This week saw a YT content creator with the name "Meri Cherry", it seemed inspired by your name but I don't remember the content. I'm happy you finally got to this film👍👍✨️
Between the real life parallels (River Phoenix dying young, Wil Wheaton became a writer, Feldman being abused to the point he has obvious PTSD from it all) and finding out Wil Wheaton wasn't really acting when Gordie has his "why doesn't he love me" breakdown makes this a hard re-watch at times for me. I'm glad younger generations are getting to see it.
How about the fact that Wil Wheaton was coping with an abusive family all while he was on Star Trek, and was coping through his working relationships with the Star Trek actors? That's some kind of parallel
There were no video games in the 50s. Television itself was just a few years old at that time. You got to remember this movie takes place just a little over a decade since WW2 ended. Teddy makes several references to his dad being a part of D-Day (Normandy) for example. That's why they pretend to be soldiers or the Lone Ranger, which was a very popular show in the 50s, things like that.
In case Mary doesn't know, the kid actor playing Chris was River Phoenix, the older brother of Joaquin Phoenix, who died of an overdose in 1993 at 23 years old. One of the best actors of his generation. (He also played the young Indiana Jones at the beginning of The Last Crusade.)
Eyeball was the bad guy that was like woooo wooooo! And eyeball was in Explorers as well guess who else was in it. 3 movies and Eyeball is always plays his protagonist.
Somewhere out there in the Multiverse, there is a far better timeline than our own, in which River Phoenix, Kurt Cobain, Chris Farley, John Candy, Sam Kinison, Phil Hartman, and... um... a bunch of other people I'm not thinking of right at the moment, survived the 90s, and continued to be part of our lives all the way into present times...
The novella actually goes into deeper details on how hard Chris worked to make something of himself, despite everyone (teachers, ex-friends, and even family) constantly undermining his efforts. Gordie was actually the only one that helped him get through high school and into college, and they only drifted apart because Chris went into law while Gordie went into teaching.
Dont know if anyone else has mentioned this but in the states, most trains arent for moving passengers, they move cargo. Trains move through less congested countryside, we only see them when they come in to towns to unload at all times night and day. They arent watching in front of them as they have stuff to watch inside the cab of the engine. Hope this helps explain a bit more :)
It's amazing to me that in the very beginning, Gordy is sitting in his car, reading about Chris' death and when it's mentioned again at the end, nobody remembers that we were already informed about it in the opening seconds of the movie. How to process sudden, tragic death & grief is really the core theme here. And friendship is the heart of this piece. Mary, I hope your back feels better and your hair is gorgeous. All the best ❤️
Rob Reiner screened the movie for Steven King before it was released. When it was over, King stood up and left the room in silence. Reiner was worried that King was upset, but when he came back King told him it was the best adaptation of one of his stories he'd ever seen. "Stand by Me" captures how boys of that age act around each other better than any other movie I know. Video games weren't even thought of in 1959. Computers used IBM cards and printers, not screen, mice, or keyboards, and were so big they would take up a large room. They were so expensive that only big institutions like banks, insurance companies, and government agencies had them. The town in the film is called "Castle Rock." That became the name of Rob Reiner's production company. There wasn't enough room on the side of the train trestle. The train would have hit them no matter how close to the edge they were. "The $64,000 Question" was a real TV game show. It started on radio in the 1940s as a show called "Take It or Leave It," but was renamed to "The $64 Question." It eventually came out that the show was rigged. Coyotes sound scary, but they mostly stay away from people (though they're dangerous to household pets). Dingoes are a lot more dangerous. Almost everyone in this movie except the four kids is terrible. The fathers are really bad, the junk dealer is nasty, the gang of teenaged punks are criminal (especially Ace). The store owner wasn't too terrible (though his comparing Gordie to his brother wasn't helpful). Gordie's poor mom wasn't a bad person, but was in such a state of mourning that she couldn't be there for Gordie, who was also grieving. "This Is Spin̈al Tap" and "When Harry Met Sally," also directed by Rob Reiner, would be really good to react to. Thanks!
Likely freight trains rather than passenger lines, on a line of track in the middle of a wooded area, the only possible witness would be the engineer piloting the train, and a moment's distraction would be enough to miss hitting a kid.
Yeah, even back in the late 1950's, most trains in the Pacific Northwest would have been freight trains and not passenger trains. Also, the engineers are sitting up pretty high and with the boilers in front of them, it's very likely they can't see much directly in front of them.
@@jean-paulaudette9246 But there was no screeching of the brakes so the engineer here never applied them. It's a movie. This train also had very few cars so not so much mass.
That story about the pie eating contest is exactly something a twelve year old boy would write.😂 Chris' death was the one in the papers at the beginning, so he lived to near 40 before interrupting that fight. Another excellent Richard Dreyfuss film is "Mr. Holland's Opus" about a struggling composer who has to become a music teacher.
Ikr? In about a couple of years after this. Watched younger brother, Joaquin Phoenix, in "Parenthood". River was the better actor. But baby bro Joaquin has flourished in the movie business. Still. "What if"? RIP, River.
One of the greatest "coming of age" films ever made. This was a staple of my childhood, even though I was born years after it came out! A special thanks to my mom for instilling a love for great filmmaking!
Freight trains have no passengers, and the engineers can't easily see in front of them. If they noticed that they hit something they would probably have thought it was a deer or something. This is the best interpretation of a Steven King novel ever put to film.
An 11 year old kid getting hit by a train would never be heard or even felt by anyone on board, it would have to be seen and that could happen in the blink of an eye and so easily missed.
trains are a LOT Wider than the tracks they are on. When the kids are on the bridge there is no "Side" that they could have used. Also growing up in Oregon I was happy to hear you pronounce it Correct instead of the usual "Or-E-Gone" Also now that i think about it the movie came out in 1986, but its set in 1959 (27 Years) rounding up to 2025, thats the equivalent of a movie set in 1998. kids coming of age in 1998 would probably be an interesting movie.
Also worth noting that American freight trains can be carrying up to 100 cars and even with all brakes applied take several miles to stop from when the stop is initiated.
