Heat

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

The title, Heat (1995), written and directed by Michael Mann, takes on different meanings in this film. It refers to the police. It also can represent the pressure the characters feel in the pursuit of their jobs. It may also suggest the adrenalin-driven high one gets performing a dangerous act.

The first shot is of a train station at night with steam rising from the earth, a rather hellish look. Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) passes a reproduction of Michelangelo’s Pieta, which suggests sacrifice, but here there is little redemption felt here for the characters, and the feeling here is not spiritual. Neil is in disguise as a paramedic who steals an ambulance. His appearance is a deception as he is not here to ease anyone’s pain. We see patients who reflect the meaning of the statue by being in various stages of suffering, reflecting the agony of the world at large.

Police Lt. Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino) is with his wife, Justine (Diane Verona) and his stepdaughter, Lauren (Natalie Portman), who worries about making a good appearance for her father who is picking her up. How Vince’s job conflicts with home life becomes evident later.

Neil and his gang literally knock over an armored car with a truck. One of the crew, Waingro (Kevin Gage), is a loose cannon and shoots one of the guards which sets off a gunfight and the killing of all the guards. The scene shows how plans can go sideways when you are dealing with outlaws, the very definition of the word meaning they function outside society’s rules. Once restraint is lost, a domino effect of chaos can occur.

Neil meets Nate (Jon Voight) who hired Neil for the robbery of bearer bonds that belonged to a crooked businessman, Roger Van Zant (William Fichtner). Nate confirms that the big shot was insured for the theft of the bonds, will get full reimbursement, and then can buy back his own merchandise for at a large discount. The scene shows that men died as collateral damage so that crooks could help a supposed legitimate businessman scam the system.

Vincent shows up at the crime scene and realizes that except for the killings he is dealing with a professional group who knew they had limited time to pull off the robbery and only went for the bearer bonds, which they knew about. They also chose a location that was easy to exit. The exploding of the bomb used to enter the armored car was executed efficiently. All he has to go on is to check fences, that someone heard a robber call someone “Slick,” and maybe trace where the explosives were bought. Vincent also realizes that these robbers will not hesitate to eliminate witnesses once violence is in play. We have the start of professionals on both sides of the law working to defeat their opponents.

Neil shows his impatience and brutality because one of his men escalated the crime. He batters Waingro against the wall and table of a diner where he meets with his men and says Waingro won’t get a share of the heist. Neil is ready to kill the man outside, but Michael Cherrito (Tom Sizemore) stops him because police are nearby, not because it’s wrong to kill the man, which shows the lack of accepted morality. While they are distracted, Waingro escapes. We have another loose end in the process of committing a crime.

Chris (Val Kilmer), one of the crooks, brings home less cash than expected from the robbery and his wife, Charlene (Ashley Judd), gets into an argument with him because he needed cash to pay off gambling debts. She calls him, “a child growing older.” Chris explodes, breaking things. There is arrested development here which shows more cracks in the chain holding these robbers together, and there is the emphasis on the inability to balance home life with activity outside of the family.

That problem is also evident in Vincent’s home. Lauren’s father never showed up. Vincent is very critical of the missing dad, but he himself was scheduled to have dinner with his wife four hours prior. Vincent is sarcastic when he says he’s sorry that he didn’t share that he dealt with dead guys on the street. His words suggest his family’s details aren’t as important as his job.

Family continues to be the topic as Neil meets a woman, Eady (Amy Brennemen) in a restaurant. He is suspicious of her at first, trusting nobody, which shows how his line of illegal work causes him to be cautious. After she says she works at the bookstore he frequents they strike up a conversation. He learns that she has “a tight family,” while he admits that his mother died many years ago and he doesn’t know where his father and brother are. The dialogue shows how he is a loner which contributes to his feeling less vulnerable in his work. He has comes to terms with his isolated situation, telling her he is “alone,” but he is not “lonely.” She admits to being lonely and the two kiss and then have sex. But Neil cannot have a relationship in his mind and leaves early the next day.

Vincent’s intimidating ferocity is on show in the scene with Albert Torena (Ricky Harris), an informant, at the man’s chop shop for stolen vehicles. Vincent is loud, sarcastic, and threatening, and Albert promises to have his brother provide information for Vincent.

Chris crashes at Neil’s house which has no furniture. Neil isn’t even emotionally invested in his home. When Chris asks when he’s going to get furniture and a wife, Neil’s answer to both questions is, “When I get around to it,” which basically means never. He stresses the importance of not getting involved in the life they have chosen when he tells Chris, “Have no attachments. Allow nothing to be in your life that you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you spot the heat around the corner.” For Neil, the heat is the police, but in this movie it can mean anything that threatens to anchor you to anything else, leaving you as an easy target.

An example of how the social system discourages going straight is in the character of Breedan (Dennis Haysbert). He is on parole and shows up for a job at a diner to be a grill man. Instead, the manager makes him clean toilets and mop floors. He also says he will state that Breedan stole or did other violations unless he plays ball, which includes giving the boss twenty-five percent of his pay. The implication is that it’s easy to see why convicts revert to criminal activity when they are not given a fair chance at rehabilitation.

