After Hours (lm)

After Hours is a 1985 American black comedy lm[3]

directed by Martin Scorsese, written by Joseph Minion,
and starring an ensemble cast, including Rosanna Arquette, Grin Dunne, Linda Fiorentino, Teri Garr, and
John Heard. Paul Hackett (Dunne) experiences a series
of misadventures as he tries to make his way home from
SoHo.

is enamoured with Paul, but Paul goes back to Toms bar,

nding Tom grieving over Marcy, who was his girlfriend.
He goes to the nightclub Kiki and Horst patronize, a collection of punks attempt to shave his head into a Mohawk
hairstyle. On the street, Paul is mistaken for a burglar and
is relentlessly pursued by a mob of local residents.

Paul nds Tom again, but the mob (with the assistance of
Warner Home Video have released the lm on VHS Julie, Gail, and Gails Mister Softee truck) chases Paul.
in 1991 for both widescreen and pan-and-scan NTSC He ultimately seeks refuge back at the Club Berlin. Paul
uses his last quarter to play Is That All There Is? by Peggy
laserdiscs.[4]
Lee and asks a woman named June to dance. Paul explains hes being pursued and June, also a sculptress, offers to help him. She protects him by pouring plaster on
1 Plot
him in order to disguise him as a sculpture. However, she
won't let him out of the plaster, which eventually hardens,
Paul Hackett, a word processor, meets Marcy Franklin trapping Paul in a position that resembles the character
in a cafe. They discuss their common interest in Henry depicted in Edvard Munch's The Scream. The burglar duo
Miller. Marcy leaves Paul her number and informs him then breaks into the Club Berlin and steals him, placing
that she lives with a sculptor named Kiki Bridges, who him in the back of their van. He falls from the burglars
makes and sells plaster of Paris paperweights resembling cargo near the gate to his oce as the sun is rising, and
cream cheese bagels. Later in the night, under the pre- he returns to work, bringing the lm full circle.
tense of buying a paperweight, Paul visits Marcy, taking a
cab to her apartment. On his way to visit Marcy, a $20 bill
is blown out the window of the cab, leaving him with only
some spare pocket change. The cab driver is furious that
he can't pay, thereby beginning the rst in a long series of
misadventures for Paul that turn hostile through no fault
of his own. At the apartment Paul meets the sculptor Kiki
and Marcy, and comes across a collection of photographs
and medications which imply that Marcy is severely disgured from burns on her legs and torso. As a result of
this implication, and as a result of a strained conversation
with Marcy, Paul abruptly slips out of the apartment.

2 Selected cast
Grin Dunne as Paul Hackett
Rosanna Arquette as Marcy Franklin
Teri Garr as Julie
John Heard as Tom Schorr
Catherine O'Hara as Gail

Paul then attempts to go home by subway, yet the fare has

increased at the stroke of midnight and he nds that his
pocket change is no longer sucient to purchase a token.
He goes to a bar where Julie, a waitress, becomes enamoured with him. The bars owner, Tom Schorr cannot
open the cash register to give Paul his subway fare. They
exchange keys so Paul can go to Toms place to fetch the
cash register keys. On the way, he spots two burglars,
Neil and Pepe, with one of Kikis sculptures. When he
returns the sculpture to the apartment, he nds Marcy
has committed suicide while Kiki and a stout man named
Horst have already left to go to Club Berlin, a nightclub.

Linda Fiorentino as Kiki Bridges

Verna Bloom as June
Tommy Chong as Pepe
Cheech Marin as Neil
Will Patton as Horst
Clarence Felder as Club Berlin bouncer
Dick Miller as Pete, diner waiter
Bronson Pinchot as Lloyd

Paul attempts to return to Toms bar, but it is locked up,

with a sign indicating that Tom will be back in half an
hour. Paul meets Julie in the street, who invites him up
to her apartment to wait for Tom to reopen the bar. Julie

Martin Scorsese as Club Berlin searchlight operator

Victor Argo as Diner Cashier
1

7 MUSIC
Larry Block as Taxi Driver
Rocco Sisto as Coee Shop Cashier

Production

Paramount Pictures' abandonment of The Last Tempation of Christ production was a huge disappointment to
Scorsese. It spurred him to focus on independent companies and smaller projects.[5] The opportunity was oered
to him by his lawyer Jay Julien, who put him through
Grin Dunne and Amy Robinson's independent group:
Double Play Company. The project was called A
Night in Soho and it was based on the script by Joseph
Minion. The screenplay, originally titled Lies after the
1982 Joe Frank monologue that inspired the story,[6] was
written as part of an assignment for his lm course at
Columbia University. He was 26 years old at the time
the lm was produced.[7] The script nally became After Hours after Scorsese made his nal amendments.[8]

from the tumultuous development of The Last Temptation of Christ.[17] It currently holds an 90% rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.[18] Film critic Roger
Ebert gave After Hours a positive review and a rating of
four out of four stars. He praised the lm as one of the
best in the year and said it continues Scorseses attempt
to combine comedy and satire with unrelenting pressure
and a sense of all-pervading paranoia.[19] He later added
the lm to his Great Movies list.[20] In The New York
Times, Vincent Canby gave the lm a mixed review and
called it an entertaining tease, with individually arresting sequences that are well acted by Mr. Dunne and the
others, but which leave you feeling somewhat conned.[7]

