Karen Allen starred in one of the best-remembered blockbuster movies of all time. She has worked with Steven Spielberg, Richard Donner, John Carpenter and William Friedkin. Her costars include Harrison Ford, Al Pacino, Billy Murray and John Belushi. But despite appearing in several hit movies, Allen never became a big star. As the 80’s ended, her career cooled off and eventually she threw in the towel. She left Hollywood for the Berkshire Mountains.
What the hell happened?
Allen studied acting at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute in her twenties. According to the internet, Allen was considered for and possibly even auditioned for the role of Princess Leia in Star Wars. But Allen says don’t believe everything you read on Internet Movie Database:
I think that’s not true. I don’t know where that ever came from. Because when Star Wars was being made I had never done a film in my life. I was either still living in Washington, D.C., working in the theater or had just moved to New York and working in theater there, too. I had heard that rumor but I just can’t imagine anybody knew who I was.
In 1978, Allen appeared in her first Hollywood movie, National Lampoon’s Animal House.
Allen played the down-to-earth girlfriend of Peter Reigert’s character, Boon. Boon was one of the members of the Delta Tau Chi fraternity at Faber College in 1962 when the movie takes place. The Delta House is the rowdiest on campus and is always in danger of being shut down by the school’s dean. Stephen Furst and Thomas Hulce played pledges to Delta House. John Belushi, Tim Matheson, Bruce McGill, James Widdoes and Douglas Kenney played the other frat brothers.
Producer Ivan Reitman originally wanted to cast more Not-Ready-for Prime Time players. He wanted Bill Murray to play Boon and Chevy Chase for Otter. The role of D-Day was written for Dan Aykroyd. Director John Landis didn’t want Animal House to turn into Saturday Night Live: the Movie. So he actively discouraged Chase from accepting the role. When Chase opted to make Foul Play instead, the SNL casting idea fell through.
Writer Harold Ramis had hoped to play the role of Boon himself. But Landis felt Ramis was too old for the part. He was 32. Instead, Landis cast Reigert who was 29. Ramis was so disappointed, he turned down a smaller role Landis offered him. The other two writers, Doug Kenney and Chris Miller, accepted small roles as an excuse to be on the set during filming. According to Allen, she was an unpopular choice for the role of Katy:
I think I auditioned five times for that role. And nobody but John Landis and the casting directors wanted me. Well, I think Harold Ramis liked me, too. But nobody at Universal wanted me because they wanted someone with more experience, someone who had more credits. Someone they could point to as more of a star.
Allen did some nudity for Animal House. When she expressed reluctance to do so, Donald Sutherland stepped in and offered to take off his pants as well. Allen recalled the exchange at the movie’s 30th anniversary:
I thought he was so sweet to do that, so I sort of let go of my objections and said, ‘Okay, if Donald Sutherland is going to bare his bottom, by golly, I’ll bare mine too!’
Sutherland didn’t think the movie would be a hit. He was offered a percentage or a flat fee of $75,000 for three day’s work. His decision to accept the upfront payment cost him somewhere between $3-4 million dollars.
Initial reviews for Animal House were mixed. But the movie was a hit at the box office and remains a comedy classic. A sequel was planned in which the Deltas would reunite for Pinto’s wedding. It was to be set in Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco during the Summer of Love. But after the box office failure of American Graffiti 2 which had a similar setting, the Animal House sequel was cancelled.
In 1979, ABC aired a TV adaptation of Animal House called Delta House. The show recast some roles while maintaining original cast members Stephen Furst, Bruce McGill, James Widdoes and John Vernon. Allen did not return. Her character did not appear on Delta House. However, Michelle Pfieffer did appear as a character credited as “The Bombshell.”
Shortly after wrapping on Animal House, Allen was afflicted with EKC, a virus infection that can cause loss of vision. According to Allen:
I didn’t know whether I was going to get my eyesight back, and I was pretty frightened.
Three months later, the disease went away on its own, but it left Allen with scarred corneas and less than perfect vision. During this time, Allen began a romantic relationship with this guy:
Singer-song writer Stephen Bishop played the guy whose guitar John Belushi smashes in Animal House. Allen and Bishop struck up a friendship on the set and the friendship turned into a romance afterwards.
Allen also appeared in the 1978 TV movie Lovey: A Circle of Children, Part II about a social worker who helps a violently troubled young girl named Lovey.
In 1979, Allen appeared in Woody Allen’s comedy masterpiece, Manhattan. If you’re a Woody Allen fan like me, you’re probably saying to yourself, “Wait a minute. I have seen Manhattan dozens of times. I think I would remember if Karen Allen was in it.” Trust me. I had the same reaction.
Manhattan is about a TV writer played by writer-director, Woody Allen. His ex-wife played by Meryl Streep has left him for another woman. His rebound relationship is with a seventeen-year-old girl played by Mariel Hemingway. And he finds himself attracted to his best friend’s mistress played by Diane Keaton.
So where does Karen Allen fit into all of this? She played an actress on the show Woody Allen’s character writes. She’s buried under a thick blonde wig. Charles Levin and David Rasche played the other two actors on the show.
