Angel Heart (1987)

In writer/director Alan Parker's supernatural-mystery-horror neo-noir - it was a twisting, metaphysically-confusing film set in the mid-1950s in NYC and in New Orleans, LA. Parker's own screenplay was adapted from the 1978 novel Falling Angel by William Hjortsberg, and included black (and voodoo) magic, a Satanic figure and Faustian theme ("Mephistopheles is such a mouthful in Manhattan"), soul transference, and multiple bloody murders.

The unsettling plot line was simple but still very macabre, atmospheric and complex - a Brooklyn NY private investigator was hired by an enigmatic, black-clad Satanic-like businessman to conduct a missing persons case (for a singer named Johnny Favorite) from the war years. He was haunted by various sights during his investigation in Harlem and in the New Orleans area (dripping blood into a bowl, a dark-clad and hooded figure, bloody walls being scrubbed clean, malfunctioning rotating fans, bloody voodoo rituals, one red-lit window in a tenement building apartment, a winding staircase, a descending freight elevator (to Hell), a singer's tune "Girl of My Dreams," a shattered mirror image, etc.), and he soon left behind a trail of five corpses - many of those he questioned and interacted with during his quest ended up brutally murdered due to an attempted cover-up of his own past.

[Spoiler: The MacGuffin in the film was the hard-boiled PI himself (Harry Angel/Johnny Valentine), whose search for a "missing person" was for himself. His main dastardly crime was the murder of an innocent GI, whose soul and heart he had extracted.]

The true identity of the depraved principal character was fairly predictable from the start, yet it was still fascinating to follow the twists and turns, and appreciate the atmospherics and attention to detail. It offered the cryptic tagline: "It will scare you to your very soul. Harry Angel has been hired to search for the truth... Pray he doesn't find it."

The R-rated (often released unrated) independent cult film from Carolco Pictures and Tri-Star Pictures was immediately controversial (and denounced by the MPAA) for the nudity and sex scenes of one of its stars, Lisa Bonet in her film debut, who was a child star as Denise Huxtable in the family TV show The Cosby Show. With a budget of $18 million, its domestic box-office revenue was only $17.2 million.

• in the film's opening title credits sequence during a slushy, wintry night in NYC (set to the sounds of a wailing jazzy saxophone), where hellish steam or smoke was rising from below the street with blackish snow; a dark figure with a cane (later identified as Satanic-figure Cyphre) walked by, before a sickly stray dog barked at a cat on a fire-escape on the side of a tall tenement building; the dog continued to wander and search in garbage in an alleyway, where it found the frozen arm of a homeless female corpse whose throat had been slit
• in the year 1955 in NYC, ragged, unshaven and seedy-looking Brooklyn PI (private detective) Harold "Harry" Angel (Mickey Rourke) - both blowing a bubble and smoking a cigarette, entered his upstairs apartment and answered his phone: "This is Harold Angel. Yes, initial R, like in the phone book"; the caller was lawyer Herman Winesap from the firm of Winesap & Mackintosh; Angel was asked if he would be free to speak in Harlem to Winesap's mysterious, enigmatic client named Louis Cyphre (Robert De Niro in a masterfully-acted devilish and satanic role); Harry mispronounced the client's name: "Cy-fee-air" [Note: Later in the film, Angel specified that he usually handled insurance jobs and divorces.]
• shortly later on a Harlem street, Angel passed a group of black-clad African-American funeral mourners (with a female mourner (Karmen Harris) who had just fainted) outside an old movie theatre that had been converted into a church (the Kingdom Mission); in the balcony or gallery above the congregation, Angel looked down on Pastor John (Gerald L. Orange) in front of a sign ("PASTOR JOHN IS GOD") preaching a Pentacostal message to a group of fervent followers and asking them to open their pocketbooks and upgrade his car from a Cadillac: ("If you love me and you want to give to me, then I should be in a Rolls-Royce!")
• Herman Winesap (Dann Florek) greeted Angel and introduced himself; as they walked down a dark corridor, the two passed a room where a black-clad and veiled cleaning lady was scrubbing blood splatter on a wall with a ceramic basin filled with bloody water; Winesap explained unemotionally: "An unfortunate husband of one of Pastor John's flock took a gun to his head. Most unpleasant"
• Winesap ushered Angel into an office to meet with his black-bearded, pony-tailed client who was introduced as Monsieur Louis Cyphre; the first view of Cyphre was of him twirling his black cane in his right hand with long, shiny manicured fingernails and a pentagram ring; he was sitting in a hard-backed chair on a throne-like, dais-pedestal positioned under ceiling fans directed onto him; his chair was centered between two long dark reddish-colored curtains that were opened on a framed portrait; Angel was asked to show his ID; he pulled out his wallet with a gun permit, and a picture ID from the State of New York's Detective License Bureau

PI Harry Angel's Meeting with Louis Cyphre in Harlem, NY
Cyphre's Long Manicured Fingernails, Black Cane, and Pentagram Ring	Cyphre Shaking Hands with Angel
Angel's Wallet with Gun Permit and Detective License ID	Cyphre On a Throne-Like Pedestal

• Angel asked: "How did you hear about me?" and after a pause, answered his own question about how his name was prominent due to early alphabetization in the phone book; Cyphre abruptly asked: "Do you by chance remember the name Johnny Favorite?"; Angel denied ever hearing the name before; Cyphre described him as a famous crooner before the war whose real name was Jonathan "John" Liebling; Cyphre claimed to have helped Johnny at the beginning of his career; Winesap clarified that Cyphre was in possession of a contract that specified that "certain collateral" (unspecified) was to be forfeited in the event of Johnny's death

Cyphre's Question to Angel: "Do you, by chance, remember the name Johnny Favorite?"

