Alan Parker

A University of Texas professor of philosophy and capital punishment abolitionist, David Gale, is on Death Row convicted of the rape and murder of his best friend, Constance Harraway, who was the leader of the local branch of Death Watch, an organization campaigning against the death penalty. Days before his execution, skeptical journalist Bitsey Bloom is sent by the weekly news magazine where she works to conduct David Gale's final interview. She is accompanied by intern reporter, Zack Stemmons. Gale's lawyer is Braxton Belyeu, an ageing eccentric with a long ponytail. We learn that Gale asked specifically for Bloom, and will talk only to her. They are to have two hours on each of three consecutive days, after which Gale will be executed at 6 o'clock in the evening of the fourth day. Belyeu and Stemmons leave the prison and Gale starts to tell Bloom his story, which we see in a series of flashbacks. Gale's marriage was in difficulties, and relations with his wife Sharon strained, but he was devoted to his small son Jamie. We see Gale lecturing on philosophy to a large class of students. Then a couple of minutes before the end of the lecture period a beautiful female student named Berlin arrives noisily and Gale pauses while she takes her seat. As the students leave after dismissal, Berlin apologizes for being late and tells Gale she'll do "anything" for a better term mark. He tells her quietly but firmly that the way to get a better mark is to study. However, not long after that Gale finds himself one evening at a party with faculty and students, and Berlin catches him alone in a luxurious bathroom. Locking the door, she tells him she isn't his student any more (since she's been expelled from school), and that she wants sex with him anyway. Gale gives in to temptation but soon finds himself accused of rape. His world falls apart: he loses his university post; his wife leaves him, taking their son, selling their house and moving to Spain; even the national leader of Death Watch (by phone) wants local organizer Constance Harraway to have no more to do with him. We see Gale sitting distraught on the step of the path to his house front door, clutching his little boy's favorite soft toy to him, as his wife and son are driven away in a taxi; we see him in a conversation with a university dean who explains there is no way he can give Gale a job because of his reputation; and we see him in an interview attempting to get a job in business and hopelessly lost when asked to give three reasons why they should hire him. Gale, now jobless and homeless, turns heavily to drink; we see him in a bar, then staggering along a crowded sidewalk at night shouting about Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle to passers-by; and at last he winds up on the porch of his only remaining friend in the world, Constance Harraway. He now learns, as a result of an emergency when she has to go to hospital, that she is dying of leukemia. He has to sleep off his drunken stupor on a seat in the hospital corridor. After she is home again, Constance is talking to David one evening about her one regret in life, that she didn't have more sex. He offers and, having assured her it isn't out of pity, she accepts. He leaves in the morning but she is subsequently found dead --- naked, handcuffed behind her back, with her mouth taped over with gaffer tape, and suffocated by a plastic bag that is over her head and taped round the neck. An autopsy reveals that she had swallowed the handcuff key. David Gale's semen is also found inside her. A tripod --- on which no fingerprints were found --- is present, though no camera or videotape is found. Bloom and Stemmons visit Harraway's former house, which has been turned into a sort of museum with a "tour" of the crime scene by the current tenant Nico, a plump young woman with a goth appearance. After the prison visit one afternoon, Bloom and Stemmons collect half a million dollars in cash in a shiny brief case. The money is the "fee" paid by their magazine to Gale for the exclusive interview. They then return to their motel to find her door blocked open with a roll of gaffer tape, and a videotape cassette suspended by a string from the ceiling of her room, labelled with her name. They borrow a video player from the motel manager and are profoundly shocked to find that the tape has the last few minutes of Constance Harraway's life, of her naked, cuffed and suffocating on her kitchen floor. From time to time while driving between the motel and the prison, Bloom and Stemmons have noticed a lean figure of a man in a stetson hat, apparently following or watching them. They discover who this man is: Dusty Wright, a secretive loner but a follower and admirer of Constance Harraway. Bloom delivers the attaché case full of cash to the lawyer Belyeu's office, and spies Wright entering just as she is leaving. Assuming that Gale is telling the truth when protesting his innocence of the rape and murder, there is speculation as to who did the murder and apparently framed him. Candidates include some mysterious group trying to discredit the abolitionist cause. However, after the third and last interview with David Gale at the prison, at the end of which he takes his leave saying he'll be dead by the end of the next day, Bloom and Stemmons return to the "museum" with handcuffs and gaffer tape, and Bloom re-enacts the death scene using the handcuffs, the tape, and a plastic bag. She tells Stemmons to wait three minutes before freeing her, but he and Nico can't bear to watch her struggle and he has to tear the bag open, afraid Bloom is actually suffocating herself. The outcome of the experiment, given what they know about her dedication to her cause and the fact she had only a short time to live anyway, is their conclusion that there was no murder: Constance Harraway committed suicide, deliberately intending to make it look like murder of her by Gale, because of his ruined reputation after the affair with the girl Berlin. She had willingly made love to Gale in the hours before killing herself, setting him up for the additional charge of rape. They then realize that, having been given the brief tape, there must exist a full recording of the suicide, and that Harraway's purpose was almost certainly to have Gale exculpated at the last possible moment by production of the recording that must prove she committed suicide unaided. However, whoever was supposed to produce the tape has not done so. They realize that this must be Dusty Wright, and that he has an agenda of his own. Jealous of Gale's relationship with Harraway, he has not produced the full tape recording because if saving Gale at the last minute would make news as a momentous case against the death penalty, allowing Gale to die before revealing that he was innocent would make the case even more strongly. At the last minute, they go to Wright's home and Bloom searches frantically for the full tape, while Stemmons keeps watch for any sign of Wright. She finds the tape, having to play it through and watch it to see that it is what she needs. After Hallaway dies, Dusty Wright appears in front of the camera, showing that he helped the woman in her plot against Gale. There is then a frantic journey to the prison, to try to get there and have the tape seen before Gale is executed. The car breaks down some distance away and the final scenes are of Bloom frantically running along the street trying to reach the prison before the deadline. We see the ritual leading to the execution being followed. There are calls from the state Governor's office giving final go-ahead. Outside the prison, we see a large group of demonstrators from Death Watch, part of a large crowd including police officers. Bloom reaches the crowd and makes her way through the throng only to hear an announcement from a prison official that Gale had died some minutes earlier. Back at her desk at work, Bitsy Bloom receives a Fedex package containing the favorite soft toy of Gale's young son Jamie, left behind with the father when the son went abroad. Inside it is a video cassette with an additional segment at the end revealing that Gale was in the kitchen when Hallaway committed suicide. In this way Gale wanted to relieve the journalist from the guilt of not saving him. Meanwhile Dusty Wright, very smartly dressed now, travels to Europe and delivers the silver attaché case full of cash as well as a postcard proving his innocence in his earlier alleged rape to the new residence of Sharon Gale. He rings the apartment doorbell and disappears, leaving the case anonymously at front of the door.

