S6E3. I got a thing about chickens: Angel Heart (1987)

I Gotta think about chickens. Welcome to Wake Up Heavy, the world's greatest horror movie podcast. On this episode, my weird dad and his friends will be talking about a few films have ever created this much anticipation. Believe everything you've heard, because nothing can prepare you for the ending of Angel Heart. Afraid, Yeah, I'm afraid, Mickey Roar, Robert de Niro, Lisa Bonet.

Angel rated Arch June Friday at a theater via Hello, and welcome to Wake Up Heavy Recollections of Horror. This is Mark Bagley, your host. Returning to the show for the umpteenth time, is the host of the Projection Booth podcast, Mike White, I Got the thing about Chickens, and making his first appearance on the show is mister Pulp serenade himself. Colin Gallagher, Hoodie, and thank you for having me on today. On the show, we will be discussing the nineteen eighty seven horror noir classic Angel Heart, written and directed by Alan Parker.

The film is based on William Burtzberg's nineteen seventy eight novel Falling Angel. Mickey Rourke plays Harry Angel, a private detective in nineteen fifty five, New York City, tasked with finding missing crooner Johnny Favorite by the mysterious Lewis Cipher played by Robert de Niro. From the icy streets of Harlem to the muggy swamps of New Orleans, Harry encounters a doped up doctor, favorites, old bandmates, swindling preachers, feckless lawyers, Coney Island, Carney's, Johnny's daughter by you, rednecks, racist cops, and possibly even old Scratch himself. But can Harry find Johnny without losing himself in the process. The film also stars Lisa Bone as Epiphany Proudfoot, Charlotte Rampling as Margaret Cruise, Mark dan Floric as Herman Winsap, and Pruett Taylor Vince as Detective Demos Colan.

When was the first time you saw Angel Hart and what did you think? I originally heard about the movie kind of late. It was about fifteen years ago when Cinipede was reissuing the novel. I had been following that imprint because they did a bunch of Frederick Brown and David Goodis. I decided to wait to see the movie until I read the book.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to the book until recently. So a couple of years ago, I just sat down and watched the movie, not knowing anything about the plot or the ending, and I loved the atmosphere. I loved the story, the setting. I thought Mickey Rourke was fantastic, and then I got to the ending, which really through me. I kind of by the time the twist ending was revealed, I had sort of figured out what was going to happen.

It really took me out of the story and I had to think about, oh, does this make logical sense? Did I miss any clues? Was it playing fair? How does this reinterpret the narrative? And I knew I wanted to read the book.

I knew I wanted to revisit the movie knowing the ending to see how that would change things for me. So I really loved this opportunity, and so I went back. I read the book, which I thought is terrific, and rewatched the movie and I still kind of had the same reaction this time around, which is everything up until the ending I adore. The ending still doesn't quite make sense to me, and I'm really hoping that through this conversation it will make a little more sense to me, because I really want to understand the ending. But it's a fantastic movie.

I really you know, I enjoy it, And Mike, how about you. Well, this was quite a firestorm when we were growing up. All the controversy around this film. I think a lot of it had to do with just Lisa Bonnet being not necessarily America's sweetheart, but one of America's most well known children because she was on The Cosby Show. So I saw this when I was probably sixteen or seventeen, whenever it hit video, and I knew two things about it.

I knew Lisa Bonet gets naked, and I knew that Robert de Niro gives a great performance. Well, you're not in for a good time if you're here for Robert de Niro and for Lisa Bone getting naked, because Lisa Bone getting naked is like way into the movie. It thinks a long time before you get there. And poor Robert de Niro barely in this film. He's got three, three I think, major scenes.

It's fantastic and every single one of them. But if you're here for Robert de Niro, yeah, he's barely in this film. So I came in with the wrong impression of what this movie is going to be, and basically all I remembered was Nicky Rourke and Lisa Bonet make love and there's blood coming down from the ceiling. What the fuck was that even all about? So revisiting it again the other night, I have to say I enjoyed it a lot more than I did back in nineteen eighty seven eighty eight when I saw it the first time.

So I'm glad that we are going to be discussing this, and I look forward to hearing your guys's thoughts and especially how this differs from the screenplay and the book, because I know that this went through a lot of changes before it got to the screen. Even through this shooting process, there's a lot of changes. I saw this theatrically, and I don't recall what the poll was. I think it might have been Robert Neuro I had. I'm pretty sure nineteen eighty seven.

I was eighteen. This came out when I was still in high school, but I believe I had finally seen taxi driver Robert Gennaro kind of became huge at that point for me. It might have been Delisa Bonet angle. I don't know. I watched the Cosby Show religiously and I had a huge crush on her.

It most likely was not the Alan Parker angle, because I had probably only seen at that point The Wall, and maybe I might have caught Midnight Express on TV at some point. And I don't think it was Mickey Rourke either. I don't think at that time. This was right on the cusp of him becoming like top pay Hollywood actor, which didn't last very long, mostly because of his own doing. I think my sister was the one that really pushed to go see this, so we went and saw it in a theater that we didn't normally go to because this was not a huge wide really, even with the controversy.

Plus I live in a small town that doesn't necessarily get everything even if it's a moderate success. And I was absolutely blown away by this film. It started my brief but intense obsession with Mickey Rourke because I don't think I had seen an actor like him prior to this in this movie, and I think it's one of his better performances. Now I say obsessed, but it really only revolves around two movies. This one in Barfly, which came out in the same year, which I saw in the same year, and then he went into boxing.

Most of the rest of the films that came after this I never really fell in love with. I know I saw Johnny Hanson, I know I saw Homeboy. None of those movies connected like these two. Yeah, this is a movie that I watched a bunch in the late eighties and early nineties. I had to check with my friend last night.

I'm like, I had this on some form of media, because I know I didn't rent it every time I watched it, but I have a box of old VHS tapes. Wasn't in there. So I asked my friend, I'm like, did I sell Was this one of the laser discs I sold to you back in the early two thousands, And He's like, yes, I believe it was, And I believe I was actually there at Tower Records when you bought it. And I'm like, Okay, I knew I had it at some point. It's one of those touchstone films for me when I was first getting into or realizing what a director did.

It was one of those movies where I was really paying attention to the composition of shots, the editing of shots and blocking and all that, and even though I didn't necessarily know all those terms, it's what I was looking for, and I found it a fascinating film in that regard, there's a lot of symbology in the movie. You can catch on to a lot of hints about that twist that you mentioned, Colin. I've been meaning to do this episode since the beginning of the Pandemic, and I mentioned it. I listened to an episode the other day of mine from early on in the Pandemic to see if I had mentioned it, and I had, and I continued to mention this Mickey Rourke double feature that I was going to do on my own at the time because of the pandemic.

So it's taken two years to finally get it going, and I'm happy to have other people talking about it, especially Colin. You made it through the book. I checked it out early in the Pandemic and got I think about a third of the way through and stopped and never got back around to it. It's interesting what Perker did with the book, because I wasn't as enthralled with it, I think as maybe you were. Is that why you stopped the book or was it just life happens?

And sometimes we can't finish books. I think it was a little bit of both. I think it was sort of the point when I was becoming a little overwhelmed by our situation and it didn't really sink its books into me. And at that time, the libraries were kind up not really open, so they weren't making you take stuff back like they normally would, and it sort of just sat on my side table for months and months, and then finally I think I got a notification now we're not going to charge late fees, but you know, can you bring this book back? And I was like, yeah, maybe I'll get back to it when I actually do the and I didn't, So he had the library cops after you, maybe we can live with that.