Angel Denied Ever Hearing the Name Johnny Favorite

Attorney Herman Winesap (Dann Florek)

• Johnny Favorite had been drafted in North Africa in 1943 and served in the "Special Entertainment Services" Division; he was badly injured and suffered neurological damage (shell shock); Angel also admitted that he had military-related war injuries and was shipped back home (a bit 'f--ked up'); Favorite returned home a "virtual zombie" with incurable trauma and was transferred to a private upstate hospital by his friends for "radical psychiatric treatment"; since he remained a "vegetable," the "mercenary" Cyphre stated that their contract was never honored - Favorite had allegedly skipped out without paying Cyphre his owed debt; Cyphre's interest was in determining whether Johnny was either dead or alive, so that he could fulfill his contract; during a recent visit to the private clinic near Poughkeepsie, NY, Winesap and Cyphre claimed they had received "misleading information" due to falsified records
• Angel was hired for the missing persons case - to "check it out" - to find the whereabouts of the WWII draftee and seriously-injured singer/bandleader Johnny Favorite; as they shook hands on the deal, Cyphre knowingly mentioned: "I have a feeling I've met you before" although Angel nervously denied any previous encounter
• PI Angel drove upstate on a bleak road, whistling the tune to Johnny Favorite's song "Girl of My Dreams," before driving up to the SARAH DODDS HARVEST MEMORIAL CLINIC; he presented the red-headed nursing home attendant (Kathleen Wilhoite) with a fake National Institute of Health ID card; calling himself Harry Conroy; he coaxed the nurse into looking into the files, and discovered Liebling had indeed been secretly transferred out of the private hospital on 12/31/1943, twelve years earlier; Angel suspiciously noted that the transfer was dated with a blue-ink ballpoint pen (before ballpoint pens were invented) - suggesting a signature forged later by one of the part-time doctors (Dr. Albert Fowler)
• after leaving the hospital, Angel located the address of Dr. Fowler (Michael Higgins) in a diner phonebook, and visited the nearby home on 419 Kitteridge; he broke in through a basement door, and noticed the shabby and dingy condition of the home's interior; he spotted pills in a medicine cabinet and briefly looked at his own mirror reflection; he also noticed sterilized hypodermic syringes in a tray, a framed photograph of a woman (Fowler's deceased wife?), and in a dresser drawer, he saw an unloaded revolver and a Bible; in the refrigerator were eight vials of morphine sulphate (powdered) - proof that the doctor was morphine-addicted
• once the white-haired aging Dr. Fowler arrived home, Angel pressured him to reveal more clues about his patient Liebling/Favorite: "He was an entertainer during the war, a neuro case. No chance of recovery, so I transferred him to a VA hospital in Albany"; however, that was a lie; Fowler was forced to confess that he had recently falsified the transfer after the patient had his first visitor in 12 years: (Cyphre and Winesap's visit?), but now Fowler had no idea of Favorite's current whereabouts: ("I haven't seen him since he was a patient here")
• Dr. Fowler recalled how one night (about 12 years earlier), Liebling/Favorite (who had come out of his coma and regained consciousness, but still suffered from acute amnesia) was taken away in a vehicle by two "friends" - Edward Kelley and an unidentified young lady, and taken home ("down south") - Fowler made a deal and was paid off with $25,000 dollars to continue to pretend (with falsified records) that Liebling remained there as a hospital patient; according to Fowler, Liebling had extensive facial reconstruction with bandages, so it was difficult to know what he looked like
• Angel put Dr. Fowler to bed (to force him to go 'cold turkey' and divulge more information) and locked his upstairs bedroom door from the outside before leaving to grab a bite to eat; on a dark street as Angel walked by a church, he heard voices calling out: "Johnny? Harry?"; as a loud heartbeat rhythmically pounded on the soundtrack, he entered the rear of the church where two identically-garbed nuns (young black girls) were reading a Bible; blood dripped into a bowl in a hallway outside where an elevator door (with a trellis gate) opened

Black Nuns Reading Bibles	Blood Dripping Into a Bowl
Dr. Fowler's Vintage Bedroom Key on Diner Counter, Next to Smoked Cigarettes	For Many Hours, Harry Alone in Diner