Neil finds out that Charlene is cheating on Chris with Alan Marciano (Hank Azaria). Since Chris says that Charlene is his world, which is the opposite of what Neil preaches, Neil concludes he must keep his partner happy. He tells Charlene that she must give Chris one more chance. If Chris screws up again, Neil promises to help Charlene get situated on her own.

Vincent meets Albert’s brother, Richard (Tone Loc), who just wants to work the system, like others, to get Vincent to arrest his competitors who steal cars. He mentions that an ex-convict he knows calls people “Slick.” Vincent discovers that Richard was talking about Michael Cherrito, so Vincent now knows Cherrito was involved in the armored car robbery. He learns what the guy looks like, including tattoos. He gets Cherrito’s criminal record and orders full surveillance.

Van Zant was supposed to pay Neil to buy back the stolen bearer bonds. However, the crooked businessman Van Zant wants to kill who stole from him even though he is making out on the deal. His attitude shows how revenge many times blinds a person to the consequences of getting even. He sends two men to fake the payment and kill Neil. However, since nobody trusts anybody in the underbelly world of crime, Neil has his men there and they kill Van Zant’s men. Neil calls Van Zandt and says there is a dead man on the other end of the phone line. There are attempts at doing business here but since there are no social rules in effect, it becomes open season on others quite easily.

We get two views of the opposing teams at dinner with their respective families. Neil is alone, of course, and he must feel the need for temporary companionship because he calls Eady. He wants to connect with her and asks her to go with him to New Zealand to start a life together. But the destination is far away, divorced from the rest of her current world. To be with him she must meld with his separateness.

 As Neil, Cherrito, and Chris and their families exit the restaurant, Vincent and his men observe them from the roof, since they tailed Cherrito. They recognize Chris, but not Neil, because he secured his anonymity.

We have symmetry now as the police and their families go out to dinner. But the comradery is broken when Vincent gets a call about the homicide of a young call girl. We know that Waingro is the killer, and we learn that there have been other hookers that suffered the same deaths by crushed skulls. The film shows us different layers of ferocity on both sides of the law, but there are some criminals that are more depraved and dangerous than others who harm those outside of the battle between cops and robbers.

The scene between Vincent and his wife Justine at this point is very good at showing the divide between the job of a homicide detective and his home life. Vincent doesn’t want to share the grotesque details of what he sees with his spouse because he doesn’t want to contaminate his family with the evil he confronts every day. However, by keeping Justine in the dark (and this scene is shot in shadows to stress that fact) means, as Justine says, “You don’t live with me, you live among the remains of dead people. You sift through the detritus, you read the terrain, you search for signs of passing, for the scent of your prey, and then you hunt them down. That's the only thing you're committed to. The rest is the mess you leave as you pass through.” Vincent lives for the heat of the hunt, and he admits that he doesn’t want to vent because he needs the “angst” to fuel his predatory drive. She eventually has an affair because it’s a way of getting free from Neil emotionally.

Vincent and his team observe Neil and his gang at a supposed robbery of a precious metals repository. However, one of Vincet’s men bangs his rifle against a truck. Neil, on guard duty, hears it. In the infrared camera it looks like Neil can see Vincent, almost in an extrasensory way, and he pulls out of the heist so that Vincent feels forced to let them go since all he has them on is a misdemeanor.

Neil feels that the robbery is compromised, but he sees it as his last job because he wants out with Eady. Chris has a precarious financial situation with his gambling. But Neil tells Cherrito that it’s better for him not to participate. Cherrito says, “for me, the action is the juice.” It’s that adrenalin heat that these guys desire, and in that sense they are the same as Vincent.

Because he has Chris under surveillance, Vincent also has the man’s wife observed. Which means he knows she has been seeing Marciano. Vincent is able to pressure him based on prior illegal activities to give up information on Chris. Here the film shows how the police put the heat on others by threatening them to get what they want.

Vincent’s team observes Neil, Chris, and Cherrito at a refinery next to a scrap yard. It appears that they are scoping out the area. Vincent later goes to the same location and realizes there is nothing there to steal. He now understands that they have been outwitted and they have been “made.” Neil is high up taking pictures of them, so he knows who he is dealing with. Vincent gets a kick out of it because, in a perverse way, he enjoys a worthy adversary. He is getting off on that “juice” Cherrito mentioned. Neil gets information about Vincent from Nate who also gives him schematics and other information for their bank heist. Despite learning that Vincent was in the Marines, is smart, and was on his third marriage which shows his dedication to bringing hoods down, Neil says the job is worth it. Is it the “juice,” the money, or both?

Vincent follows Neil in his car, pulls him over, and strangely invites him for a cup of coffee. Their conversation is like two noir combatants sizing each other up, finding things in common, showing some mutual respect, and throwing down their gauntlets. Neither of them leads a “regular” life consisting of “barbecues and ballgames.” Neil admits he has a woman in his life but will leave her in that thirty second time slot if he has to because that is the “discipline” he has pledged himself to. Each admits they don’t know how to live any other way and don’t want to. Neil says he will not go back to prison he will put Vincent down if he gets in his way. Vincent says he will do the same if Neil turns the wife of an innocent man into a widow.

