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- Soundtrack Review
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At the beginning of the movie, when Jenny Hayden is watching home movies, she and her late husband harmonize on the Everly Brothers' "All I Have to Do is Dream." That is really Jeff Bridges and Karen Allen doing their own singing. While only a part of the song is used in the movie, the soundtrack contains a complete version. Hear Karen and Jeff sing All I Have to Do Is Dream [mp3]
Starman Notes:
"Back when Frank Price was running Columbia, one script he picked as a winner
was to be the studio's own challenge to E.T. Now Price has gone to E.T.'s
studio, Universal, but Columbia will still make Starman and Kevin Bacon is to
play the alien who falls for the earth girl, Karen Allen.
"Shooting begins in February or March with none other than the hot, hot, hot
director John Carpenter at the helm. His Christine is about to win the road
race of the Christmas box office lines."
Liz Smith, Philadelphia Inquirer - December 13, 1983
"[Michael] Douglas is planning three projects for 1984. The first, already shooting, is
called Star Man [sic]. Douglas is executive producer, John Carpenter is the director
and the cast includes Jeff Bridges, Karen Allen and Charles Martin Smith. It's
the story of an alien who falls in love with an Earth woman, and it's due out at Christmas."
Rick Lyman, Philadelphia Inquirer - April 1, 1984
"[Michael] Douglas is currently planning to produce two films and surrender his acting
career for the time being. He's developing John Carpenter's new picture Star
Man [sic] with Jeff Bridges, Karen Allen and Charles Martin Smith."
Boston Globe - April 19, 1984
"'They wanted Tom Cruise for the lead,' [Carpenter] says. 'But when I
auditioned actresses in New York, Karen Allen was far and away the best. I
wanted her for Jenny Hayden, and so we had to go with actors her age. I didn't
want a big star to play the male lead because there might be too much
identification with other roles. I thought of Jeff Bridges because he's a name
actor, yet he's not a big celebrity.'"
Boston Globe "Director John Carpenter talks about the movie biz big budgets and cold burgers" - December 9, 1984, page B1
"Almost every genre in Hollywood's repertory is represented in Carpenter's
tale of an alien trying to make it back to his home planet (sound familiar?).
But this is E.T. with, if not necessarily for, grown-ups. Its considerable
force derives not from high-tech illusions but from the realism that Karen
Allen and a brilliant Jeff Bridges bring to their parts.
"She is an attractive and lonely widow and he is the alien who assumes the
form of her departed husband. Bridges' performance is a flawless wonder. He
manages to suggest a man who has come back to life and the alien, benign but
highly confused, within him. He and Allen bring a level of acting to the
production that is, sadly, too often missing from screen science fiction.
"Carpenter, who really is the last person one would expect to encounter in
such a poignant film, has some predictable fun with Bridges' encounters with
such keystones of American civilization as milkshakes and gas-station men's
rooms. But the film that has shown the real satiric possibilities of science
fiction in the past year is Liquid Sky. It is a clear-eyed, hard-nosed look at
pop culture that is built around an alien form with a very peculiar way of
getting high."
Desmond Ryan, Philadelphia Inquirer - December 24, 1984
"Jeff Bridges is the man who comes to Earth with powers and abilities far
beyond those of mortal men in John Carpenter's Starman. Karen Allen and
Bridges are engaging lovers and Charles Martin Smith is charming as a
government agent charged with investigating the close encounter. Long after
Dune and 2010 have crashed, Starman will still be flying."
Boston Globe - December 28, 1984, page 27
"How did actor Jeff Bridges learn how to play an alien from outer space? `I
observed my two young daughters,' says the veteran performer, who is starring
in Starman. `Children are wonderfully naive. I watched the way they walked and
listened to the way they talked. I incorporated the wonder they have for life.'
Bridges, in town recently to promote the new movie, says Starman is the story
of a love affair between an alien (himself) and an earthling (Karen Allen). `I
hope the real hardware nuts won't be disappointed,' says Bridges. `There are
some nifty effects, but the real story is the romance.' "
Tim Whitaker, Philadelphia Inquirer - December 30, 1984
"In Starman (1984), [Jeff Bridges] went even farther afield, playing an alien who, drawn
to Earth by the Voyager space probe, camouflages himself by becoming a replica
of a widow's husband.
"Jeff's uncanny evocation of an alien in a human's body - which he learned
from studying a scarlet macaw - added much of the comedy and poignance to what
one critic described as `an extra-terrestrial version of It Happened One
Night.' With excellent chemistry from Karen Allen as the widow, Starman
soared at the box office and earned Jeff his third Oscar nomination."
Ben Steelman, Philadelphia Inquirer - May 24, 1990.
". . . In The End, R. Donna Chesher has collected the last lines of 3,000
movies, a labor of love that took 15 years. Most of them will ring a bell in
the memory of any moviegoer.
". . . It isn't in Chesher's book, but I saw Starman the other night on TV. Jeff
Bridges, an extraterrestrial, must go back to his planet, leaving Karen Allen,
his pregnant earthly lover, behind. Weeping as she watches him board his
spaceship, she says, 'Goodbye.'
"Says it all."
Jack Smith, Los Angeles Times - May 4, 1992
"Starman (1984) Your basic alien - falls - to - Earth - and - takes -
the - form - of - a - woman's - dead - husband - so - naturally - she - helps -
him - elude - authorities - while - falling - in - love - with - him movie.
Jeff Bridges and Karen Allen have a lovely gravity together."
Ty Burr, Entertainment Weekly "Love at first sight: 10 tapes for romancing at home" - #169 May 7, 1993, page 66
"Starman (1984) An advanced intelligence (Jeff Bridges) takes on the
human form of a woman's (Karen Allen) dead hubby and learns about love,
sex, and credit cards."
Entertainment Weekly "Two sides to every movie: genre mixology" - #180 July 23, 1993, page 64