Love how people who weren't even remotely alive in a certain time thinks they know what would happen in circumstances they'd never even imagine - Christ how judgey she can be and many of these tubers - unreal
Yeah, you forget how much more people smoked back in the day. Back in the 80s, my high school had an unofficial, but fully condoned and maintained, smoking area.
Hi Mary. Just to make sure Chris had a life as a lawyer. At the beginning of the movie were adult Gordy reads the death of his friend Chris in the news article, it is what initiates Gordy to relate that time of him searching for a body with his friends.
I think this film hits the nostalgia quota for a lot of us. It came out at a time when a lot of boomers were raising their families and it brought them back to their childhoods. They showed films like this to their Gen X and elder Millennial kids. So now we feel nostalgic about it, too, even though we didn’t grow up in the era the movie took place. I always think about my childhood in the 80s whenever I watch I this film.
When the kids are crossing the train trestle, you can see that there is nowhere for them to go "on the sides" as there were no sides there; if they went left or right they would take a 100 ft drop to the river below which would most likely kill them. And a loaded freight train traveling at normal speed needs almost full mile to come to a complete stop simply because of physics and the weight of the train. There were two girls killed very near where I grew up back in 1974 from the same exact scenario, walking on a train trestle and the train surprised them. They both did exactly what was in the movie which was running as fast as they could, unfortunately neither one survived.
Hi Mary, Aussie guy here. I was a teenager when this came out and it was pretty popular in Aus. at the time. Especially on home video! It is based on a novella called The Body from a collection called Different Seasons, the same book the Shawshank Redemption comes from, yes it is a very good read!
Video games in 1959? Time for a little history. The first "computer" was the ENIAC, built for the United States Navy in 1946. It had vacuum tubes, and filled an entire 5-storey building. The heat from the vacuum tubes alone heated the entire building as well. One of the first video games was released in 1972 by a company called Atari. It was called Pong, and it was sort of 2-dimensional table tennis. People went to pinball machine arcades to play it. When I took my first computer class in high school in 1976, the 'computer,' an IBM mainframe, was off campus. We had CRT monitors and keyboards connected to it, but our terminals couldn't do anything but type. When I took my second, and last, computer class in college in 1983, we had to type out our computer code on a machine that made 80-column paper punch cards. If we didn't type the code absolutely perfectly, the program would not run. I'm a terrible typist so I had a terrible experience. I think the first personal computers came out around 1975. The earliest ones were sold in kit form and you had to assemble them yourself. Suffice it to say that kids in 1959 did not have video games. They had movie westerns with lots of shooting, and movies about World War 2.
You expect MODERN YOUNG PEOPLE in the 2020s to actually know about REAL HISTORY? 😅😂 Welcome To 2025. Unfortunately when it comes to anything that happened before the 1990s these kids are COMPLETELY CLUELESS! 🤣😅😂 I realized that about 10 or 15 years ago. SPECIFICALLY back in 2008 when Obama got in.
Love movies that "give away" the ending right at the beginning. You hear/see it, but it doesn't resonate fully, or sometimes it doesn't register at all, until you take the journey through the whole movie. The opening scene is of him looking at the newspaper saying that Chris Chambers was killed.
American Grafffitti is a great one to add to your coming of age list. It's directed by George Lucas and features Ron Howard and Richard Dreyfuss. One one the best soundtracks in movie history. Rob Reiner is a very underrate director. Stand by me, Princess Bride, and This is Spinal tap are all generation defining movies.
Even most Americans haven't seen a pie-eating contest, at least since the 1970s. Those dry heaves while crying by Chris and Gordie hit me too close to home in my childhood memories!😢
@@jackmessick2869 Lol The only thing I’ve seen that is remotely like that is a watermelon eating contest. We were in elementary School and it was a school event.
In the novel it was confirmed that the reason Teddy’s father burned his ear was because Teddy accidentally broke a plate while putting away clean dishes. It’s mentioned multiple times that his dad is a WW2 veteran, so PTSD is the reason for the high level abuse and kind of explains why Teddy was defending his dad against old man Pressman.
The deer is not random - it symbolizes the boys' innocence being lost. One of Reiner's best films with a fantastic cast & adaptation of King's novella which you should read too.
This is one of those big childhood movies for me. I was 5 when it came out. By the the time I was 12 (like the kids in the movie,) I had probably seen it 50 times. One big thing about this movie, and me: I've been watching horror movies, since I was 3 (my mother's a fan.) Seeing DEAD Ray Brower was scarier than any horror movie. Horror movies were scary. But, they were never REAL to me. There was always something so real about the body (and mostly the face) of Ray Brower.
The $64,000 question was literally from a game show called "The $64,000 Question." It had more or less the same format as "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?"
"Quiz Show" was about the game show scandal of the late 50's. Directed by Robert Redford, stars Ralph Fiennes. As a side note, I once met Dan Enright when my brother invited me to visit him while he was remodeling a condominium. Turns out the owner was Mr Enright. Also met his lady friend, Susan Stafford. She was the original letter-turner on Wheel Of Fortune before Vanna White.
I always thought that reference in the movie was about the old NBC show Twenty One, which was a game show that was later discovered to have been rigged. Another great movie, Quiz Show, was actually made about that scandal.
@@jean-paulaudette9246 I remember my uncle brought over some kind of Magnavox home video game. This was probably in the late 70s. You would literally slap up a mylar overlay over your 19" TV set and move a white cursor around behind it. Even as a kid I was kind of unimpressed.
I think it is just a boy thing. Even if you give kids gender-neutral toys, boys tend to make them into guns, swords and vehicles. Girls will literally tuck toy trucks into a crib.
As a kid who was bullied by a variety of "American bullies", I can attest that the movie version is real. The only thing that isn't accurate is that the main character dramatically overcomes the bully, eliminating the bully problem for everyone. (In real life, the bully continues bullying his way through life and persists in trying to f*ck with people for fun, often in positions of power or authority like politics or law enforcement.)
There was this kid in my 8th grade who was a pretty vicious bully. He had got his growth spurt early and was way bigger than most other kids. But karma bit him on the ass because he barely grew at all in high school and got bullied relentlessly by some of the kids he used to bully.