Two FBI agents with wildly different styles arrive in Mississippi to investigate the disappearance of three civil rights activists. Two FBI agents investigating the murder of civil rights workers during the 60s seek to breach the conspiracy of silence in a small Southern town where segregation divides black and white. The younger agent trained in FBI school runs up against the small town ways of his former Sheriff partner. —Keith Loh <loh@sfu.ca> After three Civil Rights workers, who were organizing a voter registry clinic, go missing in Mississippi's Jessup County, the FBI deputes Agents Rupert Anderson and Alan Ward to investigate. After the duo encounter hostility at the hands of the county police and other males, more agents are brought in. This leads to a media frenzy, with Clayton Townley proclaiming openly that this community is an Anglo-Saxon democracy, an example of successful segregation that has been able to withstand the onslaught of integration, and total non-acceptance of Jews, Papists, Turks, Mongols, Orientals, Asians, and Negros. While differences crop up between investigative tactics of the two agents, the Ku Klux Klan, aided by the police, target the fearful African-Americans, brutally torturing them and setting their houses on fire. With the entire local community - both black and white - refusing to come forward with any information - the FBI must now consider using other methods to try and find out what really happened to the three workers. —rAjOo (gunwanti@hotmail.com) Two authority agents team up and travel to Mississippi to investigate the disappearances of multiple activists. Everything that they discover along the way will contribute and effect the history behind the beginning of a movement that will impact the world. —RECB3 In 1964, three civil rights workers from the North disappear in a small Mississippi town and the FBI are sent to investigate. Agent in charge Alan Ward does everything by the book. Agent Rupert Anderson however was a Sheriff in Mississippi before joining the FBI and understands the local culture. He's also prepared to bend the rules a bit if it will help in the investigation. They focus on the Sheriff's office and Deputy Clinton Pell in particular as they think he may be the weakest link in the conspiracy. As the investigation intensifies however, the KKK launch a series of attacks against the local African-American population. With no one on either side prepared to talk, Ward agrees to Anderson using his own unorthodox methods to learn what happened that night and who killed the three men. —garykmcd

Angel Heart (1987) An ominous, slushy street, midnight, in the winter a dark figure walks down an alley, past the sounds of anguish and moaning. An alley cat looks down from the fire escape, a street dog wanders the alley scrounging for food. The dog spots the cat and barks, giving chase only to stop briefly to lap up fresh blood pouring from the split chest of a homeless man. New York City, January 3, 1955, a sloppy, unshaved man in a trench coat walks a street in Brooklyn, he smokes and greets various neighbors to the constant sound of a phone ringing. Harold Angel (Mickey Rourke) enters his shabby office and answers the phone. He is a private investigator and writes down details of the caller. An attorney, Mr. Winesap, introduces himself and wants to set up a meeting with a man named Louis Cyphre in Harlem. Angel arrives and walks through an African-American neighborhood passing a group of mourners and enters a building where a strange Pentecostal-style service is being held with the preacher motivating the congregation to donate generously with the clear intention to upgrade his car. Harold watches fascinated from the gallery above and is joined by Herman Winesap, who introduces himself, and leads him to meet the client. Angel follows him past a room where a maid in a hooded black veil is scrubbing a massive blood stain from the wall with a ceramic bowl full of bloody water. Winesap casually mentions "One of Pastor John's flock took a gun to his head", while Angel looks on with a hypnotic look on his face. Winesap takes Angel to a separate closed room and introduces Angel to the client, Mr. Louis Cyphre (Robert De Niro). Cyphre is a rather strange and creepy man with a black beard, long hair tied up in a ponytail, long fingernails, a pentagram ring, walking stick, and very calm demeanor. He does not rise up from his chair to shake hands with Angel. He asks for identification. Angel seems uncomfortable with this man and the spinning fans around him and Cyphre takes his time checking the ID, but is satisfied. Angel inquires how they found him, but Cyphre does not give him an answer and Cyphre interrupts with a question "Do you know Johnny Favorite?" Angel explains he is a small time detective, Cyphre pays no attention, and continues to say Favorite's real name was Johnny Liebling and he was a singer and crooner. Winesap explains that Cyphre had a contract with him and that he was involved in an accident with a bombing in North Africa during the war and got amnesia. Cyphre cuts in and asks if Angel was in the war. Angel tells his story that he was, but came back prematurely "a bit fucked up". Apparently, Cyphre just wants to know if his client is alive or dead, and believes that they were deceived at the hospital outside Poughkeepsie, and so they want Angel to "check it out". Cyphre thinks they have met before. Angel acts a little nervous, but is certain they haven't. Angel drives away remembering the conversation points, whistling as he drives, he arrives at the hospital where the singer was supposed to have been. He presents a fake ID card as with the National Institute of Health, and enters to charm the receptionist, and despite her resistance, she shows him the records regarding Jonathan Liebling. He chats casually with the receptionist, and discovers that he was transferred on December 31, 1943. He inspects the report, to notice that signature is in ballpoint, a Dr. Albert Fowler. He observes that in 1943 they did not have ballpoint, and deduces it is a forgery. He asks about the doctor, only to be told that Dr. Fowler only works part-time there. Angel leaves the hospital, drives to a diner, and looks up the address of the doctor; goes to the house and breaks in through the back door. It's a very shabby home unkept and with clothes all over the living room. Inside the house, he finds syringes, a revolver, a Bible in a drawer, and morphine in the fridge. He waits in the dark, as the doctor arrives. The doc makes a bee-line for the fridge, and Angel interrupts him. They chat and the doc does not call the police because of the narcotics in his house. Angel asks about Liebling and the doctor reveals very little, making excuses, and Angel exposes him. Angel gets rough. The doc says that some southern man named Edward Kelly and a young lady took Liebling away. Angel gets pissed off; he wants more details. He finds out that the people that took him went down south and paid Fowler to maintain the pretense he was still at the hospital. Doc says his face was damaged and bandaged up and that he did not know what he looked like. Angel decides that cold turkey would refresh his memory. He locks him in his room. A ventilator fan in the window squeaks. Angel is wondering on the streets in sort of a trance and passes a church as he walks through the snow. A strange voice whispers "Johnny" and "Harry" and he is lured into the church. Two nuns reading the Bible with the door opening and closing look up. He imagines blood dripping in a bowl, similar to what he saw earlier at his meeting with Cyphre, and a trellis elevator doors open. Angel spends his time in a diner chain- smoking; the diner is empty. A piano plays an old song slowly and ominously the same song he was whistling in his car. He finishes his coffee, returns to Dr. Fowler's apartment, and takes some morphine up to the doctor's room, unlocks the door to find the doctor violently murdered, shot in the eye. He lights a match on his shoe, sees the gun from the drawer, and that the Bible concealed bullets. He wipes the flat of prints, and leaves like a thief. The next day, Angel is in the hood and meets Ellie, leaving in a car. He flirts a little and goes to a classy small restaurant to meet with Cyphre. The restaurant is empty. Cyphre does not look amused, he asks about Johnny, and he tells Cyphre that he walked out of the hospital with a man named Edward Kelly and a girl, and the rest of the story as related by the doctor. They chat as Cyphre eats an egg. Cyphre insists Angel find Johnny. Angel tells Cyphre about the doctor and his death, and tries to leave the case since now he is likely a murder suspect, he wants out. Cyphre ups the payment considerably to $5,000 and Angel is interested. Cyphre eats the egg in an almost violent manner staring strangely at Angel, telling him in some cultures the egg is the symbol of the soul. Angel returns to the first church and finds the blood-smeared room clean, and also discovers