Ferris Bueller's Day Off is a 1986 American teen comedy film written, co-produced and directed by John Hughes, and co-produced by Tom Jacobson. The film stars Matthew Broderick as Ferris Bueller, a high-school slacker who spends a day off from school, with Mia Sara and Alan Ruck. Ferris regularly "breaks the fourth wall" to explain techniques and inner thoughts.
Hughes wrote the screenplay in less than a week. Filming began in September 1985 and finished in November 1985. Featuring many landmarks, including the Sears Tower and the Art Institute of Chicago, the film was Hughes' 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 one of the top-grossing films of the year, receiving $70.1 million over a $5.8 million budget, and was enthusiastically acclaimed by critics and audiences alike. In 2014, the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." In 2016, Paramount, Turner Classic Movies, and Fathom Events re-released the film and Pretty in Pink to celebrate its 30th anniversary.
Plot
In suburban Chicago, near the end of the high school year, senior Ferris Bueller fakes sickness to stay home. Throughout the film, Ferris frequently breaks the fourth wall to talk about his friends and give the audience advice on how to skip school. His parents believe him, though his sister Jeannie is not convinced. Dean of Students Edward R. Rooney suspects Ferris is being truant again and commits to catching him. Ferris convinces his friend Cameron Frye, who really is absent due to illness, to help get Ferris' girlfriend Sloane Peterson out of school by reporting that her grandmother has died. To trick Rooney, Ferris sways Cameron to let them use his father's prized 1961 Ferrari to collect Sloane. Cameron is dismayed when Ferris continues to use the car to drive them into downtown Chicago to spend the day, but Ferris promises they will return it as it was.
The trio leave the car with parking garage attendants who immediately take the car for a joy ride after they leave. Ferris, Cameron, and Sloane sightsee around the city, including the Art Institute of Chicago, Sears Tower, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and Wrigley Field, while narrowly dodging sight by Ferris' father. Cameron remains uninterested, and Ferris attempts to cheer him up by impromptu joining a parade float during the Von Steuben Day parade and lip-syncing Wayne Newton's cover of "Danke Schoen", as well as a rendition of The Beatles' "Twist and Shout" that excites the gathered crowds.
Meanwhile, Rooney investigates the Bueller home to try to prove Ferris' truancy, getting into several pratfalls. At the same time, Jeannie, frustrated that the entire school believes Ferris has come down with a deathly illness, skips class and returns home to confront him, only to hear someone outside trying to break-in. Rooney flees while she calls the police; when they arrive, they arrest her for filing a false report, and contact her mother to collect her. While waiting, she meets a juvenile delinquent, who advises her not to worry so much about Ferris. Mrs. Bueller arrives at the station, upset about having to forgo a house sale, only to find Jeannie kissing the delinquent, infuriating her more.
Ferris and his friends collect the Ferrari and depart for home, but shortly discover many miles have been added to the odometer, and Cameron becomes catatonic. Back at Cameron's garage, Ferris sets the car on blocks and runs it in reverse to try to take miles off the odometer without success. Cameron finally snaps, and lets out his anger against his controlling father by repeatedly kicking the car. This causes it to fall off the blocks and race in reverse through the back of the garage and into the ravine below. Ferris offers to take the blame, but Cameron asserts he will stand up against his father.
Ferris returns Sloane home and realizes his parents are due home soon. As he races on foot through the neighborhood, he is nearly hit by Jeannie driving their mother home. She speeds off trying to beat Ferris home. Ferris makes it home first, to find Rooney waiting for him outside. Jeannie races into the house as their mother talks to their father about her behavior today. Jeannie discovers Rooney threatening Ferris, and has a change of heart; she tells him that she was just helping to return Ferris from the hospital, and shows Rooney his wallet that she had found from his earlier break-in attempts. Rooney flees while Ferris thanks Jeannie and rushes back to his bedroom to greet his parents while feigning his waning illness. As they leave, Ferris reminds the audience, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."
The defeated Rooney heads home and is picked up by a school bus, further humiliated by the students. In a post-credits scene, Ferris emerges from his room, telling the audience that "It's over" and to "go home".
Cast
- Matthew Broderick as Ferris Bueller
- Alan Ruck as Cameron Frye
- Mia Sara as Sloane Peterson
- Jennifer Grey as Jeannie Bueller
- Jeffrey Jones as Edward R. Rooney
- Lyman Ward as Tom Bueller
- Cindy Pickett as Katie Bueller
- Edie McClurg as Grace
- Ben Stein as Economics Teacher
- Del Close as English Teacher
- Charlie Sheen as Garth Volbeck
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. It 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 the movie to be more focused 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."
