Ferris Bueller's Day Off Scene 7 Summary

Remember Answering Machines? Probably Not

  • Back at the high school, Rooney's walking Sloane out, clumsily apologizing for her loss and quoting what sounds like some horrendous poetry. Jeanie watches from inside.
  • Ferris shows up and waits from afar—in a trench, fedora, and shades, no less—so Rooney can't I.D. him. Jeanie's still watching from inside. We can't say for sure that she actually attends classes.
  • Sloane runs to Ferris and kisses him in a manner that's wholly inappropriate for a daughter to smooch her father. Then she hops in the car, says "hi" to Cameron, who's hiding under a blanket in the backseat, and asks what they're going to do. Ferris says the question isn't what they're going to do, it's what they aren't going to do, and they speed out of the parking lot. Sloane yells in excitement as Rooney looks after them suspiciously.
  • Montage time! "Beat City" by The Flowerpot Men kicks in and we get shots of several Chicago buildings, followed by the kids driving into the city and Ferris intentionally trying to make Cameron nervous by taking his hands off of the wheel and/or not looking at the road. We also see that the Ferrari's license plate reads NRVOUS. Makes sense.
  • Incidentally, if you watch this flick with any Chicagoan worth their weight in bratwurst, they'll tell you that the kids are actually driving in circles during this montage. One shot shows them headed north (technically west) on the Dan Ryan Expressway toward the Loop; then another shows them driving south toward the Loop on Lakeshore Drive.
  • Back at school, a student has taken up a "Save Ferris" collection to buy Ferris a new kidney; apparently the rumor is he needs a new one. He approaches Jeanie and she tells him off then knocks the collection can out of his hand.
  • Yup, this movie is where the ska band Save Ferris gets their name from.
  • Rooney phones the Peterson house. He gets their answering machine, and it's a recording of Sloane saying no one can come to the phone due to a death in the family. Undeterred, Rooney tells Grace that Ferris Bueller's behind this, and now he's gotten Sloane involved. "Her grandmother, too," Grace adds.
  • Rooney calls a mortuary. He gets Cameron's answering machine with a message impersonating a mortuary. His leads are going nowhere, but Rooney remains determined to totally mess up Ferris's future.