In my case, I fought my high school bully. The fight was pretty even, but it got my bully to stop bullying me. She even kind of respected me afterward. Unfortunately, she did continue to bully other girls. I came to the rescue of one of them. She was just one angry girl.
It was pretty popular in the US when it came out. It got a lot of press for being a Stephen King story, plus being centered on kids experiencing and dealing with some pretty adult moments and themes (not common at all before that, at least not as dark as this one.) It also catapulted all the boy actors into fame, especially River Phoenix (RIP) who we lost way too soon. It also just happened to be one the first R-rated movies I was allowed by my parents to watch as a kid, (I was about the same age as the kids in it) and it was the first one that made me feel like I was watching something meaningful and not just full of extreme violence or foul language for the hell of it.
You, being from Australia, apparently didn't recognize Kiefer Sutherland, who played lead bully Ace. He and his father Donald (who passed away this year) are quite well known American actors.
Video games were legit not invented until 5 years after that. But remember A Christmas Story? Kids were into the real thing back then. Also... They must have done a bad job of framing the bridge and train, but I'm sure there was absolutely no room for a 12 year old to stand safely on that bridge. But that ending, seriously. The ages are off since his adopted kids are grown up, but I picture Wil Wheaton typing "I never had friends like I did when I was twelve years old. Jesus, does anyone?" then going out to hang out with Nolan and Ryan Wheaton, his stepsons turned adopted sons. And I LOVE that Wil is still friends with Jerry O'Connell AND not only are both of them Star Trek family members (Wil is Wesley Crusher -- plus additional voices in the 2009 movie -- and Jerry voices Commander Ransom on Lower Decks) but Jerry's wife is Commander Una Chin-Riley on Strange New Worlds.
What seriously hurts me is the scene where Gordie breaks down, declaring that his father hates him. In real life, Wil Wheaton and his siblings were forced into acting from a young age by their parents, and Wil became the primary breadwinner for the family. He hated acting, especially after he filmed a movie called "The Curse" in 1986, a production he said repeatedly broke child labor laws and endangered him and his sister. He said his parents only stepped in when the makeup department wanted to give his sister real cuts to her face instead of makeup. Today, Wil has no relationship with his parents. Wil said in an interview that he thinks that particular scene in this movie was so powerful because he was subconsciously talking about his own dad. ruclips.net/video/GBJgjCzuAuQ/видео.html
I'm a 64 year old American and I have never seen a pie eating contest or any other food eating contest. They happen, but they aren't an everyday occurrence.
Joaquin, and everyone else, should appreciate that River opened the door. River's unfulfilled potential opened the door for Joaquin to fill a gap. I'm not saying Joaquin lacks talent.
@ …. Joaquin’s mother was an executive secretary at NBC. She introduced her children to agents and got them acting jobs. His mother deserves the credit.
Still no The Lost Boys? That’s also a short movie, and Keifer Sutherland (Ace) and Corey Feldman (Teddy) from this movie are in The Lost Boys. You know Keifer's father, Donald Sutherland.
Just to answer Mary's question about the train bridge, if you look when the shot is head-on, you can see the train is pretty close to the same width of the whole bridge. They wouldn't have been any safer on the sides than sticking to the middle.
You cant change that way of thinking.....Otherwise wed have no tough men and our enemies would overtake us. Rather be a warrior in a garden then a gardener in a war.....
In my opinion the three best Stephen King movies are Stand By Me, The Green Mile, and The Shawshank Redemption. And the ironic part is they are not horror movies.
As far as books go... hearts in atlantis is a superb stephen king book- not really horror either.. The movies very good, but the book is my favourite of stephen king.
This was Oscar nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay (lost to A ROOM WITH A VIEW). It also marked the beginning of a hot streak for Rob Reiner, who had an incredible run of back-to-back movies in the late 1980s/early 1990s (he did STAND BY ME, THE PRINCESS BRIDE, WHEN HARRY MET SALLY, MISERY, and A FEW GOOD MEN all back-to-back in that order).
9:36 at this time WW2 and the Korean War had happened a generation even a couple years ago where these preteens dads and older male around them most likely had fought and served those conflicts so the stories they told from their experiences impacted them personally
They aren't allowed to smoke, but they thought it was "cool," and having a treehouse or clubhouse was the way to get around it without your parents catching you.
3:00 Yeah, kids used to smoke back then. Probably not all, but the ones who wanted to seem more "mature" and do illicit things that adults did. Heck, sometimes cigarette brands were advertised on cartoons like The Flintstones, so the tobacco industry was practically trying to get kids to smoke. Needless to say, little was known about the terrible long-term effects of tobacco like cancer, and a lot has been done since then to ban "Big Tobacco" from advertising to children.
Mary, you should watch *American Graffiti* which also starred Richard Dreyfuss. That was the movie who’s success made *Star Wars* possible for George Lucas.
This was a big movie when I was a kid in the 80's. Also the cast is crazy. The 4 main kids were played by Wil Wheaton (who went on to play Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation), River Phoenix (young actor who died way too soon), Corey Feldman & Jerry O'Connell as Vern (I'm sure you know who Jerry O'Connell is!). Then the supporting cast with Kiefer Sutherland as Ace, John Cusack as the older brother Denny. And finally Richard Dreyfuss as an older Gordie Lachance.
"The $64,000 Question" was a very popular American quiz show that ran from 1955 to 1958. Contestants would answer general knowledge questions, and the prize money doubled every time they answered correctly. The final round prize was $64,000.00. The show had a few spin-off shows, which competed against other quiz shows on other networks. A HUGE scandal involving cheating and contestants being given the answers in advance all but destroyed the quiz show genre. Even Congress got involved. They passed laws to prohibit TV shows from providing answers to contestants.
In this time period in the United States the kids are very much exposed to the wars going on WW2 ended right when they were born and Korea was only past by a few years prior so they were exposed daily from school and the news about war which is why it's their anger release
Hitch-hiking was very common and quite safe in the 50's & 60's and early 70's. I loved it. Met lotsa people and always a great story. No video games in '59. Some people didn't even have TVs yet. When you grow up in a small town everyone knows everyone. People always forget about the headline in the beginning about Chris's death. More Stephen king based movies you'd like are "The Green Mile" & "The Shawshank Redemption". BTW many trains only carry cargo, no passengers. "The Body" is only a short story.
