Stand by Me: this funny misadventure that occurred during filming

Great classic of the film on adolescence, Stand-by-Me is broadcast this Friday, February 24, 2023 at 9 p.m. on France 5. The feature film therefore brings together almost exclusively a cast of children, who apparently had a lot of fun on the set.

If I tell you Stand-by-Me, you tell me… Ben E. King, maybe. But it’s not just this world famous tube. For lovers of the seventh art, it is above all a magnificent film about adolescence. A dramatic comedy by Rob Reiner (When Harry Met Sally) whose title finds its origin in this same song. Let’s go back a few decades. We are in the 80s. Steven Spielberg paved the way for films about childhood or adolescence with his mythical and very personal, ET, the extra-terrestrial (1982). Two years later, John Dante ventures into more frightening terrain with Gremlins. The following year saw Richard Donner enchant audiences with The Goonieswhile the regular John Hughes goes for his Breakfast Club. And in 1986, Rob Reiner arrived in theaters with Stand-by-Me.

Four friends in nature

As often in this kind of films, the adventures experienced by the young characters evoke the passage to adulthood. In Stand-by-Me, Gordie, Chris, Teddy, and Vern, four boys of about twelve years old, go in search of the body of a child of their age who disappeared a few days earlier. After the strange and exciting adventures of that summer of 1959, they will never be the same again. To camp this quartet of shock, Rob Reiner offers a cast logically inexperienced. The film is thus led by Wil Wheaton, the late River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, and Jerry O’Connell, who pass the buck with a rather disconcerting naturalness for their age.

A memorable shoot

During the film, the four budding adventurers come up against the dangerous Ace and his gang. A slightly older and particularly menacing teenager portrayed by Kiefer Sutherland, several decades before he thrilled series fans in 24 Hours stopwatch. No doubt still marked by this unforgettable film, the Canadian actor shared a funny anecdote during an interview. He says that during filming, the cast and crew attended a fair where they bought cookies. Except that apparently those cupcakes also contained… weed. They then found Jerry O’Connell two hours later, stoned and in tears. A shoot he will remember…