Neil is smart enough to shake the tails on him and his crew. But there are loose cannons in the world of the unlawful to foul up the best laid plans. In this case, it is Waingro. He’s the monkey in the wrench, as John McClain would say. Waingro is the serial killing psycho who wants revenge for the roughing up Neil gave him. So, he goes to Van Zant for help.

Neil has his wheel man, Trejo (played by the appropriately named Danny Trejo) lead the police in another direction. Here we have a contrived plot device as Neil just happens to be in the diner where he recognizes the unhappy Breedan and offers him the getaway job because, sadly, it is better than being abused in a legitimate job. He tosses his crappy boss to the ground, and the audience sympathizes with this harsh action because people understand the unfairness of Breedan not getting a fair chance at being legit.

The police get a tip from an informant about where Neil’s team is robbing the targeted bank. What follows is a prolonged modern version of a shootout at the not O.K Coral as Vincent and the police exchange automatic gunfire with Neil’s gang on the streets of LA. The scene shows the upheaval of the safe, civilized life that can be wiped away in a moment. Breedan is killed and Chris is wounded while several policemen are shot. Cheritto, in a cowardly and horrifying act, uses a child as a shield. But Vincent gets an opening and shoots him in the head.

Neil gets Chris to a doctor who he pays to cover up the treatment for a fractured clavicle. Neil wants to follow his discipline, which means getting out, but Chris loves Charlene and doesn’t want to leave without his wife. His attitude shows how the world of crime doesn’t allow for love and marriage. He does go along with Nate with the plan to escape at first, but then leaves to find his wife.

Neil knows that the tip came from Trejo. He looks for the man, but he finds him near death. His naked wife is also dead, and we can assume the rapist/killer Waingro was at the bottom of all that happened, forcing Trejo to reveal Neil’s plans to the cops. Trejo says that Van Zant was involved. Trejo asks for a mercy killing and Neil obliges him. And the hits keep on coming.

Vincent tracks down the snitch who took the information from Trejo and tipped them off because he wants to follow the trail that leads him back to Neil. Meanwhile, Neil wants revenge and finds out from Nate where Van Zant lives and shoots him. He is on the trail to get Waingro. Both Vincent and Neil are hunters despite being on different sides of the law.

The police acquire Marlene and her son. Sergeant Drucker (Mykelti Williamson) uses manipulation to convince Marlene to give up her husband or else she will be considered an accessory, and her young son will go into the system. She gives in to the request. The scene shows again how the police leverage people, here giving Marlene a bad or worse choice. Marlene is able to get around her situation by giving her husband a signal to stay away as he approaches. Of course, even though Chris escapes, husband and wife can’t be together, and that’s the tradeoff.

Meanwhile, Vincent has used a beating to get information out of the tipster, Hugh Benny (Henry Rollins), to find out about the hotel where Waingro is hiding. Here there is more coercion, as the ends justify the means for Vincent here. Vincent leaks the location so that Neil will learn where Waingro is and Vincent can intercept him there.

Eady was living in a naïve romantic dream world about Neil, not really wanting to know how they can go off to New Zealand easily. Now she knows he is on the run and she tries to escape. She is both somebody Neil cares about and is also a loose end. So, he wants her to leave with him. He allows her the choice, however. Now he has come to realize he can’t be alone anymore, and he only wants the rest of his life to be with her. His sincerity wins her over. Nate has provided Neil with a plane and documents to leave the country. Neil looks like he’s ready to take off, but abruptly turns off the road and heads to get Waingro.

Vincent thinks Neil has escaped and heads out, throwing his TV out of the car, busting it up in the process. The shattering of the TV, which he said his wife’s lover was not allowed to watch, represents the breakup of his marriage. He then gets another jolt when he finds his stepdaughter, Lauren, in the bathtub after an attempted suicide attempt by self-inflicted wounds. He wraps towels as torniquets and saves her. Lauren is collateral damage resulting from her father’s neglect and the actions of both her mother and Vincent in their relationship. As Neil has come to a realization about himself, Vincent seems reconciled to who he is. When he asks Justine if there is any hope for the two of them, he is doubtful, He says to her, “all I am is what I’m going after.” Justine realizes that’s true and gives him permission to go to the hotel where Waingro is.

Neil sets off a fire alarm, steals a jacket so he can pretend to be with hotel security, goes to Waingro’s room, and shoots him dead. The police have the room under surveillance, so Vincent knows Neil is there and gives chase. He spots Neil as he approaches the car next to Eady, who is there, waiting for Neil. The crook does what he said earlier, which is to leave behind any possibility of a connection to another when he is at risk. But, he already should have left and then he would have escaped. He pursued his own view of vengeful justice. Now, he pays for it. Vincent follows him and just as Neil is about to shoot Vincent, the policeman sees Neil’s shadow (representing Neil’s dark side?), turns, and shoots his prey.

In the end the two men live up to who they are. Neil repeats what he said earlier about not going back to jail, remaining an outlaw until the end. Vincent remains the hunter. Neil holds out his hand just before he dies and Vincent grabs it, a last handshake representing understanding between the two.

Five 2023 Films

 SPOILER ALERT! The plots will be discussed.