Rented this film with my family in 1987 when i was an 11 year old boy, and i loved it as it reminded me SO much of myself and my friends in those days (yes, kids used to swear and act much more like adults than 12 year olds do nowadays, as helicopter parents weren't a thing yet lol).
Jerry O'Connell (Verne) actually grew up to be a fit guy, and he’s had a fairly successful career. He played a Quarterback in Jerry Maguire, and was Sheldon’s brother on The Big Bang Theory.
This movie is one of my top 5s for sure, i love watching it whenever it’s playing on tv. My dad and I always say sincerely to each other because of this movie 😂
23:27 -I grew up in the late 70’s through the 80’s, well, my dad, and all of my friends’ dads would give us a really good smack upside our heads if they even thought we were going to cry, but I’ve been trying to do better with my kids. Oh, and I’m doing a lot of therapy to try to undo everything I “learned” from my dad.
LOL, What kind of story is this? The kind of story that guys would find entertaining. I don't think most girls would be making up a revenge story that entailed the main character throwing up on everyone.
I think i rented this movie atleast 10 times the summer i was 12. (im 42) i watched it over and over, i put some miles on that tape. Realy brings me back.
This was my favorite movie as a kid and as an adult because it's so true soon as you hit adulthood your childhood friends become strangers to you love the video Mary stay motivated Dream big 1 mill on the way
King said this movie was the best he had seen based on his books. Reiner did an excellent job. This is an all-time great classic. So many great actors and memorable scenes.
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
![Blox Fruits Dragon Rework Update [Full Stream]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EqDAp8udhm0/mqdefault.jpg)
►for early access, bloopers, polls & UNCUT VERSION check ► patreon.com/marycherryofficial
► gaming channel: www.youtube.com/@cherry_plays
► follow me on ✰www.twitch.tv/maryycherryy (LIVE STREAMS)
► VLOG channel VARY CHERRY: www.youtube.com/@varycherry
► DISCORD: discord.com/invite/3pxX7QqGW7
► IG: instagram.com/maryycherryy/
► TWEET ME: twitter.com/maryycherryy
FAQ sheet: docs.google.com/document/d/1_FkcwQ0vPAAk53YVyo-ChXc9AuX1pn5gbctrOkX13xA/edit
Please react to Braveheart (1995) please!
Definitely recommend listening to the song stand by me from Ben E King it's the song used for this movie
This week saw a YT content creator with the name "Meri Cherry", it seemed inspired by your name but I don't remember the content.
I'm happy you finally got to this film👍👍✨️
You should react to instructions not included
CHANNELS BACK TO BEING MONITIZED!!! BTW, love ya all thanks for all the positive energy
Welcome back Mary!
YAY
As it should be! We all luvya Mary ❤
Yay 🎉, that's such great news, glad it didn't drag on too long
Welcome back Mary
Between the real life parallels (River Phoenix dying young, Wil Wheaton became a writer, Feldman being abused to the point he has obvious PTSD from it all) and finding out Wil Wheaton wasn't really acting when Gordie has his "why doesn't he love me" breakdown makes this a hard re-watch at times for me. I'm glad younger generations are getting to see it.
And then there is Vern... lost weight, became a star... LOL
Wil Wheaton didn’t become a writer. He became a fruit booty washed up former child actor who cries about everything.
How about the fact that Wil Wheaton was coping with an abusive family all while he was on Star Trek, and was coping through his working relationships with the Star Trek actors? That's some kind of parallel
By far the best cast kids in any movie
RIP River Phoenix.
There were no video games in the 50s. Television itself was just a few years old at that time. You got to remember this movie takes place just a little over a decade since WW2 ended. Teddy makes several references to his dad being a part of D-Day (Normandy) for example. That's why they pretend to be soldiers or the Lone Ranger, which was a very popular show in the 50s, things like that.
Tv goes back to the ‘20s, but it took a while to be mainstream.
Also the first generation of video games were literally pixel dots and lines. There was no way to be obsessed with guns from them.
I can't believe this needs to be explained to anyone. Oh, wait....I forgot who I was watching.
This movie is the best coming of age movies ever made. River Phoenix is the heart of this film. RIP River Phoenix
I agree!
You relate to going on a very long walk to find a corpse?
@@Abcd-j9iyou missed the point
@@lonely_crash2059🤡
In case Mary doesn't know, the kid actor playing Chris was River Phoenix, the older brother of Joaquin Phoenix, who died of an overdose in 1993 at 23 years old. One of the best actors of his generation. (He also played the young Indiana Jones at the beginning of The Last Crusade.)
Jonny Depp's Viper Room. Can you imagine how good he would have been if he had survived?
And wil Wheaton (gordie) was ensign Wesley Crusher in Star Trek next generation and the Big Bang theory.
River was considered more talented
Eyeball was the bad guy that was like woooo wooooo! And eyeball was in Explorers as well guess who else was in it. 3 movies and Eyeball is always plays his protagonist.
Somewhere out there in the Multiverse, there is a far better timeline than our own, in which River Phoenix, Kurt Cobain, Chris Farley, John Candy, Sam Kinison, Phil Hartman, and... um... a bunch of other people I'm not thinking of right at the moment, survived the 90s, and continued to be part of our lives all the way into present times...
The novella actually goes into deeper details on how hard Chris worked to make something of himself, despite everyone (teachers, ex-friends, and even family) constantly undermining his efforts. Gordie was actually the only one that helped him get through high school and into college, and they only drifted apart because Chris went into law while Gordie went into teaching.
Dont know if anyone else has mentioned this but in the states, most trains arent for moving passengers, they move cargo. Trains move through less congested countryside, we only see them when they come in to towns to unload at all times night and day. They arent watching in front of them as they have stuff to watch inside the cab of the engine. Hope this helps explain a bit more :)
This movie made me realize you never have friends like the ones you have as a kid. I miss them and wish them the best
It's amazing to me that in the very beginning, Gordy is sitting in his car, reading about Chris' death and when it's mentioned again at the end, nobody remembers that we were already informed about it in the opening seconds of the movie. How to process sudden, tragic death & grief is really the core theme here. And friendship is the heart of this piece.
