One From The Heart (1981) Fantasy Vegas "Cabaretera" Noir

"A Bluesy Musical Drama, a Torch Song to Domestic Noir" (Noirsville)

"If the choice is make it beautiful or make it real, make it beautiful." (Francis Ford Coppola)

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, Bram Stoker's Dracula). 

Written by Armyan Bernstein and Francis Ford Coppola and based on Armyan Bernstein's story. Additional dialogue by Luana Anders. 

The excellent Cinematography was by Ronald Víctor García (Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me) and Vittorio Storaro (The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Last Tango In Paris, 1900, Dick Tracy).  

Music by Tom Waits and Crystal Gayle, who also perform..

The first Zoetrope studio film to catch my eye was Hammett, the film was set in a sort of Fantasy Noir Chinatown alcoholic stupor hallucination, or a dream, take your pick. Once you looked at it from that proper perspective it works. 

One From The Heart is a studio built fantasy. A Noir Dream Vegas in a Noir Dream Desert. A Vegas of forced perspectives, and frozen in time, when Fremont Street was still the center of all the action. The way it's all put together. The miniature models, the studio backdrops, the music, the dance numbers, the circus act, the half silvered mirrors, all the Noir visual aesthetics, with a carnival color palette, gives it a melancholic surrealistic quality. That color pallet is a paella of Pulp Fiction - Graphic Novel cover art washed in Neon. The effect is similar to what Woody Allen and Vittorio Storaro do with Coney Island in Neo Noir Wonder Wheel. A couple of the desert sets also resemble a Salvador Dali paintings. The overall effect is quite Fellini-esque. 

One From The Heart would fit in nicely on a double bill with Billie Wilder's Transitional "Domestic" Noir Kiss Me Stupid, set in the same ersatz Noirsville Desert. 

Other Noir that are or tip domestic are Leave Her to Heaven, Pitfall, A Streetcar Named Desire, Clash by Night, Woman On The Beach, Something Wild, All Fall Down, Reflections in a Golden Eye, and probably quite a few others. Our mission as Noir-istas is to find them.

Fantastic work by all the artists of Zoetrope Studios. Production Design was by Dean Tavoularis, Art Direction by Angelo P. Graham, Set Decoration by Gary Fettis, and Leslie McCarthy-Frankenheimer.

The film stars Teri Garr (The Conversation, After Hours) as Frannie, Frederic Forrest (The Conversation, Hammett, Falling Down) as Hank, Raul Julia (Panic In Needle Park, The Morning After) as Ray, Nastassja Kinski (Paris, Texas, Cat People, Moon In The Gutter) as Leila, Lainie Kazan (Lady In Cement) as Maggie, Allen Garfield (The Conversation, The Cotton Club) as Frannie's best friend  Maggie a restaurant owner, Rebecca De Mornay as Understudy, Harry Dean Stanton (The Wrong Man (1956), Cool Hand Luke, Dillinger, Cockfighter, Two Lane Blacktop, Farewell My Lovely, and in many other Neo Noir) as Hank's best friend Moe.

Vitorio Storaro is famous for his use of color and light. It can be used to reflect the emotions of the characters in the story or to set the overall tone of a scene. Storaro will also assign a different color and its shades or say a color scheme, or a  type of light to define each character. The color will intensify or change shade to reflect the character's emotions.

In One From The Heart it looks to me like (and correct me if I'm wrong or left something out:

Red  - Frannie - (emotional turmoil - rollercoaster passion - love - betrayal - revenge - adventure -anger)

Green - Hank - (stability - home - house - growing - family - heartbreak)

Blue - Lila - (sexy - kinky - fantasy - gratification - fleeting - sad - lust - forbidden outlet - circus)

Pastels - Maggie - (noble, friendship, caring, support)

Barred light - Moe - (pal - drinking buddy - good / bad conflict, outlet, sounding board)

Neon light - Raoul - (excitement - chance - entertaining - fake - fun - fling)

Black - despair - loneliness - cold - loss - oblivion

Orange Yellow Gold - (good - warmth - companionship - playful - energetic - stimulating - exciting - happy - joyful - spiritual)

The Story

We hear a piano. See a Zoetrope "red light" Logo. Cut to a blue curtain. Superimposed upon it are the stars of the film.

"I wish I had a dollar

For each time I took a chance

On all those two-bit romeos

Who counterfeit romance

Somehow always thinking

Of the last time I fell down

Knowing that you fall in love

Once upon a town"

                                                                                  (Tom Waits & Chrystal Gale)

When the music ends the curtain opens on the title below

God's eye view. Night. We get the establishing shots. A break in the clouds. A grid of lights on a blue desert nightscape. Now, we get the miniature, matte painting, studio fantasy Vegas in a sexy Mojave Desert landscape. The sequence provides more credits and Tom Waits solos and in a smokey - slow blues lounge act croon sings:

Down through the ages all of the sages

said don't spend your wages on love

it's graft and collusion about the intrusion

and preceding foreclosures there's overexposure

down at the crossroads the question is posed

bridge is washed out and the highway is closed

gotta have good reason to firmly believe

love was designed to exploit and deceive

there's an addendum wherever you send 'em

in your chest you will see

simple addition keeps with tradition

don't spend your wages on love

take any burgh any city or town

just get on main street and drive all the way down

you see love has a graveyard nurtured for those

that fell on their sabers and paid through the nose

your shovel's a shot glass dig your own hole

bury what's left of your miserable soul

down through the ages all of the sages

said don't spend your wages on love

it's graft and collusion about the intrusion

and preceding foreclosure there is overexposure

down at the crossroads the question is posed

and the bridge is washed out and the highway is closed

it's graft and collusion about the intrusion

and preceding foreclosure there is overexposure

down at the crossroads the question is posed

and the bridge is washed out and the highway is closed

The title sequence ends.