Libraries people like you and me. Maybe sure, we're too old to change the world. What about that kid sitting down opening a book right now in a branch of the local library and finding drawings of peepees? And we we a get in the head and the five Chinese brothers doesn't heed deserve better? But as far as the differences, and this sort of goes to the movie and maybe some of the problems of the movie.

I just remember what I did read It felt to me, and of course this hindsight is twenty twenty, but it felt to me like he lays the cards out a little more obviously in the book. Colin, I don't know if you feel that way about the big twists. And yes, we are going to spoil this film people, but the big twist, I don't know if we should talk about it right here. At the opening, it seemed more obvious to me that the person that Harry Angel is looking for is himself. I think it still took a little while for me to figure that out the book.

One of the big clues in the book is when he meets Lewis Cipher, the address is six sixty six. This sort of satanic symbolism is very, very upfront in the book, whereas it's somewhat upfront in the movie. Perker was smart and offu skating some of the twists and the satanic aspect of it. Lewis Sifer is pretty obvious as well. As soon as they introduced sometime, I'm just like, oh, okay, it's the devil.

Yeah I missed the pun there with the name, definitely, but it's obvious that something that is going on with him. He had multiple characters wearing pentagram pendance of some sort or another. So you get this idea that weird shrine that angel finds. It just felt to me like that if I had read the book, I think I would have picked up on both of the twists a lot quicker than I did with the movie. What I loved about the book and what really captured my attention is it's in New York and no air.

You know. That's one of the biggest differences with the book. In the movie, of course, is the second half of the movie is in New Orleans. I think the story works really well in New York, moving between Harlem. A lot of it takes place in Times Square that's sort of run down, you know, some of the big clubs have already closed.

You know. He lives in Chelsea in a what he calls a rundown apartment with a patio, which, as we now know, if you want a two bedroom apartment with the patio around where the character in the book lives, it's fifty six hundred dollars a month. That doesn't sound right. And then you know, going down to Coney Island. I love New York where I live.

That aspect of the book really really grabbed me, and I think Georgsburg there's a fantastic job of getting the geography of the city. The first half of the movie. Also, just the streets, the cars, the close, I really felt like I was in New York in the mid fifties. Does he go down to New Orleans twice? In the movie?

It feels like he heads down there two times. I thought it was once really okay, once he goes that's it, We're in New Orleans for the rest of the time. Because I was kind of confused about the geography as far as well. First off, I'm confused about the time, though it says very clearly nineteen fifty five, but I was just like, okay, something about this, and I don't know if it's Roork and just his other roles. He doesn't feel like he's nineteen fifty five.

He feels like he's more nineteen eighty seven. I thought for sure that he had headed down to New Orleans twice. I'm just like, why do you keep going down there? So my bad on that one, but I think I would have liked it better had he stuck around just New York City as well. I do know what you mean.

Mike, and I can't remember what point it was, but after he was in New Orleans, there was a moment on rewatching where I was did he go back to New York for something? And I can't remember what it was, So it could be those flashback dream sequences true that basically take place in New York. His memories and things are. You know, he probably hasn't left New York before for an assignment. That makes me think about the look of the film and how for a period piece this is one of the most successful.

When the movie opens, after that brief little nighttime scene where we see the dead body and supposedly which I never caught onto, Lewis Cipher walking down the street, Perker says that we're supposed to infer that that's Cipher because he's walking with a cane. He says later in the film, but what gives human life its worth anyway because someone loves it paints it? The flesh is weak, Johnny. Really The Soul is a movie that desaturated look that they just achieved by painting. The art direction in this movie is amazing.

They've repainted every sign on all the streets that they filmed on, and they repainted Coney Island. You know, no primary colors was his main goal to film in black and white, but in color, but everything still has that muted palette. When I start watching this movie, I feel like I'm in that space. That look of the film draws me in. I do like the New Orleans stuff, and I forgot about that that the book takes place solely in New York.

The voodoo ceremony is in Central Park in the book, which I kind of like. I feel like that sequence in the book is almost a little comical, not quite, but I do like the idea of after hours in New York. It's three am. You go near the lake and it's where the voodoo ceremony is happening, and afterwards you get out in the go Back Home. Is that the ceremony where they took the boy's soul?

We're a different one. The chicken dance, I think, is what? Yeah, referring to Okay, there's an extra ceremony toward the end of the book that's not in the movie. The script had that scene that Salt Mine Orgy I guess, which there are flashes of in that final dream sequence flashback that Harry's going through when he's having sex with Epiphany and you see those writhing bodies. That was actually in the script.

It was a something that Cipher was doing while he was in New Orleans having a double worship orgy, like you do Yeah, like you do Yeah. In the book, Cipher he also is like a sideshow magician. He has different aliases. He performs a couple of times he transforms like a young woman into an old woman and then back to young again, and then that final orgy involves I'm curious, it's in the script not only child sacrifice, but it's either tr X or Triple X film that can shoot in the dark, and so Angel gets blackmail photos that winds up becoming like a big part of the final conflict, which is how he gets the information out of Cruizmark, is he has photographs of Cruizmark doing certain acts. The child sacrifice was mentioned ever so briefly in that scene.

But that script was interesting the things that were left out, Like at the beginning, as I started reading and I'm like, who's this news finer they're talking about and his landlady, they talk about that body that's shown at the beginning of the film, that a homeless woman with their throat slit. If this had been in there, it's obviously this happened around Harry's apartment, and so it would have seen that Cipher is setting him up to take the fall for this before we've even met Cipher. That is, I think what having said that, I missed the twist. I assume that Cipher was setting Harry Angel up through this whole thing. Every time he goes and sees somebody, that person ends up dead right after he's seen them.

So the logical thing that the cops are going to think, which happens in the film is that he's the one that did it. That sort of sets up that noir aspect of the film where we have Angel tasked with finding the famous crooner Johnny Favorite who in the book, and in part of the script, Harry recalls, I like that they changed that. He's like me, know, I have no recollection of this person or his name, And again, I think they did that to make it less obvious that, Okay, he's looking for himself. Also in this script, towards the end, when he has epiphany up in his room, he mentions his fake nose for the first time. That's a part of the book.

Also that's left out is that yes, Harry mentions that he was in the war and was hurt, but he doesn't say, you know, like my face was badly damaged, and that was a thing in the book that kind of was like he was drawing parallels between himself and Johnny a lot in the book, and it's like, Okay, well it's the same guy, but here they hide that a little bit more. And I think it's maybe smart to do that. Is it tricky or fair, I don't know, but I think it's kind of smart. Well that makes sense with the nose guard that he's wearing, which I mean, we talk about detective characters and are they even capable of doing their job? And I have to say that Angel is probably one of the lesser detectives.

He doesn't seem to be very good at his job. And also he is a dork so much of the time, Like when he's wearing that stupid nose guard, he looks ridiculous. He looks sillier than Jake gets when he gets his nose cut by Polanski. It's just like he's marking himself as far as like I'm an idiot. He's really not that good at his job through a lot of this.

At the end of the book, there's a moment where Cipher says to angel, I thought you would have been a lot better. You should have figured this out and who I was a long time ago? Like, wasn't the name a big hint? Oh funny, Oh funny. I liked that aspect of the book.

I always took it as plain dumb, like the Elliot Gold version of Philip Marlowe in The Long Goodbye, where it's more to make the people that he's talking to feel like they're smarter. It's a Columbo thing. Yeah, yeah, And he has to go back again, typical Noir thing. No one is up front with him the first time he talks to them. He always has to go back and get more information if he can, if they're not dead already.