• after smoking his entire pack of Camel cigarettes, Angel sat alone as the sole customer at a diner counter, touching the key to Fowler's locked bedroom; single notes plunked on a piano and played Johnny Favorite's "Girl of My Dreams" - the song Angel had whistled earlier in his car; after returning to Fowler's home, he reached for a vial of morphine, unlocked the upstairs bedroom door and found Fowler laid out on his bed - he was dead - violently shot in the eye with brain splatter and holding the framed picture of his wife on his chest; was it a suicide, or had someone broken into the house and committed the crime? Angel struck his match on Fowler's shoe, and noticed the gun from the drawer (and the bullets concealed in the hollow interior of the Bible); Angel rubbed off fingerprints throughout the entire bedroom and house before leaving, fearing that he might become a suspect himself
• the next day in a memorable sequence, Angel met with Cyphre in an empty NYC Italian restaurant to report on his findings at the upstate Memorial Clinic; at a table where Cyphre sipped coffee from a white china cup and had been served a saucer of hard-boiled eggs, the ominous Cyphre listened to Angel's tale of how Liebling/Favorite had been secretly taken from the facility 12 years earlier (on New Year's Eve 1943) by a man named Kelley and an unidentified female, with the help of the clinic's paid-off Dr. Fowler; Cyphre reacted and called Favorite "a perfect disappearing act"; with his long fingernails, Cyphre grabbed one of the eggs, and began to peel its shell; Angel added that Fowler was found dead during his visit: "This Dr. Fowler guy ended up dead with his f--kin' brains blown out all over the place," but denied killing him
• Angel complained about becoming a murder suspect on his "missing persons job" and was being paid only $125 dollars a day; he threatened to quit: "That's it, I'm out"; Cyphre offered to immediately provide Angel with a $5,000 check to continue sleuthing, and Angel approved; as Cyphre salted and then bit into and consumed a peeled egg in a disgusting and violent manner, he meaningfully remarked: "Some religions think that the egg is the symbol of the soul, did you know that?"; when offered an egg (would Angel like his soul back?), Angel declined, but tossed salt over his left shoulder for good luck and safe-keeping, and then answered: "I got a thing about chickens" [Note: The superstitious act of tossed salt - from Biblical times - was meant to ward off or blind the devil and evil spirits to keep them away.]
• in the next dialogueless sequence, Angel returned to the renovated "Kingdom Mission" Harlem church, and noticed that the bloody hallway room had been cleaned up; he entered the location of his previous meeting with Cyphre where a closeted area had been converted into a strange occult shrine (with unusual artifacts and dead stuffed animals); outside, a church procession with a marching band was passing by, with Pastor John carried on a chariot-like platform; in the church's main hall, Angel came upon a black-shrouded person in prayer; as he tapped the person's shoulder, he was attacked from behind by two thuggish church patrons; after a brief struggle, Angel fled and as he was pursued out of the building, he joined the procession to hide and accidentally upended Pastor John's suspended chair
• in an East Village bar late at night, Angel met up with girlfriend Connie (Elizabeth Whitcraft), a reporter from the NY Times, who had completed some research in the newspaper's archives for Harry regarding his case; she shared a manila envelope with him of pictures, including an 8x10 photograph of "crooner" Johnny Favorite
• as they undressed before making love, she summarized other findings -- Favorite headlined a band in NY known as the Spider Simpson Orchestra whose only surviving member was bandleader Spider (Charles Gordone); he now resided in an old people's home (Lincoln Presbyterian Hospice) on 138th Street in Harlem; one of the pictures was of Johnny's former black-blues guitar-playing band member Toots Sweet (Brownie McGhee); Johnny was also engaged at one time to marry a wealthy Louisiana socialite named Margaret Krusemark (Charlotte Rampling), but when it broke off, she returned to her powerful patriarchal-daddy Ethan Krusemark (Stocker Fontelieu) in the South; "religious looney" Margaret was a "crackpot" and spell-caster, who in college amongst Ivy Leaguers was known as "The Witch of Wellesley"; Angel briefly summarized her findings, noting that Johnny Favorite ("golden tonsils") "probably doesn't know who he is"
• momentarily in a montage of images, Angel experienced several flashbacked memories to New Year's Eve of 1943 -- soldiers greeted at a train station after the war, the loud opening of an elevator gate-door and a top view of a black-clad person holding a white bowl while ascending a spiral staircase, and a window-fan spinning in a building's room that cast a reddish light to the outside
• in his NY office, Angel recorded a summary of his findings and additional updates on a reel-to-reel tape recorder; he had located Spider Simpson and had spoken to him in person in the hospice; he also learned that Toots Sweet had returned to Algiers, Louisiana (and was maybe with Margaret and Johnny); and according to Spider, Johnny was rumored to have a "secret love" with a black voodoo queen - Evangeline Proudfoot ("Evangeline ran some kind of spooky store in Harlem called 'Mammy Carter's'"); the only person Johnny ever saw regularly was a gypsy palm reader and fortune teller out on Coney Island named Madame Zora
• Angel visited the mostly-shuttered, rat-infested Coney Island on NY's South Shore - to learn more about Madame Zora; he spoke to two beachgoers on a deserted, wintry and cold stretch of sand, beginning with disturbed and strange, crotch-scratching Izzy (George Buck) who reclined on a deck-chair (whose pasttime in both summer and winter was to "bite the heads off the rats"); Izzy told how he hated fortune-telling Madame Zora: ("I hate those hocus-pocus bitches'), and then he offered Angel a plastic nose sun-shield from a box found under the Boardwalk

Angel Visiting Wintry Coney Island	Angel Speaking to Strange Beachgoer Izzy (George Buck)
Izzy Offering Angel a Nose-Shield	Angel Speaking With Izzy's Wife Bo (Judith Drake)