Casting
Hughes said that he had 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." Other actors who were considered for the role included Jim Carrey, John Cusack, Tom Cruise and Michael J. Fox.
Sara surprised Hughes when she auditioned for the role of Sloane Peterson. "It was funny. 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 had also wanted to play Sloane, but according to Ringwald, "John wouldn't let me do it: he said that the part wasn't big enough for me."
Ruck had previously auditioned for the Bender role in The Breakfast Club which went to Judd Nelson, but Hughes remembered Ruck and cast him as the 17-year-old Cameron Frye. According to Hughes, the character of Cameron was largely based 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 originally 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, hellâ€"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 crashing 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 â€" and I thought he was just blowing his own horn â€" 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' 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."
Filming
"Chicago is what I am," said Hughes. "A lot of Ferris is sort of my love letter to the city. And the more people who get upset with the fact that I film there, the more I'll make sure that's exactly where I film. It's funnyâ€"nobody ever says anything to Woody Allen about always filming in New York. America has this great reverence for New York. I look at it as this decaying horror pit. So let the people in Chicago enjoy Ferris Bueller."
For the film, Hughes got the chance to take a more expansive look at the city he grew up in. "We took a helicopter up the Chicago River. This is the first chance I'd really had to get outside while making a movie. Up to this point, the pictures had been pretty small. I really wanted to capture as much of Chicago as I could, not just the architecture and the landscape, but the spirit." Shooting began in Chicago on September 9, 1985. In late October 1985, the production moved to Los Angeles, and shooting ended on November 22. The Von Steuben Day Parade scene was filmed on September 28. Scenes were filmed at several locations in downtown Chicago and Winnetka (Ferris's home, his mother's real estate office, etc.). Many of the other scenes were filmed in Northbrook, Illinois, including at Glenbrook North High School, on School Drive, the long, curvy street on which Glenbrook North and neighboring Maple Middle School are situated. The exterior of Ferris's house is located at 4160 Country Club Drive, Long Beach, California.
The modernist house of Cameron Frye is located in Highland Park, Illinois. Known as the Ben Rose House, it was designed by architects A. James Speyer, who designed the main building in 1954, and David Haid, who designed the pavilion in 1974. It was once owned by photographer Ben Rose, who had a car collection in the pavilion. In the film Cameron's father is portrayed as owning a Ferrari 250 GT California in the same pavilion. According to Lake Forest College art professor Franz Shulze, during the filming of the scene where the Ferrari crashes out of the window, Haid explained to Hughes that he could prevent the car from damaging the rest of the pavilion. Haid fixed connections in the wall and the building remained intact. Haid said to Hughes afterward, "You owe me $25,000", which Hughes paid. Other scenes were shot in Chicago, River Forest, Oak Park, Northbrook, Highland Park, Glencoe and Winnetka, Lake Forest and Long Beach, California. After Ben Rose's death in 2009 the house was offered for sale and was sold in 2014.
According to Hughes, the scene at the Art Institute of Chicago was "a self-indulgent scene of mineâ€"which was a place of refuge for me, I went there quite a bit, I loved it. I knew all the paintings, the building. This was a chance for me to go back into this building and show the paintings that were my favorite." The museum had not been shot in, until the producers of the film approached them. "I remember Hughes saying, 'There are going to be more works of art in this movie than there have ever been before,'" recalled Jennifer Grey.
According to editor Paul Hirsch, in the original cut, the museum scene fared poorly at test screenings until he switched sequences around and Hughes changed the soundtrack.
The piece of music I originally chose was a classical guitar solo played on acoustic guitar. It was nonmetrical with a lot of rubato. I cut the sequence to that music and it also became nonmetrical and irregular. I thought it was great and so did Hughes. He loved it so much that he showed it to the studio but they just went "Ehhh." Then after many screenings where the audience said "The museum scene is the scene we like least", he decided to replace the music. We had all loved it, but the audience hated it. I said, 'I think I know why they hate the museum scene. It's in the wrong place.' Originally, the parade sequence came before the museum sequence, but I realized that the parade was the highlight of the day, there was no way we could top it, so it had to be the last thing before the three kids go home. So that was agreed upon, we reshuffled the events of the day, and moved the museum sequence before the parade. Then we screened it and everybody loved the museum scene! My feeling was that they loved it because it came in at the right point in the sequence of events. John felt they loved it because of the music. Basically, the bottom line is, it worked.