Mary, I hope your back feels better and your hair is gorgeous. All the best ❤️
Rob Reiner screened the movie for Steven King before it was released. When it was over, King stood up and left the room in silence. Reiner was worried that King was upset, but when he came back King told him it was the best adaptation of one of his stories he'd ever seen.
"Stand by Me" captures how boys of that age act around each other better than any other movie I know.
Video games weren't even thought of in 1959. Computers used IBM cards and printers, not screen, mice, or keyboards, and were so big they would take up a large room. They were so expensive that only big institutions like banks, insurance companies, and government agencies had them.
The town in the film is called "Castle Rock." That became the name of Rob Reiner's production company.
There wasn't enough room on the side of the train trestle. The train would have hit them no matter how close to the edge they were.
"The $64,000 Question" was a real TV game show. It started on radio in the 1940s as a show called "Take It or Leave It," but was renamed to "The $64 Question." It eventually came out that the show was rigged.
Coyotes sound scary, but they mostly stay away from people (though they're dangerous to household pets). Dingoes are a lot more dangerous.
Almost everyone in this movie except the four kids is terrible. The fathers are really bad, the junk dealer is nasty, the gang of teenaged punks are criminal (especially Ace). The store owner wasn't too terrible (though his comparing Gordie to his brother wasn't helpful). Gordie's poor mom wasn't a bad person, but was in such a state of mourning that she couldn't be there for Gordie, who was also grieving.
"This Is Spin̈al Tap" and "When Harry Met Sally," also directed by Rob Reiner, would be really good to react to.
Thanks!
🤡
Likely freight trains rather than passenger lines, on a line of track in the middle of a wooded area, the only possible witness would be the engineer piloting the train, and a moment's distraction would be enough to miss hitting a kid.
And they take a while to stop.
Yeah, and considering all that rolling mass, even braking instantly does not mean stopping instantly.
Fully loaded and going top speed a train typically takes about a mile to stop
Yeah, even back in the late 1950's, most trains in the Pacific Northwest would have been freight trains and not passenger trains. Also, the engineers are sitting up pretty high and with the boilers in front of them, it's very likely they can't see much directly in front of them.
@@jean-paulaudette9246 But there was no screeching of the brakes so the engineer here never applied them. It's a movie. This train also had very few cars so not so much mass.
It's not that the camera was out of focus, it's that Rob Reiner is known for using soft focus to evoke a certain mood. In this case, nostalgia.
That's because he's a meathead
That story about the pie eating contest is exactly something a twelve year old boy would write.😂
Chris' death was the one in the papers at the beginning, so he lived to near 40 before interrupting that fight.
Another excellent Richard Dreyfuss film is "Mr. Holland's Opus" about a struggling composer who has to become a music teacher.
'He was stabbed in the throat; he died almost instantly' 😢😢 Every, single, time.
Every single time...😩😮💨
I don’t cry anymore at that scene, I don’t cry any less either. 🤔🤣
I'm not crying, you're crying.
And I'm crying.
Alright fine, we're all crying.😢
It was the worse case of being stabbed in the throat the doctor's had ever seen.
Ikr? In about a couple of years after this. Watched younger brother, Joaquin Phoenix, in "Parenthood".
River was the better actor. But baby bro Joaquin has flourished in the movie business.
Still. "What if"?
RIP, River.
Don’t know if you realize this Mary, but Richard Dreyfuss was the narrator of the movie. Hooper in Jaws.
16:54 trains are so heavy it can take miles to stop.
One of the greatest "coming of age" films ever made. This was a staple of my childhood, even though I was born years after it came out! A special thanks to my mom for instilling a love for great filmmaking!
Freight trains have no passengers, and the engineers can't easily see in front of them. If they noticed that they hit something they would probably have thought it was a deer or something. This is the best interpretation of a Steven King novel ever put to film.
An 11 year old kid getting hit by a train would never be heard or even felt by anyone on board, it would have to be seen and that could happen in the blink of an eye and so easily missed.
trains are a LOT Wider than the tracks they are on. When the kids are on the bridge there is no "Side" that they could have used. Also growing up in Oregon I was happy to hear you pronounce it Correct instead of the usual "Or-E-Gone"
Also now that i think about it the movie came out in 1986, but its set in 1959 (27 Years) rounding up to 2025, thats the equivalent of a movie set in 1998. kids coming of age in 1998 would probably be an interesting movie.
Also worth noting that American freight trains can be carrying up to 100 cars and even with all brakes applied take several miles to stop from when the stop is initiated.
Love how people who weren't even remotely alive in a certain time thinks they know what would happen in circumstances they'd never even imagine - Christ how judgey she can be and many of these tubers - unreal
Pronunciation aside, this movie is set in Maine, like most King stories.
A LOT of people have died thinking that a train is as only as wide as the tracks, be smart folks.
I came here to say the same thing about trains.
I’m not from Oregon, but it absolutely drives me up the wall when someone pronounces it Or-E-Gone.
Yeah, you forget how much more people smoked back in the day. Back in the 80s, my high school had an unofficial, but fully condoned and maintained, smoking area.
Hi Mary. Just to make sure Chris had a life as a lawyer. At the beginning of the movie were adult Gordy reads the death of his friend Chris in the news article, it is what initiates Gordy to relate that time of him searching for a body with his friends.
This might be the only movie I’ve ever seen that is both wholesome and dark. Very dark, overwhelmingly dark if you think about it. Or maybe just real.
I think this film hits the nostalgia quota for a lot of us. It came out at a time when a lot of boomers were raising their families and it brought them back to their childhoods. They showed films like this to their Gen X and elder Millennial kids. So now we feel nostalgic about it, too, even though we didn’t grow up in the era the movie took place. I always think about my childhood in the 80s whenever I watch I this film.