• Angel also conversed with Izzy's wife Bo (Judith Drake), who was standing knee-high in the ocean water (to soak her varicose veins) and mentioned how Madame Zora knew the "cute" Johnny ("Golden Tonsils") and was "stuck on him"; Angel then learned that Margaret Krusemark and Madame Zora were the same person; the "debutante" had packed up and gone back home: ("down south"); Angel asked where Johnny might be located and was told by the wife: "Maybe in the cemetery," before the wife began singing one of Favorite's old hits; as Angel left the area with plans to follow up and visit Louisiana, he thanked Izzy for the nose-shield: "I'm gonna need it where I'm goin'" (a veiled reference to Hell)
• to track down Favorite and his many contacts, Angel disembarked from a train on a New Orleans railway platform, and walked with his suitcase down Magazine Street, entered a run-down, dingy rented hotel room and then unpacked; he saw an ad in a storefront window for the fortune-telling services of Madame Krusemark; he happened to follow the psychic by hopping onto a St. Charles Track Avenue street-car, and then pursuing her to her apartment; he ascended a winding staircase up to her front door; he had apparently already made a late afternoon appointment with her to have his fortune told
• in Madame Krusemark's place, he curiously picked up one of her artifacts - a curved ceremonial knife, and played a few notes of "Girl of My Dreams" on her piano, and then told her that he couldn't sing, but that he could " carry a tune"; for her horoscope chart notes, she asked for his birthday - February 14, 1918 ("Valentine's Day"), and was surprised: "I used to know a boy who was born on that exact same day" (she was referring to Favorite); when the conversation turned to her relationship with Johnny Favorite, she asked piercingly: "Who are you?"; Angel claimed he was Johnny's "old army buddy" - but then admitted that he was just snooping around, and wasn't telling the truth; she coldly dismissed him after asserting: "Johnny has no future, he's dead. He died 12 years ago. I'd like you to leave"; she clarified that Johnny was at least "dead" to her: ("He's dead, Mr. Angel. And if he isn't, he is to me"), since Johnny had hurt her and left "scars" when he abandoned her
• as they shook hands at the door, she glanced at his palm and told Angel: "I don't think you'd like what I see"; he admired her "pretty necklace" - a 5-pointed star pentacle (the star was drawn within a circle) that was hanging around her neck, similar to Cyphre's ring pattern

Sign Advertising Madame Krusemark's Services	Angel In New Orleans, LA at the Door of M. Krusemark's Apartment
Louisiana Socialite and "Crackpot" Margaret Krusemark (Charlotte Rampling)	Margaret's Patriarchal Father Ethan (Stocker Fontelieu)