a strange occult shrine in the same office he and Cyphre had their first meeting at. There is a street procession march, the preacher carried along surrounded by his congregation. Angel observes the shrine, concluding it is obviously occult and deeply disturbing and it's made obvious the church is an evil cult. When he goes into the sanctuary, a hooded, black-veiled woman like he saw earlier cleaning the blood stain off the wall catches his attention. He cautiously approaches her, but is attacked from behind by two goons apparently working for Pastor John. He runs off and is chased into the back alley. He escapes by joining the street procession. The preacher is knocked from his suspended chair and crashes to the ground. Angel arrives at a bar to meet Connie, a young woman who works at the New York Times, who has some photos he needs to collect of Johnny. Later, she tells him what she found. As they undress, she tells him where to find some key people: a rich woman, a jazz player and says that they were all involved in magic. She tells him that Johnny was engaged to a woman known as Margaret Krusemark, who was known in college as "the witch of Wellesley". Angel sarcastically summarizes the case and has a flash memory of soldiers returning from war, a trellis elevator door open, a spiral staircase with someone ascending; feet of a woman who sits down, and a window fan spinning in a hotel room. Angel in his office, at night listens to tape-recorded facts and adds more data about the doctor and about how he tracked down Spider Simpson, and more info about the jazz player, Toots Sweet. Apparently, Johnny had a "secret love", a black woman down south named Evangeline Proudfoot, who ran a "spooky store" in Harlem, and details about Madam Zorra, another person that Johnny saw regularly. On the beach at Coney Island, angel talks to a single man in a deck chair named Izzy, who gives him a nose shield and asks after Madam Zorra, a friend of his wife. Angel asks about Johnny and is directed to Izzy's wife standing in the sea, but gives some more info about the crooner. Angel goes off to talk to the wife, who tells him more about Madam Zorra, that she ran a booth across from hers. She tells Angel that Johnny and she were very close, and that Madame Zorra was actually Margaret Krusemark, and when Margaret closed her booth, she went back home down south. Angel asks if she knows where he can find Johnny, and answers "Nope. Maybe a cemetery." She sings a tune of Favorite. Angel leaves her singing and thanks the man for the nose shield telling him he is headed for Louisiana. Angel arrives in New Orleans, and is hot and sweaty. Street boys tap dance to a brass band, Angel has only a single suitcase, and in a hotel room, changes his shirt. The boys dance outside, as he walks around. Life is calm and Angel takes a tram after spotting a woman board it. He watches her from behind, fascinated with the piano tune he's been whistling playing. She alights and he follows at a distance. He rings the bell to her apartment. Margaret Krusemark (Charlotte Rampling) greets him by name, he enters, early for his appointment. Her apartment is strangely, but beautifully decorated. She takes his details for a horoscope reading, he plays with a curious artifact - a strange knife. Margaret asks if he would like some tea, and asks the maid to prepare it. Angel fiddles around as she questions him. He makes idle chit-chat. The woman relieves the maid. He starts to light a cigarette, but she tells him she'd prefer he didn't smoke. She asks for specific birth details. Angel gives her a birth date, she notices that it is the same as a boy she knew and he approaches the subject directly. He mentions Johnny Favourite, tells her he is investigating, and she tells him he is dead and if he isn't dead, he's dead to her, and tells him to leave. He persists. She throws him out. She reads his palm at the door, he notices her necklace, an inverted pentacle, the same symbol Louis Cyphre has on his ring. Angel visits Mammy Carter's Herb Store and tries to get information about Evangeline Proudfoot, Johnny's secret love. The saleswoman is evasive, but he learns that she knew Evangeline, but she is now dead. Angel leaves with little more than the two High John The Conqueror roots he bought. Angel hires a car for a week, and drives through an outback landscape, this is the home of a poor community. Here he finds Proudfoot's grave. Behind the graveyard, a baby cries, and a woman with a child arrives. Angel recedes into the shadows to watch the woman and changes offerings on the grave, then leaves with her young son. Angel follows her home and watches from a distance. She washes her hair. She is a very beautiful young African-American woman. Angel approaches her and her child starts crying. Angel introduces himself, he wants to talk to the young woman's mother, the young woman's name being Epiphany Proudfoot (Lisa Bonet). She tells him her mother is dead. He asks about Favorite and she knows nothing. Some chickens approach, and Angel is disturbed by them. He then asks about the musician, and Epiphany doesn't say anything. As Angel is about to leave, he gives Epiphany his number. He compliments her. There is chemistry. Angel leaves. Johnny visits a sleazy and sweaty jazz bar in Algiers. The bar is packed, interracial, and the patrons are enjoying the act. Toots Sweets (Brownie McGhee) is the musician. Angel enjoys the gig and at the break follows the singer to the bar. He schmoozes with him, and asks about Favorite. Toots cuts to the chase, he refuses to engage or talk about Johnny. Angel follows him to the men's room. Toots is not impressed, another man leaves and Toots is shocked by a chicken foot left on the sink, Angel grabs the claw and harasses him until a bouncer enters, seeing Angel intimidating Toots and throws him out the back door of the bar, into the trash. Angel waits in his car until Toots leaves, at the end of the night, and follows him into the countryside. It is very late at night. He then watches Toots join ritual dancing, as Angel watches from the bushes. He sees Epiphany dance, slit a chicken's throat, and pour blood over herself, she is in a trance, and even drinks its blood. Angel hurries off. A fan spins slowly in a dark stairwell, Toots ascends the stairs, and at his doorway Angel grabs him but Toots fights back with a razor, and cuts Angel's hand. It gets rough until Angel dominates the old man. He threatens him and tells him he saw the ritual, Toots tells him Epiphany is a priestess. Angel asks what the chicken foot meant. It means Toots has a big mouth. Angel relaxes as he writes his telephone number on paper, which he stuffs in Toot's mouth before he leaves. Angel drops the razor as he descends the stairs and a ventilator fan is spinning slowly in the window with a soft jazz soundtrack of Toots singing. Abruptly, a large trellis elevator opens. Harry enters a dark room in a trance at the foot of the elevator with a hooded, black-veiled woman he's already seen twice in the Harlem church sitting on a church bench, her back to him. He sees the razor on the floor, his cut hand bleeds profusely, his shirt is covered in blood, he approaches the woman, and as he nervously touches her shoulder, he's coming out of a nightmare woken up by two local cops entering his hotel room. They search his stuff, ask him questions, and give him a handwritten note that they found in the hand of Toots Sweet. They tell him that his dick was cut off and stuffed in his mouth and chocked to death on it. They interrogate Angel. He refuses to give them the name of a missing person he's searching for, and tells them to call Winesap. They tell him not to go away until they talk to the lawyer. It is Wednesday, "Anything Can Happen Day." Angel goes to a bar. A musician finishes playing and passes his hat for tips. Angel goes to a phone booth and calls Margaret Krusemark. In the booth mirror he sees scenes of himself in an elevator going down endless floors, a New Year's Eve 1943 with servicemen celebrating, a block of flats, more celebrating, a fan in an apartment block in his flashback earlier, approaching a soldier, and just as a soldier is about to turn around the jazz man interrupts asking if he'd like a tune. There is no answer to the phone call, Angel hangs up. He returns to Margaret's house, kids tap dance outside, a piano repeats a familiar tune that's been heard many times throughout the movie. The door is unlocked, he enters and she is on the floor, with her chest cut wide open. He is revolted, and finds the knife he was fingering earlier. He searches through her stuff, and finds a mummified hand in a cardboard box on the dresser amongst other vials and strange jewelry. The kid outside tap dances. He leaves that room to continue his search. The kid dances. Angel finds her severed heart, he gags. The kid stops dancing. Angel walks past a church and into the bar shaken up and feeling hopeless. A fan spins slowly, a piano plays a familiar tune. Local hillbilly people