Woody Allen has named Manhattan as one of his least favorite of his movies. He offered to direct another movie for United Artists if they agreed to keep Manhattan on the shelf indefinitely. According to Allen, “I just thought to myself, ‘At this point in my life, if this is the best I can do, they shouldn’t give me money to make movies’.”
Later that year, Allen appeared in Philip Kaufman’s coming of age drama, The Wanderers.
The movie was based on Richard Price’s novel of the same name. The movie is set in 1963 and centers on a group of Italian gang members in the North Bronx. Ken Wahl played the leader of The Wanderers and Allen played a girl who catches his eye.
There were several gang-related movies released in 1979 and The Wanderers got lost in the shuffle. Some critics complained that Kaufman had deviated from the source material too much. But Price liked the movie in spite of the changes:
I love that picture. It’s not my book, and I don’t care. The spirit is right, and the way Phil Kaufman directed it showed me another way of looking at my own book.
Although the movie was not a hit at the box office, The Wanderers has grown a cult following over the years.
Allen also appeared in the pilot episode of Knot’s Landing, a spin-off from the popular nighttime soap opera, Dallas. Allen played the troubled daughter of Michelle Lee and Don Murray.
The show ran from 1979 to 1993. Allen only appeared in the pilot episode.
In 1980, Allen appeared opposite Al Pacino in William Friedkin’s thriller, Cruising.
Pacino starred as a cop who goes undercover in New York’s S&M and leather districts to find a serial killer who has been dismembering young, gay men. Isolated from the rest of the force and his girlfriend (played by Allen), Pacino’s character is changed by his experiences.
The movie is based on Gerald Walker’s 1970 novel of the same name. Friedkin initially turned down the opportunity to direct Cruising. But he returned to the project after a series of real life killings in gay leather bars in the early 70’s. While Friedkin was researching the project, he paid a visit to a radiologist named Paul Bateson. Bateson had appeared in Friedkin’s horror classic, The Exorcist, in 1973. In 1979, Bateson was awaiting trial on murder charges.
Bateson had confessed to killing a film critic in 1977. He met Addison Verrill in a Greenwich Village gay bar, went back to his apartment where they had sex and then crushed his skull with a metal skillet. Friedkin thought talking to Bateson about his experiences might give him some insight into the mind of his fictional killer.
As it turns out, Friedkin was probably closer to the source than he realized. Bateson bragged of killing other men “for fun”. While Bateson was never formally charged with the “bag murders” the movie is based on, the police are satisfied that he is guilty of those murders as well.
Friedkin is known for doing all kinds of crazy things to elicit realistic performances from his actors. While making The Exorcist, he would fire off a gun at random intervals to keep the actors on edge. On Cruising, he refused to let Allen read the entire script. Like her character, Allen was kept in the dark regarding Pacino’s activities.
Cruising was an extremely controversial movie when it was released. The New York gay community protested the movie while it was still filming. Gay-owned businesses refused to allow Cruising access to their premises. Protesters would use mirrors to ruin lighting for scenes or would make loud noises using whistles and air horns.
Then the movie went before the MPAA which slapped the movie with an X-rating. Friedkin re-edited and resubmitted the movie 40 times before he obtained an R-rating. Between the cuts insisted on by the ratings board and the studio, Cruising‘s runtime was cut by nearly 40 minutes. The cuts included most of Allen’s scenes.
Cruising was a disappointment at the box office. But it was savaged by critics and gay rights activists. Over time, the critical view of the movie has softened. There has been demand to release a director’s cut of the movie on video. But according to Friedkin, the cut scenes were destroyed by the studio.
Later that year, Allen starred opposite Brad Davis and Jameson Parker in Rob Cohen’s directorial debut, A Small Circle of Friends.
The trio of actors played Harvard students dealing with the changing times of the 1960’s.
Cohen had to plead with United Artists for the chance to direct the picture. When the original director left the project at the last minute, the studio agreed to give Cohen a shot on one condition. He had to secure a back-up director in case the studio decided to fire him. Arthur Hiller agreed to step in if Cohen was fired. Fortunately for Cohen, that was not necessary.
In 1981, Allen appeared in the ABC mini-series, East of Eden. John Steinbeck’s epic novel had been adapted to the big screen in the 1955 movie starring James Dean. The eight-hour mini-series was more faithful to the source material.
Allen played Abra, a rich girl who comes between two brothers. Jane Seymor and Bruce Boxleitner starred. While Allen was filming East of Eden, she was contacted by Steven Spielberg and asked to read the script for Raiders of the Lost Ark:
I was working on a television miniseries of East of Eden, and we were up somewhere in Napa. And he sent a courier to my hotel room, who had to sit in my room the whole time I read the script, and then took the script away.
Later that year, Allen starred opposite Harrison Ford in Steven Spielberg’s ode to action serials, Raiders of the Lost Ark.
If you’re reading this article, you already know that Ford starred as swashbuckling archaeologist Indiana Jones. In 1936, Indy is hired to locate the Lost Ark of the Covenant before the Nazis find it. His quest takes him to a scorned ex-lover played by Allen. She agrees to help him locate the Ark on the condition that she gets to come along.
