5. Mr. Rooney Is A Convicted Sex Offender - Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Ferris Bueller's Day Off is one of those endlessly watchable comedy classics that near-on everybody adores; who doesn't love to sit back on a rainy Sunday afternoon in order to watch that cheeky chappy Ferris as he attempts to skip school whilst his hilarious and bumbling, by-the-book Principal, Edward R. Rooney, tries to catch him out? Mr. Rooney is a great character, of course - one the the best villains of the '80s; a man with a face so inherently irksome that it's genuinely pleasurable to watch him failing time and time again as the movie attempts to make him look really stupid. You might change your mind about Ferris Bueller's Day Off, though, when you learn that the actor who plays Edward R. Rooney, Jeffrey Jones, is a convicted sex offender. Uh-huh: Jones was arrested in 2003 for possession of child pornography and was accused of soliciting a 14-year-old boy. Since then, he's been arrested twice for failing to update his sex offender status - weird for a man who played a character so hellbent on enforcing the rules. It's super hard to watch Ferris Bueller knowing this about him, of course, because he's a large and integral part of the movie. Way to ruin a classic, huh?
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
