tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-202910062024-03-15T18:11:25.054-07:00Sex In A SubmarineThe adventures of a professional screenwriter and sometimes film festival jurist, slogging through the trenches of Hollywood, writing movies that you have never heard of, and getting no respect.<br>
<i>Voted #10 - <a href="http://www.bachelorsdegree.org/2010/10/12/60-best-blogs-for-aspiring-screenwriters"> Best Blogs For Screenwriters - Bachelor's Degree</a></i>wcmartellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18075242897910568801noreply@blogger.comBlogger1310125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20291006.post-74497399712260339862024-03-15T00:00:00.000-07:002024-03-15T00:00:00.126-07:00Fridays With Hitchcock: Giles MacKinnon on THE BIRDSUK director Giles MacKinnon talks about THE BIRDS in this lost BBC interview clip.
<h3><span class="mw-headline" id="Gillies_MacKinnon">Gillies MacKinnon</span></h3>
<p><a href="/wiki/Gillies_MacKinnon" title="Gillies MacKinnon">Gillies MacKinnon</a> talks about <i><a href="/wiki/The_Birds" title="The Birds" class="mw-redirect">The Birds</a></i>...
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<i>n.b. the beginning of this interview is missing</i>
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- Bill
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Of course, I have a couple of books about Hitchcock, SPELLBOUND is in the one that is on sale today...
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<h2>HITCHCOCK: MASTERING SUSPENSE</h2>
<p><A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B01EZGTR4O/secretsofactions">
<img align="left" height="220" hspace="10" src="http://www.scriptsecrets.net/images/HitchMasterSM2.jpg"></a><br /></p>
LEARN SUSPENSE FROM THE MASTER!
<br><br>
Alfred Hitchcock, who directed 52 movies, was known as the “Master Of Suspense”; but what exactly is suspense and how can *we* master it? How does suspense work? How can *we* create “Hitchcockian” suspense scenes in our screenplays, novels, stories and films?
<br><br>
This book uses seventeen of Hitchcock’s films to show the difference between suspense and surprise, how to use “focus objects” to create suspense, the 20 iconic suspense scenes and situations, how plot twists work, using secrets for suspense, how to use Dread (the cousin of suspense) in horror stories, and dozens of other amazing storytelling lessons. From classics like “Strangers On A Train” and “The Birds” and “Vertigo” and “To Catch A Thief” to older films from the British period like “The 39 Steps” and “The Man Who Knew Too Much” to his hits from the silent era like “The Lodger” (about Jack The Ripper), we’ll look at all of the techniques to create suspense!
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Films Included: NOTORIOUS, SABOTAGE, STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, THE 39 STEPS, REBECCA, TO CATCH A THIEF, FRENZY, FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT, THE LODGER, THE BIRDS, TORN CURTAIN, SABOTEUR, VERTIGO, THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1934), THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1955), SUSPICION, and NUMBER SEVENTEEN. 17 Great Films!
<br><br>
369 pages packed with information!
<br><br>
Price: $5.99
<br><br>
<A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B01EZGTR4O/secretsofactions">Click here for more info!</a>
<br><br>
OTHER COUNTRIES:
<br><br>
<A HREF="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hitchcock-Mastering-Suspense-Hitch-Writers-ebook/dp/B01EZGTR4O/secretsofactions">UK Folks Click Here.</a>
<br><br>
<A HREF="http://www.amazon.de/Hitchcock-Mastering-Suspense-Hitch-Writers-ebook/dp/B01EZGTR4O/secretsofactions"> German Folks Click Here.</a>
<br><br>
<A HREF="http://www.amazon.fr/Hitchcock-Mastering-Suspense-Hitch-Writers-ebook/dp/B01EZGTR4O/secretsofactions"> French Folks Click Here.</a>
<br><br>
<A HREF="http://www.amazon.es/Hitchcock-Mastering-Suspense-Hitch-Writers-ebook/dp/B01EZGTR4O/secretsofactions"> Espania Folks Click Here.</a>
<br><br>
<A HREF="http://www.amazon.ca/Hitchcock-Mastering-Suspense-Hitch-Writers-ebook/dp/B01EZGTR4O/secretsofactions"> Canadian Folks Click Here.</a>
<br><br>
And...
<br><br>
<A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00H1IM31I/secretsofactions">
<img align="left" height="220" hspace="10" src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00H1IM31I.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg" /></a><br />
<br><br>
<h3>HITCHCOCK: EXPERIMENTS IN TERROR</h3>
<br><br>
<b>ON SALE!!! $2 OFF!</b>
<br><br>
<A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00H1IM31I/secretsofactions">Click here for more info!</a>
<br><br>
HITCHCOCK DID IT FIRST!
<br><br>
We all know that Alfred Hitchcock was the Master Of Suspense, but did you know he was the most *experimental* filmmaker in history?
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Contained Thrillers like “Buried”? Serial Protagonists like “Place Beyond The Pines”? Multiple Connecting Stories like “Pulp Fiction”? Same Story Multiple Times like “Run, Lola, Run”? This book focuses on 18 of Hitchcock’s 53 films with wild cinema and story experiments which paved the way for modern films. Almost one hundred different experiments that you may think are recent cinema or story inventions... but some date back to Hitchcock’s *silent* films! We’ll examine these experiments and how they work. Great for film makers, screenwriters, film fans, producers and directors.
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Films Examined: “Rear Window”, “Psycho”, “Family Plot”, “Topaz”, “Rope”, “The Wrong Man”, “Easy Virtue”, “Lifeboat”, “Bon Voyage”, “Aventure Malgache”, “Elstree Calling”, “Dial M for Murder”, “Stage Fright”, “Champagne”, “Spellbound”, “I Confess”, and “The Trouble with Harry”, with glances at “Vertigo” and several others.
<br><br>
Professional screenwriter William C. Martell takes you into the world of The Master Of Suspense and shows you the daring experiments that changed cinema. Over 77,000 words.
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Only $5.99
<br><br>
<A HREF="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hitchcock-Experiments-William-C-Martell-ebook/dp/B00H1IM31I/secretsofactions">UK Folks Click Here.</a>
<br><br>
<A HREF="http://www.amazon.de/Hitchcock-Experiments-William-C-Martell-ebook/dp/B00H1IM31I/secretsofactions"> German Folks Click Here.</a>
<br><br>
<A HREF="http://www.amazon.fr/Hitchcock-Experiments-William-C-Martell-ebook/dp/B00H1IM31I/secretsofactions"> French Folks Click Here.</a>
<br><br>
<A HREF="http://www.amazon.es/Hitchcock-Experiments-William-C-Martell-ebook/dp/B00H1IM31I/secretsofactions"> Espania Folks Click Here.</a>
<br><br>
<A HREF="http://www.amazon.ca/Hitchcock-Experiments-William-C-Martell-ebook/dp/B00H1IM31I/secretsofactions"> Canadian Folks Click Here.</a>
<br><br>
- Bill
wcmartellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18075242897910568801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20291006.post-69289588970760614522024-03-14T00:00:00.000-07:002024-03-14T00:00:00.130-07:00Thriller Thursday: Knock Three One Two.<br><br>
Knock Three One Two.
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The spider web fills the screen, it's Boris Karloff's THRILLER!
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<b>Season:</b> 1, <b>Episode:</b> 13.<br>
<b>Airdate:</b> Dec. 13, 1960 <br>
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<b>Director:</b> Herman Hoffman<br>
<b>Writer:</b> John Kneubuhl based on the novel by Frederick Brown ("Fabulous Clip Joint").<br>
<b>Cast:</b> Joe Maross, Beverly Garland, Charles Aikman, Warren Oates, Meade Martin.<br>
<b>Music:</b> Pete Rugolo.<br>
<b>Cinematography:</b> Benjamin H. Kline.<br>
<b>Producer:</b> Maxwell Shane.<br>
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<b>Boris Karloff’s Introduction:</b> “A compulsive killer of women stalks a town. This man has seen the killer. He doesn’t know it yet, but as sure as my name is Boris Karloff he will meet the killer again and will recognize him. You or I would turn him in, but this man uses the murderer for a most bizarre purpose. Knock three one two, that’s the name of our story. And our principle players are, Mr. Joe Maross, Miss Beverly Garland, Mr. Charles Aikman, and Mr. Warren Oates. Knock three one two. That friendly knock will cause a lovely woman to open the door with terrifying consequences. Let me warn you ladies, if you hear that knock in the next hour, do not open your door. Just sit there and enjoy the tingling suspense of this thriller.”
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<b>Synopsis:</b> This overly convoluted tale begins with gambling addict Ray (Joe Maross) making calls from a corner phone booth, trying to find *someone* to loan him the money to pay back the mob so that they don’t break his legs... with no luck. When he walks back to his car, a preoccupied MAN (Meade Martin) bumps into him, then continues on without an apology. Ray grumbles something, gets into his car and drives away... just as a dead woman is found in the apartment the Man just left! That Man was the Silk Stocking Strangler, the killer everyone in the city is afraid of... so afraid that Ray and his wife Ruth (Beverly Garland) have put extra locks on the door and have a knock code: 3, 1, 2 to make sure she only unbolts the door to her husband and not the crazed killer.