• running out of a sudden downpour, Angel found himself in front of Mammy Carter's Herb Store; he entered and saw jars of preserved creatures in formaldehyde, and hanging herbs above him; he inquired about purchasing two High John the Conquerer roots from the black proprietor Mammy (Peggy Severe); his purchase was retrieved from the rafters by an elderly assistant Toothless (Joshua Frank); Angel then asked about a lady named Evangeline who ran another Mammy's Carter's place in Harlem (a "spooky store" acc. to Spider) that sold similar root products; Mammy recalled knowing Evangeline Proudfoot who would often visit New Orleans while living in NY; however, she was now deceased after becoming sick: "She went back to the Holy Shelter swamp and was buried in Armandville. She was waiting on some fella...just like the poem" [Note: Recall that Spider had mentioned how Johnny was rumored to have a "secret love" with a black voodoo queen - Evangeline Proudfoot, but never told anyone his name. Had Johnny murdered Evangeline?]
• Angel rented a car for one week from a used car dealer in town; on a Sunday morning, he drove to the rural cemetery in Armandville to view Evangeline Proudfoot's gravesite; at the foot of the gravestone were some decaying offerings to the dead - a loaf of mildewed bread, rotten pieces of fruit, etc.; he watched from a hiding place as a beautiful young 17 year-old black mother named Epiphany Proudfoot (Lisa Bonet) - with a crying boy (Jarrett Narcisse) in her arms - visited the child's "Grandma"; Evangeline's mixed-race, half-Creole teenaged daughter, presumably the daughter of both Favorite and Evangeline Proudfoot during their affair, replaced the offerings with a fresh loaf of bread
• Angel followed her back to her place where he found her washing her hair in a public water stand near lots of chickens; he claimed that he wanted to ask her mother questions - but she answered: "You're a little late for that"; he introduced himself as a PI named Harry Angel who was looking for her mother's friend Johnny Favorite before the war in NYC, but she didn't know the name; he added: "I'm not really after him. I'm just being paid to find out where he is"; as he left, he remarked: "These crazy chickens!", and told her to call him in town if she remembered anything that might help him
• at the crowded and smoky Red Rooster club on a Sunday evening, Toots Sweet played with his band for a largely black audience; after "Rainy Rainy Day," Toots took a break at the bar for "on-the-house" Two Sisters cocktails, where Angel recalled: "I heard you play years ago in New York...it was before the war at the old Dickie Wells Bar....You was having it up pretty good with some cat called Johnny Favorite"; Toots only claimed that vaguely-remembered Favorite had recorded one of his songs and wasn't his "buddy"; Angel lied that he was a journalist writing an article about Johnny and the old Spider Simpson Orchestra; Toots recalled: "He used to play them drums like two jackrabbits f--king!"; Toots left for the restroom ("A piss and a spit and back to work")
• Toots rapidly became aggravated when Angel followed him into the restroom to ask more questions about Johnny Favorite and Evangeline Proudfoot; Angel picked up a clawed chicken foot (with a ribbon around it) left on the sink and dangled it in front of the very annoyed Toots, who recognized it as a sign that he shouldn't be talking to Angel: ("Mind your own business"); a club bouncer named Big Jacket (Oakley Dalton) grabbed Angel and forcibly threatened him with the claw: "Get the hell outta here. And I mean clean out onto the sidewalk, or you're gonna wish your lily white ass never was born"; Angel replied: "Please! I've got a thing about chickens" before being thrown out
• that evening, Angel followed Toots as he left the Red Rooster and drove to a swampy bayou area to participate in a black-arts, pagan voodoo ritual; from a hiding place, Angel watched as the scantily-clad voodoo practitioner Epiphany was encircled by drummers and others during a frenzied dance; she slit a rooster's throat, held it overhead, and let the spurting blood drip down onto her white dress, face, neck and breasts
• afterwards, as Toots returned to his home and was entering, Angel attacked him from behind and the two fought with each other in a life-and-death struggle; Angel was slashed on the hand with Toots' straight-edged razor blade; Angel took control, and threatened Toots with the razor blade to provide him with information about Epiphany, her mother, and Johnny Favorite; Angel was told: "She's a mambo priestess, like her mom. Has been since she was 13"; when asked if he had recently seen Favorite, Toots replied: "I ain't seen him since before the war"; Angel also learned that the chicken foot in the rest-room signified that Toots had a "big mouth" - a foreshadowing of the method of his murder; Angel also noticed Toots' inverted pentacle star engraved on his front gold tooth; he tore off a page from his notepad and shoved it into Toots' mouth, and told him to call him with anything further at his hotel; there were images of a squeaky rotating ventilator fan, and smashed items on the floor; as Angel departed, he dropped the razor on the stairs
• outside his dark hotel, a trellis-elevator door opened as Angel entered, and saw a black-hooded person (the third sighting of the same individual) in a "execution-like" chamber sitting on a bench in front of an electric chair on a raised pedestal; with bloodied hands, Angel picked up the straight-edged razor from the floor and squeezed blood from his injured hand; he noticed that his shirt was soaked with blood [Note: It was indicative that he had probably just murdered Toots]
• suddenly as he tapped the black-clad individual on the shoulder, Angel was awakened in his hotel room from a nightmarish dream by two detectives: heavy-set Det. Sterne (Eliott Keener) and Det. Deimos (Pruitt Taylor Vince) searching through his possessions; Det. Deimos tripped over a ceramic bowl placed under a persistent leak in the hotel room's ceiling; Sterne asked Angel about the note he had written found in the hand of dead guitar player Toots Sweet; gruesome details were given about his slow and bloody method of death: "Asphyxiation by his own genitalia... Somebody cut his dick off, stuffed it in his mouth, and choked him to death. Then they took to redecoratin' his apartment with the poor jerk's blood"; Angel explained that his association with Toots was due to the "missing persons" case he was working on for New York lawyer Herman Winesap

Detectives Questioning Harry Angel About Toots Sweet's Murder
Det. Sterne (Eliott Keener)	Det. Deimos (Pruitt Taylor Vince)

