After Hours belongs to a “yuppie nightmare cycle,” a subgenre of films which combines screwball comedy and film noir.
Psychoanalytic view of film
Paul is constantly emasculated by the women, first by Kiki with her sexual aggressiveness and a lust for masochism, then Marcy turning down his sexual advances. Later on, Julie and Gail turning a vigilante mob on him, and June entrapping him in plaster, rendering him helpless–literally and figuratvely.
There are many references to castration within the film, most of which are shown when women are present.
Shark Biting a Penis
In the bathroom in Terminal Bar where Julie first encounters Paul, there is an image scrawled on the wall of a shark biting a man’s erect penis.
Marcy makes a reference to her husband, using double entendre when saying, “I broke the whole thing off” when talking about her and her husband’s sex life. One of the mouse traps that surrounds her bed clamps shut when Julie tries to seduce Paul.
The (anti) hero is like a rat trying to escape from a labyrinth. There is a caged rat where Paul finds himself trapped in talkative woman’s apartment.
The film could be plotted out as labyrinthine journey, each compartment holding out the promise of a particular experience, but all illusory and misleading.
Paramount Pictures’ abandonment of The Last Temptation of Christ production was a huge disappointment, motivating him to focus on indie companies and smaller projects. His lawyer Jay Julien put him through Griffin Dunne and Amy Robinson’s group: Double Play Company.
The project was called One Night in Soho and it was based on the script by Joseph Minion, age 26. The screenplay, originally titled Lies after the 1982 Joe Frank monologue that inspired the story, was written as assignment for course at Columbia University. According to Frank, he was not asked for rights to the story. The script finally became After Hours when Scorsese committed.
Scorsese’s inputs involve the dialogue between Paul and the doorman at Club Berlin, inspired by Franz Kafka’s “Before the Law,” one of the short stories included in his novel The Trial Scorsese explained to Paul Attanasio, the short story reflected his frustration over The Last Temptation of Christ, for which he had to continuously wait, as Joseph K had to in The Trial.
The film was set to be Tim Burton’s directing debut, after Dunne and Robinson were impressed with his short film “Vincent,” but Scorsese read the script at a time when he was unable to get financial backing to complete The Last Temptation of Christ, and Burton stepped aside.
British director Michael Powell took part in the production process of the film (Powell and editor Thelma Schoonmaker married soon afterward).
Movie’s Ending? Symmetry
Powell said that Paul must finish up back at work, but this was dismissed as too unlikely. They tried other endings, and some were even shot, but the one that that really worked was Paul finishing up back at work just as the new day was starting.