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After Ray knocks the code, Ruth lets him in... and he begs her to give him the money to pay off his bets. He’s afraid this time they will really hurt him. She says last time she gave him money from her savings account he just gambled it away. She tells him never again, her $8k savings account went down to $6k, and now she has to work harder to bring it back up to where it was. Ruth is a waitress on the night shift, Ray is a liquor salesman. Ray keeps asking for money, says they might even kill him this time, she says no and goes to work...
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On the way she bumps into Benny (Warren Oates) who is mentally challenged and runs the local newsstand, a friend of both Ruth and Ray’s. Benny tells Ruth that he’s done it again... killed another woman. He thinks he is the Silk Stocking Strangler. Ruth asks him where he was at the time of the last murder and Benny says he was working. Ruth tells him he *couldn’t* be the killer... and the last time he confessed to the police they said he couldn’t be the killer. Benny still wants to be punished for these crimes. Ruth tells Benny to forget about this nonsense, and that they both need to get to work.
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Ray can’t find anyone to give him the money, accosts Ruth at work... and her nice guy boss George (Charles Aidman) breaks it up and comforts Ruth. Along with the Benny character, the George character is another somewhat pointless complication. George is in love with Ruth and wants her to leave Ray, but Ruth is still in love with Ray.
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When Ray leaves the restaurant he’s followed down a dark alley by the mob guys he owes money to: they beat the crap out of him and give him 24 hours to get the cash... or they’ll kill him. By some amazing coincidence, Benny walks down that same dark alley later and sees beat up Ray, takes him to his little apartment where he takes care of his wounds and offers him some soup with pieces of chicken in it. Benny tries to convince Ray that he’s the Silk Stocking Killer, but Ray also does not believe him. Benny tells Ray about the latest killing... and Ray realizes he was *right there* and that the Man who bumped into him had to be the killer. He knows what the killer looks like! Once Ray is okay, he leaves to try and find the money again.
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Ray ends up in a bar asking the owner for an advance on his order, gets shot down... and then notices the Man who bumped into him sitting at the bar... the Silk Stocking Killer! Ray sits next to him, strikes up a conversation... and now we’re in STRANGERS ON A TRAIN territory. This is the great part of the story, which is kind of lost in the all of the subplots. Highsmith’s third novel, THE BLUNDERER, is about a man who attempts to make his wife’s death appear as if it is the work of a serial killer... only to have the serial killer confront him. Here we get a similar story, as Ray shows the Silk Stocking Killer a picture of Ruth in a bathing suit to get his interest, then tells him their address and the knock code for the front door... and that his wife will be home alone all night.
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When the Silk Stocking Killer leaves (to murder Ruth) Ray asks the bartender to pour him another drink. The bartender mentions they will be closing at midnight tonight instead of 2am... because the place is empty. Oh no, there goes Ray’s alibi! He begs the bartender to stay open later, the bartender gives him a funny look. He’s the only customer in the place!
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So Ray calls Benny and tells him if he goes to the police *right now* and turns himself in for the murders, and has the police call him *right away* at this bar pay phone, he will come down and tell the police that Benny is the killer. Benny says “sure” and Ray goes back to the bar waiting for the phone to ring.
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Meanwhile, the Silk Stocking Killer watches as George pulls up in front of the apartment and then walks Ruth to the door. They almost kiss. The George gets back in his car and drives away... and the Silk Stocking Killer comes out of hiding to kill Ruth. He knocks the code on the door, she unbolts and unlocks the door and opens in wide... then screams when he attacks her.
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Ray gets the call from Benny, goes to the police station where he tells the two detectives that Benny *didn’t* do it (which pisses off Benny) and Benny needs mental help and can the police institutionalize him? Ray drags it out as long as possible to make sure he has an alibi: in the police station with the two detectives investigating the murders. He’ll be free and clear, Ruth will be dead, and he’ll be able to get the money from her savings account right away. The perfect crime!
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George decides to turn around and go back to Ruth’s place for no apparent reason, and ends up finding the door open and the Silk Stocking Killer attacking her. George kicks some psycho ass, then calls the police.
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When the detectives leave the room to take the call, Benny gets mad at Ray for betraying him... and *murders* Ray. When the detectives find out the name of the woman being attacked by the Silk Stocking Killer when he was captured, they realize it’s the wife of the man they have in their interrogation room, go in and find him dead. The end!
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<b>Review:</b> Another episode based on a novel, and I suspect the novel did some fancy footwork to remove all of the coincidences... or maybe the coincidences were cteated by condensing the novel... which I'm sorry to say I haven't read. Late career Brown, I think based on the Boston Strangler case. But compressed into less than fifty minutes, all of these strange coincidences stick out like a sore thumb! Plus, there are some things that the TV writer should have caught: Benny couldn’t have done the killings because he works every night until 2am... yet Ray calls him *at home* and needs him to be at the police station from 12 to 2am... how is that possible? The super locked apartment door that requires that knock code? George kicks it down in street shoes! There are a bunch of things like this in the episode that just make no sense at all, and I wonder if they were in the book or not.
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There is a nice little conversation about Gambling Addiction, a public service message in the middle of the episode; and I think that’s a good thing. This was a genre show, and they managed to include a real social issue in the story without it seeming forced onto the story... it’s Ray’s motivation for needing the money bad enough to have his wife killed. No matter what your genre, you *can* have a serious issue in there... genre movies don’t need to be stupid.
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Beverly Garland was beautiful, and played a blue collar waitress well. Though she had been a B movie star, she spent most of her career on the small screen... then retired to run a hotel a couple of blocks from where I live now. I did my 2 day classes there for a while, in the cinema decorated with posters from all of her movies.
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Warren Oates is freakin’ Warren Oates! He did two episodes of THRILLER, and so many TV shows that I’m sure he couldn’t remember the number. Mostly westerns like THE RIFLEMAN ands RAWHIDE and THE VIRGINIAN and HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL, but he did every other genre and pops up in THE TWILIGHT ZONE and OUTER LIMITS. Shows like this is where a young actor could earn a living while working on their craft, and Oates is completely convincing as this mentally challenged newsstand employee.
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Charles Aidman is another actor you’d instantly recognize as “that guy from every TV show in the 70s”, but here it’s kind of strange casting since the character has an ethnic last name... and this isn’t an ethnic guy. I wonder if that was even a plot element in the story originally, Ruth and George’s romance would be forbidden... but this serial killer brings them together. That’s not in the episode.
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The actor who plays the Silk Stocking Killer is some pretty boy in a leather jacket, unlike any serial killer I have ever seen. He’s more of a juvenile delinquent from a fifties film! Truly odd casting. The real Boston Strangler (or, at least, the guy arrested for the crimes) was in his 30s and I think had passed himself off as a talent agent.
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The other problem is Ray sending the Silk Stocking Killer after Ruth in the first place... how can he know that the psycho will go there and kill her? What if she isn’t his type? Again, coincidences kill this episode. It does have some suspense, but the story is not well plotted. Not one of the good episodes, but not the worst. Next week’s episode stars Mort Sahl as a TV writer who knows too much... and talks too much.
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Bill
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width=180 ALIGN=LEFT BORDER="1" alt="Buy The DVD!"></a>wcmartellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18075242897910568801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20291006.post-87970818827892666052024-03-13T00:00:00.000-07:002024-03-13T00:00:00.348-07:00Film Courage Plus: Let The Actors Act!
FILM COURAGE did a series of interviews with me, around 36 (or more) segments total. That's almost a year's worth of material! So why not add a new craft article and make it a weekly blog entry? All I have to do is write that new article, right?
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At the first Writer’s Guild “Words Into Pictures” Conference in 1997 I was one of the hundreds of people who watched Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau perform I.A.L. Diamond’s short play “Quizzically” about a pair of writers debating a “wrylie” - a parenthetical to tell an actor how to deliver the line. Due to chance and maybe the stars aligning correctly, I was in the front row, only a few feet away from these two great actors. It’s one of those things that I will remember forever... and Diamond’s short play is hysterical if you are a screenwriter. Diamond was a co-writer with Billy Wilder on SOME LIKE IT HOT and THE APARTMENT and many more films, and Matthau and Lemmon were the perfect team to bounce the clever lines off of each other. I haven’t read the play, but I will bet there were very few parentheticals in it, because those things are usually the sign of a problem in a screenplay... which is what we will be talking about today.
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<b><center>THE LIFE OF WRYLIES</center></b>
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New screenwriters often litter their screenplays with “wrylies” (parantheticals) for a couple of reasons which are both part of not trusting the actors to do their jobs. One of the things that is difficult for new writers to remember is that even though writing that spec script is an individual accomplishment and you *are* all of the other people involved in making the film at that point, it will eventually become a team effort and other very talented people will work to create the finished film. There’s a line that is often blurry between that individual accomplishment and team effort, and new writers tend to micro-manage their screenplays instead of creating what TAXI DRIVER screenwriter Paul Schrader calls the “Invitation to others to collaborate on a work of art”. Our job as screenwriters is to give hints to the other participants in making the film, rather than give orders. We want to nudge them in the right direction, because if we try to shove them they will do the exact opposite of what we want. When you push, people push back. I often say that part of our jobs as screenwriters is to make the director think that it was their idea. So we need to let the actors do the acting, the cinematographer do the lighting, the casting director figure out what the actors look like, the set designer figure out the specifics of what the locations look like, etc. We can hint, but we can’t demand. And if we are good at hinting in our screenplays - everyone will think that it was their idea. So let’s look at letting the actors act...
