Angel Heart (1987)

In 1955, Harry Angel, a New York City private investigator, is contacted by a man named Louis Cyphre to track down John Liebling, a crooner known professionally as Johnny Favorite who suffered severe neurological trauma resulting from injuries he received in World War II. Favorite’s incapacity disrupted a contract with Cyphre regarding unspecified collateral, and Cyphre believes that a private upstate hospital where Favorite was receiving radical psychiatric treatment for shell shock has falsified records. Harry goes to the hospital and discovers that the records showing Favorite’s transfer were indeed falsified by a physician named Albert Fowler. After Harry breaks into his home, Fowler admits that years ago he was bribed by a man and woman so that the two could abscond with the disfigured Favorite.

Believing that Fowler is still withholding information, Harry locks him in his bedroom, forcing him to suffer withdrawal from a morphine addiction. The next morning, he finds that the doctor has apparently committed suicide. Harry tries to break his contract with Cyphre but agrees to continue the search when Cyphre offers him a large sum of money. He soon discovers that Favorite had a wealthy fiancée named Margaret Krusemark but had also begun a secret love affair with a woman named Evangeline Proudfoot. Harry travels to New Orleans and meets with Margaret, who divulges little information, telling him that Favorite is dead, or at least dead to her. Harry then discovers that Evangeline died several years previously, but is survived by her 17-year-old daughter, Epiphany Proudfoot, who was conceived during her mother’s love affair with Favorite.