By now, the details of the making of Raiders of the Lost Ark are well-known. George Lucas wrote the original script, The Adventures of Indiana Smith, in 1973. Lucas put the project on hold to concentrate on making Star Wars. Lucas and Spielberg were on vacation in Hawaii after Star Wars was released when Spielberg lamented that he could not make a James Bond movie. Lucas told Spielberg that he had a character who was “better than James Bond”. Spielberg loved the idea but insisted on changing the character’s last name.
In January 1978, Lucas, Spielberg and screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan spent nine hours a day for five days brainstorming ideas. Several ideas such as the giant boulder and the booby traps in the opening scene were inspired by cartoonist Cal Banks’ Uncle Scrooge comics. Kasdan spent the next six months working on the script based on a 100-page transcript of their meetings. A couple of scenes were cut from the movie and repurposed for the sequel, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
Several actors auditioned for the lead role including Tim Matheson, Peter Coyote, John Shea and Tom Selleck. Sean Young played Marion the screen tests for these actors. Selleck was offered the role, but was not able to get out of his commitment to the TV show, Magnum, P.I. Debra Winger was offered the role of Marion but turned it down.
Allen didn’t always see eye-to-eye with Spielberg while they were filming. She saw the movie as a romance like Casablanca whereas Spielberg was making an action/adventure movie:
I didn’t quite get all the time what he was going for in certain ways, and he didn’t quite get me, how I worked. I was kind of a much more internally oriented actor, and at times he wanted me to be much more external than I was being.
According to Allen, the director enjoyed torturing her on the set:
He thought, ‘She’s such a nice person, I have to toughen her up.” And I think he often, from my perspective, was not very nice to me, and I think there was a method in his madness.
Spielberg and Lucas told Allen that they intended to make three movies but that her character would likely only appear in the first movie. Allen was fine with that. She considered herself a bohemian New York actress and didn’t want to be tied down to sequels. Spielberg actually wanted to bring Allen back for the sequel, but Lucas insisted that Indy should have a different love interest for every movie.
Raiders of the Lost Ark was the highest grossing movie of 1981. It received unanimous positive reviews and was nominated for nine Academy Awards including Best Picture (which it lost to Chariots of Fire). Indy returned for two sequels in the 1980’s and then the TV series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. And then… well, we’ll get to that later.
In 1982, Allen had a supporting role in Alan Parker’s domestic drama, Shoot the Moon.
Albert Finney and Diane Keaton starred as a married couple getting a divorce after fifteen years of marriage. Allen played Finney’s mistress. Peter Weller played a builder with whom Keaton starts an affair in retaliation.
The movie was originally scheduled for release in 1981, but it was moved to early 1982. Keaton also starred in Warren Beaty’s historical drama, Reds, in 1981. There was concern that if she starred in two big dramas in the same year, it might reduce her chances of winning Best Actress for Reds by splitting the votes between two films. As it turns out, Keaton was nominated for Reds, but she lost to Katherine Hepburn for On Golden Pond.
Shoot the Moon received good reviews. Keaton and Finney were both nominated for Golden Globes. But the movie was not a hit at the box office.
Later that year, Allen appeared in the thriller, Split Image.
Michael O’Keefe (Danny Noonan from Caddyshack) starred as a college athlete who is lured into a cult by a beautiful girl played by Allen. Peter Fonda played the cult leader who brainwashes the once-promising caddy. His parents, played by Elizabeth Ashley and Brian Dennehy, hire a bounty hunter played by James Woods to break Danny (yes, his name was Danny in this movie too) out of the cult and deprogram him.
Originally, Tatum O’Neal was cast in Allen’s role. But when the producers realized that she was too young to work without parental supervision, they recast the role.
I’m not 100% sure, but I think we actually watched this one in high school. Our sophmore year English teacher must have had a thing about cults. Because we watched this movie, read Blinded by the Light and even had a Q&A with the book’s author. True story. I missed a question on a quiz about the symbolism in Blinded by the Light. I don’t remember what the question was, but not long after the quiz, we had our Q&A with author Robin F Brancato. So I asked her the same question and she agreed with my answer. My teacher was less than amused. I did not get any points back on that quiz.
Any time you see Michael O’Keefe in a movie that isn’t Caddyshack, you can be pretty sure the movie was a failure. Split Image (which was O’Keefe’s follow-up to the classic comedy) was no exception.
Following the success of Raiders, Allen retreated from movies to the stage. She played Laura in a production of Tennessee Williams’ play, The Glass Menagerie. The production co-starred future Twin Peaks star, Michael Ontkean. Allen would work with Ontkean again later in her career in the 1993 thriller, The Rapture. She would also reprise her role in a film adaptation of the play.
Allen ended 1982 by making her Broadway debut in Monday After the Miracle, a sequel to The Miracle Worker. Allen played Helen Keller in her twenties. Jane Alexander played her teacher Annie Sullivan. Allen as Keller struggles with her feelings for her teacher’s young husband.
In 1984, Allen starred in the Parisian romantic drama, Until September.
Allen played an American tourist who is stranded in Paris after missing her plane. She meets a wealthy Parisian banker whose family is away. They begin spending time together and eventually begin an affair – the kind of affair you can only have in Paris. The kind with soft focus, lovely music and an expiration date. Come September, deal’s off.