I thought I would make some brief comments on five 2023 movies:

BARBIE:

Greta Gerwig’s film was a critical and very big commercial success. She was able to present a funny movie that was also heavy on theme. The opening is an enjoyable reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey, with the evolutionary progression moving away from girls playing with one-dimensional versions of dolls to the multifaceted menu of Barbies. However, as the story moves forward, those versions are shown as creations by men who are trying to cash in on women adopting various professions in the modern world.

In the real world, women are still not respected for their roles, so there is disenchantment that their lives are not living up to the ideals presented in Barbie World. This disillusionment is represented by Gloria (America Fererra). Her unhappiness affects Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie), who shocks other Barbies by ruminating on death, and travels to the real world to explore the problems there.

She has a stowaway in her Barbiemobile. It’s Stereotypical Ken (Ryan Gosling). In Barbie World he is just an accessory, as are the other Ken dolls. In the real world he learns how to be macho, and he brings that attitude back to Barbie World to share with the Kens. Barbie must return to set things straight before revisiting the real world at the end.

The thrust here is that neither gender should dominate, and that women must become empowered by way of their own identity, and not by what is prescribed by men.

The film is accomplished at bringing the world of Barbie to life, and the performances hit their marks. Great last line, when Barbie says she is in an office to see her “gynecologist.”

 OPPENHEIMER:

Christopher Nolan dazzles again in this story about the scientist who created the atomic bomb. In this film, unlike some others by Nolan, it is not that difficult to follow the different timelines. The story jumps between Oppenheimer in his early years associating with the Communist movement and his early brilliance as a physicist. There is the time period when he works on the Manhattan Project developing the atomic bomb. When he refuses to continue work toward developing the even more devastating hydrogen bomb, the government persecutes him for his early association with Communism. Eventually, the film depicts his acquittal.

We discussed this film in an online forum that the Bryn Mawr Film Institute presented. I asked about how the instructors viewed Nolan’s attitude toward science in general, mentioning his films, Inception, Interstellar, and his Batman trilogy. The instructors stated that Nolan appears to view people as flawed creatures who are not equipped to handle the fallout (pun intended in this case) from their technological advances. Inception shows the psychological devastation of delving into the dreams of others. Interstellar, although optimistic in the end, shows the need to leave Earth because of how humans destroyed the environment with technology. There is the section in the Batman stories where Bruce Wayne can listen to everything that the citizens are saying, totally invading their privacy. He allows that technology to be destroyed, but the fear is there if unscrupulous individuals used that system. In Oppenheimer, the ethical question that torments the main character is if he doesn’t develop the nuclear bomb, then Hitler might dominate the world if he is not stopped. However, by developing the A-Bomb, he opens a nuclear Pandor’s Box that threatens the existence of the world.

Great performances by Cillian Murphy as Oppenheimer, and Robert Downey, Jr. as the scientist’s eventual nemesis, Lewis Strauss (both Golden Globe winners).

KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON:

The title of the movie refers to an Osage Native American ceremony that cherishes the blossoming of flowers each year. During the ritual they discover oil on their land and the tribe becomes rich. However, they are surrounded by the enemy, the white man, who cherishes the land for profit. The whites exploit the Natives by marrying into the tribe and then bringing about the deaths of the Osage community to inherit the land’s wealth. They even have some declared incompetent while living to gain control of the assets.

The Native population is somewhat to blame for being seduced by the white culture’s love of materialism. Martin Scorsese’s film suggests that the desire for oil destroys the soul of the people who were its initial residents and pollutes the land with whom the Osage people were joined. One image that backs up this theme is when the natives have visions of their ancestors, they are covered in the dark liquid coming from the gushing oil, suggesting a blackening of their souls.

The film is very much about being in denial. The best example in Leonardo DiCaprio’s character, Ernest Burkhart (The “Earnest” name comes off as ironic, since he deceives his wife and himself). He comes to Oklahoma seeking financial help from his uncle, William Hale (Robert De Niro), who is a deputy sheriff and big landowner. On the surface he appears as a benefactor to the Osage community, but appearances are deceiving in this film, and he orchestrates the deaths of Osage natives for the personal gain of the whites. Ernest marries Mollie (Lily Gladstone, Golden Globe winner for her role), and fools himself into thinking he is helping her treat her diabetes when he is actually poisoning her. Mollie herself also deludes herself by not seeing how the man she believes she loves is attempting to do away with her. She finally comes to her senses after personal losses and is strong enough to get the Federal Government to investigate the many killings of Osage natives. The self-denial is general here, as the white people act as if they are helping the Native Americans while actually ruining their way of life.

Scorsese employs the camera to good effect when he places it at ground level and makes the audience feel as if it is a character walking with the film’s characters in rooms in houses. There is a smart image of Ernest swatting flies on two occasions. It brings to mind Beelzebub, the “Lord of the Flies,” and generally acts as a symbol for decay and corruption.

We discussed this film in a Zoom class. One instructor thought, given the length, that there should have been more of the story told from the Native American perspective. It seems a valid observation. This movie, and exceptional films such as Dances with Wolves and Little Big Man, tell the stories from the perspective of the white man, and not from that of the Native American.

