ANGEL HEART (1987) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

angel heart (1987) movie

Genre              |   Horror Thriller

Classification   |   MA 15+

Running time   |   113 minutes

Released         |   6 March 1987

cast

Mickey Rourke ... Harry Angel
Robert De Niro ... Louis Cyphre
Lisa Bonet ... Epiphany Proudfoot
Charlotte Rampling ... Margaret Krusemark
Stocker Fontelieu ... Ethan Krusemark
Brownie McGhee ... Toots Sweet
Michael Higgins ... Dr. Albert Fowler
​Dann Florek ... Herman Winesap

director

​Alan Parker

writer

​William Hjortsberg ... (novel)
Alan Parker ... (screenplay)

cinematographer

​Michael Seresin ... director of photography

music

​Trevor Jones

film editor

Gerry Hambling

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box office result

Worldwide             $​​​​​​​​17,185,632

Australia                 $​​​​​​ not available

North America       $​​​​​​​​17,185,632

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movie minutiae

​A Fangoria article about the movie from the time when it was released, had a picture of the deleted death scene of Herman Winesap (Dann Florek). On one picture, Alan Parker is shown sitting next to the headless corpse with blood all over the room. The same article also shows picture of partially burned body of the journalist woman who slept with Harry (Mickey Rourke) earlier in the movie, laying next to the burned house.

When Producer Alan Marshall first approached Robert De Niro by phone about taking a part in the film, De Niro asked him, "Are you the guy who produced BIRDY (1984)?" When Marshall replied that he was, De Niro promptly hung up.

​In the novel, the entire story was set in New York City. In the movie, much of the action of the film occurs in New Orleans, Louisiana. This change was suggested to Alan Parker by William Hjortsberg.

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related movies

JACOB'S LADDER (1990)

ANGEL HEART (1987) MOVIE IMAGES

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ANGEL HEART (1987) STORY SYNOPSIS

​Harry Angel (Mickey Rourke) is a private detective contracted by Louis Cyphre (Robert De Niro) to track down the iconic singer Johnny Favorite. However, everybody that Angel questions about Favorite seems to meet a tragic demise. Eventually the trail leads Angel to New Orleans where he learns that Favorite had dabbled in the black arts. As Favorite's whereabouts and true identity become clear, Angel learns that being hired by Cyphre was not a random choice.

ANGEL HEART (1987) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 6 March 2015

​​Pop Movee Rating

Alan Parker's 1987 film ANGEL HEART is one of the more unusual films to be released in that year, bringing togehter the Noir, Horror and Thriller genres in a bleak tale focussed on exploring some of humanity’s less admirable qualities.

Based on the novel FALLING ANGEL by William Hjortsberg, the film’s eclectic mix of genres, at first, works with it, but the latter part of the film falls away as the film’s climax feels rushed and the story’s “twist” is revealed far too late; with the viewer having guessed what’s going on well before Mickey Rourke’s character does...

Up until ANGEL HEART's release, British Director Parker had delivered critically-successful films like MIDNIGHT EXPRESS & BIRDY, but had not had the same commercial success in the US as his yard-stick compatriot Ridley Scott.

Bringing ANGEL HEART to the screen continued to add to his reputation as a filmmaker who delivered visually memorable movies, but the subject matter brought with it an in-built mechanism to ensure the film would not reach a wide audience.

Voodoo.

Mysticism.

Graphic sex.

Graphic violence.

Parker did not shy away from any element that helped to create an authentic viewing experience, but ANGEL HEART’s R-rating marginalized audience potential.

The film capitalised on the emergence of Mickey Rourke as a scruffy, less than handsome sex symbol following his turn with Kim Bassinger in 9 1/2 WEEKS (1986). Rourke is supported by a broad mix of casting choices ranging from Robert DeNiro to Lisa Bonet, of The Cosby Show fame, whose against-type character garnered ANGEL HEART attention not so much for its film-making excellence, but the near-pornographic sex scene that occurs between Rourke and Bonet towards the end of the film.