Until September currently holds a rare 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. Legendary film critic Roger Ebert gave the movie a half-star. He was especially hard on Allen’s French co-star, Thierry Lhermitte. Ebert wrote:
Perhaps I do not like Thierry Lhermitte. Perhaps I think he is the biggest drip I’ve seen in a love story in years. He is the kind of romantic leading man who has the audience wondering when the real leading man is going to turn up and wipe this guy out of the picture.
No one panned a movie like Ebert. He went on to describe Until September as “a dumb, pointless, boring romance from beginning to end.” Audiences didn’t like Until September either. It opened in sixth place at the box office barely beating out The Karate Kid which had been in theaters for 14 weeks at the time.
Later that year, Allen rebounded in John Carpenter’s sci-fi drama, Starman.
Allen played a widow struggling to get over the loss of her husband. Jeff Bridges played the late husband in flashbacks. But he also played an alien who comes to earth and takes on Allen’s husband’s appearance in order to blend in. From there, it’s basically E.T. for grown-ups.
The script for Starman was developed at Columbia at the same time as the script for E.T. The studio didn’t want to make two movies about alien visitors from another planet, so they had to pick one. The studio chose Starman and let E.T. go. When E.T. became a hit, the director attached to Starman at the time, John Badham, left the project to make War Games instead.
Badham was the third of six directors who were at some point attached to direct Starman. The first director, Mark Rydell, left over creative differences with producer Michael Douglas. He was replaced by Adrian Lyne who opted to make Flashdance instead. Badham replaced Lyne. Tony Scott was briefly associated with Starman. After Scott left, Peter Hyams came on board. And then after Hyams left, John Carpenter was hired.
According to Carpenter, he decided to make Starman after The Thing flopped in 1982. The Thing was completely overshadowed at the box office by another movie about an alien. Yep, E.T. While E.T. had audiences feeling warm and fuzzy about extra terrestrials, The Thing depicted aliens and scary and gross. So Carpenter decided he needed to make a movie that was the opposite of The Thing. Which turned out to be a movie that was a lot like E.T.
Allen, who did not always get along with E.T. director Spielberg, got along well with Carpenter and his crew:
John is a really nice guy. The people working with him have a really nice thing going. They’ve developed this strong support system. He has chosen a good group of people. They stay with him film after film. They can bounce things off of each other in order to get the film made. I had a good time making Starman.
Starman was nowhere near as big of a hit as E.T. was. In fact despite positive reviews, it barely broke even. However, Bridges was nominated for an Academy Award which is rare for science fiction. It is the only time a movie directed by Carpenter has ever been nominated by the Academy. Bridges lost to F. Murray Abraham who was nominated for Amadeus.
But that wasn’t the end of Starman. From 1986-1987 Robert Hays and Christopher Daniel Barnes starred in a spin-off TV series. Hays played the alien from the movie and Barnes played (spoilers for the movie) his teenage son. Together, they evaded government officials while looking for Allen’s character. Eventually, they found her in a two-parter. Erin Grey played Allen’s character on the TV show.
Although Starman was not a hit at the time, it has developed a cult following over the years. According to Allen, she is still sometimes recognized by fans of the film:
I get recognized for “Animal House” a lot. That film is huge, too. That film has aged very well. People are still watching that film. I saw it not that long ago. It’s just one of those films that seems as much fun now as when we made it. There’s a whole huge “Starman” contingent as well. Believe it or not, there are people who have a little obsession with “Starman.”
In 1986, while Starman was on TV, Allen starred in an episode of the TV show Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
Allen played a woman living in New York who is worried that a serial killer can get into her apartment. The episode, titled The Creeper, was a remake of an episode from the original series hosted by Hitchcock himself.
After several years of dating, Allen broke up with song-writer, Stephen Bishop. He turned his heartbreak into the song Separate Lives. The song was featured in the movie White Nights and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Song in 1986.
In 1987, Allen returned to science fiction in the French-German oddity, Terminus.
Allen played a truck-driver named Gus. In the year 2037, she pilots a super-truck called Monster in an international sport that involves driving cross-country and avoiding obstacles. Her truck was designed by a boy super-genius. When the truck’s artificial intelligence falters, she drives into uncharted territory where she is captured by Euro hoods.
It’s… um… interesting.
Later that year, Allen starred opposite John Malkovich and Joanne Woodward in Paul Newman’s adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ play The Glass Menagerie.
The movie is largely faithful to the source material. Malkovich plays a sensitive writer dealing with his delusional Southern belle mother and a crippled sister.
Come to think of it, we watched this one in high school too. Maybe I shouldn’t have attended Karen Allen High School. In junior year English, we covered the play. We watched this adaptation and performed select scenes in class. I essayed the role of Tom played by Malkovich in the movie.
Reviews for the movie were mixed to positive. The Washington Post complained about the performances while singling out Allen for praise:
Acting is definitely the trouble in Menagerie. There’s an awful lot of it here. And there are many words – fine words by Tennessee Williams. But before that no-nonsense lens, and as emoted by Malkovich and Woodward, they seem time-consuming, inflated, dated and theatrical. The film’s few good moments happen when mouths are firmly shut. Which is why Karen Allen, one of the screen’s great underrated actresses, comes off best. As frail and soft-spoken daughter Laura, awaiting gentleman callers who never come, she’s the best film performer here.
