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'Ferris Bueller's Day Off' Honored by Feds as Culturally 'Significant'

By DNAinfo Staff | December 19, 2014 11:32am | Updated on December 22, 2014 8:24am
 The 1986 teen comedy, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, which was set in the Chicago area and mostly filmed here, has been selected  by the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress  as "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant. As part of this year's crop of 25 films, Ferris Bueller's Day Off will be "preserved for future generations."
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CHICAGO — Save Ferris, indeed.

The 1986 teen comedy "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," which was set in the Chicago area and mostly filmed here, has been selected by the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant. As part of this year's crop of 25 films, "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" will be "preserved for future generations."

The comedy, about three teenagers who ditch school and spend the day goofing off in Chicago — "The question isn't 'what are we going to do?' It's 'what aren't we going to do?'," Ferris says — was written and directed by the late John Hughes, who set many of his movies in the area.

In its announcement, the film registry said Hughes "achieved a career highpoint with this funny, heartfelt tale of a teenage wiseacre (Matthew Broderick), whose day playing hooky leads not only to a host of comic misadventures, but also, ultimately, to self-realization for both him and his friends."

"With the city of Chicago serving as backdrop and a now-iconic street performance of 'Twist and Shout' serving as the film’s centerpiece, Ferris Bueller emerged as one of film’s greatest and most fully realized teen heroes," the preservationists said.

The film remains popular with locals — Sun-Times film critic Richard Roeper once put it on his Top Ten list — but also with tourists. City tourism agency Choose Chicago is among the various sites, including movie-locations.com and Internet Movie Database, that provide filming locations for fans to visit.

While many of the scenes were shot in the northern suburbs such as Highland Park, Northbrook, Glencoe and Des Plaines, other iconic passages were filmed in the city:

• Willis Tower. The three main characters, Ferris, Sloane and Cameron, visit what was then known as the Sears Tower observation deck where they lean forward against the glass. "The city looks so peaceful from up here," Sloane says. Responds Ferris: "Anything is peaceful from 1,353 feet."

Many tourists take pictures recreating the scene where the the three lean against the windows.

• The building at 333 W. Wacker Drive is where Ferris' dad works.

• The parking garage at Madison and Wells streets is where Ferris leaves a Ferrari he has borrowed.

• A visit to the Chicago Board of Trade, 141 W. Jackson Blvd., features Cameron trying out some sign language to humorous results.

• At the federal plaza at Dearborn and Adams, Ferris lip syncs "Twist and Shout" during a the German-American parade. The orange flamingo sculpture gets a cameo.

• At the Art Institute, 111 S. Michigan Ave. Ferris, Sloane and Cameron view paintings, including "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte" by Georges Seurat. "You can also fall in love like Sloane and Ferris viewing "American Windows" by Marc Chagall, the striking blue stained class windows," writes Mike Habschmidt on the Choose Chicago site.

 

• The three take in a Cubs game at Wrigley Field, where they're spotted on TV by a school official. Hughes' son, John Hughes III, recently told the New York Times, “Everyone always assumes my dad was a Cubs fan because of Ferris. [Wrigley] is where Ferris would have gone — my dad would have gone to Comiskey.”

 

• Chez Quis, the fancy restaurant where the three dine, is not a real place. The exterior, though, is a private home at 22 W. Schiller St. The interior scenes, in which Ferris passes himself off as Abe Froman, the "Sausage King of Chicago" to get a table, were shot in California. As for his ruse, Ferris says, "You can never go to far."

 

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