rejoice in a river at a baptism, they look inbred. Overhead Angel drives across the river, behind him a pickup truck follows. He notices and stops his car on the side of the road, the truck stops too. He approaches some fishermen. The men in the truck follow and unleash a dog, it attacks his leg. He fights it off, the men then attack him with a baseball bat, and tell him to leave immediately, by the order of Ethan Krusemark, Margaret's father. An old school bus stops on a dusty road, people alight, one being Epiphany, she finds Angel sitting on a box by the roadside and asks and he tells her that he got bitten. He tells her he watched her ritual, it doesn't phase her. He tells her about Toots, she knows. He thinks she set him up. Turns out it was she who sent the chicken foot. She denies the setup and murder. She asks about Favorite, Angel counter questions and discovers Johnny Favorite was her father. She talks to a neighbor about keeping her child, then returns to tell him that Johnny never returned from the war and that her mom died waiting. Angel flirts with her. She glances back at him as she walks away. In a dark-arched courtyard of a residential hotel, Angel arrives and is given a message by the concierge. He walks past a young girl to ascend the stairs. A church choir sings and an altar boy prepares the Bible. Angel enters and walks through the church to the back of the sanctuary, to meet with Cyphre. They chat. He asks about the progress. Angel tells him that he found loads of stuff but still no Favorite, and 3 murders: the Doctor, Toots and Margaret. He is freaked out by the weird religiosity going around. He tells him that Favorite was not liked. and that the police are investigating him. Cyphre asks about the last murder. Angel tells him about Margaret, and that he is fed up with the case, and all of the vagueness. And that he is getting set up by Johnny, who he thinks is killing all the people he once knew. Cyphre acts political and evasive like he did in their first two meetings and just wants the debt settled because of his old=fashioned ideals like "an eye for an eye", but Angel is not having it. Cyphre offers more money, but Angel refuses, the stakes are getting too high. He wants out. He goes back to his room. It is raining heavily and Epiphany is sitting outside waiting. They have a drink. The apartment is leaking badly. Angel tells her that he thinks that Johnny was a creep - he asks more about him, she tells him that her mother thought Favorite was as close to true evil as she wanted to come and that he was a great lover. Epiphany says she is 17. Angel asks about the father of her son. They laugh about the state of the leaky room, she talks about witchcraft and getting pregnant. Then Epiphany puts on some music and invites him to dance. He declines, only to repeal. He picks her up and they dance. She kisses him. They lay down. The rain pours. She straddles him. The rain gets harder. They make passionate love. The rain is pouring in the room, and the water turns red. She screams and it turns to blood. It gets very violent and intercut with voodoo ritual, going down an elevator, hooded black-veiled woman cleaning a bloody mess off the wall of the room with a fan in the window, and Winesap being decapitated by a fan. A fabrication. They orgasm. Angel immediately gets up and punches a shaving mirror. The cops return knocking. He exits in a towel. They are tracing the new death of Margaret. They are racist and state that Krusemark comes from a white family of money. Angel brushes them off. They want to know who he is seeking. He insults them. They get pissed off. The cops leave. He returns to his room, she is now in the bath singing the words to the familiar piano piece that's been playing throughout the movie. He asks after the tune, "a tune by Favorite" her mother always sang to her. She continues. Angel looks at himself in the broken mirror. He walks down the street, and sees the pickup truck from before, is watching him. He quickly approaches, attacks the seated driver. The passenger runs off, Angel gives chase. The driver recovers and follows after them. Angel is lead into a stable. The passenger starts shooting. The horses go frantic, the driver sets a dog free, the dogs attacks only to be kicked by the horse, which then gets shot and falls on Angel. He is trapped but struggles free, he escapes by running through a chicken coup. A group of hicks gather skinning animals. A rough horse race starts, someone points Angel to an elderly man. The man asks what he wants. Angel knows that the two men in the pickup are his men. The man tries to pay him off to reveal who Angel is working for. Angel tells him the facts he knows concerning his part in the release of Johnny Favorite, he is Margaret Krusemark's father (Stocker Fontelieu). The man gets nervous, they go into a kitchen and have a drink where is it private. He confesses it was him, the Edward Kelly pseudonym that paid the doctor. He tells Angel that he and his daughter dropped Johnny in a crowd of people on New Years Eve of 1943. Angel fidgets with blocks of ice. The man tells Angel about Margaret's voodoo stuff and that he witnessed Favorite conjure up Satan, he is a devoted Satanist, and that says that Favorite sold his soul to Satan for fame. Angel gets really mad, personally worked up, and starts yelling, "Who was the boy?" He tells him that Toots and Johnny took an innocent man, a soldier, and conjured complex stuff, and then Johnny ate his heart to deceive the devil on New Year's Eve of 1942. He planned to vanish for a while and return as the sacrificed boy. Though the ritual had worked, Johnny was drafted before he could work things out and after he came back home and in the hospital, Ethan and Margaret dropped him off in Time's Square exactly one year later on New Year's Eve 1943 when Johnny was apparently recovering from amnesia and still had a bandaged face. It was Margaret's idea to drop him off in Times Square to jog his memory, but he disappeared, they never saw Johnny again, and he was presumed dead afterwards. Angel runs into the toilet to vomit. Then looking in the mirror, he has flashbacks, the ones he's been having repeatedly with the hotel window fan, the hooded black-veiled figure scrubbing blood off the walls, and the New Year's Eve celebration in Time's Square. The toilet door supernaturally slams closed while Angel is looking in the mirror and screaming, and when Angel exits he finds Krusemark face first in a cauldron of boiling gumbo. Angel takes off frightened. Angel hastens back to Margaret's apartment, rushes upstairs, and enters searching frantically for something her father had mentioned, a vase that had the dog tags of the sacrificed boy. He ransacks the drawers, breaking and smashing everything. Finally, he finds the vase, it contains dog tags. The tags read "Harold Angel" with the birthdate February 14, 1918. Angel screams in disbelief screaming "I know who I am"! Cyphre appears sitting in a chair, smiling with his hair long and unbunned and fingernails longer than ever, in the apartment. Louis Cyphre IS Lucifer. Angel tells him that he is not scared of him, and that he knows he is being set up, a frame. He did not kill anyone, he names the dead people. And Cyphre addresses him as Johnny, and contradicts saying that he DID kill them and that he has been living on borrowed time for the past 12 years in the real Harry Angel's memories. Angel threatens to call the lawyer, Cyphre smirks saying Winesap is already dead, making it apparent the hallucination Angel had of Winesap being decapitated was real. Cyphre continues to say only the soul is important, and that his belongs to him. Cyphre picks up a record and a gun. He plays the record with the song of Johnny singing "Girl of My Dreams", the tune that has played throughout the movie, takes the dog tags, and leaves Angel to recall the details of how he murdered each of the people. He still refuses to accept the truth. The last person that flashes before him is Epiphany. He runs off through the rain. He arrives at his own hotel room. A hooded, black-veiled figure that has appeared in the Harlem church and flashbacks is sitting outside the door. It is a clean-shaven Louis Cyphre in disguise. The police are inside. Epiphany is dead, bleeding from the groin on his bed. The detective asks who she is. Angel says that she is his daughter. The cop does not believe it. The cop reads the dog tags around her neck and says that she surely isn't "Angel, Harold". The other cops bring out his grandson from the joining room and tell him "You're gonna burn for this, Angel". He replies, "I know... In hell". The baby's eyes glow orange as he points at Angel, making it evident Epiphany was impregnated by Satan himself. Credits roll An elevator's doors close and it descends. Details of the descent are intercut by credits. Angel dressed in a smart suit is the passenger. It finally stops at the bottom, deep below. Harry stands behind the latticed gates. A heartbeat goes silent. The end.