The music used for the final version of the museum sequence is an instrumental cover version of The Smiths' "Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want", performed by The Dream Academy. A passionate Beatles fan, Hughes makes multiple references to them and John Lennon in the script. During filming, Hughes "listened to The White Album every single day for fifty-six days". Hughes also pays tribute to his childhood hero Gordie Howe with Cameron's Detroit Red Wings jersey. "I sent them the jersey", said Howe. "It was nice seeing the No. 9 on the big screen."
Car
In the film, Ferris convinces Cameron to borrow his father's rare 1961 Ferrari GT California. "The insert shots of the Ferrari were of the real 250 GT California", Hughes explains in the DVD commentary. "The cars we used in the wide shots were obviously reproductions. There were only 100 of these cars, so it was way too expensive to destroy. We had a number of replicas made. They were pretty good, but for the tight shots I needed a real one, so we brought one in to the stage and shot the inserts with it."
Prior to filming, Hughes learned about Modena Design and Development who produced the Modena Spyder California, a replica of the Ferrari 250 GT. Hughes saw a mention of the company in a car magazine and decided to research them. Neil Glassmoyer recalls the day Hughes contacted him to ask about seeing the Modena Spyder:
The first time he called I hung up on him because I thought it was a friend of mine who was given to practical jokes. Then he called back and convinced me it really was him, so Mark and I took the car to his office. While we were waiting outside to meet Hughes this scruffy-looking fellow came out of the building and began looking the car over; we thought from his appearance he must have been a janitor or something. Then he looked up at a window and shouted, 'This is it!' and several heads poked out to have a look. That scruffy-looking fellow was John Hughes, and the people in the window were his staff. Turned out it was between the Modena Spyder and a Porsche Turbo, and Hughes chose the Modena.
Automobile restorationist Mark Goyette designed the kits for three reproductions used in the film and chronicled the whereabouts of the cars today:
- "Built by Goyette and leased to Paramount for the filming. It's the one that jumps over the camera, and is used in almost every shot. At the end of filming, Paramount returned it to Goyette, with the exhaust crushed and cracks in the body. "There was quite a bit of superficial damage, but it held up amazingly well", he said. He rebuilt it, and sold it to a young couple in California. The husband later ran it off the road, and Goyette rebuilt the front end for him. That owner sold it in the mid-90s, and it turned up again around 2000, but hasn't emerged since."
- "Sold to Paramount as a kit for them to assemble as their stunt car, they did such a poor job that it was basically unusable, aside from going backwards out the window of Cameron's house. Rebuilt, it ended up at Planet Hollywood in Minneapolis and was moved to Planet Hollywood in Cancun when this one was closed."
- "Another kit, supposed to be built as a shell for the out the window scene, it was never completed at all, and disappeared after the film was completed. Goyette thinks he once heard it was eventually completed and sold off, but it could also still be in a back lot at Paramount."
One of the "replicars" was sold by Bonhams on April 19, 2010, at the Royal Air Force Museum at Hendon, United Kingdom for £79,600.
The "replicar" was "universally hated by the crew", said Ruck. "It didn't work right." The scene in which Ferris turns off the car to leave it with the garage attendant had to be shot a dozen times because it would not start. The car was built with a real wheel base, but used a Ford V8 engine instead of a V12. At the time of filming, the original 250 GT California model was worth $350,000. Since the release of the film, it has become one of the most expensive cars ever sold, going at auction in 2008 for $10,976,000 and more recently in 2015 for $16,830,000. The vanity plate of Cameron's dad's Ferrari spells NRVOUS and the other plates seen in the film are homages to Hughes's earlier works, VCTN (National Lampoon's Vacation), TBC (The Breakfast Club), MMOM (Mr. Mom), as well as 4FBDO (Ferris Bueller's Day Off).
Economic lecture
Ben Stein's famous monotonous lecture about the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act was not originally in Hughes's script. Stein, by happenstance, was lecturing off-camera to the amusement of the student cast. "I was just going to do it off camera, but the student extras laughed so hard when they heard my voice that (Hughes) said do it on camera, improvise, something you know a lot about. When I gave the lecture about supply-side economics, I thought they were applauding. Everybody on the set applauded. I thought they were applauding because they had learned something about supply-side economics. But they were applauding because they thought I was boring...It was the best day of my life", Stein said.
