The scandalous origins of Martin Scorsese’s After Hours
Andrew Hearst of Panopticist has a great post about the surprising origins of a movie I love, Martin Scorsese's After Hours (1985)
Much of the plot setup and some of the dialogue in Martin Scorsese’s excellent 1985 film After Hours—a significant portion of the movie’s first 30 minutes, in fact—were brazenly lifted from “Lies,” a 1982 NPR Playhouse monologue by Joe Frank, the great L.A.-based radio artist who’s gotten a lot of love here on Panopticist. Joe Frank never received official credit for his contributions, and he appears to have been paid a generous amount of money to settle the plagiarism suit and keep everything quiet. It’s possible that this scandal was reported in the film-industry trade press around the time of the film’s release, but neither Nexis nor Google reveal evidence of any media coverage. I learned of the similarities in 2004 or 2005 through chatter on the unofficial Joe Frank mailing list. The closest thing I’ve found to a reference in a traditional media outlet is in this March 2000 Joe Frank profile in Salon, which mentions that Frank was “paid handsomely by producers of a Hollywood film (which he won’t name) that plagiarized his dialogue.”Hearst includes a link to Frank's entire 11 minute monologue. Link
the latest
latest episodes
I've always wanted a plaster of paris bagel-and-cream-cheese paperweight since seeing that film.
Wow, I remember watching that movie, but I don't remember hearing anything about plagiarism. Cool find, I'll have to check out the monologue after work.
Wow -- this is always the Scorsese film I tell the young uns to see ... very curious to go listen to Mr. Frank ... Terri Garr's waitress may have been her best film role ever ...
Wow! This is even more significant, since according to the Internet Movie Database, the script was a part of Joseph Minion's thesis for Columbia University. If the school were to find out, would they pull his degree? Plagiarism is a bit of a no-no in academia.
Well, no wonder... After about thirty minutes this movie went to pot. It was a shambles of one improbable contrivance after another with awful pacing and direction. First film I openly, loudly berated in the theater as it wound up. Good times. I'll have to watch again as I believe I am no longer genetically related to my 17-year-old self. You know, if that's possible and all. Betamax?
Joe Frank = AWESOME!!! I'm sure there's a ton of material out there that is stolen from him that goes unnoticed daily.
Surrender, Dorothy!
I've never really liked Joe Frank, but that could just be because the local college radio station played his show at midnight on Saturdays, which is one of those times you're least likely to want to listen to hypnotic music and two hour monologues.
http://joefrank.com/
Joe Frank is hilarious and awesome. Highly recommended. I stumbled on his work one Sunday night, listening to public radio. It was the most peculiar thing I had ever heard on the radio, and I was fascinated. I've been trying to catch up on his stuff every chance I get.
Pixeltone's comment is ironic, that the movie goes to pot, because all the craziness begins precisely when Griffin Dunne tokes on a joint in Rosanna Arquette's room. From that moment on, it is pure cannabis dysphoria.
This is no surprise to me. The first 15 minutes of Taxi Driver are lifted verbatim from a dream I had when I was ten.
Wow. I loooove this movie, it's definitely in my top 10. It's fantastical, but in the way that life is sometimes fantastical; I've certainly had nights that seemed After Hoursesque.
But while that blog seems to peg the plagiarism solely on the screenwriter (who was a young student at Columbia, and as such it's not surprising that he might have done so), so much besides the mere words seem to have been transferred directly from that monologe to the film. The music, for example, which sounds exactly like the low-key, melancholy-spooky theme which carries right the way through After Hours in just the same way. Seems like somebody with more creative control over the film was involved in the plagiarism rather than merely the 25 year old whose script got optioned.
Don't forget, it also "Plagiarizes" Kafka (The bouncer at the club's dialog is from The Castle).
Why the quotes Gnosis? If the dialog is used without attribution, it's plagiarism, even if there's no one to make a stink about it.
Joe frank is pretty awesome.
Gnosis
From The Castle or "Before the Law"?
Either way, thanks for pointing that out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i33IN94ZRqI
Bad Brains in there after the bouncer scene.
Damn, I'm torn. I love Joe Frank, and I love After Hours. Although from what I hear, Joe is a bit of a douchebag.
@ Pixeltone:
Yeah, it's not for everybody, but neither is Holy Mountain.
Thank you! That solves a 23 year old mystery for me. I grew up listening to Joe Frank on KCRW (The Santa Monica NPR affiliate). I heard that NPR Playhouse, and remembered some of the dialogue, specifically the "Surrender Dorothy" story. So, when I saw After Hours in high school, I thought that Joe Frank had written it. Two years later, while at film school, I got into huge arguments with my teachers and fellow students about that movie. Without proof, I jut seemed like a crazy asshole.
I agree with #5, if that movie didn't have that solid foundation formed by the first half hour, it would have been an incoherent mess.
While a decent movie, it was still during the period that Martin and Robbie Robertson where coking it up. Which explains why "Desperately Seeking Susan" was a better movie.
That was one of my favorite movies for years when it came out. Thanks for the Joe Frank pointer!
I also listened to Joe Frank on KCRW (while attending film school, coincidentally). I still remember being pretty much spellbound by the long show he did about the ambulance driver (I think, maybe, "The Hitchhiker"?). I didn't have to read far down into this story to guess that the "After Hours" content was lifted from Joe Frank. Just knew from the headline.
So sad to hear about the plagiarism, which seems pretty blatant and indisputable. I don't think I'd call the bouncer scene "plagiarism," since it's quite expressly Kafkaesque, at least to the intended audience of overeducated NYC intellectuals.
The film is a metaphor for death and rebirth. Paul literally retreats back into the womb, the dark, subterranean basement in which he is entombed in plaster (after a Pieta pose with June as Mary Magdalene). He is saved, carried home, and dropped off in front of his work, where he is hatched (reborn). He has learned that he is destined for a dull, middle-class life and now he must deal with his situation rather than trying to escape it into a world of fantasy and horror.
After Hours blew me away when I first saw it, although I admit I was highly inspired by film critic Dave Kehr's (now of the NY Times) uncharacteristically glowing review in the excellent Chicago Reader. I can remember the review almost verbatim: Scorsese's orchestration of thematic development, narrative structure, and visual style is stunning in its detail and fullness; After Hours reestablishes him as one of the very few contemporary masters of filmmaking.
Brilliant film.