Saturday, September 03, 2011

Screen Gem Saturdays: St. Elmo's Fire



When it comes to the 80's, "St. Elmo's Fire" is the quintessential movie for me. Released in 1985, right about the time I was graduating from college, it seemed as if Joel Schumacher & Carl Kurlander's script was speaking directly to me.

After 4 years of blissful life in college, still surrounded by the distant but still very protective bubble of my parents, I found myself adrift on my own not knowing what the heck to do with my life. A number of botched job interviews for jobs that didn't match my passions chipped away at my self esteem and instead of leading a glamorous life in California as an account exec for an Advertising Agency, I found myself doing paste-up (anyone remember what that is?) for a grocery chain in Indianapolis.

Every chance I got, I popped "St. Elmo's" into the VCR (remember those?) and thanks to Rob Lowe, realized it was ok to flounder for awhile.



The fact that I also played the saxophone made the movie that much more real for me!



There are times when the movie creeks a bit with age, but thanks to the cast (especially Lowe, Demi Moore, and Mare Winningham), it still holds up overall and paints a great portrait of the confident youth of the 80's who found that life after college could be a challenge as the party stops and the bills start piling up.

To see more Classic Hollywood movie photos, visit my regular Hollywood movie web page.

1 comment:

Connie Moreno said...

Would you believe I've never seen that movie??