After Hours (1985) Screwball New York Noir Nightmare

Directed by Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver, Casino, Goodfellows, Raging Bull). 

Written by Joseph Minion. Cinematography by Michael Ballhaus, Music by Howard Shore.

Griffin Dunne (An American Werewolf in London) as Paul Hackett, Rosanna Arquette (Desperately Seeking Susan, 8 million Ways To Die, The Wrong Man, Pulp Fiction) as Marcy Franklin, Verna Bloom as June, Thomas Chong as Pepe, Linda Fiorentino (The Last Seduction, Dogma) as Kiki Bridges, Teri Garr (One From The Heart) as Julie, John Heard (Cutter's Way) as Tom Schorr, Cheech Marin as Neil, Catherine O'Hara as Gail, Dick Miller (A Bucket Of Blood) as Pete, diner waiter, Will Patton as Horst, Bronson Pinchot as Lloyd, Rocco Sisto as Coffee Shop Cashier, Larry Block as Taxi Driver, Victor Argo as Diner Cashier, Clarence Felder as Club Berlin bouncer, Martin Scorsese as Club Berlin searchlight operator. 

Story

We hear Mozart's Sympthony in D major under the credits, providing a sense of a proper, composed, orderly, controllable world.  

Griffin Dune as Paul Hackett

Paul Hackett, an uptight, low level computer programer, is training an office temp Lloyd on data input. The temp in an aside tells Paul that it's only a job and that he has bigger aspirations, than shuffling data. This gets Paul himself contemplating, as he looks at his life as just piles of computer printouts and deleterious commercial drek, and how the fuck he got stuck here himself.

Bronson Pinchot as Lloyd

This gets Paul himself contemplating, as he looks at his life as just piles of computer printouts and deleterious commercial drek, and how the fuck he got stuck here himself.

His mind wanders off the task at hand and he just gets up and walks away from the temp.

We see the huge golden gates of the entrance of a commercial building being closed by security. We watch as Paul with no urgency becomes the last employee out. He's no place to go or promises to keep. 

When Paul gets back to his upper East side flop his routine is predetermined. He spends his early evening channel surfing with a Jerrold while he lays stretched out on his couch in a flickering blue glow. 

We see him next in a Hopperesque Luncheonette. Nice touch Marty. 

Automat - Edward Hopper

Paul has the remains of his dinner pushed aside. He's reading Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer. Sitting a table over with a cup of joe is Marcy Franklin she notices Paul and the book. It perks her interest. 

Marcy: I love that book. I love that book.

Paul Hackett: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think Miller is really great.

Marcy: This is not a book. This is a prolonged insult. A gob of spit in the face of art. A kick in the pants to truth, beauty, God... Something like that.

Paul Hackett: That's very good.

Marcy: Now, that's all I remember.

Paul Hackett: I've read this before. I know, I mean, I know, I was just rereading it. I don't reread books that often; but, I don't know, this one's my favorite. I like it better than "Capricorn" or "Plexus" or "Sexus".

Marcy gets up and comes over to Paul's table and sits down. She changes the subject, telling Paul about the strange cashier. We see him moving his arms mechanically into position.

If you were born here or lived in New York City for any length of time, everything, from here on out in the story is gonna be typical of kind of insane situations you will go through, and eccentrics you'll meet for yourselves. It's main exaggeration is is that they wouldn't be as compressed into a single night, but that is the Noir Nightmare. 

The meet cute continues, when they are about to leave Paul asks which way Marcy is going and finds out that she lives in a loft with a sculptress down in SoHo. Marcy describes the plaster of paris, bagel & cream cheese pieces that she is going to sell as paperweights. She asks Paul if he wants to buy one?

Paul says yea, you can tell he's on the ball enough to read the signs. When Paul asks her how much, she doesn't know but gives him the number and tells him the name is Kikky Bridges. 

So, of course Paul is gonna call, and when he does, he ends up with what would be an young mans fantasy, Marcy tells him to come over. It's 11:30PM. That's like hitting a homerun. She gives him the address and he's on his way in a speeding Checker cab, down rain slick streets, on a wild ride into a particular Manhattan neighborhood of Noirsville called SoHo. 

