Stand by Me Movie Summary

Stand By Me

The movie "Stand By Me", directed by Rob Reiner, is based upon Stephen King's book "The Body". The movie gets its title from the Ben E. King song of the same name, which plays during the end credits.

The story begins with a man reading a newspaper article about an attorney, who had been stabbed in a restaurant. The man begins to recollect his childhood, growing up with said man. It is revealed that the attorney was his best friend, and the leader of their gang of four.

In the summer of 1959, whilst attending a meeting of sorts in their tree house, one of the boys proposes they go looking for the body of the local 12-year-old who had gone missing. He proclaims, that he overheard his brother talking to a friend of his about finding the body. The brother's friend had stated, that they couldn't report their finding to the police, as they were driving in a stolen car.

Before the four boys meet the next morning, the narrator's best friend shows him a loaded gun, he had stolen from his father.

Once met up, the four boys set out in search of the body, following the train tracks out of the city.

The boys soon arrive at a junkyard, where the guard dog is rumored to have been trained to "sick balls". After having lost a bet, the narrator encounters the owner, and the boys run away and escape, but not before the junkyard owner pokes fun at one of the boys' father.

Later on, the boys encounter a bridge, but they are unsure of when the next train is due. They decide, that going around would waste precious time. About halfway across the bridge, the boys notice smoke behind them, and run across the remainder of the bridge.

Once the boys have set up camp for the night, the narrator displays his skills as a writer by telling the other boys a story about "Lardass Hogan".

The older brother and his friend, who had found the body originally, were not able to hide their secret from the rest of their gang. They go looking for the body, with the leader of their gang driving.

The younger boys take a shortcut through a swamp, only to find it to be full of leeches.

After frantically clawing them off, the narrator looks down his underwear, pulls out the last one, and faints.

Eventually, they find the body of the missing boy, and the narrator starts to cry, accepting the fact that his father would always his favor his late brother over him.

The older boys now arrive at the scene, and their leader, brandishing a knife, threatens to take the body with force. The narrator now fires the gun in to the air, and demands that they leave them with the body. The narrator decides to denounce credit of finding the body by making an anonymous

...