This Month In History - June
This has been quite a month for landmark pop culture anniversaries including alt-rock albums, Richard Donner movies, and Steven Spielberg. Here are some of the other anniversaries to celebrate this month:
June 11, 1986: Ferris Bueller's Day Off opens
One of the all-time greatest teen / high school movies ever made was released in June 1986. John Hughes made so many great movies about teens in the 1980s (Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, the list goes on and on), but this was his Sgt. Pepper. Ferris, as played by Matthew Broderick, was such a great character. An all-around teen who got along with everyone and was smart enough to out-fox his parents and teachers. On paper, the character could have been a self-entitled punk who deserved to get caught. But as played by Broderick with equal parts cool and charm, you wanted to see him get away with it. The idea of this guy playing hooky with his best friend and girlfriend, taking a day off from high school and just letting loose and enjoying the city of Chicago for a day, is something a lot of people fantasize about doing on a daily basis regardless of age, school, job or geographic region. I saw this in the theater when I was 10 and it stayed with me all through my teen years. I never faked being sicked, but I always wanted to. When it came to VHS, my sister and I watched it hundreds of times. To this day, I can recite the majority of dialogue. It is a perfect movie from start to finish! There’s been talk over the years about a sequel in which Ferris takes a day off from college or from his job, but it kinda wouldn’t be the same as the idea of being a high school student taking the day off. Although I got to say, if Ferris was that tech-savvy in 1986, imagine what he could do today!
In 2025, I spoke with co-star Alan Ruck at the Northeast Comic Con. I asked him about internet theories that the entire movie exists in Cameron’s mind and that Ferris is what Cameron wishes he could be (a Fight Club theory). He said “Whoever came up with that, if it was for a college paper, I hope they got an A in that class! It’s very clever and a fun way to think about the movie!” Happy 40 FBDO!
June 11, 1991: Slave to the Grind released
In June 1991, Skid Row's second album was released. They made a splash with their 1988 debut. I was really into them by the time of their sophomore release. This album is easily their magnum opus! I picked up the CD the week it was released because I had just gotten my first CD player and listened to it quite frequently over the next year. The band was in the zeitgeist as they were opening for Guns N' Roses, appearing on MTV, on the cover of Rolling Stone, guests on SNL and this album debuting at #1. One of the best metal albums of the early 90s! Happy 35th STTG!
June 14, 1951: Ace in the Hole opens
In June 1951, one of Billy Wilder's finest works was released. His satirical drama took aim at the press way before such questions were fashionable. Kirk Douglas's newsman covers the story of a man trapped in a cave, but tries to elongate the trapping in order to create a media frenzy to boost his career. What Network had to say about television, this had to say about print news. I have the Criterion edition in my collection. Happy 75th AITH!
June 17, 1971: The Anderson Tapes opens
In June 1971, one of Sidney Lumet's most underrated crime films was released. When he did crime movies, he was on fire, i.e. Dog Day Afternoon and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. But in 1971, he did this crime movie with Sean Connery in the lead. It also predated The Conversation as one of the earliest movies about surveillance. I picked this up on DVD a few years ago and it still holds up! Happy 55th TAT!
June 20, 1966: Blonde on Blonde released
In June 1966, Bob Dylan's 7th album was released. I am by no means a Dylanologist, but this is definitely up there with his best albums and the best albums of all time (just look for it on any list). The previous album Highway 61 Revisited might be slightly better, but this one is Dylan swinging for the fences! Happy 60th BOB!
June 21, 1966: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? opens
In June 1966, theater director Mike Nichols made his film debut with Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, which was an adaptation of a 1962 play. It is an out-and-out incredible chess game mind-trip between a dysfunctional husband and wife, played by real life couple Liz Taylor and Richard Burton. In the mid 90s, in an acting class I took in college, our final exam for the class was to perform a scene from this play. My acting partner and I rehearsed and studied the film and did a multi-page scene (I played George, he played Nick). We blew the class away! This film is also noteworthy for being the debut of Nichols (it was a year before he did The Graduate). Happy 60th Virginia Woolf!
June 30, 1971: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory opens
One of the all-time great family movies was released in June 1971! Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was based on the 1964 book from Roald Dahl. Our hero Charlie is a poor boy who wins a Golden Ticket and gets to visit the eccentric candy-maker Willy Wonka’s factory. It is a wild psychedelic musical fantasy that is at times drug-induced. But - oh what fun it is! Gene Wilder was so great as Willy Wonka! I first saw this when I was a little kid and was mesmerized by it. In third grade, shortly after seeing it for the first time, I made my acting debut in the school play of Willy Wonka as an Oompa Loompa. (NOTE: hard to believe there's two movies I'm celebrating this month where I acted in the play). This story always has a special place for me. What’s interesting looking back on the story is the influence it has had on alt rock (for further reading on my analysis of Willy Wonka's influence on alt-rock read here). Happy 55 Willy Wonka!
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