 MAESTRO:

Bradley Cooper does it all here, writing, directing, and starring in this biopic about musical conductor/composer Leonard Bernstein, who composed the music for West Side Story. The movie is stylized, as it moves at the beginning from one location to another without breaks, which stresses the artistry of the filmmaking and thus can be distancing for the audience to invest emotionally. There is not a great deal of background information about Bernstein’s early life. Some may find the lack of exposition admirable while others may again find it difficult to understand the main character’s passion for music. But that passion is undeniable, and Cooper is submerged in the character, energetically demonstrating his conducting ability. Along with the makeup, Cooper inhabits Bernstein, and it is a virtuoso performance. I did, however, find his voice distracting, since he constantly sounded like he was suffering from a cold.

The film focuses on his marriage, and the conflict between his love for his wife and his homosexual orientation, and the homophobia of the time period. Carey Mulligan plays the spouse, Felicia, and she shows her love for and frustration with her husband. She displays emotional depth as she battles the cancer that ends her life.

 THE HOLDOVERS:

While the above films stress moviemaking artistry and theme, this film by Alexander Payne is very much about character. Paul Giamatti reunites with Payne after previously starring in Sideways. He is Paul Hunham, a sarcastic ancient history teacher at a boys’ boarding school who bemoans the lack of educational accomplishment of the privileged students who attend the school by way of their affluent parents. There is a School Ties and Dead Poets Society feel as to the locale of the story.

Hunham is stuck with having to babysit a few of the students over the Christmas holiday period because the boys’ parents are otherwise engaged. One of the fathers eventually arrives, literally as a helicopter parent, and whisks all but one student to a ski getaway after the child emotionally blackmails the patriarch. The one remaining boy, Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa, in a wonderful performance) has shown his anguish about the demise of his parents’ marriage.

The story is set during the beginning of the Vietnam War, and the cafeteria worker, Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), has lost a son who was a student at the school. She took advantage of her employment to allow her boy to attend. There is a definite class antagonism here as Hunham’s background is more in tune with the workers at the school.

There is a great deal of witty and insightful dialogue in the movie. Hunham’s pessimistic attitude is shown when he says, “Life is like a henhouse ladder: shitty and short.” He tells Tully at one point the need for learning about history when he says, “history is not simply the study of the past. It is an explanation of the present.”

As the film progresses, secrets about the lives of both Hunham and Tully come to the surface, and they find that there is more to each of them than appears on the surface. This film says that you don’t understand people until you take the time to really get to know them. Preconceived stereotypes don’t always conveniently fit into one’s world view.

Both Giamatti and Randolph deserved their Golden Globe wins.

The next film to be analyzed is Badlands.

Angel Heart

SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed!

Angel Heart (1987) depicts a world bereft of goodness and morality, where evil reigns. The movie is most notable for Allan Parker’s directing that creates visceral responses through surrealistic and religious imagery and symbolism.

The initial setting is an inhospitable wintery New York in 1955. The opening shows a dirty, dark alley with smoke rising from vents which, in the context of this film, suggests the fires of hell. A dog and cat prowl the spot, making animal sounds possibly pointing to the bestial nature that exists even in a metropolitan city. There is a dead body with a blood-smeared face in the alleyway. No one is singing “New York, New York” here.

Harry Angel (Mickey Rourke), which turns out to be an ironic name (the title of the novel on which the movie is based is called Fallen Angel), is a lowly private eye with a messy office. He receives a phone call from attorney Herman Winesap (Dann Florek) to meet Louis Cyphre (Robert De Niro). The last name sounds like “cipher,” which means something cryptic that needs decoding. Well, if you put the first and last names together you get what sounds like “Lucifer.” So, meeting this guy can’t be good.

Angel must go to a church in Harlem which turns out to have a funeral procession outside, an ominous scene. The place is not what one usually associates with a place of worship. Pastor John (Gerald Orange) is overtly greedy as he tells his flock to open their “wallets” and “purses” because he should not be riding in a Cadillac, because if his parishioners “love” him he should have a “Rolls Royce.” Angel meets Winesap who has a partner named Mackintosh. As IMDb points out they have names of apples, and in the Bible the apple represents temptation which brings sin into the world. (Not the only time lawyers are associated with evil. There is The Devil’s Advocate with Al Pacino as Satan. The senior partners in the TV show Angel, another deceptive title, are demons). Angel sees a woman wearing a black hood (spooky) cleaning blood off a wall. Winesap says a man committed suicide by shooting himself. What a church. Do they sing “Oh, Happy Day” here?

Angel meets Cyphre who sits on a small platform almost like he is on a throne. He wears black clothes (nothing subtle about that). He fiddles with a cane (a scepter?) His fingernails are long, a possible reference to his being a demon, and he has a pentagram ring on his finger. Be afraid, be very afraid. Winesap greets Cyphre by holding his hand, like in The Godfather or, in a different context, the way one kisses the Pope’s ring. The image is one of paying tribute to a powerful leader. There are electric fans in the room which become a motif in the movie. Cyphre wants Angel to find out if a “client,” a singer named Johnny Favorite, who was injured in the war and supposedly suffered from amnesia, was alive or dead. He received treatment at an institution. Winesap, using legal language, says that there was a contract between Cyphre and Johnny, and there was to be payment for what Cyphre supplied. If he is the devil, then one would suspect that Johnny sold his soul to achieve some fame. Cyphre suggests that he and Angel met before, which is also ominous.