A young man nicknamed Birdy (Matthew Modine) is sitting on the floor of his barren psychiatric hospital room. He seems in an almost comatose state. In another hospital, conscious U.S. Army Sergeant Alfonso 'Al' Columbato (Nicolas Cage), with his face heavily bandaged, is being wheeled on a stretcher to his dormitory styled room, where the orderlies transfer him to his bed. Later, the doctor is examining him, they talking about Al's facial injuries, when the bandages are going to be removed, and the likelihood of success of the completed reconstructive surgery. Apparently Al is leaving the hospital soon. Al is on a train, trying to find a place to sit down. He places his bag on the overhead rack and sits opposite a woman and her adolescent daughter. The girl can't help but stare at the heavily face-bandaged Al, who in turn notices her looking and feels her discomfort. To break the ice, Al says "boo" to her, and she smiles knowingly. Her mother matter-of-factly tells her not to stare. Al begins to think about his friend Birdy, who most have always thought weird. [Flashback to their high school days in South Philadelphia] In a large field sandwiched within a residential neighborhood, Al is playing in a pick-up game of softball. When he's up at bat, he hits a fly ball into the backyard of a house. He swears when he sees where it landed. The woman in the backyard picks up the ball. The kids know that the woman won't give them the ball back, she who doesn't and tells them to go play somewhere else. That woman is Birdy's mother (Dolores Sage), who has kept balls from them before. Birdy's father (George Buck), who is also working in the backyard, tells his wife to return the ball, she who refuses and walks away with ball in hand. Without another ball, the kids are forced to stop playing and they disperse. As Al begins to walk away, he sees Birdy sitting in a tree, he who looks back. They say nothing to each other. Al is making out with a girl under some bleachers. As he tries to take her clothes off, she resists, while they still kiss. Al's younger brother Mario Columbato (James Santini) comes by looking for Al. As Al tells Mario to get lost, Mario tells him that "the weird kid" is just down the street. Swearing about having to stop making out, Al goes with Mario. They end up at Birdy's house, Birdy who is sitting on the stoop of the front porch working on something with cooing pigeons in a cage next to him. Al calls him bird boy. Birdy says nothing. Al asks him if he has a knife to remove a splinter from his hand. Birdy hands over a pocket knife. Al tells Birdy the knife belongs to Mario. Birdy grabs the knife back and runs away as Al chases him. As they struggle, Birdy manages to elude Al while grabbing his cage. During the scuffle, Al learns that Birdy didn't steal the knife but got it from whoever did steal it. Al is incensed with Mario for not telling him that fact. Al lets Birdy keep the knife. Not knowing its true origins, Birdy offers the knife back to Mario. Al grabs it and hands it back to Birdy. Al tells Mario that he'll get him another knife. The athletic Al is interested in Birdy's natural wrestling ability, which he noticed during the scuffle. Birdy in turns asks if Al is interested in pigeons. Birdy's fascination with them is partly because of their ability to fly. Al becomes interested when Birdy tells him he's training them to become carrier pigeons. As Birdy walks away down the street, Al chases after him offering to help Birdy catch some pigeons. They end up at a railway overpass where some pigeons are taking off and landing. Birdy relates to Al the routinized behavior of the birds. The two boys climb up onto the frame support of the overpass, precariously over the busy traffic below. Al is nervous, but Birdy seems within his element. Birdy easily catches one of the pigeons just before a train rolls by which scares the remaining birds off to flight. Birdy and Al are shown in short succession catching more pigeons, transporting those birds in cages on their bicycles, and building a large wooden aviary. Al takes one of the birds and throws it up in the air. The pigeon flies back to the aviary. The boys are excited that the pigeon goes where they want it. Later, they release a flock of pigeons from a faraway dock. The pigeons fly back to their "home" in the aviary. Al goes to the aviary to do some work. As he goes about his work with the pigeons, he yells out for Birdy, knowing that Birdy is somewhere in the aviary. Birdy emerges covered in feathers. He is wearing a pigeon suit he made so that the pigeons will think he's one of them. Birdy wants Al to try the suit. Al doesn't want to, he who is scared to look stupid wearing a bird suit. Later that evening, Al, wearing the suit and feeling embarrassed, and Birdy, wearing another suit, are at a secured gas well site climbing to the top of the tower. Against Al's wishes, Birdy is hanging over the side collecting pigeons while Al holds his legs. Al slips, letting go of Birdy's legs. Birdy falls over the side, but manages to grab hold of the side of the tower instead of falling to the ground. A scared Al tries to get a hold of Birdy, who seems nonplussed at his predicament. Birdy sees a sand-pile below and tells Al he's going to fly down. As Al screams for Birdy not to do it, Birdy lets go. Al runs down the stairs to the sand-pile where he finds a slightly dazed Birdy, who says that he flew and it was beautiful. Al, still scared as he's unaware if Birdy is injured, hugs his friend as a police car approaches. [Forward to present day] At the hospital, Birdy is staring into space, while Al looks at him through the window in the door. Major Weiss (John Harkins), Birdy's doctor, asks for Al's assessment of Birdy. Al doesn't think he looks good and asks in return if that is all Birdy does i.e. stare into space. The doctor replies affirmatively, stating that he suffered minor physical injuries but that his main problem is something psychological. All they know is that Birdy was MIA for a month in Vietnam and when found they didn't know who he was for a while. Birdy has not spoken since he was found. Al learns that Birdy's mother was the one who suggested to the doctor to bring him here. The major hopes the visit will do both Al and Birdy some good. The major takes Al back to his office to show him photos of Birdy taken while at the hospital - they are all of Birdy in crouched positions, generally of him nude. After questioning, Al tells him that they are close and crazy friends but not queer. They talk about Al's own injuries, the casualties of the war but the fact that the military takes care of its own. The major suggests that Al go and visit with Birdy now. Renaldi (Bruno Kirby) is to be his guide. Renaldi, an orderly who does almost everything needed for the patients, takes Al to see other patients doing some physical therapy of manual hand dexterity. Renaldi ended up doing this work as a conscientious objector. As Renaldi unlocks Birdy's door, Birdy, startled and crouched on the floor, turns around. Al enters and makes some wisecracks. Birdy registers no acknowledgment. Al continues speaking about life back in South Philadelphia when they were kids, about his own injuries, and the war. Al ultimately asks him point blank what happened to him. As Al approaches, Birdy turns away. A civilian nurse named Hannah Rourke (Karen Young) enters, surprised to see Al there. As Al tells her who he is, she now remembers hearing stories of his arrival. She is the only one who Birdy will allow feed him, although this time he is not cooperating. As Hannah lets Al out of the room, Birdy turns his head to look skyward toward the window. [Flashback to their high school years] Birdy is on an examining table in the hospital, being checked for physical injuries while Al, off in the distance still wearing the pigeon suit, looks on. He tells another waiting patient that Birdy has a broken leg and perhaps a broken back, the latter which he hopes isn't the case as that can make one crazy, although Birdy is a bit crazy already. Birdy's parents are dismantling the aviary and burning the wood, while Al, reading in the newspaper of Birdy's fall, looks on, he who is more interested in the story. The pigeons that were in the aviary fly away. Al talks to a recovered Birdy about that being the end of their bird adventures, while Birdy is convinced that the pigeons will still return despite his mother having destroyed the actual structure of the aviary. Al admits that the birds did come back, but Birdy's mother poisoned some, and the others she got the local butcher to come take away for food. Birdy concedes to Al's wishes of going into a different venture together. [Forward to present day] Birdy is lying on his hospital room floor in a crucifixion position. Al, elsewhere in the hospital, is smoking and contemplating life. Later, Birdy is crouched on the floor next to the toilet, naked, staring upward. Birdy is remembering a story told by Al of a statue atop city hall that looks like it has an erection. Birdy grins slightly. [Flashback to high school years] Birdy is naked sitting on the floor of a large cage, feeling what it's like to be a caged pigeon. [Forward to present day] Birdy is still crouched in his hospital room. Shadows of birds can been seen through the window. Still, Birdy registers no acknowledgment. [Flashback to high school years] Al and Birdy are looking at a car in a junk yard, the car which they end up buying. With Al behind the steering wheel, Birdy pushes the car off the yard. As Al and Birdy work on the car, Mr. Columbato (Sandy Baron) arrives home, telling the boys the car is a piece of shit. Al curses his father under his breath. Al, behind the wheel, nervously turns the key in the ignition while Birdy, in the passenger seat, looks on. After a few sputtered attempts, the ignition rolls