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Though we are imagining the performance in our minds as we write, we still want to leave room for each of the other creative people involved to do their jobs - and they are the experts at those jobs. If we use a “wrylie” to tell the actor that the character is supposed to be angry when delivering the line, that often means that the line itself is not expressing anger - and that’s a flaw in *our work*. Often “wrylies” are used to prop up weak dialogue that isn’t doing it’s job to demonstrate that emotion. There are better word choices or a better order to the words that will make that line show the anger of the character. Often the problem is sentence length - angry people don’t have long winded sentences, they are quick and to the point, and adding a wrylie is not going to change the length of the sentence. The shorter the sentence, the more energy in that sentence. Longer sentences dissipate the energy. So, as the writer, our *writing* needs to demonstrate the emotions so that we do not need a wrylie. Telling an actor to deliver a line with anger doesn’t make the line sound angry - and the line is our job, performance is the actor’s. Let the actor choose the delivery of the lines.
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Here’s why: The 1964 version of THE KILLERS has a scene where assassin Lee Marvin is threatening Claude Akins, who has information on where his target is hiding. Now Marvin is playing a violent and impatient man, whose catch phrase is “I don’t have the time”, so you might think that (angry) is the perfect “wrylie” for his threats to Akins. When you wrote the dialogue - these were angry lines, right? But if they are angry lines, you don’t need to identify them as such - the dialogue *demonstrates* the emotion in the way it is written.... <br><br>
Plus, the actor might make a brilliant choice, as Lee Marvin did in this scene - he delivered the lines quietly and calmly, which made the threats even more chilling. He removed the anger from his voice, so we got control - and that makes this scene stand out. This is a man who kills people for a living and has as much feeling about it as an assembly line worker feels about doing his job. Awesome choice by the actor, and you don’t want to limit those choices by micro-managing their performance. Just as we have our skills as writers, actors have their skills. They understand how to play the scene better than we do, they play scenes for a living.
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Trust the actors to do the job that they are experts at!
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Also trust the director and everyone else to do their jobs. Directors like to be in control, they like to be the person who came up with the genius idea... so if you write CLOSE UP: they will not want to shoot that in a close up, because it wasn't their idea. And if it needed to be a close up? You just screwed yourself by writing CLOSE UP instead of using language so that the director reads the scene and imgaines a close up. In the DESCRIPTION AND VOICE Blue Book there's a section on how to use language to create a specific picture in the reader's mind. No need to type CLOSE UP if all they can imagine is a close up. I once had a meeting with a director on one of my screenplays and he was excited by "his idea" of how to shoot an action scene. I told him that he was a genius to think about shooting it like that... but I purposely described it so that you would imagine those shots and angles. I created the images in the reader's mind from those angles. I hinted. <br><br>
So let the people do their jobs... and secretly be the puppet master pulling theor strings.
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<b><center>SARCASTICALLY?</b></center>
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Make sure that your dialogue is doing its job, and doesn’t need to be propped up with a wrylie. The one place where a wrylie might be required is a sarcastic line of dialogue, but even then the delivery should be completely obvious by the situation and the character. The situation and character are also the writer’s jobs, so you still should not need a wrylie if you are doing your job. Sarcasm is a character trait - something that you can mention when introducing the character, and then their dialogue throughout the screenplay will reflect this. If a character who has never been sarcastic before suddenly becomes sarcastic, that’s a little odd - and maybe you should rethink that dialogue? Actors are going to question when a character does something out of character... and you should be questioning that before they ever get a chance to read it. So even with sarcasm, you don’t need wrylies. If the character is introduced as being sarcastic, and the dialogue in this situation can only be sarcastic? No need to micro-manage that. Trust the actor to figure it out. You do your job and allow them to do theirs.
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<b><center>ACTIONS NOT EXPRESSIONS</b></center>
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The other way that new writers often micro-manage a screenplay is by telling an actor what expression they should have on their faces. My personal rule is that I control the actor’s bodies and the actor gets to control their expressions. Let the actors act! One of the problems with either a wrylie that says (smiles) or a line of description that tells the actor to smile is that some actors aren’t the smiling types. When was the last time you say Clint Eastwood giving a big toothy grin in a movie? So if you are trying to get that emotion to the audience, it never gets there. It’s depending on the actor to do the writer’s job - either through the line of dialogue that demonstrates happiness or and action (using their bodies) that shows happiness. If the situation that the writer creates is all about joy and happiness, the actor doesn’t need to smile - the *audience* will be smiling... and that’s the key to emotions and emotional scenes.
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Frank Capra said, "I thought drama was when actors cried. But drama is when the audience cries." Your job as a screenwriter is not to make the characters cry, it’s to create a situation where the audience cries. Or laughs. Or feels anger. Or feels joy. One of the things that I have noticed in some films is that when the character cries, the audience doesn’t have to... but if the character tries to remain in control in a scene where they would normally cry, the audience feels as if they need to do the crying for the character.
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The same holds true with expressions - sometimes an actor knows that if they *don’t* show an expression when the situation calls for one, it will create stronger feelings in the audience. The actor understands what expression will be best for the scene, and sometimes they make an interesting choice that we, as writers, would never have thought of. I don’t know if Richard Widmark’s character laughed with joy when he pushed an old woman in a wheelchair down the stairs to her death in the screenplay for KISS OF DEATH or whether it was the actor’s choice (I suspect the latter) but that really odd choice given the situation is what made that scene famous. Actors can take our characters and find the behaviors that we never imagined - and that’s why we want to trust them to do their jobs.
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There are times when a character nods or smiles as an important response - it's story related, so you will write that smile or nod or whatever. But try to find a better way to do that, if possible.
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Um, I am guilty of this: I had a screenplay where the producer thought the protagonist was too dour, so I added a (smiles) wrylie a couple of times in the first ten pages, problem solved! Yes, I did everything that I just told you not to do. But only in self defense. I knew that whoever played the protagonist was going to be a charismatic movie star, and for some reason the producer was imagining some sad sack loser... I told the producer that I completely rewrote the character, but all I did is add a couple of (smiles) and it solved the problem. Tools not rules.
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Some new writers think that the “description” part of a screenplay is just there to break up the dialogue, but that is not its purpose. The difference between Movies and TV when it comes to screenplays is that TV is a growth of radio - and tends to be more dialogue driven, and modern movies are a growth of silent films - and tend to be stories told visually. Through the actions of the characters. What their bodies do. So find the way to demonstrate the emotions with actions, rather than with expressions. Read through your screenplay - skipping the dialogue - and make sure that the story is told through the actions of the characters, the situations, the images. One of the things in my Action Screenwriting Book and I believe the Visual Storytelling Book are “twitches and touchstones” - creating a physical object with an emotion built into it, so that a character can create emotions in the audience just by touching that watch that their dead father gave them, and the audience knows that they are thinking of their father. Our job is telling stories visually through the actions of the characters - so we don’t need to tell them what expression is on their face... the actor can provide that.
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<b><center>NONE OF MY BUSINESS</b></center>
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Though we control the actor’s bodies, another place where writers often micro-manage is “business”. Business is what an actor does with their hands during a scene - that’s an oversimplification, but it’s any normal actions that aren’t changing the course of the story. “Kurt takes a sip of wine.” These are like “physical wrylies” - actions that really don’t have anything to do with telling the story, they are telling the actor what to do. “Sandra shakes her head” before the character saying “No” is redundant. When we are talking about the actions of the characters, we aren’t talking about little things that they do. One of my short films had a scene where a woman returns from the grocery store and is putting away groceries. Putting away the groceries was all of the action required for that scene, and the actress pulled out a bag of potato chips, opened it, and munched on a few as she put the groceries away. Brilliant! That was business. She did what someone normally does when putting away groceries - snack a little on something that she bought. I didn’t need to write that in the screenplay or tell her to do that - she is an actress and she did what the character would do in that scene. Eating a few potato chips didn’t impact the story in any way - so it wasn’t something that I would write in the script. Just as taking a sip of wine at dinner is just normal - unless the wine was poisoned or something, it doesn’t impact the story. A friend of mine worked on a film where the actor developed an amazing trick with a cigarette lighter for his character - not in the screenplay. But the actor thought that if his character had smoked their entire life, they would have developed fun ways to do it. Actors bring things like this to the characters. That lighter trick didn’t advance the story in any way - it was business.
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You want to focus your action lines on physical actions that *do* impact the story, and let the actors do the natural stuff. If your screenplay is just a bunch of people standing around talking - that is a problem. Adding “Kurt takes a sip of wine” or “Sandra shakes her head” or even that cigarette lighter trick is not going to solve the problem of a static scene where nothing is physically happening or characters use words instead of actions. Often the story itself is the culprit, here - you have a non-visual story in a visual medium. A radio play that you are trying to pass off as a SCREENplay. Instead of adding business, go back and rethink that scene - how can you show the feelings and emotions? How can you demonstrate the story through actions instead of exclusively through dialogue?