The review calls Woodward a “disappointment” and Malkovich “watchable”. So apparently I got better reviews for my performance in The Glass Menagerie than John Malkovich did.
In 1988, Allen starred opposite Keith Carradine and Jeff Fahey in the thriller, Backfire.
Allen and Fahey played a young, wealthy couple. But he is traumatized by flashbacks to Vietnam. Allen gets tired of dealing with her husband’s issues and takes on a lover. When her sister-in-law threatens to cut her off and leave her penniless, she heads out to a bar to drown her sorrows. There, she meets a mysterious stranger played by Carradine. Plotting ensues.
So at this point, it’s been seven years since Allen’s breakout role in Raiders and the most high-profile movie she has made is a John Carpenter cult movie. It was beginning to look like Hollywood had lost her number. But she still had one more mainstream Hollywood movie left in her before that happened.
Off-screen, Allen got married to soap opera actor Kale Browne in 1988. At the time, Browne was appearing on Another World. But he also had runs on rival soaps One Life to Live, All My Children and Days of Our Lives. A couple years later, Allen would give birth to their son.
Allen starred opposite Bill Murray in Richard Donner’s Christmas comedy, Scrooged.
Murray splayed a Scrooge-like TV executive who is putting together a live production of the Dickens classic for his network. Just like Ebenezer, Murray is visited by ghosts who show him visions of the past, present and future. Allen played Murray’s true love who he let get away in order to pursue a career in TV.
Scrooged wasn’t just a return for Allen. Murray hadn’t starred in a comedy since Ghostbusters in 1984. He had appeared in movies like Little Shop of Horrors in supporting roles. But this was his first comedic lead since Ghostbusters and expectations were high.
Unfortunately, Murray and Donner clashed over the tone of the movie. When Roger Ebert asked if they had disagreements on the set, Murray replied:
Only a few. Every single minute of the day. That could have been a really, really great movie. The script was so good. There’s maybe one take in the final cut movie that is mine. We made it so fast, it was like doing a movie live. He kept telling me to do things louder, louder, louder. I think he was deaf.
Ultimately, Scrooged got mixed reviews and was a disappointment at the box office. It ended up grossing $60 million dollars on a $32 million dollar budget which is technically enough to qualify it as a hit. But Paramount was looking for Ghostbusters numbers. Or at least $100 million.
In 1989, Allen starred alongside Armand Assante and Holly Hunter in the romantic comedy, Animal Behavior.
Allen played a biologist who teaches a chimp sign language. Her dedication to her work blinds her to the fact that a hunky composer played by Assante is attracted to her.
If you’re a fan of lightweight rom coms, there’s a good chance you will enjoy this movie. But critics wanted something more. The reviewer for the LA Times gave the stars praise while panning the movie:
Allen and Assante are so terrific together you regret that Animal Behavior, goes for whimsy and sentimentality rather than the screwball humor and sophistication of Bringing Up Baby.
Animal Behavior received a limited release in only 24 theaters.
In 1990, Allen starred in two TV movies. The first was Challenger. Allen played teacher Christa McAuliffe who was chosen from more than 11,00 applicants to be the first teacher in space. Of course the Challenger launch ended in tragedy in 1986.
Peter Boyle and Barry Bostwick co-starred. Allen’s real-life husband, Kale Browne, played her character’s husband in the movie.
Next, Allen played a femme fatale in the direct-to-video spy thriller, Secret Weapon.
The movie is based on the true story of an Israeli nuclear technician who revealed his country’s nuclear capacity to the world. Griffin Dunne played the whistle blower who is seduced by Allen.
Allen did not appear in the 1990 smash hit Pretty Woman. The comedy that made Julia Roberts a star was originally offered to Allen by director Gary Marshall. Pretty Woman comes up a lot in these articles because it was a big hit movie that just about every actress in Hollywood passed on at one point or another. Had Allen accepted the role, it could have lead to a comeback. Or not. You just never know. You can’t underestimate what Roberts contributed to making that movie a hit. Pretty Woman with any other lead actress wouldn’t have been the same movie.
In 1991, Allen co-starred opposite Bryan Brown in the Australian romantic comedy, Sweet Talker.
Brown played a conman who has just been released from prison. He heads to a dying coastal town where he attempts to scam the locals by having them invest in a bogus theme park. But things get complicated when he falls for a local hotel owner played by Allen.
Brown came up with the story for the movie himself.
In 1992, Allen starred in the thriller, The Turning.
The movie is based on the stage play, Home Fires Burning. It’s about a white supremacist who returns to his hometown in Virginia to reconnect with his childhood. Unfortunately, he returns just as his parents are getting a divorce. His mother, played by Tess Harper, is dealing with alcoholism and his father is starting a new life with Allen.
The movie was best known for featuring an early performance by future X-Files star, Gillian Anderson. Anderson was unhappy with the sex scenes which she had filmed when she was 19. Four years later, after Anderson had become a TV star, the video rights to the movie were bought by a British film distributor who released the movie on video worldwide. The cover for the video release heavily promoted Anderson’s topless scenes.
Reportedly, Anderson tried to prevent the movie’s release on video. But she was unsuccessful.