Angel drives to the place that treated Johnny. He has a bunch of fake ID cards, which shows his use of deception in his work, and pulls one out for the “National institute of Health.” IMDb also mentions that Angel has several keys that would be “skeleton” keys (a deadly name). In the novel they are pass keys that can, supposedly, magically open all doors, which adds to the supernatural element in the story and fits how a private detective tries to discover secrets. He discovers that a Dr. Albert Fowler (Michael Higgins) transferred Johnny Favorite (whose real name is Liebling) out of the institution. (“Fowler” is pronounced like “Foul-er,” suggestive of one who commits foul deeds. But, as we find, chickens disturb Angel, so “fowl” works here, too).

Angel tracks the doctor down through the phone directory and breaks into the dilapidated residence. Next to a bible in a drawer is a revolver, offering up opposite images of destruction and salvation. Angel finds morphine in the refrigerator, an illegal substance to privately possess. So, when the sweaty Fowler, looking for a drug fix, comes home, Angel threatens to snitch on the doctor if he calls the cops. Angel found out that the deceptive Fowler faked a transfer to a VA hospital and took a bribe of $25,000 to release Johnny to a man named Edward Kelly and a girl while maintaining that Johnny was still hospitalized. Angel locks Fowler in his room so he can’t get at his morphine to make him desperate enough that he may remember who took Johnny. In the room is another slow-moving fan that alternately shifts its blade direction. These fans seem to announce the presence of evil or of corrupted souls.

The surreal quality of the film increases as Angel hears his name whispered as he walks down a street and he sees two nuns through a swinging church door silently praying, while what looks like blood drips into a basin near them. There is an old-fashioned elevator door opening and closing inside, too. Could these images suggest the opposites of going to heaven or hell, gaining salvation or being damned?

The camera focuses on Angel holding the key to Fowler’s bedroom, another reference to trying to discover what is happening by finding out what is hidden. When he unlocks the bedroom, it appears that the doctor killed himself with his gun, the one that Angel found in the drawer outside the bedroom. How did Fowler get it if the door was locked? Angel lights a cigarette by striking a match on the dead man’s shoe, an emotionally cold thing to do. As it turns out the bible Angel discovered was hollowed out and contained bullets. Talk about danger hidden below a benevolent surface! Angel wipes down everything to erase his fingerprints (more deception).

Angel meets Cyphre in a nice restaurant which is strangely empty. Angel tells Cyphre what he has learned about Johnny, informing him that Johnny left with his face bandaged because of an injury. Cyphre is undeterred, equating Johnny with a slug who always leaves a trail of “slime” when they leave. It is a damning metaphor, and Cyphre says it as he loudly cracks the shell of a hard-boiled egg. He convinces Angel to continue his investigation by upping his fee despite Angel worrying that he could now be a suspect in Fowler’s death. Cyphre says that in some religions “the egg is the symbol of the soul.” He asks if Angel wants an egg, but Angel declines and throws salt over his shoulder. IMDb says that superstition says that one is throwing salt into the eyes of the devil, blinding the demon. Cyphre then devours the egg staring menacingly at Angel. If this guy acts like he is eating souls then he is either the devil or thinks he is.

Apparently, the church where Angel met Cyphre harbors an evil cult because when Angel returns there he finds a dead monkey that was killed as a sacrifice and other items, such as an inverted cross. Men (probably members of Pastor John’s cult) attack Angel as he is about to confront a hooded person (the person who cleaned up the blood earlier?). He escapes to a bar and meets a woman named Connie (Elizabeth Whitcraft) who works for the New York Times. She provides Angel with information as they undress (not very romantic as there is no room for love in this world). He now has a picture of Johnny Favorite who had a fiancé named Margaret Kruzemark (Charlotte Rampling). She, along with Johnny, and other companions, practiced magic. Angel then has a series of images: soldiers celebrating in Times Square; a trellis elevator, which is what he saw at the church; a person going up a staircase; a woman’s feet; and a fan in a window (lots of fans here).

Angel tracks down Johnny’s associates and starts with Spider Simpson (Charles Gordone) who is a patient in a hospital. He tells Angel that there was a musician named Toots Sweet (Brownie McGhee) who went to New Orleans. Angel suspects that Johnny and Margaret also went there. Johnny also was intimately involved with an African American woman named Evangeline Proudfoot. She had a “spooky store” in Harlem. There was also a palm reader named Madame Zora who had a booth at Coney Island. Angel goes there and it looks desolate which fits the time of year and the tone of the film. There is a geek named Izzy (George Buck) there who says he bites the heads off rats. We are definitely in the realm of the bizarre here. He wears a nose guard but there is hardly any sun. He gives one to Angel, who puts it on. He looks scary, like he is wearing a mask, possibly showing his true nature. There is a possible reference to Chinatown where Jack Nicholson’s private detective wears a bandage over his nose after getting cut, which suggests he is following the wrong scent. Angel learns from Izzy’s wife (Judith Drake) that Zora was actually Margaret who eventually went home to Louisiana.