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Movies are words and pictures, and if you only have the words, a picture of “Kurt takes a sip of wine” tells us *nothing*. So let the actors do the acting - let them choose the delivery of the lines, chose what expression is on their face, choose what to do with their hands. And you as the writer create situations and physical actions that impact the story itself. Trusting the actors to do their jobs, trusting the cinematographer to do their job, trusting the costume department and set designers and everyone else to do their jobs.
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Trust.
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- Bill
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Bill
wcmartellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18075242897910568801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20291006.post-45090507180920011912024-03-12T00:00:00.000-07:002024-03-12T00:00:00.127-07:00Trailer Tuesday: THE IPCRESS FILE (1965)One of my favorite films.<br><br>
<b>Director:</b> Sidney J. Furie (BOYS IN COMPANY C)<br>
<b>Writers:</b> James Doran, Bill Canaway.<br>
<b>Starring:</b> Michael Caine, Sue Lloyd, Guy Doleman, Nigel Green.<br>
<b>Produced by:</b> Harry Saltzman.<br>
<b>Cinematographer:</b> Otto Heller (BAFTA (British Oscars) nominee for ALFIE, winner for this film... and the lighting is amazing.)<br>
<b>Music by:</b> John Barry (the James Bond movies) - and it’s a great score!
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Sort of the “anti-Bond”, but made by the producers of the Connery films. Harry Palmer is The Spy Who Does Paperwork in this predecessor to THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR. There is a form for everything - a form to get a gun, a form to fill out if you fire the gun... and if you manage to hit someone? No end to the amount of paperwork! This is the *government* - it’s all about filling out forms! Forms for stake outs, forms to requisition a car, forms for *not* discovering any information. Harry hates paperwork, but he’s a genius at sifting through it for clues - to find an enemy agent with no known address, he checks for parking tickets... because like Turner in CONDOR, Harry Palmer is brains rather than brawn. The other anti-Bond element here is that Harry is not great at fighting and when he shoots a gun he tends to screw up.
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Oh, and this is a paranoid thriller, which we will talk about later.
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There are so many great things about this film that I will never get to all of them, but you have young Michael Caine in his first starring role and amazing camera work by Otto Heller and a great John Barry score and a clever script and... well, let’s start at the beginning.
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TEASER</b>
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The film opens with what you would call a “teaser” in television. A car driving down the streets of London with two men in the backseat: one is reading “New Scientist Magazine” and the other keeps looking behind the car and ahead of the car and generally building up the audience’s paranoia that something is going to happen. The car makes it to a train station where the paranoid man, Agent Taylor (Charles Rea), accompanies the scientist Radcliff (Aubrey Richards) to the train and his train compartment. A porter follows with the luggage. In the train station Agent Taylor is on high alert, looking for danger.
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Once Radcliff is secure in his compartment, Agent Taylor goes back to the car... where he spots Radlciff’s camera, grabs it, and races to the train. When he opens the train compartment door, the man reading “New Scientist Magazine” lowers the magazine from his face, exposing that he is *not* Radcliff. What? This is a great reveal, because the imposter is wearing the same clothes and same hat as Radcliff. If you are going to show that the scientist has been switched, you want to find a way to do it that has maximum impact. We think the man reading “New Scientist Magazine” in the train compartment is Radcliff right up until the moment his face is revealed.
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Next shot is the train leaving the station and the camera turns slowly to reveal Agent Taylor dead on the side of the tracks.
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Okay, that’s a great way to begin a movie!
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<b>
IDENTITY</b>
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Now that we have our problem, we need to introduce our protagonist, and we get a swell scene behind the titles: Harry Palmer (Michael Caine) wakes up in the morning and prepares for a day of work. It is a simple scene which tells us EVERYTHING we need to know about this character. He has to find his glasses before he can see the alarm clock. Everything is a blur! He grinds his own gourmet coffee beans, and uses a complicated coffee maker (kind of an in-film advert, since one of the producers owned the company that made the gourmet coffee making machine). Harry looks out his flat window while drinking his coffee. Later, he finds a woman's necklace in his bed... while searching for his misplaced gun. There’s a bit of a zoom shot to the gun - and guns get close ups in this film, which is unusual. And then Harry leaves his apartment, late for work. One of the reason why I think this is a predecessor for CONDOR is that Harry is an ordinary guy in a job that starts out boring in the story (Harry is doing stake out duty on someone) and then suddenly becomes dangerous. Can he handle that? He’s not just the spy who does paperwork, he’s an *underdog* spy!
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Introduction To Harry:
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The interesting thing about the Deighton novels are that they are told first person and we never learn the character’s name... he is a spy and has a dozen aliases. An element of the novels is the loss of identity - when you use so many different names, who are you really? And the film does a great job of illustrating this through story and situations. Never knowing the name worked on the page, but they needed something to call him on screen, so - legend has it - the producer asked Caine for the most boring first name he could imagine, and Caine responded “Harry” to Harry Saltzman. And he didn’t get fired!
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IPCRESS makes the job of spying mundane: a bunch of stakes outs and surveillance jobs followed by paperwork, so that when it explodes with action it seems much bigger due to the contrast. Caine plays Harry as a problem child who probably needed a good spanking many years ago, but now knows exactly how far he can push authority before it pushes back.
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His boss, Colonel Ross (Doleman), hates him and has him transferred to Major Dalby’s department where he has to fill out stacks of paperwork as they try to find the kidnapped scientist who has been put up for auction by an espionage agent for hire code-name, BlueJay (Frank Gatliff) an Albanian who sells secrets... and people. Dalby (Nigel Green) “doesn’t have the sense of humor that Ross has” (which was none at all) and cracks the whip on Harry again and again. Harry finds a friend in team member Carswell (Gordon Jackson) and a love interest in team member Jean (Lloyd) - who may be a spy for Ross’s department... but she thinks that Harry is a spy for Ross’s department. Neither trusts each other - though they sleep together. That’s the kind of paranoid movie this is - the spies are spying on other spies!
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<b>DIALOGUE</b>
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The film has all kinds of great dialogue, including this exchange when Harry shows up for his first day of work at Dalby’s department:
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<b>Harry:</b> “The fellow whose job I'm taking, will he show me the ropes?”<br>
<b>Dalby:</b> “Maybe - if you're in touch with the spirit world.”<br>
<b>Harry:</b> “I beg your pardon?”<br>
<b>Dalby:</b> “He was shot this morning.”
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Great punchline! Not funny (well, maybe in a sick way), but adds impact to the end of the dialogue exchange. You always want to put the stinger in the tail.
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In the commentary, director Sidney J. Furie says that the script was awful and they were rewriting it on the set... I always discount when a director says this, because it’s usually a power grab. The plotting and dialogue in the film is so well done that it’s difficult to believe Furie - even though he’s one of my favorite directors. There’s a great example of a “payback line” - when Harry goes to Ross’s office, he leaves the door open and Ross says, “Close the door.” When Harry goes to Dalby’s office he leaves the door open and Dalby says, “Shut the door”. Then at the end of the movie, Harry has taken control and knows that either Ross or Dalby is a traitor, and invites them to the villain’s warehouse. When Dalby enters, Harry tells him to “Shut the door.” Playing back to the authority figures now that he is in control. So many great pieces of dialogue in this film, “A word in your shell-like ear”.
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When he comes home to find Jean searching his flat (is she working for Ross or Dalby?) he asks if she has finished searching and she says “Yes.” “Then you know where the whisky is?” “Yes.” “Fix us both one, will you?” And this begins a romance with absolutely no trust at all. By the way, Jean has a nice little character moment where she talks about her spy husband who was murdered... and how Dalby gave her a job so that she could support herself. It’s emotional... and expositional. We *think* we know that her loyalties are with Dalby. But are they?
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In the middle of this mistrust, she asks Harry: “Do you always wear your glasses?” “Yes... except in bed.” And then she takes off his glasses and kisses him.
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Plus we have great story related visual elements that had to be in the screenplay - a CIA Agent wears glasses with broken frames, taped together with bright white tape. Another CIA Agent smokes a pipe. Characters have what I call “instant identifiers” in the Action Screenwriting book - a prop or piece of costume that allows the audience to recognize and differentiate characters. The two CIA Agents are easy to tell apart. The other Agents on Dalby’s team each have a prop or costume element that helps us tell them apart. These are screenplay related things, not something you figure out on the set at the last minute. Those taped together glasses end up a clue used later in the story.
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So much of the dialogue and plotting are story related, and the film was obviously shot out of sequence (even though Furie says otherwise) that it’s impossible to believe that this script wasn’t at least most of the way there when they began shooting. Hey, maybe one of the two writers was hired to punch up the dialogue during production, but this film has a complex plot where characters are often double agents, lying, duplicitous... and yet, when you rewatch the film you can see the “tells” in their earlier scenes. It’s based on a book, dammit! The story was always there.
