Hot Tomorrows

I first saw Martin Brest's "Hot Tomorrows" at the Seattle Film Festival in 1977 (or 1978?) and immediately fell in love with it: assured, dreamlike, odd and very much a personal film. Brest made this short (73 minutes) film for $33,000 in 1977 while a student at AFI, and after a few festival screenings, it immediately dropped out of sight (I don't believe it ever had a regular theatrical engagement) and has remained elusive ever since, although diligent searching on the 'Net will turn up a DVD well worth seeking out.

The beautiful black and white photography was by Jacques Haitkin ("A Nightmare on Elm Street"); the quality shifts from a subtle grain to an out-and-out old home movie quality when the images represent Michael's memories, and the exposures are "hot" - bright lights tend to glow with a glorious aura, lending an other-world quality to the images, especially the musical numbers with Oingo Boingo.

Fats Waller's jazzy organ solos are used throughout the soundtrack (they were also used by David Lynch in "Eraserhead" the following year) and add the right quirky touch, and the musical performances by Danny and Marie Elfman and Oingo Boingo are terrific.

Aside from dour Ken Lerner (brother of Michael) and bouncy Ray Sharkey, there are no well-known names (although Orson Welles does a wonderfully creepy/funny voice-over for a radio ad for a local mortuary), but the amateurs playing small roles are mesmerizing, with beautiful idiosyncrasies and manners - you KNOW these women in the few minutes they are on the screen, and Rose Marshall (Tante Ethel), who has no dialog, is especially believable and touching, as is the lady with the postcard.

The story takes place in Los Angeles during a span of hours on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. Michael (Ken Lerner) and his childhood friend Louis (Ray Sharkey), who's visiting from the old neighborhood in the Bronx are complete mooks; Michael is a budding writer in his early 20's with an obsession about age and dying (and Laurel & Hardy), and Louis is somewhat of a clown, not too intelligent but full of beans.

They head out for a dismal night on the town and end up at the Paradise Ballroom, a faded, near-empty venue where the Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo are performing in tuxedos and deathly white makeup - Marie Elfman vamps the Marlene Dietrich song "Jonny" and Danny Elfman does a great version of "St. James Infirmary" a la Cab Calloway (see the Betty Boop cartoon "Snow White" to hear the original - it's dynamite). Michael is entranced, Louis is restless and bored.

At the bar they run into likable expatriate Bronx-ite Tony (Victor Argo) and his best friend, a viciously drunk "little person" named Alberict (Herve Villechaise) who is a complaisant husband considerately staying out (and getting drunk) while his wife entertains her lover at home. After hanging out with them, and after Louis is unsuccessful in picking up a shy young woman, they head out for some food but get sidetracked by the mortuary ad Michael hears on the radio and pay a visit to it for coffee (and a chance for Michael to further explore his curiosity about death).

They return to the Paradise just before it closes; Tony and a passed-out Alberict are still there. Louis finally confronts Michael about his obsession, they have an argument, and Louis decides to leave on his own, offering to drop the sleeping Alberict home on his way. I can't speak to what then ensues without spoiling it, but the ending is bizarre, touching and audacious (especially given the production budget).

As a plot, it's not much, but it allows for a multitude of great moments and great performances, some stunning visuals and an oddly satisfying experience that has remained a pleasure throughout repeated viewings.

A sidenote: "Alberich" is the evil dwarf in Wagner's Ring Trilogy, although the Villechaise role is listed as "Alberict" in the IMDb database...

Wow! It took me 15 years to find a copy of this. I first heard of it in a movie guide in high school. Before IMDb we had to read these things for obscure films. Got my copy this year on DVD. And I am a happy cinema guy! What's the premise? A writer from the Bronx moves to LA to make it big. Over the XMAS holidays his buddy drives cross country to visit him. They go to the Paradise Lounge-where Danny Elfman and Oingo Boingo are playing music. They meet Victor Argo and Herve Villechaize and drink wine with them. Then head off to a mortuary to see a dead body. FYI-Orson Welles does the voice of the commercial for the mortuary. After some craziness the movie switches gears around 50 Mins and turns into a darker place. But I still loved the film and how easily it went from comedy to drama (the only other movie to accomplish this was Something Wild) it was great. Also Stuart Cornfeld (producer of The Fly and Zoolander) was a production assistant on this movie.

A quick trivia note is that a character is named Mikey Tandino. There is also a character in Beverly Hills Cop with this name. Same director small wonder. This film is now in my Top 10.

I saw this at at a midnight secret sneak during the 3rd Seattle International Film Festival (2016 - 42nd year). Although I only saw it the one time, I was mesmerized!

It's odd that a film as good as this from a director of such caliber has never been shown. I didn't know anything about the movie when I went in. By the time it was over, I was exhausted!

I can't exactly explain to you anything about this movie as it's been 40 years but what I saw still haunts me!

This is the greatest the dance finale from one of the greatest movies that almost on one has ever seen. I almost came to tears when I finally saw it today on YouTube.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p0UPopFGTgs

Martin Brest made this first feature at around the same time and under the same American Film Institute auspices as David Lynch made "Eraserhead." Both earned them Hollywood careers, although the latter movie is still very much a part of our culture, whereas "Hot Tomorrows" has always been hard to see. Turns out there a reason for that--there's really not much of a movie here, although you can see some enterprise and formative talent. Ken Lerner plays Michael, the classic movie "writer" who apparently can only "write about what he knows" (his Jewish NYC family background, which we glimpse in flashbacks). He's scraping by in L.A., hanging out with childhood friend Louis (Ray Sharkey), who came to visit and hasn't left, perhaps because he has no identity beyond being Michael's pal.

Capturing a few Christmas Eve hours they spend together, "Hot Tomorrows" doesn't have much plot. It has a hook--Michael is obsessed with death--but until the finale, that isn't really developed, beyond the film being shot in some interesting locations that give you a feel for the semi-abandoned places of a Los Angeles past. Laurel & Hardy clips near the beginning and end suggest how we're supposed to view the lead characters, but frankly Michael is a glum blank and Louis is an annoyingly one-note stooge, despite Sharkey's energetic performance. They go to a nightclub that's empty but for a retro stage show (performed by Danny Elfman & other members of Oingo Boingo when they were a theatre troupe rather than a rock band), plus sole other patrons Tony (Victor Argo), a fellow New Yorker who befriends them, and his ornery drunk companion Alberict (Herve Villechaize, who livens things up before his character passes out). Not much else happens before a climax that is startling not just because it leaps into fantasy, but because it's on such a larger scale than everything prior to it, paying homage to 1930s musical production numbers.

That running current of movie nostalgia combined with the shaggy character comedy here places "Hot Tomorrow" somewhere between Curt McDowell's features and early Jim Jarmusch. It just doesn't have much of a script, though, or good dialogue, so the quirkiness of the personalities and situations feel limply half-baked. Even at 73 minutes, this feels like heavy padding of material that would have better suited a 20-minute short. Still, in 1977 independent cinema of this sort (as opposed to the drive-in exploitation kind) barely existed, and you can see why the film struck some as offbeat and original enough to springboard some of its participants into more mainstream careers.