When the kids are crossing the train trestle, you can see that there is nowhere for them to go "on the sides" as there were no sides there; if they went left or right they would take a 100 ft drop to the river below which would most likely kill them. And a loaded freight train traveling at normal speed needs almost full mile to come to a complete stop simply because of physics and the weight of the train. There were two girls killed very near where I grew up back in 1974 from the same exact scenario, walking on a train trestle and the train surprised them. They both did exactly what was in the movie which was running as fast as they could, unfortunately neither one survived.
Hi Mary, Aussie guy here.
I was a teenager when this came out and it was pretty popular in Aus. at the time. Especially on home video!
It is based on a novella called The Body from a collection called Different Seasons, the same book the Shawshank Redemption comes from, yes it is a very good read!
That compilation book also spawned a third movie, "Apt Pupil". Not as good as the other two but a decent flick overall.
In the short story, Ace an his cronies definitely did get revenge on all four boys, later on.
I'm looking at my copy of that book on my bookshelf. A great little compilation of stories.
Video games in 1959? Time for a little history. The first "computer" was the ENIAC, built for the United States Navy in 1946. It had vacuum tubes, and filled an entire 5-storey building. The heat from the vacuum tubes alone heated the entire building as well. One of the first video games was released in 1972 by a company called Atari. It was called Pong, and it was sort of 2-dimensional table tennis. People went to pinball machine arcades to play it. When I took my first computer class in high school in 1976, the 'computer,' an IBM mainframe, was off campus. We had CRT monitors and keyboards connected to it, but our terminals couldn't do anything but type. When I took my second, and last, computer class in college in 1983, we had to type out our computer code on a machine that made 80-column paper punch cards. If we didn't type the code absolutely perfectly, the program would not run. I'm a terrible typist so I had a terrible experience. I think the first personal computers came out around 1975. The earliest ones were sold in kit form and you had to assemble them yourself. Suffice it to say that kids in 1959 did not have video games. They had movie westerns with lots of shooting, and movies about World War 2.
You expect MODERN YOUNG PEOPLE in the 2020s to actually know about REAL HISTORY? 😅😂 Welcome To 2025. Unfortunately when it comes to anything that happened before the 1990s these kids are COMPLETELY CLUELESS! 🤣😅😂 I realized that about 10 or 15 years ago. SPECIFICALLY back in 2008 when Obama got in.
I will never not cry when Gordie says “my dad hates me.” 😭
🤡
Love movies that "give away" the ending right at the beginning. You hear/see it, but it doesn't resonate fully, or sometimes it doesn't register at all, until you take the journey through the whole movie. The opening scene is of him looking at the newspaper saying that Chris Chambers was killed.
American Grafffitti is a great one to add to your coming of age list. It's directed by George Lucas and features Ron Howard and Richard Dreyfuss. One one the best soundtracks in movie history.
Rob Reiner is a very underrate director. Stand by me, Princess Bride, and This is Spinal tap are all generation defining movies.
Even most Americans haven't seen a pie-eating contest, at least since the 1970s.
Those dry heaves while crying by Chris and Gordie hit me too close to home in my childhood memories!😢
@@jackmessick2869 Lol The only thing I’ve seen that is remotely like that is a watermelon eating contest. We were in elementary School and it was a school event.
A girl kid would never do this. Ariel from footloose has entered the chat
And she wasn't going to dodge it.
In the novel it was confirmed that the reason Teddy’s father burned his ear was because Teddy accidentally broke a plate while putting away clean dishes. It’s mentioned multiple times that his dad is a WW2 veteran, so PTSD is the reason for the high level abuse and kind of explains why Teddy was defending his dad against old man Pressman.
The deer is not random - it symbolizes the boys' innocence being lost. One of Reiner's best films with a fantastic cast & adaptation of King's novella which you should read too.
Everyone needs to watch Stand By Me, the Sandlot, and Dead Poet's Society before they're 20. Probably Good Will Hunting too.
I went to a Limp Bizkit concert this summer and Corey Feldman was one the opening acts. What a trip!
This is one of those big childhood movies for me. I was 5 when it came out. By the the time I was 12 (like the kids in the movie,) I had probably seen it 50 times.
One big thing about this movie, and me: I've been watching horror movies, since I was 3 (my mother's a fan.) Seeing DEAD Ray Brower was scarier than any horror movie. Horror movies were scary. But, they were never REAL to me. There was always something so real about the body (and mostly the face) of Ray Brower.
The $64,000 question was literally from a game show called "The $64,000 Question." It had more or less the same format as "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?"
In denmark we the show was called "double or nothing" (or something along those lines).
"Quiz Show" was about the game show scandal of the late 50's. Directed by Robert Redford, stars Ralph Fiennes.
As a side note, I once met Dan Enright when my brother invited me to visit him while he was remodeling a condominium. Turns out the owner was Mr Enright. Also met his lady friend, Susan Stafford. She was the original letter-turner on Wheel Of Fortune before Vanna White.
I thought the show was called the 64,000 pyramid?
@@davekell36 Completely different game show that was also long after the other.
I always thought that reference in the movie was about the old NBC show Twenty One, which was a game show that was later discovered to have been rigged. Another great movie, Quiz Show, was actually made about that scandal.
9:32 No, video games did not exist yet. Violence was often glorified in American culture through other means - Westerns, war movies, and actual wars.
I think the earliest commercially sold video games were about 1978-9.
@@jean-paulaudette9246 I remember my uncle brought over some kind of Magnavox home video game. This was probably in the late 70s. You would literally slap up a mylar overlay over your 19" TV set and move a white cursor around behind it. Even as a kid I was kind of unimpressed.
I think it is just a boy thing. Even if you give kids gender-neutral toys, boys tend to make them into guns, swords and vehicles. Girls will literally tuck toy trucks into a crib.
@norwegianblue2017 My Atari in the early 80s had better games. None were particularly violent.....except when you lost...😂
As a kid who was bullied by a variety of "American bullies", I can attest that the movie version is real. The only thing that isn't accurate is that the main character dramatically overcomes the bully, eliminating the bully problem for everyone.
(In real life, the bully continues bullying his way through life and persists in trying to f*ck with people for fun, often in positions of power or authority like politics or law enforcement.)
