# St. Elmo's Fire (film)

St. Elmo's Fire is a 1985 film about a group of friends, recent graduates of Georgetown University, and their adjustment to their post-university lives and the responsibilities of encroaching adulthood. The film is a prominent movie of the Brat Pack genre.
    Directed by Joel Schumacher. Written by Joel Schumacher and Carl Kurlander.

## Kirby Keager

* [about Dale] She is the only evidence of God I have seen with the exception of the mysterious force that removes one sock from the dryer every time I do my laundry.
* There are several quintessential moments in a man's life: losing his virginity, getting married, becoming a father, and having the right girl smile at you.
* Blowtorch, anyone?

## Kevin Dolenz

* You know, there are more people in law school right now than there are lawyers on the entire planet? Think about that.
* [repeated line] Love sucks.
* I enjoy being afraid of Russia. It's a harmless fear, but it makes America feel better, Russia gets an inflated sense of national worth from our paranoia. How's that?
* Never trust a woman who says she isn't angry.
* [to Jules] You know Jules, there is the brink of insanity and then there is the abyss, which obviously you have fallen into.
* [to Leslie] Yeah, once. Junior high, I played bongos in this band and I fell in love with the lead singer. She sang "We've Only Just Begun" as sweet as Karen Carpenter. So, one night, I got high on this cheap malt liquor, and I pledged my love to her. And the next day she ran off with a bass player named Ringo. So, I turned in my bongos for a battered Underwood typewriter.
* [to Naomi] Well, for your information, I happen to be in love with someone, only they don't know it, okay?
* We won't even remember this tomorrow.
* Love, love, you know what love is? Love is an illusion created by lawyer types like yourself to perpetuate another illusion called marriage to create the reality of divorce and then the illusionary need for divorce lawyers.
* Do not hand that man a blowtorch.

## Billy Hicks

* Jules, you know, honey... this isn't real. You know what it is? It's St. Elmo's Fire. Electric flashes of light that appear in dark skies out of nowhere. Sailors would guide entire journeys by it, but the joke was on them... there was no fire. There wasn't even a St. Elmo. They made it up. They made it up because they thought they needed it to keep them going when times got tough, just like you're making up all of this. We're all going through this. It's our time at the edge.
* Hey! Hey, take your hands off my wife.
* [to Jules] So, you lost your job? I've lost twenty of them since graduation, plus a wife and kid, and, in a new development this morning, a handful of hair in the shower drain. [puts a blanket on her] That's better. You know, this smells to me like a little bit of self-created drama. I should know; I've been starring in a few of my own.
* Join the club. You know, no one was buying this together-woman-of-the-eighties stuff anyway.

## Wendy Beamish

* No diet works. The only way to lose weight in the thighs is amputation.
* You wanna know what's great? Last night, I woke up in the middle of the night to make myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and you know, it was my kitchen, it was my refrigerator, it was my apartment...and it was the BEST peanut butter and jelly sandwich that I have had in my entire life.

## Leslie Hunter

* [voiceover] I can't remember who met who first or who fell in love with who first. All I can remember is the seven of us always together.
* It is tomorrow.
* I'm not afraid to commit. I have to have something for myself first before I can share it with you.
* I just wish everything could be like it used to be, all of us friends.

## Julianna "Jules" Van Patten

* You break my heart. Then again, you break everyone's heart.
* I'm just so tired, Billy. Never thought I'd be so tired at 22.
* I don't know why you're both so worried... So, I bop him for a couple of years, get his job when he gets his hands caught in the vault, do a black mink ad, retire in utter disgrace, then write a best seller and be a fabulous host on my own talk show...
* Come sit down and chillax.
* [to Leslie] Leslie, did I tell you? I'm sorry. I went to see my boss. I thought I was getting fired. Instead, the man took me to dinner.
* [about her stepmother] It turns out cremation costs just as much as the non-torching method. If I don't come up with a cheaper solution, I'm gonna end up a bag lady. Of course, I'll have alligator bags.
* Who wants to suck back a few Bloody Marys at St. Elmo's, on me?