5 Lawsuit

Radio artist Joe Frank later led a lawsuit, claiming the

screenplay lifted its plot setup and portions of dialogue,
particularly in the rst 30 minutes of the lm, from
his 1982 NPR Playhouse monologue Lies.[21] Though
One of Scorseses inputs involves the dialogue between Frank never received ocial credit, he reportedly was
[22]
Paul and the doorman at Club Berlin, inspired by Kafka's paid handsomely in a settlement.
Before the Law, one of the short stories included in his
novel The Trial.[9][10] As Scorsese explained to Paul Attanasio, the short story reected his fustration towards the 6 Themes and motifs
production of The Last Temptation of Christ, for which
he had to continiously wait, as Joseph K had to in The This lm belongs in a grouping which revolve around a
Trial. [11]
young working professional who is placed under threat,
The lm was originally to be directed by Tim Burton, but
Scorsese read the script at a time when he was unable
to get nancial backing to complete The Last Temptation
of Christ, and Burton gladly stepped aside when Scorsese
expressed interest in directing.
After Hours was the rst ctional lm in ten years in which
Robert De Niro was not part of the cast.[3]
British director Michael Powell took part in the production process of the lm (Powell and editor Thelma
Schoonmaker married soon afterwards). Nobody was
sure how the lm should end. Powell said that Paul must
nish up back at work, but this was initially dismissed as
too unlikely and dicult. They tried many other endings,
and a few were even lmed, but the only one that everyone felt really worked was to have Paul nish up back at
work just as the new day was starting.[12]

named the yuppie nightmare cycle,[23] a sub-genre of

lms which combine two genres in itself screwball comedy and lm noir. Some critics present a psychoanalytic view of the lm. Paul is constantly emasculated by
women in the lm: by Kiki with her sexual aggressiveness and a lust for masochism,[24] Marcy turning down
his sexual advances, Julie turning a vigilante mob on him,
and Gail entrapping him in paper-mache, rendering him
helpless. There are many references to castration within
the lm,[23] most of which are shown when women are
present. In the bathroom in Terminal Bar where Julie rst
encounters Paul, there is an image scrawled on the wall
of a shark biting a mans erect penis o.[25] Kiki holds
a cigarette in her teeth when she rst encounters him, a
phallic symbol,[26] and Marcy makes a reference to her
husband using a double entendre when saying, I broke
the whole thing o when talking about her and her husbands sex life.[23] A mouse trap clamps shut on a mouse
when Julie tries to gift Paul the bagel paperweight.

Reception

The lm grossed $10,609,321 in the United States.[2]

Though it was not received well by audiences, it was given
positive reviews at the time and went on to be considered an underrated Scorsese lm, and a cult classic in
its own right.[13][14][15][16] The lm did, however, garner
Scorsese the Best Director Award at the 1986 Cannes
Film Festival and allowed the director to take a hiatus

7 Music
The musical score for After Hours was composed by
Howard Shore, who went on to collaborate multiple times
with Scorsese. Although an ocial soundtrack album
was never released, many of Shores cues appear on the
2009 album Howard Shore: Collectors Edition Vol. 1.[27]

3
In addition to the score, other music credited at the end
the lm is:
1. Symphony in D Major, K. 95 (K. 73n): 1st movement attributed to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (the
work is not among Mozarts ocially numbered
symphonies, but is sometimes numbered as 45)
2. "Air on the G String (Air From Suite No. 3)" by
Johann Sebastian Bach
3. En la Cueva Performed by Cuadro Flamenco
4. Sevillanas Composed and Performed by Manitas
de Plata
5. "Night and Day", Words and Music written by Cole
Porter
6. "Body and Soul" Composed by John Green
7. Quando, Quando, Quando, Music by Tony Renis,
Lyrics by Pat Boone