for a split second, to which Al and Birdy hug each other excitedly. They mockingly pretend they are off on a drive, Al speaking of driving to the ocean, to which Birdy replies that he's never been. Birdy is jumping out of the ocean waves in Atlantic City. Birdy likens the experience to flying in thick air. As Birdy dives under the water again, Al curses as he wants to party on the boardwalk instead. After several seconds, Birdy does not surface. A worried Al yells for Birdy, but can't do anything about it as Al doesn't know how to swim. Al, Birdy and their dates Shirley (Sandra Beall) and Rosanne (Elizabeth Whitcraft) are on a miniature roller coaster. Birdy is half standing up, flapping his arms like a bird. As they wander around the amusement park, Al is interested in the girls while Birdy sees them more as a distraction. They stop at the underwater merman, Birdy who wonders how he can hold his breath so long. Later, Al and Shirley are noisily having sex in the grass, while Birdy and Rosanne, nearby, make small talk. After a few seconds, Rosanne can no longer stand being with the "weird" Birdy and yanks Shirley away from the sex to head off. Birdy is nonplussed, while Al is angry. At the beach the next day, Birdy is flapping his arms like a bird jumping around, while Al yells to him that he has to learn to get along with girls in a normal way, which means no bird talk. They argue about the female form, Birdy seeing women's breasts as no more than enlarged mammary glands, whereas Al sees beauty. A policeman approaches them, asking if the 1953 Ford is their car. At the police station, Al and Birdy are behind bars waiting for Al's parents to show up. Birdy is pacing while Al is calm. The Columbatos arrive to pick up the boys. As Al gets to the car, Mr. Columbato slaps him hard across the face. Al winces and starts to cry. Birdy asks what birds looking down must think of their lives. Mr. Columbato is angry at the banter, at the boys and the fact that the car engine won't start. The four are then seen from a bird's eye view. [Forward to present day] Al is let into Birdy's hospital room, the door locked behind him. Birdy is crouched on the floor and Al sits across from him. Al starts having a conversation with himself, speaking both his and Birdy's parts. He stops the dialogue and yells at Birdy to talk to him. Al tells Birdy he knows he's finally a bird and that it's no big deal, except that he will be used as a medical case history forever. Birdy turns his head and looks out the window. It's a heavily overcast day with a glint of sunshine filtering through the clouds. [Flashback to high school years] It's a rainy day and Birdy is headed to see Mrs. Prevost (Nancy Fish) who sells birds out of her house. Birds are flying everywhere in the room. Birdy takes a liking to a yellow canary which he buys. He names her Birda. Al and Birdy are moving what looks to be a large pair of wings. They're discussing the fact that Mr. Columbato sold their car, which Birdy wants. Al tries to dissuade him from talking to Mr. Columbato as Al knows his father will beat Birdy if he makes a fuss about the car. Birdy confronts Mr. Columbato about the issue. They argue long and hard about it. Mr. Columbato, at the end of his rope, at least offers the money back to Birdy. That's not the point to Birdy, but Mrs. Columbato makes Birdy take the money. A dejected Birdy takes the money, walks away and gives the entire wad of cash to Al as Birdy doesn't want the money, just the car. [Forward to present day] Al is admiring the fact that Birdy stood up to Mr. Columbato, something Al himself could never do. Al, confused about their current life, gets up to leave but not before giving Birdy a caress on the cheek. There is no reaction from Birdy. With the door locked, Al pounds on the door and yells for Renaldi to unlock it. As Renaldi rushes to unlock the door for Al, Birdy registers some fear from the knocking. Al yells out for Birdy as he reminisces about being in the jungle in Vietnam. Al wakens from a nightmare. He is in the hospital and Renaldi rushes over to him. Al is almost out of breath, but Renaldi sees it is a panic attack and nothing physically wrong. Major Weiss' secretary is taking some information from Al regarding Al himself for the major. The secretary is constantly spitting. Al is confused about why they need his personal medical history. Although the officer has not yet collected all the information, Weiss calls Al into his office with the secretary bringing in Al's file. Al's first question is about the secretary's spitting. Weiss replies that he has been that way since combat, which left a bad taste in his mouth. Al learns that Weiss wants his information as he wants to know who he's dealing with. Weiss reads about some insubordination on Al's part while in Vietnam, specifically a physical attack on a senior officer. Al gets the topic back to Birdy. They talk about the car, and the fact that Al's father reported it stolen when the boys drove it to Atlantic City. Weiss yells at Al for his wisecrack remarks. Weiss tells him that wise-crackers like him and Birdy usually end up institutionalized forever, but Al is certain that with time he can get through to his friend. Before Al leaves the room, he lies to the Major about his feelings toward his father in general and about the incident with the car. As Hannah caresses Birdy's face, Al tries to feed him. Birdy starts to eat. Hannah has to leave and asks Al to finish feeding Birdy. After Hannah leaves, Al tells Birdy that he thinks she likes him. Al then tells him to stop the act as it's making him crazy and might risk his life being institutionalized forever. Birdy stops eating but starts staring at Al. He's not sure if it is recognition or not. [Flashback to high school years] Birdy is lying in bed, playing with a mechanical bird he made. Birda flies onto his arm. After playing with her, he places her in the aviary he's built under his bed. Birdy's father comes into his room and tells him to go to sleep at it's 3 o'clock in the morning. Birdy's mom yells the same off from the distance. Birdy's father turns off the light and closes the door. Birda chirps. In class, Birdy is giving a verbal presentation on birds using his mechanical bird as a demonstration. The class is most enthralled with aspects of flying as they watch the mechanical bird fly around the room. Laughter erupts when the bird hits the window and crashes. As Birdy picks up the bird, one girl, Doris Robinson (Maude Winchester) gives Birdy a loving look which he notices. Later, Al mentions Doris' look to Birdy. Birdy doesn't seem interested in pursuing anything with Doris. Birdy heads to the school's basement to talk to his father who works there as a janitor. Birdy wants him to talk to his mother about letting him have a male canary to mate with Birda. Birdy's dad isn't so sure it's a good idea. He feels Birdy's mom thinks that canaries and Al as a friend won't get him far in life. He likens it to his own growing up situation, Birdy's dad's passion which was building things out of wicker. Birdy's dad and mom want to get him interested in something practical. But Birdy really wants this second canary, so Birdy's dad gives in to the idea of at least broaching the issue with his mom. Back in Birdy's bedroom, there are two canaries flying around, Birda in the general aviary, the male in a cage in the aviary. This will allow the two to get familiar with each other without having physical interaction until they are comfortable with each other. Al enters the room and notices the second bird. Birdy has named it Alfonso as it likes to fight and show off. Both Al and Birdy are enthralled watching the two. When Birdy starts making canary noises, Al looks at him like he's crazy. Al and Birdy are in Birdy's back yard lifting weights. Birdy is face down flapping his arms and legs mimicking flying. Birdy's mom tells them they're crazy. Al's retort is that she's crazy for hiding their baseballs. They surmise she's buried them somewhere. An alarm goes off. They've been weightlifting for an hour. Birdy admits he's doing this weightlifting so that he can fly. Al and Birdy are at the garbage dump. Birdy is saving a gull from a rat snake. As Birdy picks up the bird to let it fly away, he gets a stick to stab the snake to death. Al wants them to get on with their task as it smells there, but Birdy is in no hurry as he paces off a distance. Al is on Birdy's bike, while Birdy, who has just put on his home made wings, sits on the bike's handlebars. Birdy is certain this venture will work. Al starts pedaling as fast as he can. Birdy starts flapping his wings. Just before the drop-off, Al stops which propels Birdy into the air. Birdy takes flight for a fraction of a second before he starts to plummet to the ground. He lands in a cesspool below. Al rushes down to him as the weight of the wings is submerging Birdy under the shallow water. Birdy, not knowing what went wrong, is otherwise OK. [Forward to present day] Al is back in Birdy's hospital room. Al makes a joke about their relationship. Birdy smiles, which Al notices. Later Al tells Weiss about the smile. Weiss believes the smile is dissociative to the joke. Weiss, frustrated with Al, says that Birdy is more responsive to drug treatment than to him. Al yells back that the drugs are making Birdy not who he is. Weiss, Al's superior officer, won't tolerate Al's insubordination like he is aware Al is apt to be as he read through in his file. Al apologizes if only to be able to help Birdy. Weiss suggests that Al is no longer needed and that he should return to Fort Dix. As Weiss walks off, Al suggests one other thing from the past that may twig some memory in Birdy: the missing baseballs. He wants the army to ask Birdy's mom to send the baseballs. Weiss agrees to extend Al's visit until he can check about the baseballs. Al