A Son’s Insecurities Added Poignancy to "Stand by Me"

Director Rob Reiner was born in the Bronx to veteran comic genius Carl Reiner and his wife, singer-actress Estelle, and grew up in Beverly Hills. During his childhood, he was surrounded by show-biz personalities. "It wasn't glitzy, but there were always these brilliant people around, these really funny people," he said. His father's best friend was Mel Brooks, whom Reiner calls "the funniest person ever," and legends like Larry Gelbart, Neil Simon and Norman Lear were frequent visitors. "I didn't realize until I started visiting other people's houses that it wasn't quite as funny in other people's houses as it was in mine," said Reiner. 

The Dick Van Dyke Show creator Carl Reiner (right) horsing around with fellow cast members Dick Van Dyke and Rose Marie

Reiner grew up with complexes common to sons overwhelmed by the popularity of a famous parent. Just before Stand by Me’s release, he said, “Even though I am 39, I remember with great clarity my pre-teen problems with identification, trying to make a stand on my own in my struggles with my father, to a point where I could feel good about myself.” 

“When I was a kid, I was shy, incredibly shy,” said Reiner. “I was very introspective. So I was probably reacting against my father’s personality. I know it was difficult for me to feel that I had a place in the house, because my father is so demonstrative, so much larger than life. I couldn’t figure out how I fit in there. When you’re little, you really can’t compete. I don't think he quite understood how I was as a person. He never thought I had a sense of humor, never thought I was funny.” 

Carl Reiner and his 19-year-old son Rob Reiner in 1965

“When I was 19, I directed a production of Sartre’s No Exit at a little playhouse in Beverly Hills,” said Reiner. “I’ll never forget it, because my father came backstage, looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘That was good. No bullshit.’ It was the first time I’d gotten that sort of validation from him.” 

When Reiner was first handed the script for Stand by Me, nearly 20 years later, he was finally ready to reconcile himself with his childhood complexes. “Initially, the story of four 12-year-old boys who go off looking for a dead body struck me as a meandering tale in which not much happened,” he admitted. “The film only came into focus after I made my own personal connection to it.” 

In order to better identify with the characters in the script, Reiner took Stephen King’s autobiographical tale and added a layer of detail from his own childhood memories. “A lot of the little things that happened in this film, the little rank-outs of their mothers and ‘two for flinching’ and ‘pinky swear,’ all these are things that I used to do as a kid,” Reiner said.

“I pinpointed the main focus of Stand by Me, and it was basically rooted in my own ongoing personal struggle at the time. What I came up with was this little boy who thinks little of himself, who has a gift for writing, who is a creative person. Through the encouragement of his best friend, he is able to start realizing himself and liking himself, and going on to become a success. Then we folded in this idea of the father not understanding the kid, which was alluded to in the original novella by Stephen King, and that connected up with my life story, which was the struggle I had when I was growing up with a father who certainly loved me deeply, but never understood me.” 

Director Rob Reiner working with River Phoenix on the set of Stand by Me

“I’m starting to do work that reflects who I am,” Reiner said at the time. “Most of what I’ve done until now has been things that came from what I learned at my father’s knee. Spinal Tap, for instance, is satire, and my father was one of the great satirists of all time. With Stand by Me, I’m making a movie my father would never begin to make. He’ll appreciate it, I think – I hope he loves it – but I don’t think it’s a choice he would ever make. It’s scary, because I don’t know if I’m going to get accepted this way.”

Reiner wound up getting the approval he craved – Stand by Me was a surprise hit, proving that he could be successful outside his father’s sphere of influence. “The tone of Stand by Me was so connected to my own personality and what I felt was the kind of film I wanted to do,” Reiner said. “It was the seminal film for me that allowed me to differentiate myself from my father.” 

Sources:
Vernon Scott, “Rob Reiner Taps Pre-Teens as Heroes,” Chicago Sun-Times, 7/4/86
“Interview with Rob Reiner,” Playboy, 7/86
Stephen Holden, “At the Movies,” New York Times, 8/8/86
Myra Forsberg, “Rob Reiner Applies the Human Touch,” New York Times, 10/18/87
"Family Man's Making a Living in Movies," Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, 7/14/89
Robert Emery, The Directors – Take Two, TV Books, 2000
Stand by Me DVD: Director Commentary