Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
How could we possibly be expected to handle lockdown on a day like this?
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” There is no bad day to watch Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, but a sunny Sunday (where we are in London) seems especially apt for a Lockdown Rewatch of John Hughes’ pretty much perfect teen slacker classic. The Matthew Broderick, Mia Sara, Alan Ruck starring tale of a day’s truancy in Chicago was a critical and box office hit on its 1986 release, eventually bringing in more than $70M off a budget of just under $6M and In 2014, the film was selected for preservation in the US’ National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, calling it, “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”
But did you know…
1) A number of vehicle number plates in the film reference John Hughes films, such as ‘TBC’ (The Breakfast Club), ‘VCTN’ (National Lampoon’s Vacation), and ‘4FBDO’ (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off).
2) Bueller goes to the same school as the characters in the Breakfast Club – the (fictional) Shermer High School, which also features in the other Hughes’ films 16 Candles and Pretty In Pink.
3) Pretty much most of the ‘80s biggest Hollywood stars were considered for the role of Ferris, like Rob Lowe, Michael J. Fox and John Cusack; as well as a raft of soon-to-be movie stars like Tom Cruise, Jim Carrey, Johnny Depp and Robert Downey, Jr.
4) Hughes wrote the original screenplay in six days flat, but much of the classic dialogue was improvised on set.
5) Unsurprisingly, the priceless Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder (only 100 were ever made) that the trio borrowed and that Cameron totals at the end of the movie was a replica – a fibreglass shell bolted onto an MG chassis.
