One From the Heart Revisited

I’m back in Sin City and just last night re-watched the movie One From the Heart. It’s nostalgic. I watched the film for the first time in 1983 when my father was slowly withering from lung cancer. At the time, I was both a waiter working weekends and a clerk at one of the very first video rental stores in the Twin Cities. This was before Blockbuster, a time when VHS and Betamax were duking it out. American Video was owned by the porn king of Minneapolis, Farris Alexander. All the porn was in the back behind a heavy curtain and arranged by fetish (one woman came in each week looking for the latest in “butt” porn. Another guy, a paraplegic, would rent stacks of rapey, violent stuff???). After work, I’d bring a video to my parents’ apartment (strictly front-of-the-store) and watch a movie or two with my dying dad. We watched One From the Heart.

Francis Ford Coppola made the film at his Zoetrope Studios, which he built after earning millions from his Godfather series and Apocalypse Now. Ostensibly set in Las Vegas, the movie was actually filmed on a set created at Zoetrope. Coppola didn’t attempt to recreate Vegas realistically, but instead designed a set that was more impressionistic and dreamy. Then the music—a soundtrack written by Tom Waits and sung with Crystal Gale. The music and lyrics mirrored the storyline, making the movie feel more like a staged opera. At the time, I don’t think critics knew what to make of this thing and subsequently panned it. Roger Ebert gave it 2 out of 4 stars and wrote, “There was never a moment in this film when I cared about what was happening to the people in it.” The movie was considered a flop and lost millions. It didn’t help that the plot was not your typical boy-meets-girl love story.

The movie opens with Franny, played by the young, luscious Teri Garr, and working-class Hank, played by Fredrick Forest, in the throes of dismantling their live-in relationship. It’s their anniversary and they’d planned to celebrate. She thought they were going out to a restaurant; he was in the process of making a romantic dinner at home. That’s the genesis of the fight. I know, dumb. But that’s the way it usually is. (I remember the time Stephanie and I had a big fight while living in Baltimore. The heated argument led to Steph packing her clothes, loading her car, and driving back to Minneapolis. She got as far as Pennsylvania before turning around. We reconciled. I remember those details, but for the life of me, I can’t remember the initial argument—I’m sure something equally as dumb.) After their argument, Franny moves into her friend’s apartment, while Hank flees to his friend’s apartment, Moe, played by Harry Dean Stanton with a 70s perm.

Then there’s Leila, played by Nastassja Kinski. I’d first seen her in Aguirre, the Wrath of God as a young girl playing opposite her father, Klaus. She was now stunningly beautiful and her character a circus performer. Hank and Leila meet on Fremont Street (Glitter Gulch). He asks her out, and they plan to meet later at the Fremont Hotel. What happens next is a little trippy. Hank works at a salvage yard and on the side collects old Vegas neon and other weird props from the Showgirl era. With the soundtrack of Waits and Gale, Leila dances throughout the yard, snuggles into a giant martini glass, walks a tightrope, and balances on an inflatable ball. Stunning, dreamy. (When I first met Stephanie, her circus act was carrying a cocktail tray stacked three high with glassware. This was at the Heartthrob Nightclub, and she wore a 50s poodle skirt with a leotard top that showcased her ample breasts.) Hank and Leila settle into his convertible car that’s whimsically half-buried in the desert. It’s love, and lovemaking ensues. And you want them to want each other. But Franny is always there in the back of his mind.

Franny meets Ray, played by Raul Julia. He approaches Fanny while she’s putting up a window display in the travel agency where she works. He’s a piano player and singer at a restaurant, and he invites her to see him perform. In reality, he’s mostly just a waiter. Franny shows up, sits at the table, expecting to be joined by Ray. In a funny scene, any Vegas person understands, the restaurant owner intimates that she might be a prostitute—“No funny business.” Ray is delivering food to a table. He stops mid-delivery, sits down with Franny, and is then promptly fired by the owner. Raul is a dreamer and traveler. He’s been all over the world. They go dancing, and in an offbeat tango instrumental, he and Franny find a connection. (And maybe that was part of Stephanie’s attraction to me. I’d lived in New York, Los Angeles, and Vegas. I was different, and when I was transferred to Baltimore, it was probably the escape from her dysfunctional family life that she wanted.) Ray convinces Franny to escape to Bora Bora. You want her to go, move to the South Pacific with Ray, who’s so charming and imaginative. They buy airline tickets. But Hank is always there in the back of her mind.

“Love is a high-wire act.” That’s what Leila says to Hank. Yes, it is. In the case of Hank and Franny, the story of their love is five years of living together. They’d taken each other for granted. Tom Waite sings, “Here comes the bride, and there goes the groom. Looks like a hurricane went through this room. Smells like a pool hall, where’s my other shoe,
and I’m sick and tired of pickin’ up after you.” Crystal Gale sings, “Old boyfriends. Remember when you were burning for them. Why do you keep turning them into
old boyfriends?” Both Franny and Hank delve into the fantasy of someone else more exciting, someone who can transport them to a different world. (I probably had my Leilas during the years living in Las Vegas. Fantasies that eventually faced reality in the mornings with bad breath, no makeup, and dull hangovers. I know Stephanie had a few Hanks. I like to think that I was her Ray.)

In the end, Hank chases Franny down through the McCarran Airport and reaches her just as she boards the flight to Bora Bora. He believes she’s gone for good. He goes back to their home, now hollow and lonely. Then Franny returns. Crystal Gale sings, “Take me home you silly boy, put your arms around me. Take me home you silly boy, all the world’s not round without you. I’m so sorry that I broke your heart, please don’t leave my side. Take me home you silly boy, cause I’m still in love with you.” I think to truly understand the movie and its characters, you have to listen to the soundtrack, absorb the lyrics, and put it all together.

It’s a sweet story told in a very unexpected way. A typical love story will have a woman searching for who she is, then meeting the man she’s meant to be with. The journey is about them discovering each other before finding true love. But what of the rest of us? Love is uglier with breakups, makeups, more breakups, and more makeups. Through that process, love is elevated to a deep, friendship-like relationship, which I suppose is akin to a soulmate.

It’s funny, ironic, coincidental—six months after arriving in Vegas, I was hired to open a restaurant/nightclub, Tramps. I accompanied the new General Manager to view the signage that was being manufactured at the Young Sign Company. The guy there took us on a tour. Out back was their now-famous boneyard, which held old neon signs they’d taken down—a history of Vegas in bright lights (most are currently in the Vegas Neon Museum). This, of course, was Cappola’s inspiration for the scene with Hank and Leila.

Back to my father. He died when I was 23, and if you’ve read my previous Substacks, you probably know all this. The sadness of his death didn’t hit me until much later, and then I felt truly lost. I headed west in my VW microbus and ended up in Las Vegas. Was it the movie? Maybe it was there in the back of my mind, giving me that nudge.

I believe I came of age in Las Vegas, so the place and the movie hold a special meaning for me. This may be a metaphorical stretch, but like Fanny and Hank’s story of separation and recommitment, I’d leave and come back—Vegas always the fantasy relationship that recharges my soul. Yeah, a stretch…