After Hours (1985): Laughter in Noir Is the Best Medicine

“What does a Martin Scorsese film have to do with laughter?” you may be asking. It’s true that his most famous films don’t bring the words laughter and humor to mind. But if you are willing to make room for dark humor, noir with a comedic edge, then After Hours is a good choice.

The first time that I saw it, I remember laughing early in the film, for the entire cab scene, which happens about nine minutes in. It was hilarious to watch the lead character, Paul Hackett, bounce around in the backseat of a cab from uptown Manhattan all the way down to SoHo. Sometimes he seemed to be airborne, and the only thing that kept him from flying off was the hand strap inside the passenger compartment. And then there’s the changing expression on the cabbie’s face when Paul tries to explain his lack of money to pay the fare when the cab finally drops him off in SoHo.

This is my second article about After Hours. Click here to see my first article, written six years ago now!

That cab ride is just the start of Paul Hackett’s journey through New York City during the overnight hours, when almost anything, and a lot of it hilariously unpleasant, seems to befall him. The entire plot hinges on fate; some might say outright coincidence. Fate and coincidence are the source of a lot of the humor in Paul Hackett’s predicament. Either way, fate is what helps to define noir, and the minute that Paul is in that cab and his twenty dollar bill flies out the window, he’s in the hands of fate. Even the ending is the result of fate. At one point later in the film, desperate in his desire to get out of Soho and just go home, Paul kneels down in a damp city alley and implores the heavens: “What do you want from me? What have I done? I’m just a word processor, for Christ’s sake!”

Another very funny scene occurs in a diner, where Paul Hackett and Marcy Franklin talk about her marriage. Marcy Franklin is the reason that Paul took the wild cab ride down to SoHo in the first place, and their conversation in the diner only adds to his confusion. Marcy surprises Paul with the news that she is married. She assures him that she is no longer living with her husband, who is now living in Turkey. She married young and broke off their relationship because her husband couldn’t stop screaming “Surrender, Dorothy!” whenever they made love. At one point, Marcy stops herself in the middle of her story to ask a stunned Paul if he has ever seen The Wizard of Oz. “Surrender, Dorothy!” is an obvious reference to the 1939 classic film, and Paul says that he has indeed seen it.

This diner conversation is the only scene that mentions The Wizard of Oz, but the film is a corollary to After Hours, and the lead, Dorothy, in The Wizard of Oz is a corollary to Paul in After Hours—except that Dorothy’s journey is much more pleasant. Dorothy is lost after a tornado in her home state of Kansas has taken her away and plopped her down in a strange fantasy land. All she wants to do throughout the film is find her way back home, and she eventually learns that she has always had the power to return home. Paul, on the other hand, never actually returns home. He does arrive to his office on time for work the next day, but his decisions have nothing to do with that outcome. He can finally breathe a sigh of relief only when he finds himself outside the front door of his office building at the start of the next workday.

In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy meets people who want to help her. They may have their own goals, like the lion who wants courage and the tin man who wants a heart, but they are happy to work together. Paul doesn’t have that kind of camaraderie. After abandoning Marcy Franklin, Paul meets a series of people who only want to do him harm, even while protesting otherwise. Here are just a few examples: Julie distributes wanted posters around SoHo accusing Paul of being the person burglarizing the neighborhood, which puts him in the crosshairs of a local vigilante mob. Gail does everything she can to thwart Paul’s attempts to call a friend for help, and she is the one who alerts the mob about his whereabouts. June is an artist who encases Paul in a life-size papier-mâché sculpture to help him hide from the mob, but then she leaves him trapped inside the hardening papier-mâché.

Neil and Pepe, the two SoHo burglars (played by the comedy duo Cheech and Chong) offer a humorous running commentary on art and art appreciation throughout the film. As they make their rounds through the SoHo neighborhood apartments, both offer their critiques of what they find. Neil especially has a lot to say about art, both fine and popular. They are friends of Kiki Bridges, whose loft Marcy Franklin is staying in for the night and where Paul Hackett starts his fateful night. Kiki also works in papier-mâché, and she sold one of her papier-mâché sculptures to Neil, who loses it soon after. He tells Pepe, “Let’s look for my statue, man. It’s got to be around here someplace. It makes me sick. You know, that statue was the first thing in my life I ever bought. See what happens when you pay for stuff? Somebody rips it off.”