Angel goes to New Orleans which is the opposite of New York because it is sweltering. Angel is traveling south, possibly symbolically to hell. He notices an advertisement for M. Kruzemark, a fortune teller. He makes an appointment with her. He sees a woman who turns out to be Margaret, which is kind of magical in itself, and follows her to her place. She asks his date of birth, which is on Feb. 14, 1918. She says that she knew another born on that date and she admits that he hurt her. It’s Johnny’s birth date and he eventually tells her he is trying to get information about the singer. She abruptly ends the session, saying Johnny is dead. She quickly reads his palm on the way out telling him he wouldn’t like to know what she sees, which is a bit of foreshadowing. He notices she wears a necklace that has pentagram similar to the one Cyphre wore, which indicates her ties to the satanic realm.

Angel discovers that Johnny’s secret love, Evangeline, is dead. He goes to her grave (another Gothic element added to the story) and hides as a young woman approaches the gravesite. She has a baby and changes offerings that are on the plot, which contrasts with the Catholic cemetery setting. The girl says to her child that it is her grandmother there. Angel follows her and finds that Evangeline’s daughter’s name is Epiphany (Lisa Bonet) (an “epiphany” is usually a sudden insight into something and usually has spiritual overtones). Angel accidentally scares the child with his nose shield glasses, which adds an ominous tone to his presence. She denies knowing anything about Johnny or Toots Sweet. Angel compliments her on her beauty and she smiles, showing she might find him attractive, too. (The chickens around the yard upset Johnny and he mentioned his problem with them before. Does it have something to do with Cyphre saying eggs were symbols of the souls of people, and he has lost his?).

Angel goes to a bar where the guitar-playing Toots Sweet performs. Angel asks about Johnny, but Toots is evasive. Angel follows him into the men’s room, and Toots is now upset with Angel. He is shaken when he sees a black cloth tied around a chicken foot on the sink, an obvious witchcraft. voodoo object. A bouncer sticks the foot in Angel’s face, and he again says he has a thing about chickens before the big bouncer tosses him out of the club. Angel follows Toots to a voodoo gathering in the woods where Epiphany, while dancing, performs a blood ritual by cutting the throat of the chicken and spilling it on her. The recurrence of associating blood with ritual adds a dark supernatural feel to the story.

There is another slow-moving fan in a stairwell as Angel climbs steps, which somewhat mirrors the previous image he saw as a kind of premonition. He is following Toots. He attacks Toots who has a razor like the one Epiphany used in the previous scene, which links the two characters together. Toots cuts Angel on the face, which echoes the sacrifice scene. During the fight that follows a religious statute falls from its perch and cracks on the ground, suggestive of the fall in the Bible from religious grace. Angel takes the razor and overpowers Toots. Angel then threatens to reveal Toots presence at the ritual. Toots also has the symbol of the pentagram decorating a tooth, which links him to Epiphany and Cyphre. Toots tells Angel that Epiphany is a priestess in the cult and the chicken foot was a warning for Toots that he talks too much. The association of chickens with occult groups may be another reason why Angel basically says the only good chicken is a dead one. As he leaves Angel drops Toots’s razor and a fan stops turning as he goes. Could it mean that Angel is the source of the evil symbolized by the turning fan blades?

Angel has a nightmare where he enters a dark room. The elevator appears again. His shirt is soaked in blood. He sees a razor and picks it up and blood gushes from his hand. The same person with the dark hood sits there. As he is about to reach for the anonymous person, he wakes up. Could Angel be the one causing the bloodletting, and, thus, guilty of crimes? The scene seems to link him to the blood sacrifices. Cops wake him up because someone killed Toots. His assailant cut off his penis and stuffed it in his mouth, causing him to asphyxiate. Talk about being full of yourself. The police found Angel’s note leaving contact information with Toots. He tells the cops that he was just asking Toots for some information and tells them the lawyer he is working for. Angel touched the implement of death twice now – the gun that killed the doctor and now the razor that a killer used on Toots.

In another bar, Angel prepares to call Margaret as he looks at his reflection. Mirrors in gothic tales usually represent the other, darker side of a person. Angel gets images of himself in that elevator again and soldiers celebrating. The fan makes another appearance. These images seem to connect Angel with something sinister. And something sinister occurs in the next scene. Angel goes to Margaret’s place and finds her dead, The same ornate knife he found interesting on his first visit is the murder weapon. Someone carved out Margaret’s heart and left it on the coffee table. Those associated with Johnny Favorite are turning up dead. Again, Angel handles the implement of death. He is upset and nauseous, but still searches the premises, finding a mummified hand in a box, which resembles the chicken foot that appeared earlier, another connection to dark ritualistic practices. Angel removes his name from Margaret’s appointment list so as not to be a suspect.

The unnerved Angel passes by a church (religion is on the sideline here) and drinks in another bar that has another ominous fan. Incongruously, there is a religious statue in the window, maybe showing the desecration of the spiritual. He drives past a baptism in a nearby lake, but that religious scene contrasts with a suspicious truck following Angel’s car. Angel stops at a dock and the men from the truck unleash their dog that attacks him. One of the men says Margaret’s father, Ethan (Stocker Fontelieu), is a rich man who wants Angel to go away.

Angel meets up with Epiphany and tells her she set up Toots since she was the only one who knew Angel was looking for him; thus, she sent the chicken foot warning that Toots talks too much. Epiphany is adamant that her religious group does not kill people. She now admits that Johnny Favorite is her father, but she does not know where he is.

