home to confront Ferris, she discovers a dummy in his bed, and finds Edward there. Mistaking him for a burglar, she knocks him unconscious by kicking him in the face and calls the police. Edward regains consciousness and leaves the house upon noticing his car being towed. The police arrest Jeanie, believing she prank called the police station. While detained, she befriends a young delinquent who advises her to worry less about Ferris's exploits and more about her own life.
Upon collecting the Ferrari and heading home, Ferris and Cameron discover that the car's mileage has significantly increased throughout the day. Cameron enters semi-catatonic shock, later almost drowning in a pool before a worried Ferris helps him. At Cameron's house, Ferris jacks up the car and puts it in reverse gear to unsuccessfully attempt to rewind the odometer. Angry toward his domineering father, Cameron wrecks the car by launching it out the garage's rear window. When Ferris offers to take the blame, Cameron declines and insists on standing up to his father. After walking Sloane home, Ferris runs through the neighborhood to return home before his family does. He is nearly hit by Jeanie's car as she and Katie drive home. Katie fails to notice Ferris, though Jeanie does, and races him home while the police catch her speeding.
Ferris arrives home first, but Edward confronts him before he can return indoors. Seeing both of them through the window, Jeanie has a change of heart and allows Ferris to come inside before their parents do, claiming that he was at the hospital for his illness. She also shows Edward his wallet that had fallen from his pocket in the kitchen earlier, tosses it into a nearby puddle, and shuts the back door loud enough to wake up the Rottweiler, who attacks and chases Edward away. Upon seeing Ferris in bed, Katie and Tom believe he has been home all day. Meanwhile, during the end credits, a humiliated, disheveled and injured Edward reluctantly accepts a ride on a school bus filled with students who act derisively toward him. In a post-credits scene, Ferris tells the audience that the movie is over and to go home.
Cast
made his final on-screen appearance in an uncredited cameo role as a man running between the cabs.Production
Writing
As he was writing the film in 1985, John Hughes kept track of his progress in a spiral-bound logbook. He noted that the basic storyline was developed on February 25 and was successfully pitched the following day to Paramount Studios chief Ned Tanen. Tanen was intrigued by the concept, but wary that the Writers Guild of America was hours away from picketing the studio. Hughes wrote the screenplay in less than a week.Editor Paul Hirsch explained that Hughes had a trance-like concentration to his script-writing process, working for hours on end, and would later shoot the film on essentially what was his first draft of the script. "The first cut of Ferris Bueller's Day Off ended up at two hours, 45 minutes. The shortening of the script had to come in the cutting room", said Hirsch. "Having the story episodic and taking place in one day...meant the characters were wearing the same clothes. I suspect that Hughes writes his scripts with few, if any costume changes just so he can have that kind of freedom in the editing."
Hughes intended to focus more on the characters rather than the plot. "I know how the movie begins, I know how it ends", said Hughes. "I don't ever know the rest, but that doesn't seem to matter. It's not the events that are important, it's the characters going through the event. Therefore, I make them as full and real as I can. This time around, I wanted to create a character who could handle everyone and everything."
Edward McNally was rumored as the inspiration for the character Ferris Bueller. McNally grew up on the same street as Hughes, had a best friend named "Buehler", and was relentlessly pursued by the school dean over his truancy, which amounted to 27 days' absence, compared to Bueller's nine in the film.
Casting
Hughes said that he had Matthew Broderick in mind when he wrote the screenplay, saying Broderick was the only actor he could think of who could pull off the role, calling him clever and charming. "Certain guys would have played Ferris and you would have thought, 'Where's my wallet? Hughes said. "I had to have that look; that charm had to come through. Jimmy Stewart could have played Ferris at 15...I needed Matthew." Anthony Michael Hall, who had worked with Hughes on three previous films, was offered the part but turned it down as he was busy with other projects. Other actors who were considered for the role included Jim Carrey, John Cusack, Johnny Depp, George Clooney, Tom Cruise, and Michael J. Fox.Mia Sara surprised Hughes when she auditioned for the role of Sloane Peterson. "It was funny," she said. "He didn't know how old I was and said he wanted an older girl to play the 17-year-old. He said it would take someone older to give her the kind of dignity she needed. He almost fell out of his chair when I told him I was only 18." Molly Ringwald, who had also wanted to play Sloane, said, "John wouldn't let me do it: he said that the part wasn't big enough for me."
Alan Ruck had auditioned for the role of Bender in The Breakfast Club that went to Judd Nelson, but Hughes remembered Ruck and cast him as the 17-year-old Cameron Frye. Hughes based the character of Cameron on a friend of his in high school: "He was sort of a lost person. His family neglected him, so he took that as license to really pamper himself. When he was legitimately sick, he actually felt good, because it was difficult and tiring to have to invent diseases but when he actually had something, he was relaxed." Ruck said the role of Cameron had been offered to Emilio Estevez, who turned it down. "Every time I see Emilio, I want to kiss him," said Ruck. "Thank you!"
Ruck, then 29, worried about the age difference. "I was worried that I'd be 10 years out of step, and I wouldn't know anything about what was cool, what was hip, all that junk. But when I was going to high school, I didn't know any of that stuff then, either. So I just thought, well, hell—I'll just be me. The character, he's such a loner that he really wouldn't give a damn about that stuff anyway. He'd feel guilty that he didn't know it, but that's it." Ruck was not surprised to find himself cast young. "No, because, really, when I was 18, I sort of looked 12," he said. "Maybe it's a genetic imbalance."
Ruck and Broderick had previously acted together in the Broadway production of Biloxi Blues. Cameron's "Mr. Peterson" voice was an in-joke imitation of their former director Gene Saks. Ruck felt at ease working with Broderick, often sleeping in his trailer. "We didn't have to invent an instant friendship like you often have to do in a movie," said Ruck. "We were friends."
Jones was cast as Rooney based on his role in Amadeus, where he played the emperor; Hughes thought that character's modern equivalent was Rooney. "My part was actually quite small in the script, but what seemed to be the important part to me was that I was the only one who wasn't swept along by Ferris," recalls Jones. "So I was the only one in opposition, which presented a lot of opportunities, some of which weren't even in the script or were expanded on. John was receptive to anything I had to offer, and indeed got ideas along the way himself. So that was fun, working with him." "Hughes told me at the time—and I thought he was just blowing his own horn—he said, 'You are going to be known for this for the rest of your life.' And I thought, 'Sure'... but he was right." To help Jones study for the part, Hughes took him to meet his old vice principal. "This is the guy I want you to pay close attention to," Jones explained to Hughes's biographer Kirk Honeycutt. While meeting him, the VP's coat momentarily flew open revealing a holster and gun attached to the man's belt. This made Jones realize what Hughes had envisioned. "The guy was 'Sign up for the Army quick before I kill you! Jones exclaimed.
Stein says he got the role of Bueller's Economics teacher through six degrees of separation. "Richard Nixon introduced me to a man named Bill Safire, who's a New York Times columnist. He introduced me to a guy who's an executive at Warner Brothers. He introduced me to a guy who's a casting director. He introduced me to John Hughes. John Hughes and I are among the only Republicans in the picture business, and John Hughes put me in the movie," Stein said. Hughes said that Stein was an easy and early choice for the role of the teacher: "He wasn't a professional actor. He had a flat voice, he looked like a teacher."