Why was Scrooged Karen Allen’s last good movie?

There was a time when I’d have walked on my knees in the snow for one night with Karen Allen.

If I knew she was going to wear the white dress Beloc gave her in Raiders I’d have made the same trip over broken glass.

It wasn’t just the freckles.

Though the freckles were an important feature.

It was the mix of merriment and intelligence and the mischief in the eyes.

Plus, she could act.

So why didn’t she do more of it?

After Scrooged---last night’s Mannion Family Movie Night---she pretty much disappeared from the movies.

Even from the ones she was in.

Animal House, The Warriors, The Wanderers, [Thanks for the correction, Thers.] Shoot the Moon, Raiders, Starman, Scrooged.  Not much of anything she did in between those and after Scrooged counts, except for  an adaptation of The Glass Menagerie directed by Paul Newman, who wouldn’t have cast her just for the freckles.

Newman either saw or found the vulnerability that, once you know to look for it and go back to watch it again, you can see is at the heart of Marion Ravenwood and that is the defining quality of her character in Scrooged.

Claire is Marion turned inside out.

Marion is as tough as she is to protect the little girl lost that Indy loved and left.  Claire is a little girl lost who is tough enough to have loved and left Bill Murray’s Frank Cross.

She is sweet, flighty, open hearted, nice---too nice---fragile.  But her fragility is her strength.  Nobody, not even Frank, wants to hurt her.  Despite her seeming so easily hurt, as if it wouldn’t take more than a harsh word to break her heart or her spirit, she marches bravely forward, doing what she needs to do to shelter and feed and console the homeless, and  comes through it without a scratch or a chip in her optimism and good nature.  That’s because she is one of those good and cheerful people everybody who comes near her is reflexively protective of.  They become careful with her as if they’ve been handed a priceless piece of spun glass.

Comments

[Thers]

I think you mean The Wanderers, not The Warriors. Different fun/stupid NYC gang movie.

[Ken Houghton]

Ah, yes. Scrooged. Where the proof Bill Murray doesn't change at all comes from his line as he brings Allen on camera: "Jeez, it's like boating a marlin."

[actor212]

She got married in 1988 and had a baby by 1990.

Give her some slack, Lance.