John Hughes’ beloved teen comedy Ferris Bueller’s Day Off turns 35 years old today!
Straight off the success of The Breakfast Club, director John Hughes knocked it out of the park again the following summer with Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. What’s so special about this movie is that it’s filled with warmth. It’s not mean-spirited and vulgar like most other teen comedies. It’s no wonder this movie sees so much air time on syndication. There’s hardly any raunchy material. You could cut a handful of things and make it PG.
Synopsis
Matthew Broderick stars as high school senior Ferris Bueller, who pretends to be sick to skip school. He then proceeds to show his best friend Cameron (played by Alan Ruck) and his girlfriend Sloane (Mia Sara) a day they’ll never forget. He cons his parents, evades his militant principal, annoys his sister, and inspires an impromptu musical number involving all of downtown Chicago.
Bueller’s popularity doesn’t come to him just because he’s good-looking and his family has money. He does things for other people, other students. Most especially his best friend, Cameron.
At times their friendship seems a little one-sided, with Ferris actively manipulating his friend to be an unwilling player in his schemes. But Ferris is also instrumental in getting Cameron to stand up to his father and be a man, to chill out and enjoy life. Ferris extends this message to the audience with the final line: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
List Of Memorable Scenes:
- That car! The Ferrari GT California. The production team really did bring in the real deal for close-ups, but thankfully replicas were used in the crash scene.
- Ben Stein completely improvised his lecture about supply-side economics. Hughes and the student actors loved his monotonous voice so much Hughes had Stein do it on film.
- Ferris playing gross keyboard sounds over the phone to his friends. That synthesizer cost $8,000 in 1985!
- The Home Alone-esque contraptions Ferris sets up to convince his parents and Principal Rooney he’s at home in bed. Maybe Ferris has a future in engineering?
If Ferris Bueller tried all of this today real life, there is no doubt he would be all over social media in an instant. One word: busted. You can pick up the 35th Anniversary Blu-ray Steelbook on Amazon!
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