AFTER HOURS’ DVD menu includes this deleted diner scene featuring Griffin Dunne and Dick Miller.
mootly acknowledged by a ref- erence to THE WIZARD OF OZ (“Surrender, Dorothy!”) and a particularly twisted character named Gail (Catherine O’Hara), and Scorsese himself refers to the Greek myth aspects of the story (tipped off by the balalaika radio music heard in the taxi standing in for the ferry that crosses the River Styx), as Paul finds himself stranded in the Underworld with no money to pay the Ferryman for a return trip. Therefore, Minion (whose script was followed very closely) was successful in forging a story with classical as well as pop cultural foundations. But it is the direc- tion of Scorsese, his use of “movie quotation” shots and his eye for casting, that brings out all the latent associations inher- ent in the material—to wit, the way the presence of A BUCKET OF BLOOD’s Dick Miller (as an avuncular diner cook) resonates with Dunne’s Third Act misfor- tune of being incased within a crazy artist’s sculpture, or the way Teri Garr’s character’s fondness
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for The Monkees hearkens back to her own early screen appear- ance in HEAD. The movie is ably carried by Dunne (who co-pro- duced) in the standout role of what has become, to his fans, a disappointingly low-profile acting career; as a young actor, he uniquely embodied a prevalent tone about the 1980s young male, something tense and smart and smart-assed, but wielded the talent to make even unlikable characters attractive and supportable. He was never a star on their level, but as much as James Dean, James Coburn or Clint Eastwood, Griffin Dunne now seems a strong contender as the quintessential American actor of a specific decade. (Re- visiting AFTER HOURS now, from a modern Stepford sensi- bility, one can’t help thinking that he would never be allowed to keep his monobrow in a movie today.)
AFTER HOURS was shot and
initially released on VHS in an open aperture 1.37:1 ratio, but was intended for projecting with
a 1.85 matte, as it’s presented here. If the mono sound mix now comes across as dated (we ex- pect our sound system to jolt alive when the action cuts inside Club Berlin, but it doesn’t), the film has been brought to disc with a flawlessly film-like texture. There is an alternative French language soundtrack, also in mono, with a choice of English, French or Spanish subtitles. Another audio track, featur-
ing an audio commentary by Scorsese, Dunne, Ballhaus, pro- ducer Amy Robinson (who played the lead female role in MEAN STREETS) and editor Thelma Schoonmaker, initiates with a title card explaining that the track accompanies only selected scenes and will automatically jump ahead to the next scene inclusive of commentary. Access- ing the track is needlessly diffi- cult as the page defaults to the “Play” option at lower screen right, but can only be triggered by selecting the unlabelled film reel at lower screen left—and it cannot be accessed by toggling
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