Right. Yeah. He travels out to that psychiatric clinic where Johnny supposedly has been for the last twelve years and finds out about this doctor Fowler. Okay, granted he knows when ballpoint pens were invented, so that's definitely a good point there. He went to big a ballpoint forty two.

I remember that always sticking out to me, like, really, it's just something you think, like, oh, I'm probably at some point even looked it up. When was the ballpoint pen invented? I did look it up because I was curious. And while it had been invented, I think in the nineteenth century. I think it was forty five or forty six when it went into mass production, and even then, according to Wikipedia, I think it was like ten bucks for one wow, ten bucks in nineteen forties money.

Yeah, you're using a ballpoint pin. You're you're you're rolling in it. I mean, what are you using? Otherwise? Are you using the old one with the nib and the ink and stuff?

Is that what's what he was using? Okay? Yeah? When he wrote down the winesap and Macintosh and a cipher on is yeah. I noticed that.

Really this time it's like, oh, well, yeah, he's using the old what are those pins called? Those are called fountain pins. I wasn'tna say. Johnny was probably using blood instead of ink for a lot of writing. Another thing that struck me when I first saw the movie is the music.

And I don't know how old you are, Coling. I know Mike's fairly close in age to me, but at that time, roots rock was a big thing, and this kind of came in like right around when the Joshua Tree was released. I mean they were released very those together, and that whole idea of another era discovering blues music and stuff. So I remember ring really struck by that, not only the blues and roots music they were playing, but that damn song that just plays throughout that Girl of My Dreams. Oh yeah, Girl of my Dreams, I love you.

Yesterday when I was watching made me think again of the Long Goodbye where you have that song just play in different variations throughout. This isn't as wild as that is, but you have you do hear the real song that you also hear those sacks solo motifs throughout that play the tune. There's the tinkling piano that play the tune. I thought it was so cool that they got Browning McGee and Pinetop Perkins to be in the band, which is a nice little tree. I don't think Pinetop gets any dialogue, but Brownie McGee gets some good screen time too.

Sweet well, speaking of music and Satan, I kept thinking of another film that had come out right around this time, which was Crossroads and just that kind of set in the past period piece dealing with the Satanic relationship and all this. So and that was just eighty six, I think that came out so one year before this. I loved Crossroads growing up. Yeah, I was born in eighty five, so I didn't see Crossroads till probably ninety or so. But that was my karate kid, like, that was my Ralph Maccio movie for years.

I wanted a pignos and a telecaster and the whole classical guitar aspect of that movie. I grew up playing classical guitar as well. So nice that movie connected with me quite a bit and shaped who I am today well, and that brings in the whole faust idea here and where. Oh yeah, Harry asks, why do you want to find this guy? And missus Seifert has a contract that fauci An idea of selling your soul for fame, and they get into it a little bit more in the book.

It doesn't seem like that many people know who he is in the movie. In the script and mentions, you know, he was bigger than Frank Sinatra. I know that the book implies that as well, but he was very famous and very wealthy. You never really get the sense in the film that he was that big of a deal, Like, if you're going to sell your soul the Devil, shouldn't it be you know, you're still on the tip of everyone's tongue. Right, here's this obscure singer.

You know, here's Frankie Valley. If people didn't remember who he was, right, clearly it wasn't that great of a deal. No, he should have specified how much fame he was going to get. Got to be specific. When you work with the Devil, he's he's clever.

Oh you want flash in the pan status? Okay, I got that covered. You are a one hit wonder. Yes, yeah, girl on my dreams on repeat viewings. I really do like de Niro's appearances, however short they are.

Oh yeah, I really enjoy in the first interview, the referenced interview where he asks to see Harry's ID, you've got references, you've been the college the only take y Eggs wants drank the right day, and then Cipher goes, I'm cautious about such things. Right. It's like a nice little in joke that he kind of lost track of who Harry and Johnny were That was quite funny. Hey, he doesn't do a whole lot either. There's not a lot of dialogue.

It's more reaction. I like the scene in the Italian restaurant with the egg. You know, some religions think that the egg is the symbol of the soul. Did you know that? Oh?

I didn't know that. He could have hammed that roll up so much more right. I appreciate his restraint. I really like his long fingernails as well. Yeah, which is sort of like pop into certain shots and then they kind of go below the you know, the framelne.

He just seems to be having the best time in that role. And I know he's smiling quite a bit, and and I think that helps as far as whole. Robert de Niro was really enjoying this, and by him having such pleasure, I'm having such pleasure watching him. What is the relation of this in Cape Fear? I'm forgetting the year.

It feels like Cape Fear came after because I remember seeing that theatrically, and I wasn't seeing this one theatrically. That was ninety one was Cape Fear. This feels more like it's close to The Untouchables. Every single time he was showing up on screen, he was just knocking it out of the park for a long time. So yeah, Angel Hart.

The next role was The Untouchables. Then there was Midnight Ry and jack Knife, where no Angel Stanley and Irish Goodfellas, Like, what a run that was. Right before this, it was The Mission, his little role in Brazil falling in Love Once upon a Time in America, King of Comedy. So yeah, just this amazing run of roles that he has for I mean, there's a couple in there where it's like, okay, falling in Love jack Knife, okay, but everything else, oh my god, a lot of different types of rules told. Yeah, yeah, and he's going yeah comedy with Midnight Run and the Mission is one of the most serious films that I've ever seen.

So and then like again kind of hamming it up in a good way in Untouchables. I mean, God, him with that fucking baseball bat man become pre eminent. He's expected to have enthusiasms, enthusiasms, enthusiasms. But yeah, I love his look, I love the long hair, I love how he keeps it up through so much of the film. But then when he lets it down, it looks even better.

And yeah, the way that he's holding that cane and those long nails and everything. But yeah, that egg scene is probably the one thing that I remember the most. And I didn't even remember the salt and how Harry has to take the salt and throw it over his shoulder. And I had never known why you do that. I always thought it was kind of a don't waste salt thing.

I didn't realize it was you're throwing salt into the devil's eyes. Yeah. I finally realized that yesterday. I'm like, wait a minute, isn't that's a superstition and it has something to do with the devil I believe, and looked it up and it's like, yeah, they believe that, you know, the devil hunter around your left shoulder, and salt was such a pricey commodity. Oh yeah, that dropping it was a sin.

So you had to do that and blind the devil before he could take over and offer you fame and fortune as a crooner, yes, or at the crossroads as a guitarist. That egg scene, especially the end when he it's into the egg and you're like, oh, yeah, he's devouring Harry right now. Is that where he says, I've got to think about chickens for the first time, I believe, so, yeah, okay, I got to think about chickens. Those are the lines that repeat through the film, tickle me, the chicken one, the I'm from Brooklyn one to explain away his ignorance about things. I don't know if you ever use that poland, but you know, hey, you know I'm from Brooklyn.

I don't know much about this. I'm from Brooklyn, or right, I should use that? Are you an atheist? Yes, I'm from Brooklyn, you know, because everybody in Brooklyn's and atheist. That's true.

That's true. That's what you do. You go across to the big Island and people are just like, what are you some kind of idiot? And You're like, I'm from Brooklyn. He does a lot of great things.

I mean, this movie makes me miss Mickey work, especially when you see just how fuck handsome the guy is. I mean, just like, man, what did you do to yourself? You were so handsome, so talented. This is the kind of role that you were made for, this kind of retro cool type of thing. I mean, every time he would do a role like this, He's just like, yeah, you are so great, and then yeah, like you said, this is one of the last ones right before he just kind of fucked himself up.

