After Dark, My Sweet
| After Dark, My Sweet | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | James Foley |
| Produced by | Ric Kidney Robert Redlin |
| Screenplay by | James Foley Robert Redlin |
| Based on | the novel After Dark, My Sweet by Jim Thompson |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Maurice Jarre |
| Cinematography | Mark Plummer |
| Edited by | Howard E. Smith |
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Production
company |
Avenue Pictures
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| Distributed by | Avenue Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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114 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $6 million |
| Box office | $2.7 million |
After Dark, My Sweet is a 1990 neo-noir film directed by James Foley starring Jason Patric, Bruce Dern, and Rachel Ward. It is based on the 1955 Jim Thompson novel of the same name.
Ex-boxer Kevin "Kid" Collins is a drifter and an escapee from a mental hospital. In a desert town near Palm Springs he meets Fay Anderson, a widow, who convinces him to help fix up the neglected estate her ex-husband left. She nicknames him "Collie" 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 Collie to help carry it out.
Reluctant in the beginning, Collie 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 Collie that might include a physical attraction as well. He intrudes on Collie's relationship with the alcoholic Fay.
Resenting this interference, Collie is persuaded by Uncle Bud to execute the kidnap plan. But things go wrong from the very beginning, including Collie snatching the wrong kid. It goes downhill from there, with tragic consequences for all involved.
Filming took place in Mecca, California, part of the Coachella Valley.
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."
A review in Variety magazine 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."
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Wikipedia