enters a gymnasium in the hospital where a wheelchair bound patient is dribbling and shooting hoops. Al claps in appreciation. The patient asks Al to join in. Al declines to go lift weights instead. He watches another legless man climbing rope. Al reminisces about how the war has been so different than they imagined it would be, and how immature they have been. As he continues his reminiscences, he goes to see that Hannah is giving Birdy a bath. [Flashback to high school years] Al and Birdy are in a truck with Joe Sagessa (Robert L. Ryan) who catches stray dogs and sells them. The guys want in on the business to make money. They spot a dog. They stop and get their equipment to catch the dog, Joe with a large hoop net, the boys with a large loose net. As they approach the dog, they see a herd of other dogs off in the distance. They all smell a war. As Joe tries to catch the original dog, it runs off, the other dogs fast on their tail. The guys get back into the truck to chase after the entire herd. They believe they have the dogs cornered against a chain link fence. They manage to catch most of the dogs and put them in the cage in the back of the truck. They drive off with the dogs, Joe telling them that he will deal with the dogs' disposal. Then a car approaches them from the side. The angry driver yells that his dog is in the back of Joe's truck. The angry driver tries to side swipe the truck. As the chase continues, Joe won't stop as he says they're almost at their destination: an abattoir, where the animals are electrocuted. The angry driver gets there just after the guys, the angry driver clamoring to get his dog back. Birdy attacks Joe and yells to Al to let the dogs go. Al unlocks the cage as the dogs run out. The angry driver is able to get his dog and he drives off. Al and Birdy run off away from an angry Joe. [Forward to present day] Hannah is still giving Birdy his bath. Al watches through the door window. Birdy is remembering back to a time in his past when a cat was approaching. He starts to thrash around in the bathtub scared. Hannah does not know why Birdy is in this scared state. [Flashback to high school years] Birdy is in his kitchen, washing a picture frame in the sink. He sees that specific cat outside, not really paying it much attention. Unknown to him, the cat makes it into the house and up into his bedroom. Finished his task in the kitchen, Birdy heads up to his room, but not before his mother complains about the birds attracting lice. In his room, he sees the cat with Birda in its mouth. Birdy lunges at the cat and tries to pry its mouth open. An angry Birdy manages to do so and grab the injured Birda as the cat runs off. Birdy has Birda cupped in his hands, caressing it. She isn't moving. All of a sudden, she begins to move, gets up and flies off. An excited Birdy watches her fly around the room. [Forward to present day] Birdy is staring out the window. Al, in the room, tells his friend that he won't give up on him. He admits he almost told Weiss about Birdy's flying. Al grabs Birdy off the floor, violently pushes him up against the wall, and yells at him to snap out of his condition. Al throws him back down on the floor and tells him to at least be consistent: he may try to act like a bird, but everything he is now doing is not bird-like. Hannah enters with a tray of food. Al continues to taunt Birdy, who is obviously reacting. Hannah yells at Al to stop, cradling a scared Birdy in her arms, but Al knows that he's tapped into something in Birdy's psyche. Al yells at Hannah about her inopportune entrance as he storms out of the room. Hannah follows Al into another private room and she sympathetically apologizes to him about the argument that just occurred. Al begins to feel her breasts and they start to kiss. Al quickly stops what he's doing, thinking more about how they can help Birdy than about the tenderness of the current situation. Al walks off leaving an emotional Hannah behind. Al goes into the bathroom, turns on the light and stares in the mirror. He begins to examine underneath the bandages on his face. It's dusk and Birdy, in his room, is naked, perched on the bed's foot-board like a bird. [Flashback to high school years] Birdy is staring at one of the canaries in its cage. It's nighttime, and a large shadow of a flapping bird is on the side of the building. Birdy, in over voice, is telling of his dream, where he and Birda become one. Birdy suddenly awakens from his dream. He looks down and realizes he's had a wet dream. He grabs a towel and wipes himself off. Birdy is examining the eggs Birda has laid as one begins to hatch. He realizes that what is happening is nature at work, but he is still amazed at the magic occurring before him, when all he did was put two birds together and feed them. He now has four canaries. All he now cares about is what is happening in his room in the aviary. Scenes cut between present day, with Birdy still perched like a bird on the foot-board of his hospital room bed, and his high school days, specifically focusing on the baby canaries. Birdy, in voice over, tells how the babies seem to know their place in the world. [Flashback to high school years] The phone is ringing. Birdy's mom enters his room, where Birdy, in only his briefs, is sitting on a chair, staring off into space. It's Doris on the phone, wanting to go to the prom with Birdy. Birdy's mom swears she'll kill him if he doesn't go with Doris rather than waste his time alone in his room as usual. She tells him to get rid of the birds as she leaves the room. At the prom, Birdy and Doris are slow dancing. Birdy seems to be in another world which a confused Doris notices. Al, dancing next to them, mimics for Birdy to take some romantic actions with Doris. Cutting to a fast song, they are still dancing. Birdy sees his father off in the distance. Birdy leaves to look for his father and leaves a confused and slightly embarrassed Doris to dance by herself. Birdy finds his father in one of the school's hallways, he who is mopping the floor. Birdy's father gives him a little money to take "his pretty girl" out somewhere after the dance. As Birdy's father heads off, Birdy tells him matter-of-factly that she's not his girl. Doris drives Birdy into a packed but quiet parking lot. She turns off the motor and sidles closer to Birdy. She thanks him for the wrist corsage, which she will keep as a memento. As she extends her hand out, Birdy removes the corsage. She also thanks him for taking her to the prom, which she knows he didn't want to do, but as a thank you, he can now have what he wants. She begins to remove the bodice of her dress, exposing her bare breasts. Birdy feels one of the breasts, more like it's a ball than part of a woman he wants to make love to. He stops. She again feels embarrassed, and pulls her dress back on, apologizing. They look into another car and see a couple making out. They wonder how they do it. As they are about to drive off, Doris makes it clear she wants to go out on another date. Birdy says he'll see her in school, not quite realizing that is not what she was asking. Birdy enters his bedroom. After he closes the door behind him, he begins to slowly disrobe. Totally naked, Birdy enters the aviary and crouches on the floor as he watches the canaries. He eventually lies down and one of the birds lands on his shoulder. He slowly grabs Birda in his hands, and brings it to his mouth as he begins to gently kiss her. In a semi-conscious state, he starts dreaming that there are several birds around him. He wants to tell Al of his dreams but is afraid to. There is nothing left in the real world to keep him alive. He wants to die and be born again as a bird. Still in an unconscious but excited state, he imagines himself flying around his room, then throughout the house, then around outside in the neighborhood, finally hovering over the make-shift baseball diamond. [Forward to present day] Al brings Birdy a tray of food. As Al tries to feed him, Birdy does not respond. Al apologizes for his behavior from before. Al leaves the tray of food next to Birdy, but before he leaves, he tells Birdy that he has to come back to reality. [Flashback to Vietnam] As a helicopter flies overhead, Al and another soldier are in a swampy area below. The other soldier, screaming, is badly wounded. Al yells into the distance that the soldier has been hit as more soldiers run toward them. As they approach, a bomb explodes. Screaming, Al grabs his bloodied face in agony. [Forward to present day] Al, crying, goes back to Birdy's room and stares at him through the door window. Al sits on the floor outside the door in a bad state. [Flashback to Vietnam] The helicopter lands. Several wounded soldiers, including Al, are helped onto the helicopter. [Forward to present day] Al, asleep, is lying on the floor outside of Birdy's room. Renaldi comes by with a suitcase. Al asks what it is. Renaldi replies that he doesn't know but that it came from Birdy's mother. An excited Al brings the suitcase into Birdy's room. He thinks the baseballs will get a reaction from Birdy. As Al opens the suitcase, the baseballs roll all over the floor. Birdy, lying on the floor, has no reaction. A disappointed Al starts to kick the balls in frustration, knowing that his own mental state is tenuous and if Weiss really knew what was going on in his head, he too would be institutionalized. He tells Birdy that he is more scared now than he was in the war, where he was more scared than anyone he knew there. Al sits down among the balls in frustration. [Flashback to high school years] Al enters Birdy's bedroom looking for him. He sees Birdy naked on the floor of the aviary. Al believes that Birdy's undressed state has something to do with having a good time with Doris. As Birdy starts to get dressed, Al asks for details about Doris. Instead, Birdy