Hello to everyone who has been following this blog for many years - I'm still blogging, I'm just moving over to https://www.claireheffer.com/blog - please continue to follow and let me take this opportunity to thank everyone who has been kind enough to visit over the years. May the lists continue...

Friday 22 April 2016



FILM 1508: ST. ELMO'S FIRE 

TRIVIA: Demi Moore had a drug problem, much like her character when she was cast in the film. One day, director Joel Schumacher actually demanded that she leave the set because she was really high. Moore actually had to go through rehab and promise to stay clean in order to play a character with a drug problem.

Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy and Judd Nelson all portrayed college graduates in this 1985 film, the same year all three actors also portrayed high school students in John Hughes' The Breakfast Club (1985). St. Elmo's Fire (1985) producer Lauren Shuler Donner has said all three were cast in the film due to strong recommendations from Hughes.

Mare Winningham played a virgin while she was actually pregnant during filming.

The street that the St. Elmo bar is on is in the Universal back lot with several fill in buildings in between sets. About two to three buildings to the left is the Hill Valley Clock Tower from Back to the Future (1985).

The "booga-booga" cheer that the friends do when they are celebrating or just in a good mood was not originally in the script. In a later interview, Rob Lowe stated that the cheer came out of observing fans whispering about the stars of the movie and then laughing. The cheer itself makes fun of what these whispered conversations sounded like from a few feet away.

The film's title, "St. Elmo's Fire", is derived from a real life meteorological phenomenon which is mentioned in the movie. It is also known as "St. Elmo's Light". According to website 'Wikipedia', it is "a weather phenomenon in which luminous plasma is created by a coronal discharge from a sharp or pointed object in a strong electric field in the atmosphere (such as those generated by thunderstorms or created by a volcanic eruption)".

Actress Ally Sheedy recommended Judd Nelson to the production for the role of Alec Newbary. The pair had co-starred in The Breakfast Club (1985) and re-teamed the following year to both headline Blue City (1986). As such, St. Elmo's Fire (1985) is the second of three dramatic collaborations of the two actors (they both also appear in the documentary Don't You Forget About Me (2009)).

Of the considered "core" members of the so called 1980s "brat pack", this movie had the most of them cast in the one film, more than any of the other pictures of the period. These core "Brat Pack" members included Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson and Ally Sheedy. Core "Brat Pack" members not in St. Elmo's Fire (1985) were Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall but the pair had appeared in the same 1985 year's The Breakfast Club (1985) alongside St. Elmo's Fire (1985)'s Nelson, Sheedy and Estevez, taking that film's "Brat Pack" total to five, but this being one less "Brat Pack" member than St. Elmo's Fire (1985), which had six. Both of these "Brat Pack" movies though were first released in the same 1985 year.

Breakthrough film as a director for writer and former costume designer Joel Schumacher.

Emilio Estevez and Demi Moore began dating during the filming of the movie. He said he was "deeply in love with her." For a time they were even engaged, though they never married.





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