Hamburg Noir

HISTORY

After Dark, My Sweet

Book
After Dark, My Sweet (Jim Thompson, 1955)

Film
After Dark, My Sweet (James Foley 1990)

It took Hollywood 35 years to discover this Jim Thompson classic about a mentally unstable ex-boxer, an alcoholic widow, and an ex-cop turned con man.

After Dark, My Sweet tells the story of William (“Kid”) Collins, a former boxer who killed a man in the ring, got kicked out of the Army, landed in a series of mental institutions, and is now on the run. As we meet him, Collins has just jumped off the back of a truck and is entering a roadside bar, where he tells an obvious lie: “I was driving south with this friend of mine, Jack Billingsley -- I guess you know the Billingsleys, big real estate family? -- and our car stalled, and I walked back to a garage to get help. So I get back with the tow-truck, and darned if that crazy Jack isn't gone."

This beginning is eerily similar to that of James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice, written two decades earlier: “They threw me off the hay truck about noon.” The speaker heads to a roadhouse, where he “asked if a guy had been by in a Cadillac. He was to pick me up here, I said, and we were to have lunch.”

Like his fictional predecessor, Collins is about to meet a woman who will change his life forever -- and not for the better. Fay Anderson is a beautiful young widow who is smart, sassy, and sober -- until she isn’t. From the other end of the bar, she pokes fun at Collins’ ridiculous story. Her relentless needling leads to an altercation with the bartender, who the ex-boxer downs with a punch that “made his wrist ache.”

As if to reward Collins’ excessive violence, Fay picks him up on the road outside the bar and takes him home with her. “Collie,” she calls him, like a dog. He already senses she has a hidden, darker agenda, but he goes along anyway: “She had the looks, all right, the features, and the figure. And sometimes -- well, quite a bit of the time -- she could act just as nice as she looked.”

At home, Fay hits the bottle early and often, which leads to exchanges such as the following:

Collins: “I’d like to correct an erroneous impression you seem to have about me. I’m not at all stupid, Mrs. Anderson. I may sound like I am, but I’m really not.”

Fay: “You’ll have to swear to that, Collie. You give me your sworn statement, signed by two witnesses, and I’ll take it under consideration.”

At other times, Collins’ childlike honesty threatens to wear down Fay’s cynicism, leading her to admit why she really needled him: “I wanted to see what you would do; how nervy you were. Whether you were really the kind of guy I thought you might be.”

Collins doesn’t realize this is a warning until they are visited by Garret (“Uncle Bud”) Stoker: “You meet guys like Uncle Bud once -- just over a drink or a cup of coffee -- and you feel like you’ve known them all your life. They make you feel that way.” It turns out the sleazy ex-cop and the alcoholic widow need a third man to help them kidnap a rich youngster.

As Uncle Bud puts it:

“Naturally, you wouldn’t want to hurt anyone. You wouldn’t have to. It would just be a case of putting pressure on certain people -- people that have more dough than they know what to do with -- and making ‘em come across. That would be all right, wouldn’t it?”

Collins knows he’s being conned when he finds newspaper clippings in Fay’s house of a seven-year-old named Charles Vanderventer III: “Suddenly, I knew why. I didn’t know the how of it, the details, but I knew what it was all about.” He was going to be the fall guy.

In one of her on again, off again moments of clarity, Fay warns Collins directly: “Get out, Collie. This little frammis has been cooking for months, and if you leave it’ll go right on cooking until it boils away.” With that, she kicks him out of her house.

This is where the hardboiled story demonstrates its bona fides. Collins tries to forget about Fay but can’t. He ends up “befriended” by a slimy psychiatrist who picks him up at a diner and takes him home for “treatment.” Like Fay, the not-so-good doctor calls him “Collie.” Before long, Collins escapes this sick little home institution and returns to Fay.

Later, he has an exchange with the doctor about Fay:

Collins: “She needs me. Do you know what it means to be needed for the first time in your life?”

Doctor: “I know. But, Collie, it still isn’t right.”

Collins: “It must be because when I woke up this morning, I was glad. I was glad to be alive, Doc, because I knew someone else would be glad. And people just aren’t glad unless they need you.”

Like much of what Collins says, these lines contain a lot of wisdom.

Not that it helps him -- or Fay. Their love draws them deeper and deeper into Uncle Bud’s ugly plan, something that constantly threatens to drive them apart. The further they go, the worse it gets. Collins knows kidnapping is “the dirties sort of crime there is.” Still, he can’t stop himself.

By forcing us to watch Collins violate his own conscience, step by painful step, Thompson makes us almost complicit as he remorselessly maps out the darker recesses of human nature. His psychological roadmap is terrifying to follow. The worst part is the inevitability of the descent to the bottom. Collins is fighting his own fate and losing, battle by battle.

It took 35 years for this “tour of hell,” as the New Republic once called it, to make it onto the big screen. Fortunately, the screenplay by James Foley, who directed the film, and Robert Redlin sticks close to the book. The major difference is that the film was set in 1990 instead of 1955. This update may have softened the look and feel but not the story itself.

Two actors, in particular, carry the film. Jason Patric manages to walk and talk like a mentally disturbed ex-boxer with a penchant for violence and a big heart. His heavy off-balance shuffle makes him seem both threatening and vulnerable. And his mumbled, overly correct diction fits someone whose idea of respectability is thought out like a mathematical equation: “I’m clean and respectable-looking and polite. And -- and I’m an ex-serviceman and I’ve been to college -- had a year and a half of college....” Patric also supplies the classic noir voiceovers, taken directly from the book, that clarify and haunt the film.

Patric’s performance is matched by that of Bruce Dern, who’s more than believable as Uncle Bud. The veteran actor really has the scumbag thing down cold, complete with false friendliness and permanently hurt feelings. His nasal whining makes it easy to see how Collins could fall for his pitch, knowing full well it’s a trap: “What do the words mean, Kid? What’s good and what’s bad? Now, I’d say it was bad for a nice guy like you to have to go on like he’s been going. I’d say it would be good if you never had to worry about money for the rest of your life.”

Unfortunately, Rachel Ward, who (almost) looks the part of Fay, sometimes appears to be reciting her lines. She’s more convincing in the obligatory -- and overdone -- sex scenes, which are more or less silent. This is a bit out of character for two lost souls who use words as weapons. When the actors are dressed and speaking again, the audience can relax and get back to the real film.

Fortunately, these minor flaws don’t put much of a dent in a film adaptation that is true to the original novel. The book is a perfect execution of hardboiled crime fiction. And the neo-noir film is definitely worth seeing. Both take you to the brink of hell -- and bring you back. In the end, Collins and Fay find redemption, even if one of them has to pay the ultimate price.