Angel receives a message from Cyphre who is now in New Orleans and requests that Angel meet him at a church. These two again being in a place of traditional worship adds to the theme of evil undermining Christian ideals. It is funny when of all people, Cyphre chastises Angel for using vulgar language in a church. Angel tells Cyphre about the murders and notes the strange element of religious practices present. Cyphre comments on the twisted nature of the world when he says, “There’s enough religion in the world to make men hate each other, but not enough to make them love.” Angel thinks Johnny is killing those who disliked him, and he was setting up Angel to take the blame. Cyphre says he is only interested in collecting what Johnny owes him. It is ironic that he says he has traditional beliefs, such as “an eye for an eye.” We have the devil quoting the Old Testament Bible, which darkly associates the deity with his adversary.

What follows is a dark surrealistic mixture of sex and violence referring to previous images in the film. Rain is pouring as Angel finds Epiphany near his room, which is leaking from the ceiling. Inside she says her mother thought that Johnny “was as close to true evil as she wanted to come,” but he also was a wonderful lover. Evil, which can destroy also seems to fuel the fulfillment of one’s sexual appetite here. As the two make feverish love the rainwater turns to blood. There are cuts to the hooded figure cleaning the suicide’s gore, the sacrifice of the lawyer Winesap, the elevator, and the fan. Epiphany reaches a screaming climax that sounds more violent than pleasurable. Angel gets out of the bed and punches the mirror, possibly reflecting anger at his darker, other self.

The police visit Angel, and one cop spews racial slurs after seeing Epiphany in the room. They ask questions about Margaret. The police are feeling the pressure from the dead woman’s powerful father. So, they try to squeeze Angel for answers, but he blows them off. The guys in the truck with the dog wait for Angel outside. He goes after them and chases one into a barn. The other man follows and again sets the dog after Angel, who runs off through a yard full of dreaded chickens, the objects of voodoo sacrifices.

Angel attends a sordid gathering of people skinning animals and conducting cock fights, another example of the depraved environment. He meets Margaret’s father, Ethan, who Angel now believes is the Edward Kelly who, with Margaret, took Johnny Favorite out of the medical institution. Ethan takes Johnny to where gumbo is cooking. The bubbling cauldron looks like it is boiling blood, another disturbing image. Ethan says he and his daughter left Johnny, with amnesia and a bandaged face, in Time Square on New Year’s Eve in the crowd in 1943. Ethan says he did it for Margaret’s sake because she and Johnny were delving into dark magic. Ethan says the mummified hand Angel found represents the Hand of Glory that can open all doors. This idea refers back to all the skeleton keys (another deadly reference) that Angel possesses. While Ethan talks, Angel becomes increasingly agitated, chopping at mounds of ice in Ethan’s office (The fires of hell attacking its opposite?) and he knows Ethan is more complicit than he lets on, and threatens the man. Ethan says that he introduced Margaret to Johnny, who conjured up Satan, to whom he sold his soul to become famous. Johnny then tried to cheat the devil by performing a demonic ritual which included taking the soul of his victim, the soldier, and his identity, by eating the man’s heart. Afterwards, Johnny was drafted and came back injured. Margaret hoped he would restore his memory by being in a New Year’s Eve crowd again, but instead Johnny disappeared. Ethan says that Margaret kept the unfortunate soldier’s dog tags in a vase.

After hearing this tale, Angel vomits in the bathroom, most likely because he is learning the truth about himself. He looks in the mirror, reflecting the other side of his being again, and visualizes the recurring images of the hooded person wiping blood off the wall, the fan, and the soldier in a crowd. When he exits the bathroom, Angel finds Ethan dead, his head plunged into the boiling gumbo, as fire wins over ice.

Angel bursts out of the building and runs to Margaret’s apartment. He rummages through the place and finds the dog tags that show his name, Harold Angel, on them. He is the soldier that Johnny Favorite possessed. If Epiphany (who lives up to her name in being part of Angel’s revelation) is Johnny’s daughter, then Angel in a way has committed incest. Also, Angel’s subconscious self (Johnny) killed all those associated with Johnny who helped him along the way to deny the devil his due.

On cue, Cyphre is there. He has used Angel to do his work for him. However, Angel is still in denial, saying the name Louis Cyphre is just a cheap joke reference to Lucifer. He says Cyphre killed all of the people and is using Angel as the fall guy. Angel keeps saying he knows who he is, but the opposite is true. Cyphre says Angel/Johnny was living on borrowed time, and now Angel’s soul belongs to him. As he says those words, his eyes glow. Cyphre puts on a record of “Girl of My Dreams,” the song that has been playing throughout the film and which was associated with Johnny, showing how Johnny was in Angel’s subconscious mind. Angel has flashbacks of his killing the victims.

Angel runs to where he is staying and finds the cops there next to Epiphany’s dead body, which has his dog tags around her neck, courtesy of Cyphre. Angel admits that it is his place and says that Epiphany is his daughter. Epiphany’s child is there and his eyes glow like Cyphre’s, which suggests that the devil is the father. The policeman says Angel will burn for her murder, and Angel says he knows, because his soul will suffer in the fiery pit of hell. We see that elevator going downward, suggesting his soul is descending to Lucifer’s realm.

The next film is Bound for Glory.