Vegas. The evening before the Fourth of July. 

Tomorrow's the fifth anniversary for Hank & Frannie's relationship. Hank's a wrecking yard mechanic. Frannie's owns Paradise Travel who's creative outlet is window dressing the various travel packages she sells. The fires not burning so hot now between Hank and Frannie. They are tired of each other's idiosyncrasies.

A trumpet riff starts a wordless montage of Hank & Frannie coming home from work. Tom Wait's and Chrystal Gayle's voices in the song function like a Classic Noir voice overs, each explaining their side of the relationship to us the audience. They are in a rut, they tired of "picking up after you (each other)," as each one sings.

Picking Up After You

Frannie and her window dressing advertising the latest trip package.

Frannie arrives at Hank's place (green).

A Zoetrope Vegas neighborhood

About to pick up Frannie's dropped groceries

They both surprise each other with anniversary presents that each wants actually for themselves. Frannie's present is two tickets for a vacation in Bora Bora, Franks present to Frannie is the deed to the house. 

Two tickets to Bora Bora

Hank tells Frannie he don't think they can afford the trip to Bora Bora. Frannie is disappointed but she continues to get ready for dinner. 

They are both also getting their wires crossed. She thinks they are going out to dinner to celebrate. Hank is planning on cooking an anniversary dinner. They don't figure out the screw up until Frannie comes downstairs all decked out to hit the town. its a big downer. 

Frannie likes excitement, Hank likes to chill. 

I can't do nothing right.... (green bench seat )

You're starting to look like an egg. (Hanks green office)

Frannie is the first to call off the fight. She tells Hank to lets promise ourselves never to fight again. Hank tells her he loves her. They have some make up sex.

Frannie loving (red)

Frannie going up for her diaphragm - how Noir of her.

.

Later while eating Hank's anniversary dinner It all goes Noirsville when Frannie finds out that Hank bought out Moe's half of the house with most of their of the contents of their savings account, without asking, she walks out. 

You didn't ask me

Frannie goes over to her best friend Maggie's. Hank heads over Moe's. The reason, Frannie told Hank while angry just before she walked out in a parting shot, that Moe had his hands all over her last New Years Eve. Hank is going to confront him about it.

Maggie and Frannie

Moe and Hank - She said what?

Later Hank and Frannie both try to call each other at the house but of course nobody's home. Its a nice silvered mirror effect done to another Tom Waits and Chrystal Gayle duet. 

The half silvered mirror shots, above - below

The next day they both go to work as usual. For Hank it's a full depressing day at the wrecking yard. The wrecking yard set provides us with some Daliesque dream landscapes.  

Daliesque

Frannie, at her agency, is back in the window working on a new display for the South Pacific. She is talking to her reflection. "I don't care anymore."  

Watching her from the sidewalk is Ray. They strike up a conversation. He tells her that every time he passes her window he wishes he that there instead of Vegas. She tells him she wishes the same thing.

 He's a pianist at a place down the street. He sings too. Ray invites Frannie to come down and listen at 12:00. An entertainer. Compared to Hank he's exciting. She grabs the matchbook with address of the club that he hands her and gets into a cab with Maggie. 

After work, Hank and Moe are walking the strip. Hank is bitching to Moe about the state of America and Frannie. Moe tells him to come on already "I'm all Frannied out." 

They stop walking when they spot a circus girl performing on the street. She is Leila and she is beautiful. 

They watch her act. She looks at them, singles out Hank and after Hank stammers some complements, Leila asks Hank to meet her at the Fremont at 9:00.

The Fremont at 9:00

Moe can't believe that Leila told Hank to meet her at the Fremont.  So, both Frannie and Hank have dates with their fantasy partners. That is the simple set up for this Domestic Noir. The story is told  visually and the screencaps below just give you a small inkling of what you experience when it all washes over you, the dance and circus sequences, the sung bluesy Voice Overs, the Carnival -Vegas atmosphere. Its a Noir lovers wet dream, much like Hammett (1982) was.

Noirsville

looks like Rebecca De Mornay

The only two Neo Noir that come to most peoples minds for 1981 are Body Heat and Thief the two Crime Noir. Most of the movie going population in the country saw  Superman II. 

This Noir Musical tried a lot of things different and it got panned. Looking back on it now it's an unintended whiskey soaked, neon drenched, bluesy, love letter to NOIR. 10/10