Parade scene
The parade scene took multiple days of filming; Broderick spent some time practicing the dance moves. "I was very scared", Broderick said. "Fortunately, the sequence was carefully choreographed beforehand. We worked out all the moves by rehearsing in a little studio. It was shot on two Saturdays in the heart of downtown Chicago. The first day was during a real parade, and John got some very long shots. Then radio stations carried announcements inviting people to take part in 'a John Hughes movie'. The word got around fast and 10,000 people showed up! For the final shot, I turned around and saw a river of people. I put my hands up at the end of the number and heard this huge roar. I can understand how rock stars feel. That kind of reaction feeds you."
Broderick's moves were choreographed by Kenny Ortega (who later choreographed Dirty Dancing). Much of it had to be scrapped though as Broderick had injured his knee badly during the scenes of running through neighbors' backyards. "I was pretty sore", Broderick said. "I got well enough to do what you see in the parade there, but I couldn't do most of Kenny Ortega's knee spins and things like that that we had worked on. When we did shoot it, we had all this choreography and I remember John would yell with a megaphone, 'Okay, do it again, but don't do any of the choreography,' because he wanted it to be a total mess." "Danke Schoen" was somewhat choreographed but for "Twist and Shout", Broderick said, "we were just making everything up". Hughes explained that much of the scene was spontaneously filmed. "It just happened that this was an actual parade, which we put our float intoâ€"unbeknownst to anybody, all the people on the reviewing stand. Nobody knew what it was, including the governor."
Wrigley Field
Wrigley Field is featured in two interwoven and consecutive scenes. In the first scene, Rooney is looking for Ferris at a pizza joint while the voice of Harry Caray announces the action of a ballgame that is being shown on TV. From the play-by-play descriptions, the uniforms, and the player numbers, this game has been identified as the June 5, 1985, game between the Atlanta Braves and the Chicago Cubs. The batter rips a foul ball into the left field stands, and as Rooney looks away from the TV briefly, the TV cameras show a close up of Ferris a moment after catching it. The scene in the pizza joint continues as Rooney tries to banter about the game with the guy behind the counter.
In the next scene, Sloane, Cameron, and Ferris are in the left field stands inside Wrigley. Ferris flexes his hand in pain after supposedly catching the foul ball. During this scene, the characters enjoy the game and joke about what they would be doing if they had played by the rules. All these "in the park" shots, including the one from the previous scene where Ferris catches the foul ball on TV, were filmed on September 24, 1985, at a game between the Montreal Expos and the Cubs. During the 1985 season, the Braves and the Expos both wore powder blue uniforms during their road games. And so, with seamless editing by Hughes, it is difficult to distinguish that the game being seen and described in the pizza joint is not only a different game but also a different Cubs' opponent than the one filmed inside the stadium.
John Hughes had originally wanted to film the scene at the baseball game at Comiskey Park, as Hughes was a Chicago White Sox fan. However, due to time constraints, the location was moved to Wrigley Field at the last minute.
On October 1, 2011, Wrigley Field celebrated the 25th anniversary of the film by showing it on three giant screens on the infield.
Deleted scenes
Several scenes were cut from the final film; one lost scene entitled "The Isles of Langerhans" has the three teenagers trying to order in the French restaurant, shocked to discover pancreas on the menu (although in the finished film, Ferris still says, "We ate pancreas", while recapping the day). This is featured on the Bueller, Bueller Edition DVD. Other scenes were never made available on any DVD version. These scenes included additional screen time with Jeanie in a locker room, Ferris' younger brother and sister (both of whom were completely removed from the film), and additional/alternate lines of dialogue throughout the film, all of which can be seen in the original theatrical trailer. Hughes had also wanted to film a scene where Ferris, Sloane, and Cameron go to a strip club. Paramount executives told him there were only so many shooting days left, so the scene was scrapped.
Music
Limited edition fan club soundtrack
An official soundtrack was not originally released for the film, as director John Hughes felt the songs would not work well together as a continuous album. However, according to an interview with Lollipop Magazine, Hughes noted that he had sent 100,000 7" vinyl singles containing two songs featured in the film to members of his fan mailing list.