And everything that I've watched of his it seems like he had a self destructive ideology about himself where it's almost like he couldn't let himself be famous. In this and in Barfly that'll be doing later this month, both directors of those films been like, you know, he came to me with these wacky ideas and you had to like talk him out of this character that he wanted to create. Like for this one, he wanted to have jet black hair and a cyrano de Bergierac knows, which might go to the you know, the fake nose thing. He'd probably read that in the script and thought, well, if I'm going to have a petty nose, you know, a wax nose, I might as well go all the way. It's still the opposite of what you want to do when you get plastic surgery.

He had all these suits made for him, but they weren't period correct. He ends up with those baggy, sere sucker suits in the film, which I love. That was the other thing about this movie. It hit a style thing that was going on at that time, the pleated pants, the wide tie, that was a thing like in the mid to late eighties. I remember watching it and going, I need a wide tie like that.

Not so much the suit, but it's like he wanted to set himself up for failure. And by the time he did Barfly, which was right around the same time, he was like, yeah, I'm done with acting. I'm not interested in this anymore. And he did continue to act. I mean, Homeboy came out a little bit later and Johnny Hansom and stuff.

Yeah, then went off in the boxing and got his face destroyed. Basically. I talked about him in White Sands. I love his role in that. And then of course, guys come on Harley Davidson and the Marlborough Man probably one of the best films ever made, and he just really knocks it out of the park there of course too, that's one I haven't seen.

I mean either my sister and brother in law and I went to la I think in the early nineties, and we all swear that we were driving behind him when he was writing on a Harley. I don't know if it was Sam, but it surely heck looked like him. It's a weird movie. It's a very weird movie because it's if memory serves, and it's been a long time since I've seen it. It's futuristic, but you don't know that it's futuristic.

So I kept thinking when I was watching this that I wish the ending turned out differently, so that there could be a series of movies about Mickey Rooke's character, because even though he's not a very good detective, he's very likable. I really like the world that he had around him, Like the young woman with the calf length jeans and he's like, oh, your boyfriend's got a car. He seems like really surprised, and they seem to have some sort of interesting rapport. There's the relationship he has with the woman from the newspaper who gets all the background. I really like the carnies that he meets down at Coney Island, the couple where the husband is on the beach and just has all these noseguards, and then the wife is just standing in the ocean with her back to like, you know, her husband and Mickey York and she's obviously doing something.

I don't know what but I really liked these people so much that I'm like, I kind of wish that he could have this ongoing series where he would keep going back to these people for more information about missing persons and cases, and it'd be nice if he wound up with a somewhat happy ending where he at least survived. That's not in the cards for this movie. In this story, I'm was so curious because there was a posthumous novel of Angel's Inferno that was published, but I don't know anything about that. As far as how they managed to carry out this story. Yeah, I don't know anything about it either.

I got curious because I remember thinking, well, there's a sequel book, how does that pan out? Or is it a prequel book? Did I imagine this? Because I tried to look it up last night and I couldn't find anything about it. Yeah, he's very affable in this film, and I think that was what struck me the first time I saw at Colin and why it resonated so much, those little interactions with that girl on the street, with Connie the secretary from the Times who in the script and me it's a horrible end.

We don't see any of that in the film. But that Fangoria issue that I passed on to you guys last night had a couple of pictures of her body that we're supposed to again infer that Harry kills her after this and then sets her apartment on fire, which is odd. Kind of glad that's not in there. Yeah, she had no part in the Johnny Favorite story. They cut that out and kept the victims to the Johnny Favorite connections to where I believe at some point that the film, and I don't remember if the book ends this way.

The film, it was just he's being set up. He doesn't actually kill all these people. It's a cipher that works if you leave in the thing about the secretary. It works if you connect him to that body at the beginning of the film. Well, there's that other scene that was in that Fangoria article where Dan Florck buys it.

I was so happy to see Dan Florik because he used to be kind of a big deal when I would see him show up in things like he was never a big deal, like, oh my god, this movie starts Dan Florik, But he was always so good and everything that he did, and I was kind of bummed when he just disappears from the movie. That's another thing that I'm very surprised that Harry doesn't pick up on as that Wine Sap and McIntosh are both apples, okay, And then Prue Taylor Vince as what is it demos, and I was like, why is his partner not phobos? Like that would have been pretty cool too. But Prue Taylor Vince doesn't look like Prue Taylor Vince in this movie. Oh my gosh, he's so thin and I can't remember the last time I saw him thin, and he doesn't.

I could only tell it was Prue Taylor Vince because of his eyes, because you know, his eyes do that like wobbly thing. I was waiting for a close up of him. I'm like, you gotta show his eyes, that's like his thing. No, they stayed away from him, but he was great. And I forget that this was one of his first roles because I've seen him so much since then, and he's in ber Fly as well.

But I don't think I noticed his eye deal until I finally saw Mississippi Burning, where he's in that a little bit more. That's why I put his name at the beginning because I just love him. Whenever he shows up in things, he is great. Yeah, I love him. Michael Higgins is doctor Fowler.

When I saw this, I had no idea who that guy was, but you know, more recently seeing him in things like Wanda. I caught a little bit of that a couple months ago when it was on TCM and I'm like, wait a minute, is that doctor Fowler? And I looked it up. I'm like, oh my god, it isn't. He's just an asshole in that movie.

He's in the Conversation, He's in Bubblefish again with Mickey Rourke. He's in Stepford Wives. Yeah. The character actors in this movie, the smaller parts, are all played by some really interesting people. And we really haven't even thought about the Lisa Bonet character.

Gosh, she was what eighteen when this movie came out, and she says she's seventeen in the movie, and boys she sexualized in this movie. I think she's a little bit older than that. I believe she's a couple of years older than me. Okay, I was eighteen. I saw it.

They filmed it the year before, so she was probably nineteen or so when they filmed it. But yeah. I mean that's it becomes a little more troubling in these days. Back the NFL, I didn't think anything of it, but yeah, when she says she's seventeen and you realize she has an infant already, and then that basically he's sleeping with his daughter. But then is he because the little boy has the Lewis Cipher eyes and I'm like, was it really Lewis Cipher that knocked her up?

Was this one of those, you know, supernatural births that we have. That's what she says. She says, it's during that ritual and I can't remember this. He keeps saying Chevrolet, So that's what I want to say. I can't remember what she calls it, but it's a French term or chevalier something.

Yeah. Yeah, we are mounted by the gods. Oh yeah, definitely. There a little interaction there in his hotel room is sort of important, and it's even more important in the script where you have a better distinction between their religion and devil worship gets intertwined in the film, and I think that was a problem back then for people like you know, and it's pretty typical of movies where they are conjoined they took steps to separate that in the script, and then none of that stuff ended up in the film, which I get happens to simplify things, but it would have been nice to have that distinction between the two. They go into a lot more detail in the book, because in the book there's a lot of the symbols that are used.

They find them on the wall, like things written in blood. I believe it's her that helps Harry realize that, oh, these symbols are actually gibberish. Whoever's doing these murders doesn't know what they need, which is an interesting thing that's left out of the movies. One of those Fangoria pictures, there's a picture of Rourk and it says something like tellock or something behind them, And I didn't remember that in the movie. Was that there?

And I just know that was one of the I think most of the pictures in that article actually are from deleted scene. Yeah. In the script, it does mention that he, after killing Toots, writes that word on the wall in his blood. They mentioned that. The cops say, you know, somebody decorated the apartment with the poor SAPs blood.