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<b>WEIRD SHOTS</b>
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But director, Sidney J. Furie, and DP Otto Heller come up with the most inventive angles and shots I’ve ever seen - which is one of the reasons why this is one of my favorite movies. Almost every single shot has something in soft focus in the foreground or is “canted” or “dutch” - at a strange angle. What’s interesting is how much fuzzy foreground obscures the shots - there are times when 75% of the screen is someone’s out of focus shoulder or something in the way of the shot. This may sound as if it would be irritating, but it is actually fascinating. You feel as if you are watching the story unfold looking over that shoulder or peeking through that cell door. Just amazing original shots. The lighting is also amazing - Heller paints with shadows, here. One of my favorite shots is early in the film when Ross climbs a spiral staircase to meet with Dalby, there must be a dozen different kinds of shadows in that shot! All with a real light source. There are scenes in darkness that look really really dark, except due to classic lighting techniques you can see what is happening. This seems to be a lost art, today.
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Harry’s parking ticket clue leads him to the Science Library where he discovers BlueJay and his henchman HouseMartin, and when he tries to follow them? There is a whole fight scene shot through the glass of one of those red British phone booth - mullion coming between Harry and this huge bodyguard - and every other interesting combination of foreground and background is used to make the fight scene really interesting. Furie re-imagines action scenes as chess matches or tennis games and stages them in unusual ways throughout the film.
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I don’t think there is a single “flat” shot in the entire film, and nothing that looks like TV “coverage”. The above mentioned shot through the cell door is amazing, because cell door has a crossed grille that creates diamond like openings... and the scene plays out with characters moving from one diamond to another - the chess match idea.
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One of the great visual clues is a piece of paper where BlueJay has written his phone number, but it’s a fake disconnected number. Flip the paper over and it’s a flier for a military band concert. Harry and Dalby meet with BlueJay to make a deal for missing scientist Radcliff... and much of the scene is shot between the cymbals!
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Because Harry wears glasses, the element of sight is used in both action scenes (you know he means business when he carefully folds up his glasses and puts them in his pocket) and other scenes (Harry with glasses off looks over a blurry crowd of scientists after Radcliff is returned and sees a person who does not belong) - the glasses become part of the way the story is told. Though this may be vaguely racist today, the scientists scene has an audience of white scientists in white labcoats and an African American CIA Agent in a suit. Though the image on screen is a blur, we can see that one of these people is not a scientist - and when Harry puts his glasses on, he goes after the Agent... who tells him, “I’m going to tail you until I know you are clean... and if you are not clean... I’m going to kill you.”
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Which leads to the African American CIA Agent being found dead in Harry’s apartment. He flips the light switch, and there the body!
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Other great visual elements include one of the greatest twist-reveals ever put on film, a shot through the keyhole of Harry’s flat of an intruder with a gun, a Polanskiesque shot where a door is opened to hide one character so that we focus on the other, the camera mounted on an armored car that batters down a door - we see it all POV, a Busby Berkeleyesque choreographed prisoner for money exchange in an underground parking garage with a deadly twist, the whole IPCRESS brain washing sequence - which includes an amazing Christ-symbolism bit where Harry jams a rusty nail into his palm to try to avoid the brainwashing, a multi-level following scene in a building, and an amazing ending where a brainwashed Harry must decide who to kill and who not to kill... which we will look at in a moment.
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<b>TANGLED WEBS</b>
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The other way that this story is like THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR is that it has a faction inside the government’s espionage agency working against the government. We have no idea who can be trusted... and you can not trust the government itself.
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Ross keeps trying to get Harry to hand over the file on their investigation, code named “Ipcress” because that word was written on a piece of audio tape found in the abandoned warehouse that they smashed into because they think BlueJay was using it for some mysterious reason. That scene in the abandoned warehouse (“Disused factory” a character calls it) is great for many reasons. Harry calls in the raid - with a British version of a SWAT Team - using “CC1 authority” that he doesn’t have. Dalby shows up before the raid... and Harry is in trouble. But Dalby tells the SWAT Team to go ahead, and they ram the door and storm the warehouse... which is empty except for a huge metal cross. Harry hits the metal cross and it makes a unique noise... which will be used as a sound cue to remind us when we see the same metal cross later. Lots of awesome sound design in this film! When the SWAT Team leader complains that their time has been wasted on an empty warehouse, Dalby covers for Harry - showing that despite all of the conflict between the two men, they are on the same side. Harry does a thorough search even though the warehouse was empty - and finds an old wood burning stove... still warm. Inside it: that audio tape with “Ipcress” written on it. Dalby offers to buy Harry and Carswell lunch.
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When they play the bit of audio tape, all they get are strange noises - what do they mean? To add to the paranoia, there’s that CIA Agent with the broken glasses who is spying on Harry, and someone in one of the departments may actually be working for BlueJay. Jean who may be working for Ross. Ross who wants Harry to mictofilm the Ipcress File, and everyone else who may be working for the good guys or the bad guys... or may just be unaware of larger things going on. In a scene where Harry and Carswell go to interrogate a prisoner picked up by the police, Harry tells the police Desk Sargent, “Palmer.” The Desk Sargent replies, “Oh, Mr. Palmer’s just left, sir, with another gentleman. He said he’s be back soon, would you like to wait? Everything is under control, sir.” Harry flips open his ID, “I’m Palmer.” And their witness is dead in his cell - murdered by whoever had fake ID saying he was Palmer. You can’t trust *anyone* in this film!
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Harry uncovers a plot to kidnap British scientists, brainwash them until they spill all of their secrets, then wipe their memories clean so that they are unable to function. 16 British Scientists have had their brain washed, 17 when you add in Radcliff. The cool thing about this 60s film is that it uses all of the real brainwashing devices from the CIA’s MK-ULTRA program, which wasn’t made public until the 70s. How they knew about these things in this film, I do not know. Were there CIA leaks that ended up in (novelist) Len Deighton’s hands?
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<b>SPOILER:</b> There’s a great scene where Carswell thinks he knows what “Ipcress” means and shows Harry a book. He asks to borrow Harry’s car to check on something. Harry puts the book and the Ipcress File in his desk and locks it. And then we see Carswell driving, stopping at a stop light... and when the light turns green the car doesn’t move. The cars behind it honk their horns. The car still doesn’t move. Then we get a shot of the front window... with a bullet hole from a rooftop sniper, and Carswell dead behind the wheel! There are rooftop snipers out there, just waiting for Harry!
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This leads to a great emotional scene where Harry realizes that he is partially responsible for Carswell’s death, and there is some survivor’s guilt. He finds a place to be alone and grieve... and then Jean finds him and holds his hand. Great little scene! When he goes back to the office - his locked drawer has been pried open and the book and Ipcress file are gone. This is in a British secret service office! How can someone get passed the security to do that?
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Harry tells Jean he’s going to hide somewhere...
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<b>BRAIN WASHING</b>
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Which leads to one of my favorite bits in the film where BlueJay kidnaps Harry... and he wakes up in a crappy cell in some old industrial building, and BlueJay tells him that it would be pointless to try to escape, because he's in Albania. How can he get help if he does not speak Albanian? Where would he run to? He has no passport, no identification. Even if he escaped, he's still trapped in this foreign land. The signs are in Albanian, the prison guards wear Albanian military uniforms, and everyone speaks Albanian. Harry is screwed.
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The brainwashing scene is right out of MK-ULRA program - they begin with disorientation by feeding him at strange hours and keeping the same exact lighting in his cell so that he has no idea how many days have passed. He is often starved, because the food is too hot to eat and taken away if he doesn’t eat it. Harry finds a rusty nail that he uses to mark the “days” (period between meals being offered) on the prison walls - which are filled with th markings of other prisoners counting the days... some maybe hundreds of years old.
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Then they proceed to brainwash him using the IPCRESS method... assaulting him with visuals and sounds (that Ipcress noise) that drive him crazy and lower all resistence. A form of sensory deprivation. Oh, and the suspended cube they wheel him into (strapped to a wheel chair) is suspended by a metal cross like the one from the warehouse... "Listen to me. Listen to me. You will forget the IPCRESS file, you will forget your name..." Harry jams that rusty nail into his palm, "My name is Harry Palmer. My name is Harry Palmer." But he loses the nail... and the brainwashing begins to work.
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That's when Harry decides to escape... running out of the old industrial building where all of the signs are in Albanian, to... Downtown London! He was never taken to Albania! The whole thing was a ruse to make him not try to escape! This is one of dozens of little story touches that make IPCRESS FILE a really cool movie.
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<b>CHOICES</b>
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And now we come to an amazing twist that reveals who broke into his desk to steal the Ipcress File and book and who is the secret enemy agent working for BlueJay. Harry believes that either Ross or Dalby is the main enemy agent, and calls both to the “Albanian prison”, where he disarms both and has them stand under a light - so that we have a spotlight on our two suspects. Then he has them plead their case on why they are not the traitor. But is Harry brainwashed? Will he shoot the actual traitor, or has he been hypnotized to shoot the innocent man and let the real traitor walk free... and continue to work his way up the command of the British Secret Service?
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I love movies where intelligent guys get sent into the field, where they are clueless, and must fight to survive. Harry gets in so much trouble, and the story is so clever and twisted and has so many double and triple crosses that I can watch it again and again... oh, and it’s visually really really cool.
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A great clever screenplay coupled with great inventive direction and Michael Caine at the top of his game surrounded by a bunch of great British actors. Oh, and the musical score is one of John Barry’s best! They made two sequels in the 60s and a couple in the 90s (with an old Michael Caine) but the first one is the best. Check it out!
