On this day in movie and book history - Stand by Me (1986) and Different Seasons (1982)

Stand by Me

directed by Rob Reiner,

written by Bruce A. Evans and Raynold Gideon,

based on the novella The Body by Stephen King,

was released in the United States on August 22, 1986.

Narrated by Richard Dreyfuss.

Music by Jack Nitzsche.

Cast:

Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O'Connell, Kiefer Sutherland, Casey Siemaszko, Gary Riley, Bradley Gregg, Jason Oliver Lipsett, Marshall Bell, Frances Lee McCain, Bruce Kirby, William Bronder, Scott Beach, Richard Dreyfuss, John Cusack, Madeleine Swift, Popeye (the dog, as Chopper), Geanette Bobst, Art Burke, Matt Williams, Andy Lindberg, Dick Durock, O.B. Babbs, Charlie Owens, Kenneth Hodges, John Hodges, Susan Thorpe, Korey Scott Pollard, Rick Elliott, Kent W. Luttrell, Chance Quinn, Jason Naylor, Sky Siewerski.

Recommended reading:

Different Seasons

by Stephen King.

Published by Scribner.

First published 1982.

ISBN-10: 1501143484

ISBN-13: 9781501143489

Description:

A “hypnotic” (The New York Times Book Review) collection of four novellas – including the inspirations behind the films Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption—from Stephen King, bound together by the changing of seasons, each taking on the theme of a journey with strikingly different tones and characters.

This gripping collection begins with Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, in which an unjustly imprisoned convict seeks a strange and startling revenge – the basis for the Best Picture Academy Award-nominee The Shawshank Redemption.

Next is Apt Pupil, the inspiration for the film of the same name about top high school student Todd Bowden and his obsession with the dark and deadly past of an older man in town.

In The Body, four rambunctious young boys plunge through the façade of a small town and come face-to-face with life, death, and intimations of their own mortality. This novella became the movie Stand By Me.

Finally, a disgraced woman is determined to triumph over death in The Breathing Method.

“The wondrous readability of his work, as well as the instant sense of communication with his characters, are what make Stephen King the consummate storyteller that he is,” hailed the Houston Chronicle about Different Seasons.