• Angel entered a phone booth in an oyster bar and phoned Margaret Krusemark; he experienced a flashback (with recurring images of a descending elevator ride and an apartment window with the red glow) - returning him to 12 years earlier on New Year's Eve in 1943, where one of the young WWII GI soldiers was tapped on the shoulder in Times Square; he was interrupted after dialing, and brought back to the present by a jazz-sax musician (Ernest Watson) in the bar asking if he wanted a tune played
• Angel again entered the apartment of Margaret Krusemark and found her dead - her heart had been removed with the curved ceremonial-sacrificial knife; he searched through various things on her desk, including a shriveled up, amputated and mummified hand [Note: it was later identified as "The Hand of Glory" that was able to open any lock; it was the right hand of a murderer cut off while his neck was in a noose.]
• to avoid being a suspect, Angel ripped up evidence from her calendar-appointment log that he had visited her, and was about to gag and puke after finding her excised heart (literally and figuratively) on the floor; in the next scene with the tune of "Girl of My Dreams" heard by one-note piano plucking and a squeaky fan, Angel drank by himself in a bar
• Angel drove out of town in his rented car, followed by a red pick-up truck with two Cajun envorcers (Rick Washburn and Neil Newlon) and their black pit-bull; they pursued Angel to a riverside crawdad factory where the dog was unleashed on Angel, as the men also threatened him with a baseball bat to leave town: "Margaret Krusemark's old man wants you on that first train home"; Epiphany disembarked from an old school-bus and noticed Angel seated by the side of the road - he told her he needed a laundry after a dog had bit him
• he inquired about seeing Epiphany during a previous evening in a voodoo ritual with a chicken: "I saw you and Toots Sweet boogying with the cock-a-doodle out in the woods"; he accused her of setting up Toots to be killed, and how she was the one who had been paid to warn him with the cut-off "gift-wrapped" chicken foot in the restroom to keep his mouth shut; during this second encounter, unlike before, she casually and openly admitted that Johnny Favorite was her father, and was the cause of her mother's death: ("Johnny never came back from the war. Mama waited and Mama died. Sad and simple"); she also admitted that her son was illegitimate
• Angel returned to town to his hotel, where he received a message from Cyphre - to meet him in the city's cathedral sanctuary (the second meeting between them in a church setting); in one of the back pews, Cyphre (who had been visiting nearby in Baton Rouge) inquired about Angel's "progress" in the case -- Angel reported little progress in finding Johnny Favorite, but that he had encountered a lot of weird voodoo magic and three murders: Dr. Fowler, Toots Sweet, and Margaret Krusemark: ("All I've got is a belly full of hocus-pocus and, uh, three stiffs....Dead bodies, Mr. Cyphre, yeah, murders"):
  • I got Fowler, Johnny's doctor, bumped himself off
  • I got this old voodoo guy named Toots Sweet. He got choked to death with a part of the body meant for pissing with...
• Angel diverged from his report to note: "There's a lot of religion going around with this thing. It's very weird. And I don't understand it. It's ugly"; Cyphre responded with a great line: "They say there's just enough religion in the world to make men hate one another but not enough to make them love"
• Angel was frustrated that he was getting set up to be blamed for Favorite's murders: "I'll tell you something, Mr. Cyphre. There wasn't too much love around for Johnny Favorite. All right, that guy was bad luck, and it's startin' to rub off on me. I'm a murder suspect already in two cases"
• I checked out Johnny's old society girlfriend, Margaret Krusemark....She was doing my chart. I gave her Johnny's birthday, February 14th, except somebody got to her and took out their own Valentine's card. They slit her open and they cut out her heart. I guess she couldn't predict the future for herself"
• Cyphre reacted to Angel's report: "The future isn't what it used to be, Mr. Angel"; Angel became aggravated: "All I know is Johnny's runnin' around bumping off everyone he used to know, and more and more, it's me who's on the line for it. I'm bein' set up and it's scarin' the s--t out of me"; Cyphre reiterated his demand to reclaim the debt owed to him by Johnny Favorite: ("Just Johnny Favorite and the debt that's owed to me, Mr. Angel. I have old-fashioned ideas about honor. You know, an eye for an eye, things like that"); Cyphre 'tsked-tsked' Angel for using swear words in the church, although Angel didn't care since he was an atheist: ("I'm from Brooklyn"); Angel announced how careful he would now have to be: "But if I ain't careful, that $5,000 bucks you gave me could just buy me a seat in the electric chair"
• after speaking to Cyphre, Angel returned in the rain to his hotel room, where he found a frightened Epiphany waiting for him on his outside veranda; he invited her into his room for a drink, and then asked her about the character of Johnny Favorite; she told him that Johnny had stolen her mother's heart away: ("She sure missed him"); Angel called Johnny a "creep" and she added that he was also a "bad-ass"; Epiphany told how her mother had described Johnny: "She once said that Johnny Favorite was as close to true evil as she ever wanted to come," but "that he was a terrific lover"; she also admitted that she never knew the father of her own child (and how she was possessed by spirits and impregnated during some kind of wild voodoo-witchcraft ritual), and then she shocked him with the revelation: ("It was the best f--k I ever had")
• while listening to the radio playing the sultry tune "Soul on Fire" by Laverne Baker, they began to dance together - she jumped up to straddle his hips; the film's notorious, steamy sex scene of abandoned sexuality (with the theme of blood sacrifice) followed between Angel and 17 year-old Epiphany (originally NC-17-rated, but trimmed for an R-rating); they began to make love on his bed as raindrops dripped from the ceiling through his leaky hotel ceiling during the heavy rainstorm; Epiphany screamed as their love-making became violent and the dripping water turned to blood

Epiphany and Angel's Love-Making Under Leaking Hotel Room Ceiling - Raindrops Became Bloody During Angel's Hallucinatory Sequence

• then in the frenzied hallucinatory and vision-filled sequence experienced by Angel, there were intercut images of the legs of two approaching individuals, a black-veiled or hooded person wiping blood off a wall (in a room with a window fan - a recurring symbol of murder - where a sacrificial ritual may have taken place), a GI turning his head after being tapped on the shoulder (on New Year's Eve 1943), the decapitation of Cyphre's lawyer Herman Winesap by a fan (presumably murdered by Cyphre), a descending elevator (and the sound of a scream), and brief views of an orgiastic, pagan voodoo-witchcraft ritual; as they experienced an orgasm together at the completion of their sex act (both of them were now not bloodied), Angel sat on the edge of the bed and then Epiphany watched as he punched his image in the bathroom mirror, and it turned into a spider-web of shattered glass
• Angel was again visited by the two detectives knocking on his veranda window - who happened to see Epiphany sitting naked on the bed; Angel walked out onto the veranda wrapped in a towel as the racist Det. Sterne cautioned: "Down here, Angel, we don't mess with the jigaboos. The colored folks keep to themselves"; Angel was informed that the detective was not concerned about Toots Sweets' death, but he was upset that Margaret Krusemark was found dead (with her heart neatly cut out), and that she came from "a Louisiana money family - white money"; Angel refused to answer their question about the "missing person" he was looking for; Sterne was upset that Krusemark's murder was for "nutso reasons" ("This Krusemark broad - she was into star-gazin', black magic, all kinds of s--t")