## Dialogue

    Kirby: It's true love, my friend.
    Kevin: Love, love, you know what love is? Love is an illusion created by lawyer types like yourself to perpetuate another illusion called marriage to create the reality of divorce and then the illusionary need for divorce lawyers.
    Kevin: Marriage is a concept invented by people who were lucky to make it to 20 without being eaten by dinosaurs. Marriage is obsolete.
    Alec: Dinosaurs are obsolete. Marriage is still around.
    Kirby: I always thought we'd be friends forever.
    Kevin: Yeah, well forever got a lot shorter all of a sudden.
    Jules: Don't you enjoy anything anymore... like girls?
    Kevin: I enjoy being afraid of Russia. It's a harmless fear, but it makes America feel better, Russia gets an inflated sense of national worth from our paranoia. How's that?
    Kirby: You are just pissed off and bitter because you have not had sex in... how long? What is it... a year... maybe two? Refresh my memory please, Kevin. Haven't you heard of the sexual revolution?
    Kevin: Who won, huh? Nobody. Used to be sex was the only free thing, No longer. Alimony... palimony... it's all financial. Love is an illusion.
    Kirby: It's the only illusion that counts, my friend.
    Kevin: Says who?
    Kirby: Anyone who's been in love.
    Kevin: Love sucks.
    Kirby: So does your attitude.
    Leslie: How's Howie?
    Wendy: Oh well, I wouldn't say my father's trying to bribe me, but he did offer me a Chrysler Lebaron convertible if I get engaged to Howie.
    Jules: Have you had sex with him yet?
    Wendy: Jules!... God.
    Jules: Listen... get the car, fuck him, and if you don't like him, break the engagement... And then you can still have sex with him.
    Leslie: Alec was the first. You know? I mean, there were other guys for me in high school. Boys. Alec was the first love of my life. I sometimes wonder if we hadn't ended up in the same room… I would have just met someone else. So would he.
    Kevin: Alec had the luck of geography, right? Whatever we say about him, we'll regret tomorrow.
    Leslie: Tell me something. What do you think about my relationship with you as an outsider? I want you to be honest. Really.
    Kevin: You want me to be honest?
    Leslie: I don't know. Guess.
    Kevin: Dangerous question. Well, I think I hang around with you so much, personally because, well, you're all I think about.
    Leslie: Me?
    Kevin: And I think the reason I'm not interested in other women, and why I haven't had sex in so long, is because I'm desperately, completely in love with you. We won't even remember this tomorrow, huh?
    Leslie: It is tomorrow.
    [Kevin and Leslie passionately kiss]
    Kevin: Oh, I love you! I've always loved you! [Leslie pulls his hair] Ow!
    Leslie: Sorry.
    Kevin: No, no, I love it! I love it!
    Alec: You ran out on this relationship, you take the consequences.
    Leslie: I didn't run out on anything. You ran out.
    Alec: You fucked Kevin.
    Leslie: [shouting] You fucked many!
    Alec: Nameless, faceless many.
    Leslie: I feel much better now. Thanks.
    Wendy: We're really worried about this affair with your boss.
    Jules: I don't know why you're both so worried... So, I bop him for a couple of years, get his job when he gets his hands caught in the vault, do a black mink ad, retire in utter disgrace, then write a best seller and be a fabulous host on my own talk show...
    Jules: I thought you were taking steps to phase out everything that wasn't working in your life.
    Wendy: That doesn't leave much.
    Leslie: I'm sorry to bother you here.
    Alec: Did you forget one of your albums?
    Leslie: It's Jules. After she left for work this morning, some finance company came. They took away her furniture, her Jeep, everything. I tried to reach her, but I couldn't get through, so I went into her office. She's been pretending to go to work every day, telling me she still has an affair with her boss. Alec, he fired her three weeks ago. So, I confronted her. At first, she denied everything, and she went crazy. She locked me out of the apartment and she won't let me back in. Alec, please, I need your help.
    [Jules has locked herself in her bare apartment, in just a t-shirt, windows wide open with the wind blowing cold air in]
    Alec: Jules, what are you doing? You're gonna freeze to death.
    Kevin: I think that's the idea.

## Taglines

* They thought they'd be friends forever, but forever couldn't last.
* The passion burns deep.
* The heat this summer is at Saint Elmo's Fire.
* You can always count on your friends. Don't ever let the fire go out.

## Cast

* Emilio Estevez - Kirby "Kirbo" Keager
* Andrew McCarthy - Kevin Dolenz
* Rob Lowe - Billy Hicks
* Judd Nelson - Alec Newbury
* Ally Sheedy - Leslie Hunter
* Demi Moore - Julianna "Jules" Van Patten
* Mare Winningham - Wendy Beamish
* Andie MacDowell - Dale Biberman
* Martin Balsam - Mr. Beamish
* Joyce Van Patten - Mrs. Beamish
* Jenny Wright - Felicia

## External links

* St. Elmo's Fire quotes at the Internet Movie Database
* St. Elmo's Fire at Rotten Tomatoes
* St. Elmo's Fire at Allmovie
* St. Elmo's Fire at Mojo