Hughes gave further details about his refusal to release a soundtrack in the Lollipop interview:
The only official soundtrack that Ferris Bueller's Day Off ever had was for the mailing list. A&M was very angry with me over that; they begged me to put one out, but I thought "who'd want all of these songs?" I mean, would kids want "Danke Schoen" and "Oh Yeah" on the same record? They probably already had "Twist and Shout", or their parents did, and to put all of those together with the more contemporary stuff, like the (English) Beatâ€"I just didn't think anybody would like it. But I did put together a seven-inch of the two songs I owned the rights toâ€""Beat City" on one side, and... I forget, one of the other English bands on the soundtrack... and sent that to the mailing list. By '86, '87, it was costing us $30 a piece to mail out 100,000 packages. But it was a labor of love.
Songs in the film
Songs featured in the film include:
- "Love Missile F1-11" (Extended Version) by Sigue Sigue Sputnik
- "Jeannie" (Theme from I Dream of Jeannie)
- "Beat City" by The Flowerpot Men
- "Main Title" by John Williams (From Star Wars)
- "Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want" (instrumental) by The Dream Academy (a cover of a song by The Smiths)
- "The Celebrated Minuet" by Luigi Boccherini (Performed by the Zagreb Philharmonic Chamber Studio)
- "Danke Schoen" by Wayne Newton
- "Twist and Shout" by The Beatles
- "Radio People" by Zapp
- "I'm Afraid" by Blue Room
- "Taking the Day Off" by General Public
- "The Edge of Forever" by The Dream Academy
- "March of the Swivelheads" (a remix of "Rotating Head") by The (English) Beat
- "Oh Yeah" by Yello
- "BAD" by Big Audio Dynamite
- "Go Down Moses" credited to the Fisk Jubilee Singers in 1871 (The dirge-like song that Cameron sings to himself while lying in his sick bed)
"Danke Schoen" is one of the recurring motifs in the film and is sung by Ferris, Ed Rooney, and Jeanie. Hughes called it the "most awful song of my youth. Every time it came on, I just wanted to scream, claw my face. I was taking German in high schoolâ€"which meant that we listened to it in school. I couldn't get away from it." According to Broderick, Ferris's singing "Danke Schoen" in the shower was his idea. "Although it's only because of the brilliance of John's deciding that I should sing "Danke Schoen" on the float in the parade. I had never heard the song before. I was learning it for the parade scene. So we're doing the shower scene and I thought, 'Well, I can do a little rehearsal.' And I did something with my hair to make that Mohawk. And you know what good directors do: they say, 'Stop! Wait till we roll.' And John put that stuff in."
2016 soundtrack
The soundtrack for the film, limited to 5,000 copies, was released on September 13, 2016 by La-La Land Records. The album includes new wave and pop songs featured in the film, as well as Ira Newborn's complete score, including unused cues. Due to licensing restrictions, "Twist and Shout," "Taking The Day Off," and "March of the Swivelheads" were not included, but are available elsewhere. The Flowerpot Men's "Beat City" makes its first official release on CD with a new mix done by The Flowerpot Men's Ben Watkins and Adam Peters that differs from the original 7" fan club release.
Reception
Critical
The film largely received positive reviews from critics. It is "Certified Fresh" on Rotten Tomatoes, having an aggregated score of 81% (based on 62 critics' reviews), and an average rating of 7.7/10. The site's consensus reads "Matthew Broderick charms in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, a light and irrepressibly fun movie about being young and having fun." Roger Ebert gave it three out of four stars, calling it "one of the most innocent movies in a long time,†and “a sweet, warm-hearted comedy." Richard Roeper called the film "one of my favorite movies of all time. It has one of the highest 'repeatability' factors of any film I've ever seen ... I can watch it again and again. There's also this, and I say it in all sincerity: Ferris Bueller's Day Off is something of a suicide prevention film, or at the very least a story about a young man trying to help his friend gain some measure of self-worth ... Ferris has made it his mission to show Cameron that the whole world in front of him is passing him by, and that life can be pretty sweet if you wake up and embrace it. That's the lasting message of Ferris Bueller's Day Off." Roeper pays homage to the film with a license plate that reads "SVFRRIS". Conservative columnist George Will hailed Ferris as "the moviest movie," a film "most true to the general spirit of the movies, the spirit of effortless escapism."