tells Al about his experience with flying last night, not like a bird, but as a bird. Angry, Al tells Birdy to stop these stupid fantasies as he storms out of the room. [Forward to present day] Still amidst the baseballs, Al apologizes to Birdy for saying those things about Birdy's flying and storming out. Weiss enters. Al gets up, takes Weiss outside the room and tells him the baseballs are working but that he needs a little more time. Weiss disagrees as Birdy is deteriorating. Al's time is up. [Flashback to high school years] Birdy is in his bedroom looking out the window to Al who is wearing an army uniform and carrying a duffel bag as he walks away. One of the canaries crawls under the open crack of the window and flies outside. Birdy yells for it to come back as it flies around outside. Birdy is madly trying to pry the window fully open without success. As Birdy continues trying to get the window open, the canary comes back and smashes into the closed window as Birdy screams. Birdy grabs the bird from the windowsill and caresses it in his hands. Its neck appears to be broken. Birdy weeps. Al is running down to street and boards a bus as it takes off. Birdy is in a fetal position on the floor of his bedroom. He is still in tears. [Flashback to Vietnam] A helicopter is flying over the jungle. Aboard are several soldiers, including an injured one screaming in pain. Birdy is aboard. The helicopter crashes. In the aftermath, there seems to be few if any survivors except an injured Birdy, who is sitting, leaning against a fallen tree. He sees a tropical bird and points up at it. A flock of birds fly overhead. There is a sound of a jet. A bomb is dropped within close vicinity. Much of the jungle goes up in flames. Although not directly in the flames, Birdy screams in a panic. He continues screaming as more birds fly overhead. There are several dead soldiers in the immediate area. [Forward to present day] Birdy is on the floor of his room crying. Al walks over to him, holds his head and tells him it's OK. Hannah enters the room. She is there as Weiss asked for Al as he should now leave the institution for good. Al is on the floor, with Birdy in his arms. Al refuses to leave until Birdy is OK. After Hannah leaves to tell Weiss, Al confesses to Birdy that they are both in a bad mental state and that life has got the better of them. Al wanted to do whatever he wanted to do in life, but that the authorities in charge will now dictate what happens to them. Al remembers back to when he was injured and the different feelings he had in being able to smell his burning flesh and not being able to do anything about it. He is scared that he won't recognize himself once the bandages are removed, and in not recognizing himself if he has lost his sense of who he is. He believes he may now be what the army wants him to be. As Al now wants to hide underneath the bandages forever, he understands that what Birdy is now doing

At the New York School for Performing Arts, a group of teens and young adults audition for admission, seeking to achieve their goal of 'fame'. Opening at the auditions, seven very different young people are chosen to be accepted into the academy. They include: drama student Doris Finsecker (Maureen Teefy), who longs to be a famous actress on stage and screen; drama student Raul Garcia (Barry Miller), who goes by the name Ralph Garcey to hide being Puerto Rican, and wants to have a career on stage; multi-talented Coco Hernandez (Irene Cara), who is seeking a varied career in drama, music, and dance; Leroy Johnson (Gene Anthony Ray), a troubled youth from a rough crime-ridden neighborhood who may have what it takes to be a dancer; Montgomery MacNeil (Paul McCrane), another drama student who hopes to be a world-famous actor; Bruno Martelli (Lee Curreri), a music student seeking to make it big; and Lisa Monroe (Laura Dean), another dance student. During the auditions, several of the teachers review the applicants. They include the music teacher Mr. Shorofsky (Albert Hague); English and reading teacher Mrs. Sherwood (Anne Meara); dance and ballet teacher Miss Berg (Joanna Merlin); drama teacher Mr. Farrel (Jim Moody); and dance teacher and former dancer Ms. Grant (Debbie Allen). Afterward come four years among the students and teachers, whose lives unfold in four separate segments, each encompassing several months. FRESHMAN YEAR The new students learn on the first day of classes that academics are weighted equally with performance. Leroy clashes with Mrs. Sherwood in English class over his reluctance to learn every new topic. The naive and innocent Doris is overwhelmed by the energy and spontaneity in the lunchroom and flees, meeting Montgomery. Doris and Montgomery become friends, and Doris worries that she's too ordinary against the colorful personalities of the other students. As the year progresses, Coco tries to convince Bruno to book performing gigs with her. During a night on the town, Coco tells Bruno of her belief that she's "doing my last dance on this dark little planet", so it has to be spectacular. Leroy and Mrs. Sherwood continue to clash over Leroy's refusal to do homework. She eventually discovers that Leroy is illiterate and is too ashamed to admit it to anyone. Meanwhile, Bruno and his working-class taxi driver father (Eddie Barth) argue over Bruno's reluctance to play his music publicly over his stage fright. One day in ballet class, Miss Berg warns Lisa she is not working hard enough. Graduating senior Michael (Boyd Gaines) wins a prestigious scholarship, and before he leaves the academy, he tells Doris that the William Morris Agency wants to send him out for auditions for television pilots. SOPHOMORE YEAR Hilary van Doren (Antonia Franceschi) joins the school, and she and Coco clash over Leroy wanting to date both of them. Hilary seduces Leroy, and learns his secret of being unable to read. Meanwhile, Bruno and Mr. Shorofsky debate the merits of traditional orchestras versus synthesized instruments. One day in drama class, as an acting exercise, Mr. Farrell has the students to try to divulge a painful memory. Ralph tells of learning about the death of Freddie Prinze. Doris relates her humiliation at being forced by her demanding and pushy stage actress mother to sing at a child's birthday party. Montgomery discusses discovering his homosexuality, and in the process comes out to the whole school, for which he is teased by Ralph wearing 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show'-style drag. Meanwhile, Bruno's father continues to try to encourage his son to play his music and he plays Bruno's own music (the title song 'Fame') outside the school, inspiring the student body to dance in the streets and Coco to sing the song. A few weeks later, Miss Berg drops Lisa from the dance program. Lisa, after seemingly considering suicide by jumping in front of a moving subway train over her fear of being expelled from the school, instead drops her dance clothes on the subway tracks and decides simply to switch to the drama department. JUNIOR YEAR A few months later, Ralph and Doris discover their mutual attraction, but their growing intimacy leaves Montgomery feeling excluded. Meanwhile, Hilary brings Leroy home to shock her conservative father and stepmother over her dating this tough punk. One evening, Ralph's young sister is attacked by a junkie, and he lashes out at his deeply religious mother's attempts to comfort the severely injured child by taking her to the local Catholic church, instead of to a hospital. Doris also begins to question her Jewish upbringing, changing her name to "Dominique DuPont." One evening, she and Ralph attend a screening of 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show' at the 8th Street Playhouse, and during the "Time Warp", Doris rips off her blouse and joins the stage show. She becomes giddy the next day as she realizes that, as an actress, she can put on any personality she wants, but is sobered upon running into Michael, who is not working, but is struggling as an actor and waiting tables at a local restaurant. SENIOR YEAR Another few months later, Ralph follows in the footsteps of his idol Freddie Prinze and performs stand-up comedy at Catch a Rising Star, garnering some initial success. He falls into a hard-party lifestyle and strains his relationship with Doris. Given a prime spot at a comedy club, he bombs after clashing with both Doris and Montgomery over his new lifestyle. Disgusted with himself, he believes his career is over, but Montgomery comforts him by telling him that his failing is part of the entertainment business. Meanwhile, Hilary is offered a spot with the San Francisco Ballet. But her chances might be jeopardized when she learns that she is pregnant by Leroy. Desperate to take the spot, Hilary has an abortion. Elsewhere, Coco is approached in a diner by a sleazy guy (Steve Inwood) claiming to be a director. She goes to his apartment for a "screen test" and he coaxes her to undress in front of the camera, reducing her to tears. Leroy is offered a spot in Alvin Ailey's dance company, but to be accepted he must graduate as he continues to struggle with his illiteracy. He finds out that Mrs. Sherwood has not passed his final exam, and becomes very angry. He finds Mrs. Sherwood at a local hospital, where she's sitting outside her husband's hospital room while he is recovering from an apparent heart attack. Leroy lashes out at her for failing him. She lashes back and, chagrined, he comforts her over her personal situation with her spouse. In the final scene, at the graduation ceremony, the student body all comes together to perform the finalé, "I Sing the Body Electric". The opening lines are sung by Lisa, Coco, and Montgomery.

Billy Hayes, a young American, faces physical and emotional brutality in a Turkish prison after being caught smuggling drugs.