I’m sorry you got bullied btw ❤
Ace is actually in quite a few King novels. He does keep bullying
There was this kid in my 8th grade who was a pretty vicious bully. He had got his growth spurt early and was way bigger than most other kids. But karma bit him on the ass because he barely grew at all in high school and got bullied relentlessly by some of the kids he used to bully.
In my case, I fought my high school bully. The fight was pretty even, but it got my bully to stop bullying me. She even kind of respected me afterward. Unfortunately, she did continue to bully other girls. I came to the rescue of one of them. She was just one angry girl.
@@lynetteoliva1256 hurt people hurt people
In 1950s there were numerous westerns, police and war movies - so little boys being fascinated by guns was absolutely not invented by video games.
It was pretty popular in the US when it came out. It got a lot of press for being a Stephen King story, plus being centered on kids experiencing and dealing with some pretty adult moments and themes (not common at all before that, at least not as dark as this one.) It also catapulted all the boy actors into fame, especially River Phoenix (RIP) who we lost way too soon.
It also just happened to be one the first R-rated movies I was allowed by my parents to watch as a kid, (I was about the same age as the kids in it) and it was the first one that made me feel like I was watching something meaningful and not just full of extreme violence or foul language for the hell of it.
Same here. Only I saw it elsewhere first, and I was the one who recommended this movie to my parents.
You, being from Australia, apparently didn't recognize Kiefer Sutherland, who played lead bully Ace. He and his father Donald (who passed away this year) are quite well known American actors.
The Sutherlands are Canadian actors, eh!
@@patrickduffy8881Actually, only Donald is. I think Kiefer was born in the US.
Video games were legit not invented until 5 years after that. But remember A Christmas Story? Kids were into the real thing back then.
Also... They must have done a bad job of framing the bridge and train, but I'm sure there was absolutely no room for a 12 year old to stand safely on that bridge.
But that ending, seriously. The ages are off since his adopted kids are grown up, but I picture Wil Wheaton typing "I never had friends like I did when I was twelve years old. Jesus, does anyone?" then going out to hang out with Nolan and Ryan Wheaton, his stepsons turned adopted sons. And I LOVE that Wil is still friends with Jerry O'Connell AND not only are both of them Star Trek family members (Wil is Wesley Crusher -- plus additional voices in the 2009 movie -- and Jerry voices Commander Ransom on Lower Decks) but Jerry's wife is Commander Una Chin-Riley on Strange New Worlds.
Most of these bullies that picked on kids and beat them up were usually abused at home.
What seriously hurts me is the scene where Gordie breaks down, declaring that his father hates him. In real life, Wil Wheaton and his siblings were forced into acting from a young age by their parents, and Wil became the primary breadwinner for the family. He hated acting, especially after he filmed a movie called "The Curse" in 1986, a production he said repeatedly broke child labor laws and endangered him and his sister. He said his parents only stepped in when the makeup department wanted to give his sister real cuts to her face instead of makeup. Today, Wil has no relationship with his parents. Wil said in an interview that he thinks that particular scene in this movie was so powerful because he was subconsciously talking about his own dad.
ruclips.net/video/GBJgjCzuAuQ/видео.html
I'm a 64 year old American and I have never seen a pie eating contest or any other food eating contest. They happen, but they aren't an everyday occurrence.
I think they were popular pre WW2 and a few years post WW2.
Joaquin, and everyone else, should appreciate that River opened the door. River's unfulfilled potential opened the door for Joaquin to fill a gap. I'm not saying Joaquin lacks talent.
Joaquin was 19 and had already done several films when River died. He was already well on his way to a successful career in films.
@@Stogie2112 Joaquin said River inspired him to act and pulled him back into it when he left for a time. So you’re wrong. lol
@@Stogie2112 Joaquin got a foot in the door because of his brother.
@ …. Joaquin’s mother was an executive secretary at NBC. She introduced her children to agents and got them acting jobs. His mother deserves the credit.
River did a good enough job in some movies. He Od'd. Since he did well enough, the Pheonix name had some value.
Filmed in Northern California and Oregon. The train bridge is in California.
Cackles! Mary’s reaction to the pie eating story 😂😂😂😂😂😂
One of the greatest coming of age movies of all time. I honestly can't remember anyone not liking this movie.
Still no The Lost Boys? That’s also a short movie, and Keifer Sutherland (Ace) and Corey Feldman (Teddy) from this movie are in The Lost Boys. You know Keifer's father, Donald Sutherland.
Just to answer Mary's question about the train bridge, if you look when the shot is head-on, you can see the train is pretty close to the same width of the whole bridge. They wouldn't have been any safer on the sides than sticking to the middle.
You cant change that way of thinking.....Otherwise wed have no tough men and our enemies would overtake us. Rather be a warrior in a garden then a gardener in a war.....
In my opinion the three best Stephen King movies are Stand By Me, The Green Mile, and The Shawshank Redemption. And the ironic part is they are not horror movies.
As far as books go... hearts in atlantis is a superb stephen king book- not really horror either.. The movies very good, but the book is my favourite of stephen king.
The Shining has to be my favorite, but this is a close second.
And Misery, which while it is a horror movie of sorts, has no supernatural elements.
Add in Misery.
I had this soundtrack on a white cassette, no idea where i got it, but listened to it endlessly when I was a kid
beautiful movie especially when u feel nostalgia for your friends from childhood
Nostalgia from when you went on a very long walk to find a corpse?!
@@Abcd-j9i im sure they do more then that
This was Oscar nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay (lost to A ROOM WITH A VIEW).
It also marked the beginning of a hot streak for Rob Reiner, who had an incredible run of back-to-back movies in the late 1980s/early 1990s (he did STAND BY ME, THE PRINCESS BRIDE, WHEN HARRY MET SALLY, MISERY, and A FEW GOOD MEN all back-to-back in that order).
If only his career hadn't gone North.
@@christopherb501 "I understood that reference." 😂
I am currently relistening to "The Body" audiobook. Which was very closely adapted into "Stand By Me". This is Stephen King's favorite adaption.