8 References
[1] Friedman, Lawrence S. (1998). The cinema of Martin
Scorsese. New York: Continuum. ISBN 0826410774.
[2] After Hours. Box Oce Mojo. Retrieved 2009-12-10.
[3] Variety Sta. "After Hours". Variety. 1985. Retrieved
2009-12-10.
[4] Sangster, Jim (2002). Scorsese : Virgin Film. London:
Virgin Books. ISBN 0753506424.
[5] Dougan, Andy (1997). Martin Scorsese. London: Orion
Media. p. 77. ISBN 0752811754.
[6] The Scandalous Origins of Martin Scorseses After
Hours | Andrew Hearst. Panopticist.com. Retrieved
2012-10-13.
[7] Canby, Vincent (1985-09-13). "'After Hours from Martin Scorsese. The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-1210.
[8] Keyser, Les (1995). Martin Scorsese. New York: Twayne.
p. 148. ISBN 0805793216.
[9] Kafka, Franz. Before the Law. Retrieved 2009-12-10.

8. Someone to Watch over Me, Lyrics by Ira Gershwin, Music by George Gershwin, Performed by
Robert and Johnny
9. You're Mine Written by Robert Carr and Johnny
Mitchell, Performed by Robert and Johnny
10. "We Belong Together" Performed by Robert and
Johnny

[10] Faber, Marion (Autumn 1986). Kafka on the Screen:

Martin Scorseses After Hours"". Die Unterrichtspraxis /
Teaching German (Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley &
Sons) 19 (2): 200205. Retrieved March 17, 2014.
[11] Keyser, Les (1995). Martin Scorsese. New York: Twayne.
p. 145. ISBN 0805793216.
[12] Making of After Hours documentary Retrieved 2009-1210.

11. "Angel Baby" Written by Rosie Hamlin, Performed [13] Blair, Iain (2001-11-05). The Free Game; Stars Cameos
Add Touch of Realism to Faux Documentary. South
by Rosie and the Originals
Florida Sun-Sentinel. p. 3E.

12. "Last Train to Clarksville" Composed by Bobby

[14] Schembri, Jim (2003-02-14). Martins mean streets.
Hart and Tommy Boyce, Written by Tommy Boyce
The Age (Melbourne). Retrieved 2009-11-16.
and Bobby Hart, Performed by The Monkees
13. "Chelsea Morning" Composed and Performed by
Joni Mitchell
14. I Don't Know Where I Stand Composed and Performed by Joni Mitchell
15. Over the Mountain and Across the Sea Composed
by Rex Garvin, Performed by Johnnie and Joe
16. One Summer Night Written by Danny Webb, Performed by The Danleers
17. "Pay to Cum" Written and Performed by the band
Bad Brains
18. "Is That All There Is" Composed by Jerry Leiber
and Mike Stoller, Performed by Peggy Lee

[15] Five-lm DVD set denes Scorsese. The San Diego

Union-Tribune. 2004-08-20. Retrieved 2009-11-16.
[16] Lawson, Terry (2004-08-14). Box set collects ve from
Martin Scorsese. Detroit Free Press.
[17] Festival de Cannes: After Hours. festival-cannes.com.
Retrieved 2009-07-10.
[18] After Hours. Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2012-11-30.
[19] Ebert, Roger (1985-10-11). "After Hours". Chicago SunTimes. Retrieved 2009-12-10.
[20] Ebert, Roger (2009-01-14). "After Hours". Chicago SunTimes. Retrieved 2009-12-19.
[21] Hearst, Andrews (2008-05-27). The Scandalous Origins
of Martin Scorseses After Hours. Retrieved 2009-12-10.
[22] Emerling, Susan (2000-03-07). Public radios bad dream.

[23] UK, Leighton Grist, University of Winchester, (2013).

The lms of Martin Scorsese, 1978-99 : authorship and
context II (1. publ. ed.). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9781403920355.
[24] Friedman, Lawrence S. (1998). The cinema of Martin
Scorsese. New York: Continuum. ISBN 0826410774.
[25] Sangster, Jim (2002). Scorsese : Virgin Film. London:
Virgin Books. pp. 132133. ISBN 0753506424.
[26] Johnson, Sigmund Freud ; translated by Shaun Whiteside ;
introduction by Jeri (2003). The psychology of love. London: Penguin. ISBN 9780141186030.
[27] Howard Shore Collectors Edition, Vol. 1. AllMusic.
All Media Network. Retrieved March 17, 2014.

External links
John Walker. (1989) Art & the art world in lms
in the 1980s. THES / artdesigncafe.
After Hours at the Internet Movie Database
After Hours at Rotten Tomatoes
After Hours at Box Oce Mojo
After Hours at AllMovie

EXTERNAL LINKS

10
10.1

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

Text

After Hours (lm) Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After%20Hours%20(film)?oldid=648420183 Contributors: Danny, Olivier,

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