Right, there's no mention of any of the terminology. It comes up a lot more in the script. I think in most of the murder scenes there is something written or he finds things that have those symbols and he doesn't know what they mean. How much of it was filmed, I don't know. Also, the whipped cream is missing from the sex scene, which, yeah, when you mentioned that in the message, I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about.

Right right, There are little moments of humor in the book, like sort of the sex scene stops and then it starts again, and then stops like it's clear they take a food break and go and take they actually take showers and then continue, and it's just like, can they go to the shouldn't get whipped cream and put it on each other? This would have been so close to nine and a half weeks that would have been almost comical if they had more food. Fucking yeah, I don't. It doesn't really fit the tone of the film, that's for sure. No, really, it stands out.

Something I kept wondering about is even though this is a movie about Satan and selling when sold to Satan and voodoo, there is a lot more of it in the book, and I wondered to what extent they might have deemphasized that aspect of the story. Would they have de emphasized it to make it sell better to a larger audience Perhaps that might have been creeped out by it. You can't totally divorce it from the story. I think a lot of that gets taken out to hit the noir angle, maybe a little bit more the detective side of the story. I think if you hit the satanic aspect of it, it probably plays the cards too soon.

Some of the script that got dropped, a lot of the book that got dropped really clarifies that Johnny Harry connection more. Is it fair to your question early on, Colin, is it fair the way that they handle this? And I think, well, he meets how many people that know Johnny specifically Margaret Cruizmark, who we haven't really talked about. Charlotte Rampling again, another great actor in a sort of small role, but she's wonderful in it. Her accent and her delivery alone.

It feels like there should have been more of her, or maybe there was more of her. There's a little bit more in the script, but she should have recognized, you know, she would have recognized Johnny. She should have recognized Johnny. Her dad even should have recognized Johnny too sweet should have recognized Johnny. Spider Simpson the guy that he talks to in Harlem that seen got truncated as well in movie.

So he encounters all these people who would know who Johnny was, and he has a picture. Connie, the secretary brings him a picture of Johnny. It's not shown an extreme close up, but it's obviously not Mickey Rourke done up in makeup or something weird like that. It's another person. Is that a cheat or does it make sense?

Knowing what we know about Johnny that he had facial reconstruction. By the end of the movie, when it's revealed that Lewis Cipher hired Harry to find himself, kind of a long comp Why does he make him go through all of that if it's not to just set him up? Is it a cheat or doesn't make sense? And I kind of fall on that it makes sense side. I think it's just one of those things that you just have to go with, And I'm fine with that.

I'm okay with I was thinking the same thing, Why didn't she recognize him at least by his voice, and there is that line about like he's dead, or at least he's dead to me, and I was like, all right, is that you talking to this guy I who you know is Johnny. But there were some things where I was just like, Okay, I'm just going to have to buy this and go with it. I think one of the cheats might be that he gives his birthday is Valentine's Day nineteen eighteen to her, then immediately after when he meets one of his meetings with Cyphery's like, you know, I told her Johnny's birthday. It's not even my birthday, but in reality it is his birthday, right. They don't use Valentine's Day, But I believe in the book he is aware that they again that they share the same birthday.

I might be wrong about that, Colon. Yeah, it's another one of those coincidences that makes it a little too obvious in the book for me. I think they changed it was June something, which was actually Hortzburg's birthday, versus I want to say that February fourteenth was actually Allen Parker's birthday. Yeah, he admits to that. Yeah, yeah, kind of like I'm taking over.

I'm taking over this. And by the way, Hortzburg was February twenty third, so that's a lie. But Allen Parker was February four te so a couple days apart. But yeah, I think it was Parker, just like, no, this is my movie. This isn't your movie, mister Hartzburg.

Well, it also plays with the film The Heart Hearts, the symbols in the movie The Egg. The fans always struck me as very interesting. Oh yeah, I just remember when I would watch this when I was younger. It's like, oh, there's another fan. There's fans everywhere, and never really caught on to the idea that it's usually when you see a fan, that person's gonna die.

But a strange thing. I guess it's like the x's and a scarface or then the Scorsesey picked it up before. What was that, the one with Matt Damon and the Departed. Yeah, Parker's got a thing with fans. Could be I want to say that in the commentary, just because that restaurant where Harry and Lewis Cipher meet is where he met Robert de Niro to discuss him being in the film, and he noticed the fan.

It just sort of became the symbol of the movie, and he used it to be the portent of death, as he says, and that's how Winesap meets his end, is having his head put through a big window fan. That's one of the scenes. I was trying to find belated scenes last night. That's how I found that Fangoria article. Yeah, I would like to see that Winesap scene.

I had a question about one of the earlier premonitions when he's in Pokeepsie, when he's letting the doctor suffer with a drawal. He's walking around and he goes by it's sort of like a you know, you hear the heartbeat, which happens several times in the movie. He goes by a church, there's there's nuns that are sort of in the front, or a couple of people worshiping, and then there's inside there's the rain has become blood and it's dripping from the ceiling, which happens later in the movie as well. And then you see the elevator, which also appears in these premonitions and nightmares that he has. But I wasn't sure is this something that he's actually seeing.

Is this sort of a waking nightmare. Is this sort of some sort of hint that there's some sort of crossover between future and present? Is it just or is it just some sort of mood that the directors evoking. There were times where I was like, is there actually an elevator there? Is that why he's seeing this?

Or is this a memory that he's seeing. I'm thinking that the elevators are actually there when he is seeing those. But yeah, it was one of those where I'm like, okay, again, you're telegraphing the end quite a bit here. You know, we're an express elevator to Hell straight down. I wan't express elevator to Hell going down.

You know what it also reminded me of, and it's just coming to me right now, is have you all read the book Horse McCoy's They shoot horses, don't they? Oh? Yeah, yeah, if I remember correct, Lee, the chapters sort of begin with this sort of the condemnation, where by the end you realize it's the characters execution his death right. And so I wondered if that's sort of what he was employing a similar editing strategy where he's like giving you the sort of little hints about what's going to be happening over the credits, you know, at the very end of the movie. I see them now as a mix of flash backs on flash forwards, where the elevator, like you said, Mica, is the very obvious expressway to hell.

He also sees in that when he passes by that church where those twin acolytes are. Oh. I love that scene. I love the way they moved their heads some time with each other. It's really super creepy.

Kind of reminds me of almost like a nine Inch Nails video or something. Yeah, I mean you've got that sound, that being hard, the whispering Harry and then Johnny. You know, if you don't catch on to that at that point, you know, might missed the twist completely, like I did. The little bowl that shows up in a lot of scenes where they've done clean up for all the blood on the walls, and then there's an electric chair in there as well. Why is there an electric chair there?

Well, that's what's going to end up happening to Harry. He's going to get fried, right. That bowl thing just reminds me of when he first goes to meet Cipher and they pass by that room and there's blood all over the wall, the scrub ladies cleaning it up, or in the script it's mentioned that that particular congregation is against procreation. That's why the parishioner killed themselves, because they were having a hard time with not being able to have sex. Interesting little tidbit that was left out of a film that directly mirrors the scene of the clean up after Harry's been killed, which we never get a full idea of.

They keep showing that wide shot of that tenement with the one orange lit room with the fan in it. It's the only window that has a fan in it. And every time I see that shot, it just makes me think of the physical graffiti album Singuilding. But I kind of like that that's not show. We don't see the murder of Johnny Mark Men Harry not Johnny.

