Berkley author to release comprehensive story of ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’

BERKLEY — A Berkley writer soon will be releasing a massive behind-the-scenes look at one of the most influential comedy films of all time.

Author Jason Klamm tasked himself with writing a comprehensive book about the 1986 film “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” which was written and directed by Michigan native John Hughes.

The resulting work, “Ferris Bueller...You’re My Hero: The Story of the World’s Most Famous Day Off,” will be released on June 16.

Klamm believes he first saw the movie when he was around 10 years old. At that time, he wasn’t able to connect with Hughes’ other films such as “The Breakfast Club,” because they were more about the high school experience and he felt they weren’t written for him.

When “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” came along, he was able to immediately connect with it, because it was just about a kid getting out and celebrating his freedom.

“I think you can relate to that entirely, regardless of your age,” he said. “I also was a kid who hated school, and so the idea of leaving school and having the best day possible was just pure joy to me.”

Like many people, Klamm, who previously wrote “We’re Not Worthy: From ‘In Living Color’ to ‘Mr. Show,’ How ’90s Sketch TV Changed the Face of Comedy,” was a novice fan who loved the movie, but he realized no one had ever made a deep-dive book into how it was made.

So, he set out to conduct interviews with the people involved, learning something new about “Ferris Bueller” with every one he conducted. The most fascinating information he took in was about the movie’s famous car, the 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder that’s launched out of character Cameron Frye’s garage.

“The big one is they’re not sure how many cars were actually built for the movie,” Klamm said. “Some people are certain that they only built three, but then I did all this deep-dive research and I’m still coming up with new information after the book is already printed.”

Hughes’ films, from “Sixteen Candles” and “Pretty in Pink” to “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” have long had staying power in American pop culture.

Klamm believes Hughes, in his writing and directing, had a special ability to channel and condense into a single film what it means to be a certain age.

“He had to dig deep into his psyche to remember what it was like to be a 10-year-old kid and write ‘Home Alone.’ He had to dig back into what it was like to be a high schooler to write all of those high school movies, and then he sort of had to channel what it was like being an early dad when he was writing ‘She’s Having a Baby.’ All this stuff, he just had this perfect ability to synthesize an era of his own life into a movie that then somehow resonated with millions of people so perfectly,” he said.

The book features more than 120 interviews, including stars of the film such as Matthew Broderick and Alan Ruck, producers and extras, and Hughes’ son, James. It also features never-before-seen photos, production documents and on-set stories.

Of his interview with Broderick, Klamm said he covered Broderick’s behind-the-scenes tensions with Hughes and his coming to terms with being associated with this one role for a big part of his career.

But Klamm was more interested in discussing the acting process of developing the Ferris Bueller character and how Broderick brought him to life.

“When people interview him about Ferris Bueller, it’s always about people overusing the word ‘iconic’ and how iconic this movie is and this character is, and you get it because it’s a movie that people can’t really put into words,” he said. “My goal with the book is to put that into words, but I wanted to get into the nitty-gritty of, ‘Hey, how did you prepare to play this very weird kind of … surreal character.’ And so we went deep into the acting process for some of it.”

The book launch will be at an event held from 6 to 8 p.m. on Friday, June 12, at the Berkley Public Library, 3155 Coolidge Highway.

The library’s media librarian, Lisabeth Posthuma, was a fan of Klamm’s previous book, and knowing he was local, she reached out to him and they stayed in touch.

Last year, the library started its BerkBuster section that aimed to replicate the feeling of going to the video store on a Friday night.

“When I saw that he had another book coming out and that it was about ‘Ferris Bueller,’ and we just opened BerkBuster, I’m like, ‘Well, this is like a perfect venue to have his book launch,’” she said. “This would be a perfect time to kind of combine those things, where we have a late night that we’re open, but we also have this special guest where we can do an event and have a little author chat and then discuss a Q&A about his experience writing this book.”