When Neil and Pepe find Paul encased in June’s clever papier-mâché disguise, Neil is thrilled. He thinks he has found the original statue from Kiki. Pepe isn’t so sure that the statue is worth their time and effort:

• Pepe: “Hey, man, is it worth taking this thing?”

• Neil: “What? Are you crazy, man? This is art.”

• Pepe: “Art sure is ugly, man.”

• Neil: “Yeah, that’s how much you know, man, you know? The uglier the art, the more it’s worth.”

• Pepe: “This thing must be worth a fortune, man.”

Neil tries to convince Pepe of the statue’s worth by claiming that George Segal, the actor, is the artist behind it. Pepe would rather steal someone’s stereo system, and Neil tells him, “A stereo’s a stereo. Art is forever.”

I was rooting for Paul Hackett to find his way home, but he is not an entirely sympathetic character. (He’s not nearly as friendly and as innocent as Dorothy!) Sometimes his behavior adds to the humor, but sometimes it adds to the general noir discomfort of the film:

◊ Paul agrees to buy one of Kiki Bridges’s papier-mâché bagel and cream cheese paperweights because he wants to see Marcy Franklin again, not because he is interested in art. (Funny.)

◊ He looks in Marcy Franklin’s handbag the first time he visits her in the SoHo loft because he wants to see what she bought at the all-night drugstore. (Creepy.)

◊ Paul argues with Marcy about the pot she offers to him. He calls her a liar when she says that it’s Colombian, which in 1985 (when pot was illegal in every state) was supposed to be some of the best pot for illegal sale. (Funny.)

◊ Paul has a voyeuristic streak. When he discovers that Marcy has overdosed on Seconal, he pulls back the sheet covering her to inspect her body for scars and/or burn marks. (Creepy and uncomfortable.)

Most of Paul’s escapades in SoHo for one long night are hilarious, but a lot has changed since the release of After Hours in 1985. Marcy Franklin and Paul Hackett’s brief discussion of The Wizard of Oz in relation to her husband may not mean much to anyone who hasn’t seen the film and knows nothing about Dorothy. The mere fact that Marcy asks Paul if he has seen The Wizard of Oz is amusing because, in 1985, the classic was still shown on broadcast television at least once a year, usually in prime time. This tradition started in the 1950s, so almost everyone living in the United States in 1985 would have known something about The Wizard of Oz and Dorothy. And then there are the differences in technology. Paul Hackett’s situation is even more of a trap because there are no ATMs, smartphones, World Wide Web, ride-sharing apps. His office features huge word processors and electric typewriters.

But most of the humor comes from his interactions with other people, and in that regard, not a whole lot has changed since 1985. Cultural references and word processors may come and go, but (1) art is forever and (2) people can still be really funny. After Hours has plenty of humor and laughter on both counts.

This article about After Hours is my entry for the Classic Movie Blog Association’s 2021 Fall Blogathon: Laughter Is the Best Medicine. Click here for the complete list of blogathon participants and links to their blogs. The list is updated each day of the blogathon, from October 19 to October 22.

September 13, 1985, release date  •  Directed by Martin Scorsese  •  Screenplay by Joseph Minion and Martin Scorsese (uncredited)  •  Music by Howard Shore  •  Edited by Thelma Schoonmaker  •  Cinematography by Michael Ballhaus

Griffin Dunne as Paul Hackett  •  Rosanna Arquette as Marcy Franklin  •  Teri Garr as Julie  •  John Heard as Tom Schorr  •  Catherine O’Hara as Gail  •  Linda Fiorentino as Kiki Bridges  •  Verna Bloom as June  •  Tommy Chong as Pepe  •  Cheech Marin as Neil  •  Will Patton as Horst  •  Clarence Felder as the bouncer at Club Berlin  •  Dick Miller as Peter, the waiter at the River Diner  •  Bronson Pinchot as Lloyd  •  Martin Scorsese as the Club Berlin searchlight operator  •  Victor Argo as the diner cashier  •  Larry Block as the taxi driver  •  Rocco Sisto as the coffee shop cashier  •  Murray Moston as the subway attendant  •  John P. Codiglia as the transit police officer  •  Robert Plunket as the male street pickup  •  Stephen J. Lim as the bartender at Club Berlin

Produced by The Geffen Company and Double Play Productions  •  Distributed by Warner Bros.