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After Dark, My Sweet

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After Dark, My Sweet
Theatrical release poster
Directed byJames Foley
Screenplay byJames Foley
Robert Redlin
Based onAfter Dark, My Sweet
by Jim Thompson
Produced byRic Kidney
Robert Redlin
Starring
CinematographyMark Plummer
Edited byHoward E. Smith
Music byMaurice Jarre
Production
company
Avenue Pictures
Distributed byAvenue Pictures
Release dates
  • May 17, 1990 (1990-05-17) (Cannes Film Market)
  • August 24, 1990 (1990-08-24) (United States)
Running time
114 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$6 million
Box office$2.7 million[1]

After Dark, My Sweet is a 1990 American neo-noir[2] crime thriller film directed by James Foley, and starring Jason Patric, Rachel Ward and Bruce Dern. It is based on the 1955 Jim Thompson novel of the same name.[3]

Plot

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Ex-boxer Kevin "Kid" Collins is a drifter and an escapee from a mental hospital. In a desert town near Palm Springs he meets widow Fay Anderson who convinces him to help fix up the neglected estate her husband left and lets him sleep in a trailer out back, near her dying date palms.

Her acquaintance "Uncle Bud" shows up. Calling himself an ex-cop, he has long been hatching a scheme to kidnap a rich man's child and needs somebody like Collins to help carry it out.

Reluctant in the beginning, Collins tries to leave and encounters Doc Goldman, who immediately can tell the young man needs to be under medical observation. Doc takes a personal interest in Collins that might include a physical attraction as well. He intrudes on Collins' relationship with the alcoholic Fay.

Collins is persuaded by Uncle Bud to execute the kidnapping plan.

Cast

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Production

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Filming locations

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Filming took place in Mecca, California,[3] part of the Coachella Valley.[4]

Reception

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Critical response

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Film critic Roger Ebert put this on his "Great Movies" list and wrote in his Chicago Sun-Times review: "After Dark, My Sweet is the movie that eluded audiences; it grossed less than $3 million, has been almost forgotten, and remains one of the purest and most uncompromising of modern film noir. It captures above all the lonely, exhausted lives of its characters."[5]

Variety also received the film favorably: "Director-cowriter James Foley has given this near-perfect adaptation of a Jim Thompson novel a contempo setting and emotional realism that make it as potent as a snakebite...Lensed in the arid and existential sun-blasted landscape of Indio, Calif, the pungently seedy film creates a kind of genre unto itself, a film soleil, perhaps."[6]

Writer David M. Meyers praised the script: "The screenplay, which hews closely to Jim Thompson's heartless novel, is unusually tight, spare, and well constructed."[7]

Peter Travers of The Rolling Stone wrote: "Patric is sensational as Collie; the pretty-boy actor ... is unrecognizable behind Collie's coarse stubble, slack jaw and haunted stare. Patric occupies a complex character with mesmerizing conviction. Like Thompson's prose, his performance is both repellent and fascinating."[8]

When the video was released in 1991, Entertainment Weekly film critic Melissa Pierson wrote: "Fittingly, director James Foley (At Close Range) puts style over story, capturing the gritty, long-shadowed tone of his source material. After Dark, My Sweet looks simultaneously crisp and drenched in the yellow light of a strange dream, an effect that becomes especially haunting on video. In this alluring tour through unsettled emotional territory, Jason Patric (The Lost Boys) gives an exceptionally sharp performance as an ex-boxer with one screw loose and another turned down tight. He's drawn into a kidnapping scheme concocted by a former cop (Bruce Dern) and a sultry widow (Rachel Ward). Together, they visit a place where desire and pain are indistinguishable, and everything goes twistingly awry."[9]

In an interview with Robert K. Elder for his book The Best Film You've Never Seen, director Austin Chick praises the movie for its cinematography, stating: "It's beautifully shot ... every frame and every camera move is clearly thought out and brilliantly, beautifully executed."[10]

The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports an 80% approval rating, based on 20 reviews, with an average rating of 6.5/10.[11]

References

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  1. ^ After Dark, My Sweet at Box Office Mojo
  2. ^ Silver, Alain; Ward, Elizabeth; eds. (1992). Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style (3rd ed.). Woodstock, New York: The Overlook Press. ISBN 0-87951-479-5
  3. ^ a b Farber, Stephen (January 21, 1990). "In the Desert, a Jim Thompson Novel Blossoms on Film". The New York Times. Retrieved August 30, 2012.
  4. ^ Palm Springs Visitors Center. "Coachella Valley Feature Film Production 1920–2011". Filming in Palm Springs. Palm Springs, CA. Archived from the original on October 1, 2012. Retrieved October 1, 2012. ♦ Download[permanent dead link] (Downloadable PDF file)
  5. ^ Ebert, Roger. The Chicago Sun-Times film review, March 13, 2005. Last accessed: January 27, 2022.
  6. ^ Variety. Film review. Last accessed: February 13, 2011.
  7. ^ ^ Meyers, David M. (1998). A Girl and a Gun: The Complete Guide to Film Noir on Video. Avon Books. ISBN 0-380-79067-X.
  8. ^ Peter Travers, "After Dark My Sweet" review, rollingstone.com, August 24, 1990.
  9. ^ Pierson, Melissa. Entertainment Weekly, video review, March 8, 1991; accessed February 13, 2011.
  10. ^ Elder, Robert K. The Best Film You've Never Seen: 35 Directors Champion the Forgotten or Critically Savaged Movies They Love. Chicago, IL. Chicago Review Press, 2013.ISBN 1-56976-838-2.
  11. ^ After Dark, My Sweet at Rotten Tomatoes. Accessed: November 29, 2023.
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