Essayist Steve Almond called Ferris "the most sophisticated teen movie [he] had ever seen," adding that while Hughes had made a lot of good movies, Ferris was the "one film [he] would consider true art, [the] only one that reaches toward the ecstatic power of teendom [sic] and, at the same time, exposes the true, piercing woe of that age." Almond also applauded Ruck's performance, going so far as saying he deserved the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor of 1986: "His performance is what elevates the film, allows it to assume the power of a modern parable." The New York Times reviewer Nina Darnton criticized Mia Sara's portrayal of Sloane for lacking "the specific detail that characterized the adolescent characters in Hughes's other films", asserting she "created a basically stable but forgettable character." Conversely, Darnton praised Ruck and Grey's performances: "The two people who grow in the movieâ€"Cameron, played with humor and sensitivity by Alan Ruck, and Ferris's sister Jeanie, played with appropriate self-pity by Jennifer Greyâ€"are the most authentic. Grey manages to play an insufferably sulky teen-ager who is still attractive and likable."
National Review writer Mark Hemingway lauded the film's celebration of liberty. "If there's a better celluloid expression of ordinary American freedom than Ferris Bueller's Day Off, I have yet to see it. If you could take one day and do absolutely anything, piling into a convertible with your best girl and your best friend and taking in a baseball game, an art museum, and a fine meal seems about as good as it gets," wrote Hemingway.
Others were less enamored with Ferris, many taking issue with the film's "rebel without a cause" hedonism. David Denby of New York Magazine, called the film "a nauseating distillation of the slack, greedy side of Reaganism." Author Christina Lee agreed, adding it was a “splendidly ridiculous exercise in unadulterated indulgence,†and the film “encapsulated the Reagan era's near solipsist worldview and insatiable appetite for immediate gratificationâ€"of living in and for the moment....†Gene Siskel panned the film from a Chicago-centric perspective saying “Ferris Bueller doesn't do anything much fun ... [t]hey don't even sit in the bleachers where all the kids like to sit when they go to Cubs games.†Siskel did enjoy the chemistry between Jennifer Grey and Charlie Sheen. Ebert thought Siskel was too eager to find flaws in the film's view of Chicago.
Accolades
Broderick was nominated for a Golden Globe Award in 1986 for Best Actor â€" Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.
American Film Institute recognition:
- AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs - Nominated
- AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.†- Nominated.
Box office
The film opened in 1,330 theaters in the United States and had a total weekend gross of $6,275,647, opening at #2. Ferris Bueller's Day Off's total gross in the United States was approximately $70,136,369, making it a box office success. It subsequently became the 10th-highest-grossing film of 1986.
Rankings
As an influential and popular film, Ferris Bueller's Day Off has been included in many film rating lists. The film is number 54 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies", came 26th in the British 50 Greatest Comedy Films and ranked number 10 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the "50 Best High School Movies".
Cultural impact
First Lady Barbara Bush paraphrased the film in her 1990 commencement address at Wellesley College: "Find the joy in life, because as Ferris Bueller said on his day off, 'Life moves pretty fast; if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it!'" Responding to the audience's enthusiastic applause, she added "I'm not going to tell George ya clapped more for Ferris than ya clapped for George."
Other phrases from Ferris Bueller's Day Off such as Stein's nasally-voiced "Bueller? ...Bueller? ...Bueller?" (while taking roll call in class), and "Anyone? Anyone?" (trying to probe the students for answers) as well as Kristy Swanson's cheerful "No problem whatsoever!" also permeated popular culture. In fact, Stein's monotone performance launched his acting career. In 2016, Stein reprised the attendance scene in a campaign ad for Iowa Senator Charles Grassley; Stein intoned the last name of Grassley's opponent (Patty Judge), to silence, while facts about her missed votes and absences from state board meetings were listed. Stein then calls out "Grassley," which gets a response; Stein mutters, "He's always here."
Broderick said of the Ferris Bueller role, "It eclipsed everything, I should admit, and to some degree it still does." Later at the 2010 Oscar tribute to Hughes, he said, "For the past 25 years, nearly every day someone comes up to me, taps me on the shoulder and says, 'Hey, Ferris, is this your day off?'"
Ruck says that with Cameron Frye, Hughes gave him "the best part I ever had in a movie, and any success that I've had since 1985 is because he took a big chance on me. I'll be forever grateful." "While we were making the movie, I just knew I had a really good part", Ruck says. "My realization of John's impact on the teen-comedy genre crept in sometime later. Teen comedies tend to dwell on the ridiculous, as a rule. It's always the preoccupation with sex and the self-involvement, and we kind of hold the kids up for ridicule in a way. Hughes added this element of dignity. He was an advocate for teenagers as complete human beings, and he honored their hopes and their dreams. That's what you see in his movies."