But does it matter in full detail. It's just little snippets that give you an idea and you can piece together what happened. They show the bed after the fact, there's candles everywhere, got the cleanup going on, which we see a couple of times throughout the film. I always see that as a mix of the flashes of times square are the flashbacks and then the elevator, the electric chair, that little bull or sort of. This is where I'm headed.

I mean, I guess we've already spoiled the ending, so I can ask this question about the relationship between Harry and Johnny. Johnny and Margaret do this ritual with this soldier from that they find in Times Square that happens that the same birthday. The idea is to kill him, and Johnny, by eating his heart, is able to transfer the souls. Johnny winds up being sent to fight in the war. He gets brain injury, he's in the hospital.

Margaret and her father retrieve him from the hospital and leave him in Times Square, because, as it's explained, that would be the last memory the soldier had. So where I get a little confused is by trading souls, did Johnny somehow lose his own memory? Did he take on the memory of the soldier. That's a really good question, That's how I take it. It does get I'm always confused by the timeline.

You see nineteen forty three on the marquis in Times Square they mentioned nineteen forty three. This all happened in the same year. Did Johnny take Harry in nineteen forty three, get drafted, get messed up, go to the psychiatric clinic, get taken out, and then returned to Times Square in nineteen four. That doesn't make sense to me. There is mentioned, I think in the script of nineteen forty five as a year, So it's like, what was this between forty three and forty five?

Or was the drop off in forty three and they picked him up earlier? You know what? That is not explained very well in the film. But I think you're correct on the timeline as far as how the events take place. Colin, Yes, once he gets hurt in the war and has the amnesia, he doesn't remember anything about Johnny.

We don't know anything about the recovery after he's let out in Times Square. How does he end up becoming a private detective? Was that what he was before he as in Harry? Is that what Harry was doing already before he got drafted? It's New Year's Eve forty three, so forty three is I don't know it is forty three over or is forty three just beginning.

I'm guessing that it's over and that it's about to be about to be nineteen forty four. But when I saw the initial shots of that flashback, I kept thinking it was a V E Day. So I was just like, oh, okay, this is May sixth, nineteen forty five. Sorry, May eighth, nineteen forty five, okay, And then it was like, no, no, the marquis thank you. To your point, I was just like, I don't know what this is.

But there was even a sailor kissing a woman. I was just like, oh, they're kind of redoing that famous shot from V Day. No. I was totally off it's New Year's but right, like to your point, Mike is at New Year's is New Year's forty three? Mean it's turning into forty three or turning into forty four?

Right? The date involved point on Johnny's discharge was December thirty first, nineteen forty three. None of that's explained very well. And that timeline, the amount of time where this happens, I have never been clear on. I don't know if that's in the book, if it's clearer in the movie.

It is very confusing as to when that all happens. And it doesn't help that he's getting that exposition from ethan cruise mark and he's doing it manically and rapidly as Harry's screaming in the background the whole time at him. He needed a victim, some on his own age. Why to steal their soul? So twus the Johnny picked up a young soldier, just a ball I just a soldier.

I'm celebrating New Year's even time school. Who is this soldier? They took him back to Johnny's hotel and that's where the ceremony took place. It's hard to keep track unless you watch it dozens and dozens of times, which I have, but it's still con to me. Every time I watch it.

I'm like, I think I have it figured out, and then I'm like, wait a minute. All they mentioned is forty three, but this couldn't have all happened in the same year. How could the devil get into the hospital to retrieve the soul? If he's the devil, it's just like a man. They they they ust have really good security and secretaries.

This maybe does reinforce the idea that this happens very quickly. He's taken there and then Ethan and Margaret come and get him, retrieve him quickly. The doctor is being paid to lie that Johnny is still there. Why they don't check it out in those twelve years, I don't know. I guess he hadn't had an engagement in Poughkeepsie until then to stop by.

So I think I was mixing up him going to Poughkeepsie with him going to New Orleans. I think that's why I thought there were two trips to New Orleans. I didn't pick up on the Poughkeepsie because there was no feat picking going one. And his drive there and back is very similar to the scenes of driving in New Orleans, very much the same kind of skyline and stuff. I love that little scene in Poughkeepsie with that actress who Oh, Kathleen will Hoyt.

Yeah, she always plays the kookie sister. I just know her from Er and Gilmore Girls, where she's like the nutso sister of one of the main characters. She's that duplicitous Jezebel in Rhodehouse is where I'm from. I haven't seen Rhadhouse in years. Oh boy, that's got to change.

She's also in one of Charles Bronson's cannon films of the eighties, Murphy's Law. I think they're handcuffed together for most of the film. Oh boy one of those. Yeah, I know she's in Color of Night, but I don't remember where, so I need to It's one of my favorite bad movies. I love Color of Night.

I don't know that one. Oh that's the Bruce Willis Jane March one directed by Richard Rush, where it's a whole group of psychiatrications and they're all in this group session together and the doctor dies and then it's like, oh, who killed the doctor? And they're all like, they're all a budget kooks. Leslie and Warren is in there, Brad Dora, Flance Hendrickson, Kevin J. O'Connor.

Yeah, the cast is freaking amazing, and yeah, I mean I love Kevin G. O'Connor and anything, and he just shines so bright in that movie. And then Jane March it's kind of like Lisa Bonnet and this it's like Jane March. You know, a lot of sex scenes and it was very controversial at the time. It is very much a detective story, so I think you might dig it.

It's not good by any stretch of the imagination, but I really like it. Yeah, we should talk about Lisa Bonet because this was, like you mentioned, the big controversy. She was a Cosby kid. Kind of funny now with what we know about that show. Yeah.

She mentions in interviews that she went to Cosby and he was like, hey, you know, this is something you feel like you need to do it. I think once the film came out his opinion was a little different because she ended up being eased out of that show and given her own show. Why don't you go over to a different world. Now, go to a different world show. We're going to distance you from this wholesome show show where Yeah, that is ironic.

She does fine in the film. She's their interactions together are interesting. It's funny to me that most of the film is exposition. We're getting all this information, it's just how it's shot. How do you make an exposition scene interesting.

We'll have the two people undress each other and prepare for cooitis, you know, with that secretary. They're doing it so effortlessly. That scene just moves along. She's given them all this information about Spider Simpson and Too Sweet and Cruisemark. It's a lot of talking.

This scene at Coney Island, like you mentioned Colin, where he's looking for Madam Zora and the guy that the ocean trying to cure her Berico's veins is like, you know, don't be a Gazuni. They're the same person. Madamaza is Cruise Mark. Don't be a Gazuni fella. Another interesting thing that got cut, and I don't know if it was filmed.

The beginning of that seem is him kind of wandering through Coney Island because it's offseason and there's an exhibition. There's like wax figures all around, but they're in like murder scenes. Oh wow. And one of the murder scenes is the fatty arbuckle. Oh wow, and there's a girl's body and he mentions to the guy that's setting up or tearing it down.

He's like, oh, where's the coke bottle? And I'm like, oh my wow. Yeah. I was like holy shit, because I was reading it going what is this? What talking about wax figures and this and that and the other thing, and yeah, the second he said that, I was like, oh my god.

That's It's interesting you mentioned the exposition because there's I think you are totally correct that they have to condense so much plot connections into a very few scenes because a lot of what's cut out of the book are additional scenes of detection and conversation. Down in Coney Island. He talks to several more people, So Margaret and Epiphany, if I remember correctly, actually talk at a certain point in the book, and Harry is like outside with like you know, devices to like listen through the door. At another point, he's in order to eavesdrop on a conversation between Margaret and her father. He bribes a custodian in the father's office building, borrows his uniform, pretends to be a window washer, then goes out on the ledge, connects, and then goes over to the Wow, it's soap where his face will be so they can't see him, And then like starts listening through the glass and it's a while.