Just before they get to the destination, all the money Paul has a $20 bill, blows out of the money tray and flies out the window. 

There's a priceless look on the cabbies face as he drives away. 

Paul finds the address of the loft and then looks for the bell for the door the one that has Franklin crossed out. He rings the bell and hears a woman calling down to him. He steps back out of the foyer onto the sidewalk and sees Kikky with her head out of a window. She tells him the buzzer doesn't work and she throws the key to the door down to him.

a five floor walkup

Its a five floor walk up. When Paul finally gets up to the loft, Kikky explains that Marcy had to run to an all night drugstore. But she'll be right back.

Kikky has Paul  take over doing some Papier-mâché on one of her pieces, explaining how easy it is to do. She tells Paul he can kill time while he's waiting on Marcy. She needs to take a break her shoulder and back are aching.

Linda Fiorentino as Kikky Bridges

Kikky comes back complaining about her aches and Paul volunteers to give her a back rub. They both sit on the couch and Kikky ends up falling asleep. Paul lays her down on the couch and is about to leave the loft when Marcy comes up the stairway. 

After Marcy gets up to the loft, she asks what he did to Kikky?  Paul tells he he was giving her a massage and she just fell asleep. Narcy brings Paul to her room. 

Marcy: I hope you don't have to get up early tomorrow morning or anything.

Paul: Hackett: No. No, I don't.

Marcy: Because I think you're somebody I can really talk to. And tonight I feel like - I feel like I'm gonna let lose or something. I feel like - I feel like something incredible is really gonna happen here! [laughs]

Marcy: I feel soooo excited. I don't know why? I feel it. [laughs]

Marcy: I'm glad you came. [laughs]

She tells him she wants to take a quick shower. Another positive reading, this may be his lucky night.

When she leaves for her shower,  Paul curiosity gets the better of him and he checks the bag from the drug store and finds burn ointment, which recalls a bad memory in Paul. As a child he was in a burn ward at a hospital. Burns freak him out and Marcy bought burn ointment???

So now instead of ecstatic he's freaked out about seeing a burn scar on Marcy. However, he doesn't have to cross that bridge, because Marcy wants to go out for a cup of coffee. They head out to the River Diner. There Paul finds out Marcy is married. She tells Paul she only knew the guy three days.

Dick Miller as Peter diner owner

Marcy: My husband was a movie freak. Actually, he was particularly obsessed with one movie, "The Wizard of Oz." He talked about it constantly. I thought it was cute at first. On our wedding night, I was a virgin. When we made love - you've seen the movie, haven't you?

Paul: "The Wizard of Oz"? Yeah, I've seen it.

Marcy: Well, when we made love, whenever he - you know, when he came, he would just - scream out, "Surrender Dorothy!" That's all! Just "Surrender Dorothy!"

Paul: Wow.

Marcy: I know. Instead of moaning or saying, "Oh, God" or something normal like that. I mean, it was pretty creepy! And I told him I thought so, but he just, he just couldn't stop, he just, he just couldn't stop, he just... couldn't stop.

Back at the loft Paul and Marcy instead of getting it on, get into an argument over her weird stories, her  questionable pot and the paperweights. Marcy goes running to Kikky crying and Paul grabs his jacket walks through the lost to the entrance and splits.  

Its pouring out, he gets immediately soaked, he tries to take a subway but the fare went up, he doesn't have enough change, and he's back on the streets of SoHo

Pauls mis adventures continue at The Terminal Bar (not the real one that used to on 8th Ave by the bus terminal).

 At the bar he meets Tom the owner, and Julie his waitress, he rescues Kikky's TV and paper mache sculpture, and after bringing it back to the loft finds Marcy very dead. How Noir is that? 

And we are only at the halfway point. 

Noirsville

Martin Scorsese crafted a Screwball Black Comedy Noir that is very unpredictable and very entertaining. Griffin Dunne is compelling as the organized computer schlepper who gets ripped out of his cozy predictable universe and thrust into Noirsville. The rest of the cast is great. It would be good on a double bill with Desperately Seeking Susan. Bravo 8/10