Epiphany in Bathtub Singing One of Johnny's Tunes

Angel's Shattered Self Reflected in Mirror

• upon re-entering his hotel room, Angel found Epiphany in the bathtub singing one of Johnny's favorite tunes: (Epiphany: "My mother used to sing it to me all the time"); Angel again looked at himself in his broken mirror - symbolic of his shattered and broken self
• before leaving town, he attacked two awaiting and threatening Cajun hicks (henchmen sent by Ethan Krusemark) sitting in a red pickup truck (with their pitbull in the back) - parked under a marquee reading: "INTERNATIONAL COUNTERFEITERS" [Spoiler: Harry was the ultimate identity-counterfeiter!]; the sequence ended with a pursuit and shootout in a nearby horse stables; Angel briefly found himself pinned under the carcass of a horse, and was saved when one of the spooked horses kicked the pitbull, allowing him to race from the stables into a chicken coop to escape
• in a rural area, Angel attended a bush horse race where crowds watched a contest to see who could skin a muskrat the fastest; he walked up to one of the well-dressed spectators, Margaret's wealthy father Ethan; Angel described how he was searching for the missing Johnny Favorite - who was denounced by Ethan as a dead "dance band scumbag"; Angel accused Favorite of possibly killing Ethan's daughter Margaret, and further stated: "Twelve years ago, you and your daughter snatched Favorite out of some nut hatch up in Poughkeepsie. You paid a junkie doctor 25 grand to pretend that Johnny was still a turnip head. You did a pretty good job until a week ago. You used the name Edward Kelley"; Ethan invited Angel to sample his gumbo in a nearby shack, although Angel declined: "I've got an acid stomach. Sorry, Cajun cooking kills me" - a veiled hint forecasting Ethan's subsequent murder!
• after the two walked past a bubbling vat of hot gumbo, they drank gin together in a locked back room; as Angel increasingly and angrily stabbed blocks of ice with an ice pick, Krusemark admitted: "I was Edward Kelley. It was me who paid Fowler the 25 G's"; afterwards, Favorite was taken to Times Square for New Year's Eve 1943 - where he was dropped off in the crowd before he disappeared; Krusemark blamed his black-magic obsessed daughter for everything: "I did it for my daughter. It was some sort of hocus-pocus she and Johnny were foolin' around with. My daughter was obsessed...Margaret was always --- (Angel: "evil")... evil is a dunghill, Mr. Angel. Everyone gets on his own, speaks about someone else's. Margaret wasn't evil. She was a strange kid!"; Angel accused Krusemark of instigating Margaret's interest in witchcraft: "Everything you tell me is a crock of s--t! You're the one that got her started! You're the f--kin' devil worshipper!"
• Angel wrapped a large set of ice-gripping pliers around Krusemark's neck and threatened his execution, to force him to describe the film's well-known plot twist; Ethan told the gruesome details of how missing piano player/singer and occultist Johnny Favorite had promised or sold his soul to the devil (Lu-ci-fer) in exchange for fame and stardom; but then, he tried to renege on the contracted bargain and cheat the devil; with help from Toots, Favorite randomly picked and kidnapped WWII GI Harry Angel (his same age and resemblance) off the street in Times Square on New Year's Eve in 1942, and planned to assume Angel's identity and name
• the transfer was accomplished through a bloody, sacrificial Satanic black magic ritual-ceremony (involving murder and the consumption of a beating heart); with the help of Margaret, Johnny evaded Satan and actually transferred his soul into Harry Angel's body that he had murdered (by cutting his heart out - the same way Margaret was killed), to co-opt the soul of the young soldier; because of the war, Johnny was drafted and traumatically brain-injured overseas; he was hospitalized, and had extensive facial surgery so that he was unrecognizable; he also suffered amnesia and couldn't remember who he was; Margaret's plan to kidnap him (with her father) from the hospital and drop him off in Times Square a year later on 12/31/1943 - to force him to remember who he was - also failed; Favorite believed that he was Harry Angel for his entire life (and henceforth fooled others about his real identity):
  • I introduced Johnny Favorite to my daughter. He was very powerful. I once watched him conjure up Lucifer in my living room. He was in it much deeper than me. He made a pact with Satan. He sold his soul...He sold his soul for stardom...Satan rose from the depths. It was magnificent, except he thought he could outwit the Prince of Darkness. Johnny sold his soul. Then when he made it big, he tried to duck out of it...Johnny came across an obscure rite in an ancient manuscript. He needed a victim. Someone his own age....To steal their soul. So Toots and Johnny picked up a young soldier....Just a boy, just a soldier out celebrating New Year's Eve in Times Square...they took him back to Johnny's hotel and that's where the ceremony took place....the boy was bound naked on a rubber mat. There were complicated incantations and stuff in Latin and Greek. A pentacle was branded on his chest. Margaret handed Johnny a virgin dagger, and he sliced the boy clean open and he ate his heart. He cut it out so quickly, the heart was still beating when he wolfed it down. Johnny's plan was to drop out and resurface as a soldier. But before he had worked things out, he was drafted, and then Johnny was injured and sent home without even knowing who he was....Only Johnny knew. He sealed the dog tags in a vase and gave it to Margaret. It was Margaret's plan to drop him off in Times Square. That would be the last place that he remembered before it happened...Maybe he gained the guy's soul, but he still looked like Johnny to me
• after vomiting in the bathroom, Angel discovered the dead Krusemark submerged in the large hot gumbo vat before driving off to Margaret's apartment to find Harry's dog-tags kept in a vase; he located the vase and smashed it in a bathroom sink to recover the GI's dog-tags; when Angel discovered Harry Angel's military 'dog tags' (HAROLD ANGEL, 2-14-1918), he screamed out to himself: "I know who I am"
• suddenly but not shockingly, Cyphre appeared in the room: ("How terrible is wisdom if it brings no profit to the wise, Johnny"); it was now very clear that Harry Angel was actually Johnny Favorite, the evil man he was being paid to find; and Louis Cyphre was a gloating and knowing 'Lucifer' - who had been waiting for Angel to realize or remember that his true identity was Favorite, so he could claim his immortal soul; Angel, however, was convinced that Cyphre was framing him for the murders:

  Angel: Do you think posin' as the Devil, just because it scared some superstitious old guitar player, and that witch, and that nutty old man, do you think it's gonna scare me? Hah. It ain't, because I know who I am. And you killed them, and you're tryin' to pin it on me. And I know who I am.
  Cyphre: If I had cloven hooves and a pointed tail, would you be more convinced?
  Angel: You're crazy. I know who I am. You're trying to frame me.
  You're trying to frame me. Cyphre, I know who I am. You murdered them people. I never killed nobody. I didn't kill Fowler, and - and I didn't kill Toots, and I didn't kill Margaret, and I didn't kill Krusemark, I didn't kill no-one!
  Cyphre: I'm afraid you did, Johnny.
  Angel: My name's not Johnny.

Murders Were Guided by Cyphre: "Only the Soul is Immortal, and Yours Belongs to Me!"

• actually, Harry Angel was the murderer of all the people he discovered dead - all magic and voodoo practitioners who were involved in Johnny Favorite's cover-up; however, Cyphre did admit that he had "guided" Harry to commit the numerous murders - after Johnny had killed Harry Angel and taken over his soul: ("All killed by your own hand. Guided by me naturally. Frankly, you were doomed from the moment you slit that young boy in half. Johnny - for 12 years, you've been living on borrowed time and another man's memories...The flesh is weak, Johnny. Only the soul is immortal - and yours belongs to ME!") (Cyphre's eyes turned a glowing pale yellow - a sign of the demonic, as he pointed his long-nailed index finger at Harry!); Harry weakly repeated his statement: "I know who I am"
• then, Cyphre challenged Harry to look back at his own actions: "Take a good look! However cleverly you sneak up on the mirror - your reflection always looks you straight in the eye"; Cyphre played a 78 rpm phonograph record of "Girl of My Dreams" during a flashbacked montage of the murders Harry had committed (Fowler, Margaret, Toots, Ethan, and Epiphany); Harry had killed all of them -- all magic and voodoo practitioners who were involved in Johnny Favorite's transfer out of the hospital, cover-up, and transfer of his identity; he had failed in an attempt to keep his identity as Johnny Favorite a secret - both a secret from others and a secret from himself!
• in the shocking ending, it was also revealed that Favorite/Angel had also actually killed his own daughter Epiphany, the daughter of Evangeline Proudfoot, but he had no memory of committing the crime; he rushed back to his hotel room - the murder/crime scene (notice the hooded and black-cloaked figure sitting on the veranda - revealed to be a clean-shaven Cyphre!)

The Discovery of the Rape/Murder of Epiphany in Harry's New Orleans Hotel Room - Wearing Angel's Dog Tags

• he viewed Epiphany's half-naked body, and the bed drenched in blood; after having incestuous intercourse with the young teenager, he had fired his gun into her groin area in the rape-murder; she died wearing his military dog tags around her lifeless neck
• Angel revealed to Detective Sterne that he was the murderer - the film's final lines of dialogue:

  Detective Sterne: Why'd you come back?
  Harry: I live here.
  Detective Sterne: Who is she? (He reached for the dog tags and read the identifying name) She ain't 'Angel, Harold.'
  Harry: She's my daughter.
  Detective Sterne: Bulls--t. Who is she?
  Harry: She's Epiphany Proudfoot. She stayed here for a little while.
  Detective Sterne: Long enough for you to kill her, right? Or ain't that your gun up her snatch? You're gonna burn for this, Angel.
  Harry: I know. In Hell.

• at the crime scene, Det. Deimos carried Epiphany's toddler son, Harry's/Johnny's grandson, into the bedroom; the boy had glowing eyes - strongly hinting that the boy was probably fathered by 'Lucifer' (Satan had impregnated Epiphany during a wild, orgiastic voodoo ceremony briefly viewed) - and he pointed at Harry

Epiphany's Illegitimate Toddler Son With Glowing Eyes

• presumably, Harry - who descended down a very lengthy elevator shaft as the film ended (during the entire credits sequence) - was convicted of the murder of Epiphany and doomed to the electric chair - and afterwards fated to burn in Hell; when the elevator reached its destination at the end of his ride, the soundtrack's fast-beating heartbeat stopped; with the final black screen, one could hear a very faint conversation whispered by Cyphre (in voice-over), who asked about the two souls he had acquired: "Harry?" "Johnny?"