BOOK REVIEW: FERRIS BUELLER…YOU’RE MY HERO

This book is ostensibly about Ferris Beuller’s Day Off, the cult classic 1986 motion picture that makes most car people laugh and cringe at the same time. It’s a v. nicely-detailed study of the lives, times, adventures, and attitudes of the creative people who made and/or were somehow involved in the film (roughly 120 of them by actual count of the author’s back-of-the-book acknowledgments).

That author, Jason Klamm by name, takes us on this journey with a highly detailed, craftsman-like attitude and a handy-dandy insider’s access.  

We’ll stop here to just tell potential readers that his is one banging behind the scenes movie book. It reminds of another behind-the-scenes backstage book, “On the Making a Movie: Brewster McCloud” (1971 – Kirk McClellan) in the details that add up (actually they more seem to “pile up” here) in making a movie that had more loose ends, sharp turns, question marks and enigmas than most. (For the record, this one has a happier ending).

The Other Star of the Show

By now, everyone (especially LACar regulars)  knows that the sleek Ferrari roadster that famously went crashing through that giant window wall in this pic was not an authentic Italian pony.  

That seems to have been sort of a given, a symbolic sacrifice that stood firmly in the realm of “wild tales” type storytelling even for the most literal of watchers, who understood the intent and spirit of the shoot.

LACar Public Service Fact

“Movie cars” are moving targets in the collector car world.

A funny, often almost sardonic movie (yeah), here the author’s reporting is almost a master class in the amazingly complex business of making a movie. And here, how a movie that was not anything like a straight-through story gets to the screen and (eventually) gets understood. As he postulates: 

“If 300 people each land a single brushstroke on a canvas, it just means you have more people to thank for the thing you love. -Here's me trying to interview all of them about one of my favorite films, created by a man who got to make movies through sheer Ferris Bueller-like gumption.”

And the stories of the individual actors (all very good ones across the board) coming together and really “getting it” about this serious/funny tale of teen anxiety, rebellion, and just plain how shakes down to be a kid like Ferris Bueller.

About that Ferrari

And then there’s the object of desire, the titular, four-wheeled centerpiece, the overly-venerated Ferrari California GT that (spoiler alert: for the six or eight car people in the United States who somehow missed seeing or being told about this movie) eventually, supposedly, and very dramatically, plunges (from a number of angles) to its wreck and ruination. 

All this happened after being taken on something of a sardonic spring awakening tour of Chicago and surrounds that director John Hughes was able to merge into a delightful film using art and angst in almost equal measure.

Deep Dive

Based on the company name of the publisher* I’ve tried very hard to find anything that’s actually even somewhat “dystopian” in Klamm’s book and have not.  This one is cram-jammed with kind stories and salient souvenirs from a very funny, forty-year-old film that still holds up better than wonderfully. And still holds a pretty damn accurate mirror up to the joys and sorrows of adolescence.

Heroes are a dime a dozen. Guys like Ferris Bueller are few and far between. A wrecked movie Ferrari aside, this guy and his pals, parents, and blustered and flustered truant officer are the real deal when it comes to ennui and introspection.

Great Art

There’s more than a few magical scenes in this film. For example, as a part of his “Day Off”, Ferris, Mia Sara and Alan Ruck just happen to visit the Art Institute of Chicago and encounter Seurat’s wall-size masterpiece that’s even longer than its title: “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte”.  The pointillist painting’s order and calmness and order is something of a respite from the rest of day’s crazy-making (and getting a feature movie cast and camera crew anywhere that artwork is part of the insider info that this book brims with.)

176.8 Mysterious Miles

As if to prove the author of this review correct about the thoroughness of the information that’s part of the posture of this book, there’s a bit about the thought of doing a spinoff flick, working title: “Sam and Victor’s Big Adventure”, that would chronicle the antics of the two garage officials who add a whole bunch of miles to Cameron’s Dad’s Ferrari.  

That never happened and (your never know, perhaps “luckily”) though there must have been plenty of thought, “Ferris Bueller’s Second Day Off” was never made. 

Cool Cast

For as light a film as this sounds to be from the outside, it featured a very talented cast who worked flawlessly to make this motor morality play work.

There are “classics” (with quotation marks) and then there are CLASSICS like this film which endure and entertain.  Klamm’s stories about how this all-pro ensemble cast was chosen, inserted into the action, and how they made the story almost tell itself is rich and entertaining.

Of course, that happens when you stir together a cast that has talented “teeners” the likes of Matthew Broderick, Jennifer Grey, Mia Sara, Charlie Sheen, and Alan Ruck interfacing rather awkwardly with “adults” that include Cindy Pickett and Lyman Ward as Ferris’ feckless parents, along with the titular talents of the wonderfully and ever-so-slimy Jeffery Jones**—all acting out the story of ditching school that turns into a magical day in downtown Chicago replete with all the symbolism that any car nut can handle, featuring a million-dollar Ferrari catapulting into a convenient (very California-looking, don’t you think?) canyon to its semi-horrific demise just for s - - t and giggles. And which was written and directed by the likes of teen movie legend John Hughes. 

If you had done that, you would for sure not be wrong in thinking that you had something here.  

This book puts all of the above disaster of a run-on sentence into a combination logical timeline and movie history lesson in a wonderfully kinetic 370-odd pages that can be studied and enjoyed at the same time.

This is Los Angeles. Movie town. Soak it up. Have fun, yeah. 

Sure, it was a fake Ferrari, we know. But the characters in the movie didn’t know that, and we believe them, don’t we? 

There are “classics” (with quotation marks) and then there are CLASSICS like this film that endure and entertain.  Author Jason Klamm’s stories about how this all-pro ensemble cast was chosen, inserted into the action, and how they made the story almost tell itself is rich, entertaining, and really a pretty fair old movie magic tale.  – Doug Stokes

*PUBLISHING COMPANY CONFIDENTIAL: About 1984 Publishing: Founder Matthew Chojnacki has authored three award-winning art books: Alternative Movie Posters: Film Art from the Underground (Volumes I & II) and the ’80s vinyl cover art collection Put the Needle on the Record: The 1980s at 45 Revolutions per Minute. He has also co-produced several acclaimed documentaries, including Scream Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street, 24×36: A Movie about Movie Posters, Justin Pearson’s Don’t Fall in Love with Yourself, and 30 Years of Garbage: The Garbage Pail Kids Story.  And there’s more at www.1984publishing.com.  Why not drop by next time you’re in Cleveland: they’re at: 12020 Lake Street, Suite 303.  Yo, tell them LACar sent ya.

**At a screening “Ferris” that this author attended, the audience hissed and booed every time Jones oozed his way into a scene.  Movies with a character you really love to hate are always more fun aren’t they?

Housekeeping note:  The actual/fictional day in the life of Ferris Bueller was Wednesday, June 5, 1985

Maybe we can work with our friends at 1984 Publishing on our own tale in the near future? The working title: “LA Car Confidential, The Unlikely But True Story”. Watch for it at better bookstores like our favorite one over in Burbank (AutoBooks/Aerobooks)! - Stokes