<br /><br />- Bill<br />
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ipcress-File-Michael-Caine/dp/B00000K3C9/secretsofactions">
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wcmartellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18075242897910568801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20291006.post-69665699368325983762024-03-08T00:00:00.000-08:002024-03-08T00:00:00.135-08:00HITCH 20: The Crystal Trench (s3e5)This is a great new documentary series called HITCH 20 that looks at the 20 TV episodes directed by Hitchcock and here is the last episode of the third season on THE CRYSTAL TRENCH and the importance of locations in story.
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CRYSTAL TRENCH extras...
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In this episode we look at the relationship between story and location, and how a location can be a character in your story. In an old article in Script Magazine called HITCHCOCK’S CHOCOLATES we sweated the small stuff and looked at the relationship between characters, their tools, and their environment. Using location and props to help tell your story. How do you keep all of these elements organic, and even explore theme through location?
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"One of the interesting aspects of "The Secret Agent" is that it takes place in Switzerland," Hitchcock says in HITCHCOCK/TRUFFAUT (1967 Simon And Schuster). "I said to myself, What do they have in Switzerland? They have milk chocolate, they have the Alps, they have village dances, and they have lakes. All of these ingredients were woven into the story. Local topographical features can be used dramatically as well. We used lakes for drowning and the Alps to have our characters fall into crevasses."
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<b><center>IS THIS THE RIGHT PLACE?</b></center>
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Most of us give little thought to our locations, using them only as backgrounds for our stories. They end up little more than theatrical flats - a two dimensional painting of a street our characters act in front of. But location can influence story, and story elements can grow from a location.
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A man walking down a dark alley.
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A man walking in a park filled with children.
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Both scenes show a man walking, but each 'background' will have a different effect on the audience, and on the character's mood and actions. The location changes effects the character and the character effects the direction of the story.
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Orson Welles' brilliant THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI (based on a novel by Sherwood King) takes place in San Francisco and uses the location to advance the story. The story of a yacht captain (Welles) who becomes involved with a beautiful woman (Rita Hayworth) and her evil husband (Everett Sloan) in a strange fake murder for life insurance scheme is like a check list of San Francisco landmarks. From Chinatown to Sausalito to Steinhart Aquarium to Playland At The Beach amusement park.
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In LADY FROM SHANGHAI locations are not just background to the story, they help shape it. When the scheme goes wrong and Welles is hunted through the city by the police - no one to turn to - he hides in a Chinatown theater. Surrounded by people speaking a strange language, laughing at jokes he doesn't understand, the character is out-numbered and alone simultaneously. The choice of environment strengthens the emotions in the scene.
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My DEAD RUN script is a fast paced thriller about a conspiracy to keep a murdered political candidate alive through CGI computer animation. The logical location for this story was someplace where the computer industry has deep roots. Silicon Valley was the obvious choice, but I went with the second city on my list: Seattle, Washington.
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What do we find in Seattle? The Space Needle, the logging industry, gourmet coffee shops, grunge-rockers, the monorail, Puget Sound, trolley cars, and Ballard Locks Park all made my list.
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Then I decided what scenes would gain the most from each of my locations. The sunny Ballard Locks Park seemed like a perfect place for a sniper attack, my end action scene would be on the Space Needle, and I could use the monorail in a chase scene. My candidate would be involved in logging and environmental issues. Everything on my location list helped to shape the final script. The plot helped me choose the city, but each individual setting influenced the way scenes played. I used the location not just as a background, but to help tell the story.
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It's important to make sure your story matches the location, that the story grows naturally from the location and vice versa. You want to find the most effective setting for your story. If you are writing a script about a pair of doomed lovers, can you think of a better location than a sinking ship? The minute Jack and Rose meet each other on the Titanic, the clock is ticking. We know their relationship will be over as soon as that ship sinks. Doomed lovers, doomed location. The location is an organic part of the story.
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In THE CRYSTAL TRENCH that glacier *is* a character in the story, as is the mountain the men are climbing. How could this story work in a desert? In a city? On a farm? The story is all about the glacier!
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<b><center>TWO TOOLS FOR SISTER SARAH</b></center>
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/Alfred-Hitchcock-Presents-Season-Two/dp/B000HDR814/secretsofactions">
<img align="left" height="220" src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000HDR814.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg" /></a><br />
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"In Hitchcock’s THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, James Stewart plays a doctor, and behaves like one throughout the whole picture," Francios Truffaut says in HITCHCOCK/TRUFFAUT. "His line of work is deliberately blended into the action. For instance, before telling Doris Day that their child has been kidnapped, he makes her take a sedative." Stewart's character prepares the sedative calmly, professionally. He's using the tools and methods familiar to him to solve the immediate problem.
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Characters will always use familiar tools, given the choice. Tools are an extension of occupation, and occupation is an extension of character and theme. A plumber with a slide rule or a nun with a machine gun seems strange. A character s choice of tools gives us insight into his or her personality and background. They are more than just props.
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In Robert Benton's KRAMER VS. KRAMER Dustin Hoffman's wife runs off to find herself, leaving him to take care of his young son. The first morning without Mom, Hoffman has to prepare breakfast. Hoffman is used to grabbing a cup of coffee on the way out the door... that's the extent of his breakfast knowledge.
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His son wants french toast. So Hoffman grabs the tools he is familiar with to make the french toast. Instead of using a bowl and a whisk, he uses a coffee cup and a spoon. Breaks the eggs into the cup, beats the eggs with the spoon, then tries to dip the bread in the egg batter. His attempt to make french toast is a complete failure. He will have to learn how to use new tools as a single dad.
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In my NIGHT HUNTER film, Don "The Dragon" Wilson plays the last of the vampire hunters, drifting from town to town on the trail of blood suckers. I envisioned him as a man without friends, without family, without a home. Homeless.
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In the script when all of his vampire killing tools are taken away from him by the police, he is forced to find new equipment. Would he go into a store and buy it? Not in character. He's homeless, he dumpster dives. He turns discarded items found in the trash into lethal killing tools. Tools that fit his character. One hundred percent organic.
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In CRYSTAL TRENCH we not only have the mountain climbing tools, we have that great telescope focused on the side of the mountain that features in scene after scene. The great thing about that telescope is that it’s not only a tool, it’s what I call a “Twitch” in my “Secrets Of Action Screenwriting” book - it’s a physical device that symbolizes an emotional conflict. It’s focused on the dead men, right? So the telescope *becomes* the dead men - a way to have them in a scene when they are actually on the side of the mountain many miles away.
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Make a list of your character's "familiar tools", those things they're most comfortable using. These will be the first thing they reach for when they're trying to solve a problem. Tools they know how to use. Tools they know how to use. Tools which help illuminate character through actions.
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<b><center>STOCK COMPANY</b></center>
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In previous episodes of HITCH 20 we’ve talked about Hitchcock’s “stock company” of actors, and I look at Hitch’s loyalty to cast and crew members in HITCHCOCK: MASTERING SUSPENSE. Though many of the HITCH 20 episodes feature John Williams (the actor, not the composer) these past two episodes have featured THE AVENGERS’ Patrick Macnee. In ARTHUR he was the town constable, and here he’s the glacier expert - two very different characters!
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This brings the third season of HITCH 20 to a close...
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Of course, I have my own books on Hitchcock...
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<h2>HITCHCOCK: MASTERING SUSPENSE</h2>
<p><A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B01EZGTR4O/secretsofactions">
<img align="left" height="220" src="http://www.scriptsecrets.net/images/HitchMasterSM2.jpg"></a><br /></p>
LEARN SUSPENSE FROM THE MASTER!
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Alfred Hitchcock, who directed 52 movies, was known as the “Master Of Suspense”; but what exactly is suspense and how can *we* master it? How does suspense work? How can *we* create “Hitchcockian” suspense scenes in our screenplays, novels, stories and films?
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This book uses seventeen of Hitchcock’s films to show the difference between suspense and surprise, how to use “focus objects” to create suspense, the 20 iconic suspense scenes and situations, how plot twists work, using secrets for suspense, how to use Dread (the cousin of suspense) in horror stories, and dozens of other amazing storytelling lessons. From classics like “Strangers On A Train” and “The Birds” and “Vertigo” and “To Catch A Thief” to older films from the British period like “The 39 Steps” and “The Man Who Knew Too Much” to his hits from the silent era like “The Lodger” (about Jack The Ripper), we’ll look at all of the techniques to create suspense!
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Films Included: NOTORIOUS, SABOTAGE, STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, THE 39 STEPS, REBECCA, TO CATCH A THIEF, FRENZY, FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT, THE LODGER, THE BIRDS, TORN CURTAIN, SABOTEUR, VERTIGO, THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1934), THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1955), SUSPICION, and NUMBER SEVENTEEN. 17 Great Films!
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Only 125,000 words!
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Price: $5.99
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B01EZGTR4O/secretsofactions">Click here for more info!</a>
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OTHER COUNTRIES:<br>
(links actually work now)
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hitchcock-Mastering-Suspense-Hitch-Writers-ebook/dp/B01EZGTR4O/secretsofactions">UK Folks Click Here.</a>
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.de/Hitchcock-Mastering-Suspense-Hitch-Writers-ebook/dp/B01EZGTR4O/secretsofactions"> German Folks Click Here.</a>
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.ca/Hitchcock-Mastering-Suspense-Hitch-Writers-ebook/dp/B01EZGTR4O/secretsofactions"> Canadian Folks Click Here.</a>
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And...