9:36 at this time WW2 and the Korean War had happened a generation even a couple years ago where these preteens dads and older male around them most likely had fought and served those conflicts so the stories they told from their experiences impacted them personally
Great reaction, I can't wait for you to react to The Shawshank Redemption and The Incredibles, two of the greatest films ever made. :)
They aren't allowed to smoke, but they thought it was "cool," and having a treehouse or clubhouse was the way to get around it without your parents catching you.
"Apparently there was a show, I don't know what that show was called." I'm DEAD. 🤣🤣🤣
3:00 Yeah, kids used to smoke back then. Probably not all, but the ones who wanted to seem more "mature" and do illicit things that adults did. Heck, sometimes cigarette brands were advertised on cartoons like The Flintstones, so the tobacco industry was practically trying to get kids to smoke. Needless to say, little was known about the terrible long-term effects of tobacco like cancer, and a lot has been done since then to ban "Big Tobacco" from advertising to children.
Yes, cherry bombs. They are very cherry.
Mary, you should watch *American Graffiti* which also starred Richard Dreyfuss.
That was the movie who’s success made *Star Wars* possible for George Lucas.
I'm glad you're back, Mary. I'm also happy you got remonitized.
This was a big movie when I was a kid in the 80's. Also the cast is crazy. The 4 main kids were played by Wil Wheaton (who went on to play Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation), River Phoenix (young actor who died way too soon), Corey Feldman & Jerry O'Connell as Vern (I'm sure you know who Jerry O'Connell is!). Then the supporting cast with
Kiefer Sutherland as Ace, John Cusack as the older brother Denny. And finally Richard Dreyfuss as an older Gordie Lachance.
That barf story is exactly the kind of story 12 year old guys share around a campfire. No kidding.
Two of the kids in this movie have appeared repeatedly on the show The Big Bang Theory.
When Harry Met Sally is a great Rob Reiner film watch for New Years!
Check out the movies The Lost Boys(1987) and Weird Science(1985).
No video games but almost every man was vet just returned from ww2
"The $64,000 Question" was a very popular American quiz show that ran from 1955 to 1958. Contestants would answer general knowledge questions, and the prize money doubled every time they answered correctly. The final round prize was $64,000.00.
The show had a few spin-off shows, which competed against other quiz shows on other networks.
A HUGE scandal involving cheating and contestants being given the answers in advance all but destroyed the quiz show genre.
Even Congress got involved. They passed laws to prohibit TV shows from providing answers to contestants.
In this time period in the United States the kids are very much exposed to the wars going on WW2 ended right when they were born and Korea was only past by a few years prior so they were exposed daily from school and the news about war which is why it's their anger release
These stories rarely give you a happy ending but tend to leave with a warm memories in the heart to fall back on.
Hitch-hiking was very common and quite safe in the 50's & 60's and early 70's. I loved it. Met lotsa people and always a great story. No video games in '59. Some people didn't even have TVs yet. When you grow up in a small town everyone knows everyone. People always forget about the headline in the beginning about Chris's death. More Stephen king based movies you'd like are "The Green Mile" & "The Shawshank Redemption". BTW many trains only carry cargo, no passengers. "The Body" is only a short story.
RIP, River Phoenix, 1970-1993.
yeah!
OverDose at the viper lounge. Red hot chili peppers were playing. And johnny depp owned it. Member of the twenty seven club.
He was 23
@@mikelundquist4596 he would have been 54 if he was still alive!
@@StevieJ-IRLzzz yeah he did!
Rented this film with my family in 1987 when i was an 11 year old boy, and i loved it as it reminded me SO much of myself and my friends in those days (yes, kids used to swear and act much more like adults than 12 year olds do nowadays, as helicopter parents weren't a thing yet lol).
River Phoenix, if he hadn't died so soon, would be one of the best actors alive.
This is one of my all-time favorite films. I've probably seen it 20 times and I never tire of it.
Fun fact: the far kid is Jerry O'connell... Rebecca Romijn's husband.
Other Rob Reiner movies you may enjoy if you haven't seen them:
This is Spinal Tap (1984)
When Harry Met Sally (1989)
They'd be into early comics, there weren't video games yet.
Jerry O'Connell (Verne) actually grew up to be a fit guy, and he’s had a fairly successful career. He played a Quarterback in Jerry Maguire, and was Sheldon’s brother on The Big Bang Theory.
@@troy34bronze He was also Derek, Sydney’s boyfriend in Scream 2.
Does anyone remember that show he was in called My Secret Identity?
"in 1959 were video games a thing?" 😂 Great reaction! 🌸
I was 14 when this released, and I've loved it every day since then. That last thought at the end has lived in my head for decades now.
Perfect movie
This movie is one of my top 5s for sure, i love watching it whenever it’s playing on tv. My dad and I always say sincerely to each other because of this movie 😂
23:27 -I grew up in the late 70’s through the 80’s, well, my dad, and all of my friends’ dads would give us a really good smack upside our heads if they even thought we were going to cry, but I’ve been trying to do better with my kids.
Oh, and I’m doing a lot of therapy to try to undo everything I “learned” from my dad.
LOL, What kind of story is this? The kind of story that guys would find entertaining. I don't think most girls would be making up a revenge story that entailed the main character throwing up on everyone.
I think i rented this movie atleast 10 times the summer i was 12. (im 42)
i watched it over and over, i put some miles on that tape.
Realy brings me back.
Fun fact: After finding the body Corporal Teddy Duchamp was promoted to Sergeant.
This was my favorite movie as a kid and as an adult because it's so true soon as you hit adulthood your childhood friends become strangers to you love the video Mary stay motivated Dream big 1 mill on the way
haven’t watched yet but this one of my fave movies and my fave reactor ! 😭
I’m pretty sure that if they went to the sides when that train comes then some sort of wind would push them off so that’s not a good option.
One of my 10 favorite movies
THIS IS WRITTEN BY STEPHEWN KIING, THE FAMOUS HORROR WRITER. THIS IS PROBABLY MY FAVORITE KING MOVIE
This movie has hit me since I was 8. So good!
King said this movie was the best he had seen based on his books. Reiner did an excellent job. This is an all-time great classic. So many great actors and memorable scenes.
RIP River Phoenix 🥀😔🙏🏼
He was so good!