Later that year, Allen had a bit part in Spike Lee’s biopic, Malcolm X. Allen played a child services officer who ultimately ends up taking a young Malcolm and his siblings from their mother. Allen only appears in one flashback and has around 10 lines.
In 1993, Allen appeared in the nostalgic baseball comedy, The Sandlot.
Allen played the mother of a new kid in an LA suburb in the summer of 1962. She encourages her son to make friends, have fun and get into trouble. He does just that with a group of boys who play baseball together.
The Sandlot is one of those movies that people assume was a hit because they like it. But it was released to mixed reviews and overshadowed at the box office. It opened in second place behind Indecent Proposal and went on to gross a so-so $32 million dollars. But The Sandlot was successful on home video and has spawned two direct-to-video sequels.
Next, Allen starred alongside Rutger Hauer and Eric Roberts in the TV movie, The Voyage. Allen and Hauer played a couple preparing to sail to Malta and live on their boat for a year. Roberts and Connie Nielsen play another couple that asks to join them for a couple of days. Before you can say Dead Calm, thriller stuff happens.
Later that year, Allen appeared in Steven Soderbergh’s Depression-era drama King of the Hill.
Jesse Bradford starred as a boy struggling to survive on his own in a St. Louis apartment. His mother has been committed to a sanitarium and his father is a traveling salesman. A young Katherine Heigl played a pretty blonde girl who asks the down-on-his luck boy if he would like to dance. Spalding Grey, Elizabeth McGovern and Adrien Brody also appear in supporting roles.
At the time, Soderbergh wasn’t yet one of America’s most cherished directors. He had turned heads with his directorial debut, Sex, Lies and Videotape. But his follow-up film, Kafka, had a lot of people thinking Soderbergh was a one-hit wonder. King of the Hill represented a come-back for Soderbergh. It didn’t have the same impact as Sex, Lies and Videotape. But it was nominated for the prestigious Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
Allen ended the year by starring in the computer-based horror movie, Ghost in the Machine.
Allen plays a woman who is terrorized by the ghost of a serial killer who has somehow been digitized. Despite no longer having a body, the killer uses computer networks to continue his murderous spree.
Ghost in the Machine was panned by critics and bombed at the box office. It opened in 10th place and quickly disappeared from theaters.
In 1994, Allen starred on the CBS family drama, The Road Home. (Although you would never know Allen was the star from the print ad above in which she is shunted off into a corner surrounded by her kids.) Allen played a mother who moves her family from Detroit back to North Carolina to run her family’s shrimp boat business.
The show lasted only six episodes.
In 1996, Allen appeared in the TV movie Hostile Advances: The Kerry Ellison Story.
Rena Sofer starred as Kerry Ellison, an IRS employee who was sexually harassed by a co-worker played by Victor Garber. Allen played a sympathetic boss who is unable to deal with the problem directly.
And this is the part of the article where the police procedurals start popping up. Allen played a suspect in an episode of Law and Order.
Allen also appeared in a computer game called Ripper. The game told the story of Jack the Ripper but was set in the year 2040. Allen played a doctor with a mysterious past. Christopher Walken, Burgess Meredith and Raiders co-star John Rhys-Davies also appeared in the game.
In 1997, Allen played Dylan McDermott’s mother in the romantic comedy, ‘Til There Was You.
McDermott and Jeanne Tripplehorn starred as two young people whose paths continue to cross. Jennifer Aniston played Tripplehorn’s best friend and Sarah Jessica Parker played a TV star Tripplehorn is writing about. Allen and her real-life husband, Kale Browne, played McDermott’s parents.
The movie was panned by critics. Roger Ebert called ‘Til There Was You “the most tiresome and affected movie in many a moon, a 114-minute demonstration of the Idiot Plot, in which everything could be solved with a few well-chosen words that are never spoken . . . and at the end of it all, we have the frustration of knowing that 114 minutes of our lives have been wasted, never to be returned.”
It didn’t fare any better with audiences. It opened in 10th place at the box office and grossed a pathetic $3.5 million dollars.
In 1997, Allen starred opposite Richard Chamberlain and Hal Holbrook in the TV movie, All the Winters That Have Been. The movie was based on a novel of the same name about a couple that reunites after 20 years apart.
The following year, Allen and Kale Browne ended their marriage after 10 years together. At the age of 47, Allen was a single mother with an 8-year-old son. According to Allen:
I was in that kind of real weird transitional period there. I was in my late 40s, early 50s, and it’s a strange little place that you can fall into. These days all somebody has to do is Google you and they know how old you are. I would show up for roles that were written for somebody in their early 50s, and people would say, ‘You can’t do that, you look too young,’ but if I showed up for a role for somebody in their early 40s then the people would say, ‘Well, but she’s 50.’
In 1999, Allen co-starred with Peter Coyote in the historical drama, The Basket.
Coyote played a teacher who teaches a German orphan how to play basketball during World War I.
Later that year, Allen co-starred opposite Brittany Murphy in the drama, Falling Sky, which as it turns out is not about aliens.
Allen played an alcoholic who warns her daughter (Murphy) that she is susceptible to alcoholism too. Eventually, Allen’s character takes her life which sends her daughter off in a bad direction.