Lyman Ward and Cindy Pickett, who play the parents, met on the set in 1986 and were married a short time after that. The two again played parents in the 1992 horror film Sleepwalkers.
Broderick starred in a television advertisement prepared by Honda promoting its CR-V for the 2012 Super Bowl XLVI. The ad pays homage to Ferris Bueller, featuring Broderick (as himself) faking illness to skip out of work to enjoy sightseeing around Los Angeles. Several elements, such as the use of the song "Oh Yeah", and a valet monotonously calling for "Broderick... Broderick...", appear in the ad. A teaser for the ad had appeared two weeks prior to the Super Bowl, which had created rumors of a possible film sequel. It was produced by Santa Monica-based RPA and directed by Todd Phillips. AdWeek's Tim Nudd called the ad "a great homage to the original 1986 film, with Broderick this time calling in sick to a film shoot and enjoying another day of slacking." On the other hand, Jalopnik's Matt Hardigree called the spot "sacrilegious".
The 2016 movie Deadpool's post-credit scene is an homage to Ferris Bueller's post-credit scene. Deadpool is dressed in a robe and talks directly to the audience in a hallway that looks similar to the one in the movie. Similar to Ferris, Deadpool says "You're still here? It's over. Go home." At the end of the scene, Deadpool leans back into the frame from behind a doorway, and makes the "Chicka-chickahhhh" sound from Ferris Bueller.
An episode titled "Brian Finch’s Black Op" of the 2016 TV series Limitless paid homage to the movie.
In March 2017, Domino's Pizza began an advertising campaign parodying the film, featuring actor Joe Keery in the lead role.
The 2017 movie "Spider-Man: Homecoming also pays tribute to "Ferris Bueller".The scene involving Spider-Man chasing Herman Schultz and Jackson Brice has Spidey jumping and running through backyards to catch the criminals.One can also see "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" being played.
Music
The film's influence in popular culture extends beyond the film itself to how musical elements of the film have been received as well, for example, Yello's song "Oh Yeah". As Jonathan Bernstein explains, "Never a hit, this slice of Swiss-made tomfoolery with its varispeed vocal effects and driving percussion was first used by John Hughes to illustrate the mouthwatering must-haveness of Cameron's dad's Ferrari. Since then, it has become synonymous with avarice. Every time a movie, TV show or commercial wants to underline the jaw-dropping impact of a hot babe or sleek auto, that synth-drum starts popping and that deep voice rumbles, 'Oh yeah . . .'" Concerning the influence of another song used in the film, Roz Kaveney writes that some "of the finest moments in later teen film draw on Ferris's blithe Dionysian fervour â€" the elaborate courtship by song in 10 Things I Hate About You (1999) draws usefully on the "Twist and Shout" sequence in Ferris Bueller's Day Off". The bands Save Ferris and Rooney were named in allusion to Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
"Twist and Shout" charted again, 16 years after the Beatles broke up, as a result of its prominent appearance in both this film and Back To School (where Rodney Dangerfield performs a cover version) which was released the same weekend as Ferris Bueller's Day Off. The re-released single reached #23 in the U.S; a US-only compilation album containing the track The Early Beatles, re-entered the album charts at #197. The version heard in the film includes brass overdubbed onto the Beatles' original recording, which did not go down well with Paul McCartney. "I liked [the] film but they overdubbed some lousy brass on the stuff! If it had needed brass, we'd had stuck it on ourselves!" Upon hearing McCartney's reaction, Hughes felt bad for "offend[ing] a Beatle. But it wasn't really part of the song. We saw a band [onscreen] and we needed to hear the instruments."
Sequel
Broderick and Hughes stayed in touch for a while after production. "We thought about a sequel to Ferris Bueller, where he'd be in college or at his first job, and the same kind of things would happen again. But neither of us found a very exciting hook to that. The movie is about a singular time in your life." "Ferris Bueller is about the week before you leave school, it's about the end of schoolâ€"in some way, it doesn't have a sequel. It's a little moment and it's a lightning flash in your life. I mean, you could try to repeat it in college or something but it's a time that you don't keep. So that's partly why I think we couldn't think of another", Broderick added. "But just for fun", said Ruck, "I used to think why don't they wait until Matthew and I are in our seventies and do Ferris Bueller Returns and have Cameron be in a nursing home. He doesn't really need to be there, but he just decided his life is over, so he committed himself to a nursing home. And Ferris comes and breaks him out. And they go to, like, a titty bar and all this ridiculous stuff happens. And then, at the end of the movie, Cameron dies."