So he's not an apped mike, He's not an app I turned into that, And yeah, it sounds like they were cutting out a lot of his good detection skills. And he has like a whole suitcase of like different things to pick locks. He's he's a little bit more of a pro. It's really hard, like thinking back, to fit all of these scenes. Oh yeah into a two hour movie.

It would be nothing but dialogue and In fact, I do actually think a number of the key scenes in this movie the dialogue is very similar to the book, sometimes word for word, but it's transposed to a different location, or they've sort of abridged this scene to sort of combine a couple key plot points. It's at once faithful, but also it's faithful in a way that it has to cut out some stuff in order to compress it, if that makes sense. Those are the successful adaptations for me. That case. He does have the case and he opens it a number of times in the film and present things, but it gets simplified to his wallet, where he has dozens of fake ideas for different uses, like when he goes to Poughkeepsie, he's my name is Juey con William, I'm with the National Institute, which of course goes to the main theme of the movie is identity.

Who is Harry Angel? He takes on all these different roles throughout the film. Maybe that explains why he doesn't know who he is. He's played these roles for so long, even from the script to the finished film. A lot of those scenes gets simplified colon like in the book, even more so.

But there are two different Margaret Cruise Mark scenes in the script where in the movie he follows her to her apartment. In the script, he just shows up there, does that whole thing, and then he follows her when she leaves to her father's house, to Ethan Cruz Mark's house. The whole Spider Simpson scene is left out of the film, except as he's talking into the recorder the one time the film goes into voiceover, which you expect in a noir. That scene with Spider Simpson was actually shot. There's dialogue for it in the script.

The sex scene is simplified. They leave out her explanation of the religion that they're practicing down there and how it differs, and she's like, oh no, that's just devil worship. He has a playbill that has Lewis Cipher's picture on it, and it is an invitation to that orgy in the Salt Mine, which apparently they shot some of because it ends up in one of his dreams. It's like, well, that would kind of be See. Those tells of who Cipher is or might be are left out.

Those tells of connecting Johnny and Harry are left out. Obviously. The wax nose is left out, which is interesting that it's in the script at all, because he doesn't mention it until the end of the film. I'm glad for that. I did notice.

This is probably the first time I noticed that he has some scars on his face, little scars on I think, on the right side of his face that imply he also suffered a facial injury in the war. There's two Connie scenes in the script where he meets up with three, gets a little bit of the information in the bar, and then they separate. She goes and gets more info, and that's when they have their little tete a tete in his room. I like the simplification of the story and it keeps us focused mainly on Harry and some of those other scenes would I think the tone of that be a lot different than what we get in the finished film. I can't imagine seeing him hanging on a window washer scaffold.

Well, we should say too that this took a lot to come to the screen and that there are a lot of false starts with it. I mean, was this yet another project that Dustin Hoffman wanted to be involved with. It feels like a movie. I've been talking it lately it's like, oh, Dustin Hoffman wanted to be in this, but I think had what Robert Redford at one point, Yeah, he had had the rights I think for a while what he was going to do with it, but yeah, that was one of the iterations. Yeah, and they talked about Frankenheimer originally parting Robert Evans producing Yeah, Di Palma, so that was interesting.

On Hardsburg's site he talks about how he was working Hortzberg was working with the Palma on a treatment of a Houdini biopic, which would have been interesting. And then they got to talk about Falling Angel and DiPalma is like, oh, I would set the whole thing in New Orleans because it's got jazz and voodoo and it's inexpensive to shoot there, and probably too because New Orleans, at least in movies, and I don't know how this is in real life, but it always looks like a very old city. You think about Wild at Heart or some of the other movies that have been shot there, even Point of No Return, and it always looks very period peace, not of the twentieth centre almost. So it's like that kind of makes sense, and I think they play that up quite a bit when he does get to New Orleans.

I've only been to New Orleans once a few years ago, and then there were a lot of areas that still had that period look even when we were talking the Walter Hill movie hard times. I feel like there's certain stretches of street where it's like I could almost swear that I was on that block four years ago, and I'm like, oh, it's still kind of looks the same. You know, cars are different, the clothing is a little different, but the architecture looks similar. Well. I think that's why I enjoy the New Orleans scenes because of that.

It lends itself to that period. A lot of it has to do just with the salt air and stuff and how that ages things. I think about those wrought iron railings that go around the buildings and stuff that always just seems very old to me. All Right, We're going to take a quick break and play a few messages and we'll be back to finish up our discussion of Angelhart. After that, we are back and we are still talking about angel Heart.

I think one of the draws, other than maybe Lisa Bonet and Robert de Niro, is that this was marketed as a horror film when I was still pretty knee deep in horror in the mid to late eighties. But it's got that noir angle, which I was not as familiar with. As I was preparing for this and watching it over the last couple of years, I was trying to think of films that are of a similar vein horror noir. The one movie that kept coming to my mind, which is something that I've only seen recently, is The Seventh Victim, the val Leuten film, because it has that satanic cult angle. What are other films that fit that sub sub genre.

I think a lot of those Luton films could fall into that hybrid genre. Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie. I was also thinking stuff sort of like Nightmare Alley, Oh yeah, would have also been written in the forties. Has that sort of carnival noir. I feel like Dementia, that like fifties hour and ten minute movie that's with no dialogue.

Yeah, that's a weird film. What about that one with Denzel Washington and John Goodman? Was that Fallen or something like that? Oh yeah, because that's kind of a detective story. Plus you have that whole the devil or this demonic spirit is passing from person to person, and there's a couple.

On the comedy side, there's cast a Deadly Spell with Fred word More. And there was a recent movie I think it was called Demon Squad. It was on I saw it because it was in the new season of MST three k I Actually, you know, I really enjoyed the movie Demons Go Out from twenty nineteen, shot in like Alabama, Private Eye, and it's a world in which like demons exist in you know, sort of our universe, and I thought it was a lot of fun. They did a really good job with the effects. I guess you could say maybe like even Night of the Hunter perhaps, Yeah, Yeah, that definitely borrows a lot from gothic and horror, or even like Lord of Illusions has some yeah, oh yeah, some tones as well.

Yeah, what's his Name's character is sort of Bacula, right, yeah, Bacula. He's kind of detectively in that. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, and his name was Harry Dmore if memory serves so, kind of yah in a little a little bit of love for you as well, what about him seven? Yeah, oh yeah, Parker brings that up actually in his common terry when Harry goes to doctor Fowler's house, gets the flashlight and it's searching through the dark annouse.

He's like, yeah, they pretty much borrowed this for seven. I'm trying to think of which scene he was referring to. I had a screen saver. Remember those you could download movie screensavers. I was like, go to the movie's website and download the screensaver, download wallpaper.

That was like the big thing, right, And I had a seven seven screen saver, So I know that shot that he's talking about with Brad Pitt or Morgan Freeman with the flashlight kind of twisting it from one side to the other, and it's like, Okay, I can picture that perfectly in my head. When you say that. From a literary sete, I think some of Frederick Brown's novels from the forties and fifties sort of skew mystery but have some horror elements. Are you familiar with Frederick Brown? I'm it's called is very familiar with what I'm trying to say.

Sorry I cut you off, Colin Mike. Are you familiar with Frederick Brown's work? A little bit, but mostly through you? He wrote a lot of sci fi, mainly mystery. His novel The Streaming Mimi was made into movie with Anita Ekberg and was famously borrowed by Argento for Bird with the Crystal Luage.