The movie went direct to video. It wasn’t released in the US until 2005.
In 2000, Allen appeared in the Western, The Wind River. She played a widow who’s young son is taken in by a local Shoshone tribe.
Later that year, Allen had a small role in Wolfgang Petersen’s disaster movie, The Perfect Storm. On the upside, it was a big hit movie. On the other hand, I completely forgot she was in it.
In 2001, Allen played a defense attorney in the domestic abuse drama, In the Bedroom. The cast included Sissy Spacek, Tom Wilkinson, Nick Stahl and Marisa Tomei.
In the Bedroom received positive reviews and performed well at the box office. It was nominated for several awards including an Oscar for Best Picture. But once again, Allen’s role was very small.
In 2001, Allen appeared in a Showtime movie directed by Eric Stoltz called My Horrible Year. Allison Mack from Smallville starred as a teen who worries that her parents will split on her sixteenth birthday.
Wrestler Bret Hart appeared playing himself.
Next, Allen played a waitress in the road drama, World Traveler. Billy Crudup played a family man who abandons his wife and kid for an adventure on the road. He picks up Julianne Moore and encounters eccentric characters that make him reconsider the importance of family.
Finally, Allen found herself costarring opposite David Hasselhoff in Shaka Zulu: The Citadel. I have been warned against hassling “The Hoff” but if this doesn’t make you reconsider the direction your career has taken, I don’t know what will. Allen made a few more small appearances in movies from 2003-2004. But eventually, she decided it was time for a change:
I just felt like I had to create a life for myself where I was more independent. Where what I was doing in my life was so interesting I could literally put my whole acting life on the back burner because I was so fascinated by what was right in front of me. And that was the only thing that felt healthy to me. Short of that, I felt like somebody who was waiting for the phone to ring.
Allen called it quits. She and her son moved from Hollywood to the Berkshire Mountains in Massachusetts. Allen used her savings to buy an 18th century barn with a beaver pond. She ran a yoga studio and in her spare time directed local theater productions. She also took up knitting which grew into Karen Allen Fiber Arts. She worked with a local store to sell her products.
After a few years away from the business, she got an unexpected phone call…
In 2008, twenty-seven years after Raiders of the Lost Ark, Allen reprised her role as Marion Ravenwood in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Indy 4 brought Harrison Ford back for one final (presumably) adventure as archaeologist Indiana Jones. This time, he races against the Russians to find an alien artifact. Cate Blanchett played a Russian with a cartoonish accent and the ability to read minds. Indy teamed up with a greaser played by Shia LaBeouf who may or may not be his son (spoilers: he is d’uh).
Originally, George Lucas and Stephen Spielberg made a deal with Paramount for five Indiana Jones movies. But they agreed to end the series prematurely as Lucas felt he was out of ideas. Instead, Lucas produced the TV show, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. Ford appeared in one episode playing an older Indy in a framing device. When Lucas shot the scenes with Ford in 1992, it got him to thinking about the adventures of an older Indy set in the 1950’s. His idea was to pay homage to the science fiction B-movies of the era.
Ford hated the idea. Spielberg, who had done quite a bit with movie aliens already, also disliked it. But Lucas commissioned a script anyway. In the 1993 version of the script, Indy had settled down and Sean Connery would return as Indy’s father. The Russians, aliens and psychic powers were all present in the first draft.
Lucas then hired writer Jeffrey Boam to rework the script. He handed in three drafts between 1994 and 1996. Three months after the final draft by Boam was completed, the alien invasion movie Independence Day was released. Spielberg told Lucas he wasn’t going to make another alien invasion movie so Lucas moved on to ruining Star Wars instead. I mean making the prequels.
In 2000, Spielberg became more receptive to the idea of a fourth Indy movie after his son asked when he would make another one. Lucas and Spielberg met with Ford at an AFI tribute to the actor and they decided the time was right to revisit the franchise. Lucas sold Spielberg on the idea that the movie’s aliens were not “extraterrestrials” but “interdimensionals” which is what most of us would call a distinction without a difference.
Writer-director M. Night Shyamalan, who had not yet become a parody of himself, was hired to write the new Indy script. Shyamalan claimed to be overwhelmed and had difficulty working with Ford, Spielberg and Lucas. In 2002, writer-director Frank Darabont was hired to rework the script. Darabont had written for the Young Indy TV series. Darabont’s script replaced the Russians with ex-Nazis. According to Darabont, Spielberg loved the script, but Lucas did not. Darabont also takes credit for bringing back Marion.
With Darabont out, the Russians were back in. Spielberg felt he could no longer use Nazis as bad guys after making Schindler’s List. More writers were brought onboard to do additional rewrites. The eventual screenwriter, David Koepp, collaborated with Raiders screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan on some of the dialogue between Indy and Marion.
In 2007, Allen got the call from Spielberg. He told her “It’s been announced! We’re gonna make Indiana Jones 4! And guess what? You’re in it!”
When asked about what it would be like going back to work for Spielberg, Allen was optimistic that they would get along better the second time.
We’re both older, and I’ve done other films like this. So I kind of come into it just so much more relaxed and open-minded. I already know what kind of film we’re making.
