A writer reads in the paper that a lawyer named Chris Chambers has been stabbed to death, and remembers the summer of 1959, when he was twelve and Chris was his best friend. Four boys from Castle Rock, Oregon, hear that a missing kid’s body is lying by the train tracks twenty miles away, and set out to find it. Stand by Me is adapted from Stephen King’s novella The Body, and King has said it is the best film ever made from his work.
What Happens On The Tracks
Gordie is the quiet one with the dead older brother. Chris is the tough one from the bad family who is smarter than anyone gives him credit for. Teddy is reckless and his father is in the asylum. Vern is the one who overheard where the body is. They cross a railway bridge with a train coming, swim through a pond full of leeches, and sit by a fire while Gordie tells the story of Lardass and the pie-eating contest. Then they find the body, and so does Ace Merrill’s gang.
Why River Phoenix Is The Reason It Lasts
The scene where Chris cries about the milk money is the one that made him a star at 15. Richard Dreyfuss narrates as the adult Gordie. Rob Reiner shot it in Oregon in summer with the four boys living together, and the final line about friends at twelve is the one people quote.
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