Academic analysis
Many scholars have discussed at length the film's depiction of academia and youth culture. For Martin Morse Wooster, the film "portrayed teachers as humorless buffoons whose only function was to prevent teenagers from having a good time". Regarding not specifically teachers, but rather a type of adult characterization in general, Art Silverblatt asserts that the "adults in Ferris Bueller's Day Off are irrelevant and impotent. Ferris's nemesis, the school disciplinarian, Mr. Rooney, is obsessed with 'getting Bueller.' His obsession emerges from envy. Strangely, Ferris serves as Rooney's role model, as he clearly possesses the imagination and power that Rooney lacks. ... By capturing and disempowering Ferris, Rooney hopes to ... reduce Ferris's influence over other students, which would reestablish adults, that is, Rooney, as traditional authority figures." Nevertheless, Silverblatt concludes that "Rooney is essentially a comedic figure, whose bumbling attempts to discipline Ferris are a primary source of humor in the film". Thomas Patrick Doherty writes that "the adult villains in teenpics such as ... Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) are overdrawn caricatures, no real threat; they're played for laughs". Yet Silverblatt also remarks that casting "the principal as a comic figure questions the competence of adults to provide young people with effective directionâ€"indeed, the value of adulthood itself".
Adults are not the stars or main characters of the film, and Roz Kaveney notes that what "Ferris Bueller brings to the teen genre, ultimately, is a sense of how it is possible to be cool and popular without being rich or a sports hero. Unlike the heroes of Weird Science, Ferris is computer savvy without being a nerd or a geek â€" it is a skill he has taken the trouble to learn."
In 2010, English comedian Dan Willis performed his show "Ferris Bueller's Way Of..." at the Edinburgh Festival, delving into the philosophy of the movie and looking for life answers within.
Home media
The film was first released on VHS and Laserdisc in 1987, and then re-released on VHS in 1996. The film has been released on DVD three times; including the original DVD release October 19, 1999, the Bueller... Bueller edition January 2006, and the I Love the '80s edition August 19, 2008. The original DVD, like most Paramount Pictures films released on DVD for the first time, has very few bonus features, but it does feature a commentary by Hughes. Though this is no longer available for sale, the director's commentary is available here. The Bueller... Bueller re-release has several more bonus features, but does not contain the commentary track of the original DVD release. The I Love the '80s edition is identical to the first DVD release (no features aside from commentary), but includes a bonus CD with songs from the 1980s. The songs are not featured in the film. The Bueller... Bueller edition has multiple bonus features such as interviews with the cast and crew, along with a clip of Stein's commentaries on the film's philosophy and impact. The Blu-ray Disc release (which is a part of the Bueller... Bueller edition, with the same bonus material) was first released on May 5, 2009. A 25th anniversary edition for DVD and Blu-ray were both released on August 2, 2011.
Television series
In 1990, a series called Ferris Bueller started for NBC, starring Charlie Schlatter as Ferris Bueller, Jennifer Aniston as Jeanie Bueller, and Ami Dolenz as Sloane Peterson. The series served as a prequel to the film. In the pilot episode, the audience sees Schlatter cutting up a cardboard cutout of Matthew Broderick, saying that he hated Broderick's performance as him. It was produced by Maysh, Ltd. Productions in association with Paramount Television. In part because of competition of the similar series on the Fox Television Network, Parker Lewis Can't Lose, the series was canceled after the first thirteen episodes aired. Both Schlatter and Aniston later had success on other TV shows, Schlatter on Diagnosis: Murder and Aniston on Friends.
References
External links
- Ferris Bueller's Day Off on IMDb
- Ferris Bueller's Day Off at the TCM Movie Database
- Ferris Bueller's Day Off at AllMovie
- Ferris Bueller's Day Off at the American Film Institute Catalog
- Ferris Bueller's Day Off at Box Office Mojo
- Ferris Bueller's Day Off at Rotten Tomatoes
- McNally, Edward (2009-08-12). "A Mirror Up To the Original Ferris Bueller". The Washington Post.Â
- Ferris Bueller's Day Off and its 25 contributions to pop culture lore, Jen Chaney, The Washington Post, June 10, 2011