That's a great book. I love it. Here Comes a Candle was published by in paperback, recently by Cinna Pede or Millipede, which were related imprints, and they were the people who also reprinted Fallen Angel, which is how I found found out about the novel. You know, Far Cry is terrific. Knock three one two.

His non series novels have a little bit more of like the macabre horror side to them. He could also be very funny. Martians Go Home is one of my favorites, which presupposes that if Martians invaded Earth, they actually don't want to cause harm. They just stand in the corner of the room and laugh at how stupid we are. When we try to grab them, they can disappear through walls, and so they did.

They just mock us. Wow, that sounds about right. It was made into a movie with Randy Quaid in the late eighties, which I still haven't found, which I'm very excited to see. It doesn't have much of a reputation, but that's okay. Have you seen it, Mike, I remember that, and I remember it having a really good end title theme.

So when I was cleaning the theater, because I want to say that came out. You said late eighties, but I think like he was still playing at the movie theater, went up there and just like this is a great tune, like almost as good as Spaced Invaders, which was another Martian or outer space movie right around that whole time. I like to Yeah, you mentioned that movie fall In, and I just made me think again that even the title of the book Falling Angel, sort of belies one of the twists. Who's the Fallen Angel? Lucifer Louis Cipher, Lucifer, given your name is a time star a joke, I still take myself to task.

I'm not catching onto that like the second he writes it down at the beginning of the film. It's also funny because he can't say his name correctly throughout the entire film. That's true, mister Cyphier or Cipher's Well, I'll tell you, mister Syphia. You know I'm big. I'm gonna blame it on Mickey Rourke trying to trick me into not hearing it as clearly as I should have.

I actually think I like the title of the novel a little better than the movie. The verb falling has that noir implication. Should know you know, you all mentioned you're the elevator straight to hell. But I just like this notion of this character that's just going to keep falling further and further down. He's doing from the beginning, And that's why it's like, well, why didn't you just confront him when you got him there to your office.

You've obviously been looking for him for a while. He's the devil. He should know that it's him, right, Maybe he doesn't, Maybe he's unsure. That's why it makes more sense to me in my head that it's they're setting him up, as opposed to why does he need to realize that he's actually Johnny Favorite. Yeah, the idea of falling Angel has definite duel meanings, and Angel Heart just becomes so specific to the film itself, where that's what he gobbled up when he cut poor Harry open back then that shot of whom I blanking on the actress his name Charlotte Rampling's heart.

It's very unsettling. Apparently a real heart, too real human heart. Really they got it from a medical school around the area. Is it sure we happen to have one here going? Might I?

Might I borrow a cup of heart? You know, those are the things you could do in the eighties, I guess would y'all put like a Vertigo and Psycho into the noir horror category? Oh? I could definitely see that, especially Vertigo just with that whole investigation part of it, when he's trying to tail her and just going in circles, And I could definitely see that. And then yeah, I suppose Psycho has a lot of overtones of noir and more than just a being black and white.

I did a search for horror noir, and Psycho was on every list. Seven was usually on their Silence, and the Lambs was generally on their you know what might fit? Speaking of Seventh, is it the Seventh Seal, the one with Demi Moore? That one. There's the mystery to that as far as you know what's going on the souls and all these things, and that's got you obviously Jesus stuff throughout the entire thing.

I've always enjoyed that movie. I don't know if anybody else actually think it's it's a good film at all. I believe I saw that in the theater. I don't know if i've seen it since. Though I remember enjoying it, I never saw it.

Seventh sign is that might be something. Yeah, I think you're right. I always mix it up with the Berken film, even though they're so different. I mean, this conversation has been very helpful to me in terms of unpacking a lot of the narrative questions that I had. I'm very grateful for having this opportunity and both of you sharing your insight.

It is still one of those films that ends up being confusing at the end. I do want to mention the one thing, Like you, Colon, I'm on board until the end. I don't mind the twist. I think they do set it up correctly in the film. There aren't really any cheats.

But the one thing that's always bothered me from the first time I saw it is de Niro's eyes. At the end. We've gone this whole time without the supernatural being pointed out to us, where you know, we've got this really sophisticated man and these wonderfully tailored suits with his hair all pulled back, elusive guy, and then at the end he has yellow eyes. What's even worse than that is when the little baby has the plastered over yellow eyes at the end and is pointing at him. I think Parker was like, you know, we have to do this or people aren't going to get it.

Mapsto Phils is such a mouthful manhatting Johnny. We'll take another quick break and I'm going to do something I don't normally do and play a preview for the next episode since it relates to this one, and we'll be back after that. How the job go, Like, give me a hard arm. They couldn't use a hard arm. This is a world where everybody's got to do something.

You know. Somebody laid down this rule that everybody's got to do something. They gotta be something, you know Adnist the glider pilot and narc Janitor a preacher all that. Sometimes just get tired of thinking of all the things that I don't want to do, all things that I don't want to be, all the places that I don't want to go, like India, I get my teeth cleaned, save the way, all that I don't understand that you're I'm supposed to think about it. I think the whole trick is not to think about it.

That's right. The Mickey Rourke love continues on the next episode when Heather Drain and Anthony King joined me to talk about Barfly. Oh my god, Colan, what is going on in your world right now? I am prepping for no ARCon, which would be virtual this year from October twenty first, twenty three. It's okay, but I'm plugging that absolutely.

There will be lots of panels on noir related film in movies. If anybody's interested, please go to www dot Noorcon dot com to check it out. And Mike, you are also involved with no ARCon, I will be there, that's for sure. Very cool. And Mike, what are you laying out for us in October this year?

Sh October's got a lot of classic monsters. We've got one zombie film, two vampire films, and one which is a slasher of sorts. So it almost sounds like a normal group of sh October films until you think that we're covering some little bit of things that are outside of our purview. So I hope people will enjoy it. If they want to hear any of the stuff that I have going on, come on over to www.

Dot Projection Booth podcast dot com. Can you tell the name of the slasher or are you keeping it secret? It is Office Killers Harold Kane. Yeah, yes, that is an interesting film directed by Cindy Sherman. Yeah, I saw.

I'm surprised you know it, because man, I sure didn't know it before we went into this thing. Yeah. I watched it within the last couple of years. I saw Cindy Sherman exhibit when I was in London and was just like, Wow, this is fucking wild. I don't know if I heard about the movie then if they had, you know that in her bio or something.

It's one of those movies that is not very widely known. I don't know what I saw it on. It might have been on Shutter at some point, I think, and I think it was playing Criterion for a hot second as well. Okay, if it was on Criterion, it might have been on Canopy then they have a lot of their catalog Maybe that's where I stumbled on it. Interesting little strange movie and where can people find you, Colin?

Yeah, I mean, if you want to find maybe Pulpa dash Serenade dot com does not get dated as often as I would like. Cullen Gallagher dot com gets updated a little more, which has linked articles that I write when they're published, and you can find me at Wakeupheavy dot com. Along with Mike, We're part of the new Weirdingway network, so you can find that at Weirdingwaymedia dot com. Whole slate of shows are already available on there. That is all via spreaker, and you can find the show wherever you listen to podcasts.

Thanks to YouTube for joining me today. Thanks to everyone for listening, and I'll see you next time when we talk about bir fly and don't forget anything can happen when you wake up Heavy. Don't be a gazooni fella girl of my dreams. I love you, honest Doe. If I could just hold your again in my arms, then live would be complete.

Since you've been gone, life don't seem the same. Please come back again, And after all said and done, there's only one girl, love my dream Drea, Oh my friend