Allen also found Ford to be easier to work with this time around. Ford had nothing but nice things to say about Allen. He described her as “one of the easiest people to work with I’ve ever known. She’s a completely self-sufficient woman, and that’s part of the character she plays. A lot of her charm and the charm of the character is there. And again, it’s not an age-dependent thing. It has to do with her spirit and her nature.”
Today, it’s pretty commonly accepted that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull sucks. It’s not just a bad movie. It’s a sacrilege. South Park did a bit which depicted Spielberg and Lucas raping Dr. Jones.
It was crude but it summed up how audiences felt after watching the movie. So it may be a bit surprising to go back and revisit the reviews. While no one was comparing Indy 4 favorably to Raiders, the reviews were mostly positive. But fans disagreed. Even co-star LaBeouf said in an interview that they had “dropped the ball on the legacy that people loved and cherished.” Ford responded by telling LaBeouf he was a “fucking idiot” – a sentiment that has been repeated by many in the intervening years. Spielberg told LaBeouf “There’s a time to be a human being and have an opinion and there’s a time to sell cars.”
Despite fan complaints Indy 4 was a huge hit at the box office. It ended up “winning” a Razzie for Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel and has been included in countless Worst Sequel lists. I myself don’t care for the movie. But really, it isn’t that much worse than any other Indiana Jones sequel.
Since Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Allen has come out of retirement. She did voice-work in the 2009 movie A Dog Year which featured her Starman co-star Jeff Bridges. And in 2010, she reuinted with Peter Reigert from Animal House in the drama, White Irish Drinkers. She’s done a couple of TV movies; November Christmas (2010) and The Tin Star (2012) and an episode of the TV show Blue Bloods (2014).
Allen has a couple of movies in post production scheduled for release in 2015 and has been saying in interviews that she may be back for a fifth Indiana Jones movies.
So, what the hell happened?
Allen attributes a lot of it to stiff competition:
I’m from a generation of fantastic actresses. It’s a big pool of really wonderful actresses, and so many of them we never even get to see on the screen anymore.
As true as that may be, Allen had a leg up after Raiders. Coming off Animal House and Raiders of the Lost Ark, Allen should have been fielding offers in lots of commercial movies. Instead, she decided to go back to the theater. This is a move that may be artistically satisfying, but it is career suicide if you’re an actress who has just starred in a big hit movie. Allen didn’t seem to be all that interested in playing the Hollywood game. Instead of chasing after action movies or rom coms, she sought out smaller movies.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t take long for the spotlight to cool off. Especially for actresses who also have to deal with ridiculous age issues. Allen found herself in a weird position of looking too young to play older characters and being too old to play younger characters. Couple that with the fact that she was a single mom and it made sense to retreat to the mountains.
The Cinema Snob: Until September (1984)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIMC7hCgGfk
This surprisingly creepy 1984 romantic comedy finally won the poll, so The Cinema Snob reviews Until September!
Yeah, I viewed “Until September” back in early 2006 (watched “Coffy” around the same time, and Super Bowl 40; I think “Coffey” is pretty solid, but Super Bowl 40 left me with that “Until September” feel:-). Ahh…I felt the romance contained within the film was pretty tepid, and if Karen Allen wasn’t in it (her frequent disrobing definitely helped things along for me:-), I probably wouldn’t have watched it. There were some okay moments I guess, and I liked the bathtub scene. I can enjoy the occasional romance film (to me, better romance films released the same year are “Falling… Read more »
Why isn’t Karen Allen cast in many big roles anymore? https://www.quora.com/Why-isn-t-Karen-Allen-cast-in-many-big-roles-anymore/answer/Jon-Mixon-1 She never really was. Allen was cast in Raiders of the Lost Ark because she was attractive, but wouldn’t overshadow her costar Harrison Ford. From there, she did Starman (which is a cult classic, but bombed), she did Scrooged with Bill Murray which also bombed; and made a series of smaller films, none of which led to her career improving. Allen had a child, and moved into performing stage roles By the early 1990s, she was no longer a major draw at the box office and she moved to… Read more »
Why did Karen Allen have such a mediocre movie career after Raiders of the Lost Ark? She chose her roles poorly following Raiders – Until September was an Allen role that cast her as the “other woman” in an adulterous relationship. While it’s a good film (It was a staple on late night cable in the 1980s) it was never going to be a big box office draw, and Allen needed those if she was going to end the 1980s as a box office name. (See below) She chose theater over films – While she never explains exactly why she did this, given her… Read more »
I was thinking about that Challenger TV movie that Karen Allen appeared in over 30 years ago because there’s this docuseries on Netflix about the Challenger disaster. The made for TV movie Challenger was quite controversial at the time, because the families of the astronauts who perished didn’t felt that it was too soon, they’re privacy was being invaded, and that they’re own inputs weren’t taken into account. I’m not going to go through a run down of all of the reviews about the Challenger TV movie. I’ll leave the Wikipedia article for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenger_(1990_film) But Karen Allen’s performance as… Read more »
Why isn’t Karen Allen cast in many big roles anymore?
By choice on her part. Let’s hear the reasons from HER mouth, not internet speculation.
She was always someone I admired romantically after Star Man. I wish I was 30 years older. I would have pursued her! But I was 8 years old when I first saw her 😉