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00H1IM31I/secretsofactions">
<img align="left" height="220" src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00H1IM31I.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg" /></a><br />
<br><br>
<h3>HITCHCOCK: EXPERIMENTS IN TERROR</h3>
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00H1IM31I/secretsofactions">Click here for more info!</a>
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HITCHCOCK DID IT FIRST!
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We all know that Alfred Hitchcock was the Master Of Suspense, but did you know he was the most *experimental* filmmaker in history?
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Contained Thrillers like “Buried”? Serial Protagonists like “Place Beyond The Pines”? Multiple Connecting Stories like “Pulp Fiction”? Same Story Multiple Times like “Run, Lola, Run”? This book focuses on 18 of Hitchcock’s 53 films with wild cinema and story experiments which paved the way for modern films. Almost one hundred different experiments that you may think are recent cinema or story inventions... but some date back to Hitchcock’s *silent* films! We’ll examine these experiments and how they work. Great for film makers, screenwriters, film fans, producers and directors.
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Films Examined: “Rear Window”, “Psycho”, “Family Plot”, “Topaz”, “Rope”, “The Wrong Man”, “Easy Virtue”, “Lifeboat”, “Bon Voyage”, “Aventure Malgache”, “Elstree Calling”, “Dial M for Murder”, “Stage Fright”, “Champagne”, “Spellbound”, “I Confess”, and “The Trouble with Harry”, with glances at “Vertigo” and several others.
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Professional screenwriter William C. Martell takes you into the world of The Master Of Suspense and shows you the daring experiments that changed cinema. Over 77,000 words.
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hitchcock-Experiments-William-C-Martell-ebook/dp/B00H1IM31I/secretsofactions">UK Folks Click Here.</a>
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.de/Hitchcock-Experiments-William-C-Martell-ebook/dp/B00H1IM31I/secretsofactions"> German Folks Click Here.</a>
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.fr/Hitchcock-Experiments-William-C-Martell-ebook/dp/B00H1IM31I/secretsofactions"> French Folks Click Here.</a>
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.es/Hitchcock-Experiments-William-C-Martell-ebook/dp/B00H1IM31I/secretsofactions"> Espania Folks Click Here.</a>
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.ca/Hitchcock-Experiments-William-C-Martell-ebook/dp/B00H1IM31I/secretsofactions"> Canadian Folks Click Here.</a>
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Bill
wcmartellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18075242897910568801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20291006.post-54718027022602825312024-03-07T00:00:00.000-08:002024-03-07T00:00:00.132-08:00THRILLER Thursday: A Third For PinochleSEASON 2!!!
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The spider web fills the screen, it's Boris Karloff's THRILLER!
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<b>Season:</b> 2, Episode: 9.<br>
<b>Airdate:</b> November 20, 1961
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<b>Director:</b> Herschel Daugherty.<br>
<b>Writer:</b> Mark Hanna and Boris Sobelman.<br>
<b>Cast:</b> Edward Andrews, Doro Merande, Ann Shoemaker, June Walker, Barbara Perry.<br>
<b>Music: </b>Morton Stevens.<br>
<b>Cinematography:</b> Benjamin H. Kline.<br>
<b>Producer:</b> William Frye.
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<b>Boris Karloff’s Introduction:</b> “They hardly knew him. Well, if that’s the way Melba and Diedre Pennaroyd treat their casual acquaintances I shudder to think of the hospitality they keep in store for their very special friends, Or perhaps they subscribe to the words of that famous poet who relates that there are some who apparently feel that the best way to make friends is to do something dreadful and then make amends. But what the girls seem to have overlooked for a moment at least is that amends will never sooth the ruffled ego of a corpse. Such an untidy way to go. Pity. I dare say the ace of spades would have worked wonders for a bad hand of pinochle. Tonight’s story is concerned with that ancient game. And the players are: Edward Andrews, Doro Merande, Ann Shoemaker, June Walker, and Barbara Perry. You’ve heard the old saying, Lucky at cards, unlucky at love? Well as sure as my name is Boris Karloff you’ll learn tonight whether or not it’s true, And permit me to give you one piece of advice: Never lay all of your cards on the table. (Holds up a knife) Someone might cut the deck.”
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<b>Synopsis:</b> Before Karloff’s introduction there is a scene shot entirely in silhouette where a woman grabs a cleaver, goes into a room where a man is packing, and hacks him up... only to be discovered by another woman (her sister) who scolds her. Now they will need another player for pinochle. This sets the tone - this is a bloody comedy episode...
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Welcome to late 1950s/early 1960s suburbia. Peaceful. Conservative. White picket fences. Well manicured lawns. On one side of the street the elderly Pennaroyd Sisters live - they are characters right out of “Arsenic And Old Lace” - two cute little old ladies who often rent their spare room to single men. Melba (Doro Merande) and Diedre (June Walker). On the other side of the street live Maynard and Mrs. Thispin - he is the henpecked husband and she is the wife he mostly married for her money. The Pennaroyd Sisters spy on their neighbors through binoculars - watching the Thispin’s pull into the driveway across the street.
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Mrs Thispin (Ann Shoemaker) is going on a trip to visit her sister, and Maynard (Edward Andrews) is doing everything in his power not to go with her. The doorbell rings and it’s a delivery man with *poison* - weedkiller - and Maynard must pretend there has been some mistake in front of his wife... but by this point we have seen enough of bossy Mrs. Thispin to understand why he might have ordered it. In Maynard’s basement workshop he phones his girlfriend - the pneumatic Babs (Barbara Perry) - telling her that he would be willing to possibly buy her a mink stole, and he’d like to discuss it with her at her apartment this afternoon. After he hangs up he pulls a paper mache head from a secret cupboard and puts a wig the color of his wife’s hair on it... then practices strangling it.
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Mrs. Thispin has Maynard write notes to all of her friends telling them that she will be away for a while, then she wants him to go out and buy six packages of birdseed for her pet birds which he will have to feed while she is away. She has a huge stack of money in her purse, but gives him just enough to buy the birdseed... down to the penny.
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After buying the birdseed he stops off at Babs’ apartment, where he tells her as soon as he inherits some money he will get her a nicer apartment and that mink stole.
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When Maynard returns home he attempts to strangle his wife several times, but his timing is all wrong... a Door To Door Salesman (Vito Scotti) rings the bell, the phone rings, etc. Some slight suspense is created here, but it’s mostly played for laughs.
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The Door To Door Salesman knocks on the Pennaroyd’s door, and they invite him in and try to rent him their spare room and one of the sisters chases him out with a meat cleaver. Hijinks have ensued.
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Maynard keeps failing to strangle his wife - so he grabs a huge paperweight and smashes her skull. That worked. He takes his paper mache head on the dressmaker’s dummy and puts it in the passenger seat - so that it looks like his wife. Puts her suitcases in the car, and drives off... with the Pennaroyd Sisters watching him through their binoculars.
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Maynard pulls the car off the road in a secluded section and puts the paper mache head in the trunk... next to his wife’s corpse. Them drives to the train station where he takes his wife’s purse and puts it above her assigned seat, then waits near the Red Cap (Burt Mustin) until a woman of about the right age needs helps with her bags, and makes sure the porter sees him carrying the woman’s bags onto the train with her, makes sure the conductor sees him, and then makes sure the porter sees him waving at the woman in the train as it chugs away. He tells the Red Cap he’s glad to get rid of his wife for a while...
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Then drives the car to a remote area just past the next train stop and dumps his wife’s body in the bushes.
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At home, he burns the paper mache head... all of the evidence is gone!
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A few days later, a Police Detective (Ken Lynch) shows up to inform him they have found his wife’s body. Their theory is that she was mugged on the train due to the large amount of money she was carrying in cash. Maynard does not act broken up, and tells the Detective that they had been married for a long time and the thrill was gone. He knows that if they are thinking it was murder, that he is the prime suspect, and it often crossed his mind to kill her... but he didn’t. The Detective tells him they interviewed the Red Cap who remembers him helping a woman who may or may not have been his wife to the train, but who might have seen her leave the house with him?
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Which takes Maynard and the Detective across the street to the Pennaroyd Sisters...
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Who remembers watching them driving to the train station. So he is now off the hook.
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A few days later Maynard calls Babsie and breaks up with her - he has met a beautiful young redhead and they are flying to Mexico together on vacation. After he hangs up, the phone rings - it’s the Pennaroyd Sisters who want to see him immediately. They have a secret... about his late wife.
<br><br>
Maynard goes across the street where the Sisters are waiting to play pinochle... they know it wasn’t his wife in the car, it was a paper mache head. He stays and plays a hand or two... and begs off. But the Sisters say they used to play around the clock - morning, noon and night! Mr. Thispen will move into the spare bedroom and always be there to play pinochle... or they will go to that nice Detective and tell him what they know.