The story is set in 1955 New York and New Orleans. Two-bit Private Detective Harry Angel (Mickey Rourke) is hired by Louis Cyphre (Robert De Niro), a mysterious sophisticate who wants to know the whereabouts of former Crooner Johnny Favourite.

Favourite has supposed to have been in a Veteran's Hospital for the preceding twelve years, but Cyphre (his former patron) has learned that all is not as it seems. Cyphre explains to Angel that Favourite owes him a debt and that he wants the singer to honour it.

Angel sets off in search of Favourite, visiting the the last known place he was seen - the upstate Hospital. Angel's investigation leads him to Dr. Albert Fowler (Michael Higgins), the man responsible for Favourite's care. Angel breaks into the Doctor's pathetic excuse for a home while he's out and discovers he's a serious drug addict. Angel easily overpowers the much older man when he arrives back and manages to get information from him by withholding his Morphine shot from him. The Doctor passes out, leaving Angel short on answers. Angel goes out in search of a meal.

Upon his return, Angel finds the Doctor dead with a pistol shot to his right eye. Angel is forced to try and hide his tracks and get out of the Doctor's home without being noticed.

The scant information Angel is able to extract from Fowler leads him to a couple in Coney Island, who give Angel a vital clue to the whereabouts of Johnny and lead the gumshoe to New Orleans, where he delves into the world of Voodoo religion.

Upon his arrival in the South, Angel crosses paths with all sorts of people whose common connection is the practice of Voodooism...

Charlotte Rampling has a number of scenes in the second half of the film, but her character is not serviced well by Parker’s screenplay. Rampling’s Margaret Krusemark ends up being more of an expository device than a genuine character, as does the character’s father Ethan Krusemark, played by Stocker Fontelieu.

Had Parker worked harder on the plot in the Third Act, he could have done away with the elder Krusemark character and rolled his part of the plot into Rampling’s character and, in doing so, making her more central to answering the riddle of what happened to Johnny Favourite.

Lisa Bonet’s Epiphany Proudfoot is also used by Parker to fill backstory but it’s her sex appeal that is the reason why she becomes a key part of the film’s second half. In reality, her character says and does very little. Parker distills the novel’s version of Epiphany into a pure sex object removing her reason for being a siren to men like Harry Angel.

Behind the camera, ANGEL HEART boasted some extremely talented crew members, including Cinematographer Michael Seresin. The New Zealand cameraman worked with Alan Parker on all of his films before and after ANGEL HEART.

Seresin also lensed the HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN (2004); arguably the best looking and most atmospheric of all the Potter movies. He also provided the cinematography for 2014’s DAWN OF THE PLANET OF APES, another genre-based film whose visual composition was wonderfully matched to its story and settings in and around the disease-ravaged future San Francisco. Despite its story short-comings, there’s no doubt that ANGEL HEART looks the part, especially the first half of the film set in and around New York.

​Could ANGEL HEART have been better?

Most definitely.

There are elements of the movie that could have been better thought through to deliver a more satisfying movie experience. The film’s Third Act is problematic. The ongoing insertion of a specific scene at various points throughout the film also diminishes the impact of the climactic reveal because the flashback is had by one character, so the viewer knows where the finale is going before the characters do.

Where ANGEL HEART succeeds is in turning the trope of the gumshoe private investigator on its head by making Harry Angel the central protagonist in the story. Noir convention would have it that the P.I. would be the story’s narrator whose peripheral involvement in matters helps solve a greater mystery.

​Unfortunately for the film, Alan Parker can’t lay claim to this narrative device, as it is taken directly from Hjortsberg’s novel; as most of the best parts of ANGEL HEART the movie are.

ANGEL HEART (1987) USEFUL LINKS

Angel Heart - Wikipedia
Angel Heart (1987) - IMDb​
​Angel Heart (1987) - Rotten Tomatoes

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