Animal Behavior
Animal Behavior (1989) is one of many Karen Allen films whose release was delayed for several years. Director Jenny Bowen started the picture in 1984, but producer Kjehl Rasmussen completed it (H. Anne Riley, the director in the credits, is a psuedonym). The film was shelved until October 1989. Even then, it was probably only released to cash in on Holly Hunter's subsequent rise to fame in Raising Arizona (1987) and Broadcast News (1987).

Animal House
See separate site.

Glass Menagerie
Independent Spirit Awards (1988)
   Best Supporting Female: Karen Allen, The Glass Menagerie

"[John Malkovich] had no problems, he says, being directed in "The Glass Menagerie" by Paul Newman, with three actors who had performed the role on stage together, in Williamstown and New Haven: Joanne Woodward, Karen Allen and James Naughton. 'Joanne and Karen and James were basically all open people. Part of the reason they wanted me to do it was because it wouldn't be like what they had done before.'"

In the Bedroom
This film is based on the short story Killings by the late Andre Dubus. It is one of twenty-three stories found in his Selected Stories by Vintage Books. Killings is also available separately in paperback with a preface from director Todd Field, as In the Bedroom, also by Vintage Books.

In addition to five Academy Award (Oscars) nominations, In the Bedroom was honored with four Independent Spirit Award nominations (three wins), three Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award nominations, a British Academy of Film and Television (BAFTA) Award nomination, three Golden Globe Award nominations (one win), three BFCA Critics' Choice Award nominations (one win), five AFI Award nominations (one win), three LA Film Critics Association nominations (one win), three New York Film Critics Circle nominations (one win), three Golden Satellite Award nominations (one win), three National Board of Review nominations (one win), Satyajit Ray Award, two Sundance Film Festival nominations (two wins), Montréal World Film Festival FIPRESCI Award - Special Distinction and one Deauville Film Festival nomination.

Malcolm X
Denzel Washington was nominated for a 1992 Academy Award as Best Actor. He lost to Al Pacino (Scent of a Woman)

The Perfect Storm
When Sebastian Junger's non-fiction book The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea was made into the film, the only names that were changed were the Satori and it's crew. The boat became the Mistral, Ray Leonard (Bob Gunton) became Alexander McAnally III, Sue Bylander (Cherry Jones) became Edie Bailey and Karen Stimpson (Karen Allen) became Melissa Brown. See also separate page.

Raiders of the Lost Ark
See separate page.

The Sandlot
When the boys are in the pool watching Wendy Peppercorn, the dialog, "She don't know what she's doing" and the reply, "Yes she does, she knows exactly what she's doing" are the same as in a similar scene in Cool Hand Luke (1967).

Scrooged
Paramount wanted to call the movie "Scrooge." But a memo went out from the film's producers stating that neither the film nor the TV special being filmed in the framework of the story was to be referred to as "Scrooge." The special was to be called "A Christmas Carol" and the "title was pending" for the overall film. Then another memo directed that the special could be called "Scrooge" -- but clearance for use in the overall film was still in question. [As we all know now, the final title was Scrooged.] (1988)

"'Untitled Bill Murray Project' -- Murray is a brash and abrasive Scrooge-like TV network executive. Loosely following the Charles Dickens scenario, he's forced to re-examine his own life. Richard Donner (Lethal Weapon) directs. Also stars Karen Allen, Bob Goldthwait, David Johansen. (Paramount)"

Scrooged Sound Clip

• 85Kb "Oh, well, that's a wonderful attitude..."
  

Split Image
Split Image was known as Captured before its release. Karen Allen replaced Tatum O'Neal, who left after only a few days of filming.

Starman
See separate page.

Sweet Talker
The working title for Sweet Talker (1991) was "Confidence."

Terminus: End of the Line
The obscure Terminus, where "anything goes in a futuristic race involving super high-tech semis racing across Europe (destination: Terminus)" was released in August, 1987. Pierre William Glenn directed, with Johnny Halliday, Karen Allen and Jurgen Prochnow starring in the Hemdale release.

The Turning
The Turning, a little-seen, poorly-rated film from 1992 which starred Karen Allen and Tess Harper, is apparently more famous today because it contains a brief topless scene of Gillian Anderson, star of the X-Files.

Alternate and/or working titles for The Turning include "Home Fires Burning" and "Pocahontas, Virginia."

Until September
"Gorgeous Karen Allen is already over there in the City of Lights - camera! action! - lensing a romantic comedy called Until September, and she's positively beaming that Harper's Bazaar dubbed her one of the world's 10 most beautiful women - this, despite the slight fact that she spent the last year in deliberately unglamorous stage roles (Helen Keller in Monday After the Miracle and the rape victim in Extremities)."

The Wanderers
In his first film appearance, Wayne Knight (Newman, on Seinfeld) had an uncredited bit part as a Gang Member in The Wanderers.

The gangs in the film, including The Wanderers, Pharoahs, [Fordham] Baldies and the Ducky Boys were all based on real street gangs in the New York City area. However, they did not all exist during the early '60's, the time the film represents. Many of the Wanderers belonged to a local football team, "The Stingers".

World Traveler
The working title was James Five Years From Now.

Karen described this film as, "Billy Crudup plays a young man who becomes disillusioned and leaves his life, wife, and small child to wander the states. He meets me, a small-town waitress, and has 'an experience' with me."

False Starts
"Matty Simmons and Ivan Reitman will co-produce a sequel to 1978's comedy smash, Animal House. This is the film that made the late John Belushi a belching, barfing, toga-clad icon. Simmons and Reitman want to bring back the surviving cast members, including Tom Hulce, Peter Riegert, Karen Allen and Kevin Bacon."

Karen Allen was considered for the role of Queen Isabella in Christopher Columbus: The Discovery opposite Tom Selleck's King Ferdinand. The role eventually went to Rachel Ward.

"In addition to writing and directing My Father's Eyes, Lou Diamond Phillips now stars in the production next September. Phillips plays a young man--seen in flashbacks--who dies in a freak accident shortly after the birth of his son, who's now a teen-ager. Karen Allen co-stars in the Daniel Eisenberg production."

Karen Allen was scheduled to co-star with Jon Voight in the 1985 film, Runaway Train, but was replaced by Rebecca De Mornay.

"To become an international star, of course, European actors must appear in Hollywood films. Now that I have made a start, I have plans for two additional American pictures, one with Karen (Allen) and another with Michael Gruskoff, who produced Until September."

Miscellaneous Film Notes
Several movie reference works (Motion Picture Almanac, Marquis Who's Who) mistakenly credit Karen Allen with being in the movie Strange Invaders (1983). Actually, it was Nancy Allen who was in that one.

"Find me the next Karen Allen," Johanna Ray remembers director Charles Band telling her as she began casting his low-budget 1982 horror movie Parasite. It's open to debate whether she found the next Allen, who was then costarring in the Indiana Jones adventure Raiders of the Lost Ark, but she did discover 18-year-old Demi Moore . . . As Karen Allen herself would agree, there's a lot you can pick up from an indie."

"To the casual observer, Femme Fatales magazine might just be another cleavage report from the Hollywood fringe, a girlie rag for males too young to buy Playboy or Penthouse. True, FF, a quarterly devoted to B-movie queens, is plump with pictures of scantily clad women staring open-mouthed into the camera. . .
"Femme Fatales' territory is the B-girl ghetto its editors claim was once inhabited by the likes of Michelle Pfeiffer, Ellen Barkin, Teri Garr and Ann-Margret, and currently includes such descending A-actresses as Karen Allen, Rosanna Arquette and Dee Wallace Stone."