<br><br>
<b>Review:</b> This episode seems as if they took two completely different stories and tried to tie them together by having them happen across the street from each other. But this doesn’t really work and it never seems like the two tales are connected... except by tone. The Pennaroyd Sisters story is a direct lift from ARSENIC AND OLD LACE with nice little old lady killers, and the Maynard story across the street is one of those cliche Husband-Kills-Nagging-Wife comedy stories we have seen a million times, including an episode of this show, A GOOD IMAGINATION, that also starred Edward Andrews. This is the kind of role he often played - the amusing suburban killer. He’s great at it. But split story makes doesn’t really work... and the Pennaroyd Sisters never really seem to be in desperate need of that third at pinochle which is not only the title of the episode but their sole motivation for doing all sorts of terrible things. It’s like a punchline without the set up.
<br><br>
There are gags, the like the boxes of bird seed, that aren’t very funny but the episode plays them up, hoping that you will laugh anyway. The wacky door-to-door salesman who gets stuck with the Sisters in a scene and is chased around the house with a meat cleaver is not clever. This episode feels a little like MASQUERADE - a few episodes back - where there seems to have been a joke somewhere, but it stayed on the page instead of making it to the screen. Perhaps the script was a laugh riot, but the episode just isn’t funny enough, and I wish they have done it as two episodes, or maybe even a two separate half hours... with the twist end that they are across the street from each other. By connecting the two into one story it just seems to undercut both.
<br><br>
Though this isn’t a great episode, what I find interesting about it is that both stories are part of a larger subgenre that was popular at the time (late 50s, early 60s) about how peaceful, quiet, conservative suburbia was really simmering with corruption and sin below the surface. PEYTON PLACE looked at the sex aspect on the big screen and fiction, but in this episode we have infidelity and murder and insanity hidden behind those lovely white picket fences and well manicured yards. The David Lynch idea that the polite surface always hides a more evil world than the cliche crime infested big city pops up a couple of times on this show, many times on HITCHCOCK PRESENTS, and in movies and TV shows and fiction of the time. It’s interesting to think that all of these horrible criminal acts are *normal*, and that in the repressed suburbs those evil acts still exist... but people just pretend that they don’t. I said earlier that much of Edward Andrews career was playing characters like this, who seemed respectable on the outside but were actually some form of nice monster. In the scene where he is interrogated by the Police Detective and offers him a martini, the perfect host, you get a “what kind of man reads Playboy” vibe. He is a married man with a “little black book” of mistresses he keeps hidden in his sock and a basement filled with all kinds of tools and toys - he has a secret telephone extension down there. Hidden. He seems nice and respectable on the outside, but underneath he is even more corrupt than some random guy in the big city.
<br><br>
I suspect this was a commentary on the times - the suburbs seemed like something out of LEAVE IT TO BEAVER but that was all a facade. In reality - and this episode was written in 1961 - it was a hotbed of what people of the time would call “sin”. When we fondly look back on that era, we need to include episodes like this that tell a different truth. If there is a whole subgenre of crime story on TV about quiet suburban men who cheat like crazy and murder their wives and nice little old ladies who kill between rounds of pinochle; there had to be enough of this going on at the time that this wasn’t shelved in the Science Fiction section. That David Lynch look at late 50s / early 60s suburbia almost makes this episode into something more than a time killer. Almost.
<br><br>
Though the episode is amusing enough to kill 50 minutes if you have nothing better to do, it’s one of those season 2 mis-steps. After finding the show’s “voice” as a horror and suspense show, it seems like they had a few season 1 scripts they needed to get rid of. And the next episode is another mis-step, though an unusual and timely one... The 1961 “MeToo movement” written by and directed by a woman.
<br><br>
- Bill
<br><br>
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<br><br>wcmartellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18075242897910568801noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20291006.post-50681725890204342502024-03-06T00:00:00.000-08:002024-03-06T00:00:00.138-08:00Film Courage Plus: Landing A Writing GigFILM COURAGE did a series of interviews with me in 2014 and 2015 -about 36 (or more) segments total. That's almost a year's worth of material! So why not add a new craft article and make it a weekly blog entry? All I have to do is write that new article, right?
<br><br>
<b><center>LANDING A WRITING GIG</center></b>
<br><br>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/tNhYXDhO4fk?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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In the clip I note two of the common ways to get into screenwriting - through spec scripts going out to market and through winning or being a finalist in one of the major contests. Spec scripts tend to get read due to their interesting concepts (“What’s it about?”) and contests are often more focused on the quality of the writing rather than the concept. Of course, there are a million spec screenplays in circulation in any given year and maybe 100 of those sell, so quality of writing is a massive component in spec screenplays as well. But whichever way gets you in, all roads lead to Hollywood... and Hollywood movies. You might write the awesome high concept screenplay which leads to an assignment writing that summer tentpole movie, or you might win a contest and land an assignment working on a summer tentpole movie. These days Hollywood is pretty much all tentpole all the time, so if you are a contest winner - be prepared!
<br><br>
There's also "Hollywood Adjacent" movies made on a low budget... The Blumhouse horror films like the INSIDIOUS and HAPPY DEATH DAY, made for $5 million or less, and *written* to be made on a budget. Also, all of those low budget genre movies that pop up in Red Box that you have never heard of - also <i>written to be made on a budget</i>. These films are the less expensive versions of Hollywood films - popcorn genre films. Tent spikes instead of tentpoles. Not small, serious dramas...
<br><br>
There was a time - only about a decade ago - when Hollywood still made a certain number of mid-range movies, some of which were “prestige” films or dramas, but these days those films are made independently. Outside of the system, and usually written-directed-produced by the same person. They find the funding and make the film - no screenplay is actually sold (the film is funded). A movie like SPOTLIGHT doesn’t come from a studio, but from a filmmaker - Tom McCarthy, who co-wrote the screenplay and directed the film and was involved in producing it as well (he wrote-directed-produced WIN WIN). If you want to work outside the system and do your own thing, it has never been easier to do that. You can make a film for pocket change these days... and many people do. If you don’t want to write tentpoles or those "tent spikes" and don’t want to make your own films, there are still some options available: TV is expanding right now, and even though many shows are high concept and similar to tentpole films (check out anything on the CW) there are still shows that are more low key and dramatic oriented like SHADES OF BLUE. The other option is to head to film festivals and find a director who needs a writing partner - some of my favorite genre films lately are the work of the director & writer team of Jim Mickle and Nick Damici. If you are a great writer there is a place somewhere for you in the business - studio or indie or genre or TV or YouTube or whatever they come up with next. Every entertainment media needs *stories*, and that’s *us*. Finding your home will require that you open your eyes a little wider - if you are not writing the kinds of movies that are being made (and don’t want to write them), you’ll have to find the place where your type of writing is needed. Wait, how many ways to break in is that now?
<br><br>
The first thing you need to figure out is what your skill set is. You need to know what you do well, so that you can match that to a media and a method to break in. Heck, I have a book called BREAKING IN with dozens and dozens of ways to break in... but what’s important is what you are breaking in to... Studio films? Indies? Television? What are your skills and how do they match the media? If you want to break in to studio films, know that you will be writing studio films. There are people who want to write indie type stories for studios... and that seldom happens. Even if you win a contest, chances are if a studio based producer hires you it will be to do a rewrite on some high concept tentpole or comic book movie or maybe a board game turned into a script. That’s what Hollywood does - make big expensive mass audience films. No matter how you break in, that’s what you’re in for.
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<br><br>
<b><center>CONTESTS</b></center>
<br><br>
I look at different contests in the Breaking In Blue Book, and note that the King of all screenwriting contests is The Nicholl fellowship, which is run by those people who give out the Oscars every year. These days the Nicholl pays up to five winners $35,000... but it’s not just about the money, Hollywood producers and agents and managers *fight over* the winners! In fact, even if you don’t win they will fight over you: finalists and even semi-finalists usually get meetings with producers and agents and managers. Of course, there’s a reason *why* semi-finalists are still pretty damned good... there are *thousands* of entries every year (over 7,500 in 2014) and only about 5% advance to the competition quarter-finals, and only about 2% make it to the semi-finals and about ten entries reach the finals.
<br><br>
The Queen of screenwriting contests is probably Austin, and danged if my friend Max Adams didn’t win both the Nicholl and Austin in the same year with two different screenplays! This is probably why you should grab Max Adams’ book (in addition to mine).
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The Prince of screenwriting contests is probably TrackingB, because winners and runners up land agents and managers, and the finalist judges are often development people who end up fighting over the winning screenplays. Where Nicholl and Austin just get you on Hollywood’s radar, TrackingB gets you in front of the buyers. The Younger Prince is Tracking Board’s Launch Pad, which is the direct competition to the TrackingB contest... Again finalists are read by people actually in the business who read and buy screenplays for a living, which means if you have a great screenplay this contest will
launch your career.
<br><br>
In you win the Final Draft Big Break Contest, you can have a drink with me, since I’m at the big party where they announce the winner every year... along with screenwriters much more famous than I am (last year Max Landis was drinking with my group... so nobody really cared that I was there). So, maybe have a drink with all of the more famous people first.
<br><br>
Other good contests: PAGE, Scriptapalooza, SlamDance, ScriptPipeline, Sundance, BlueCat... and probably some that I’m forgetting, since I’m not a contest guy. Since I was a professional screenwriter before all of these contests began, I’ve been ineligible to enter them.
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The thing to watch out for with small contests are the ones which are just money making schemes. Do your research! There have been some interesting scandals in the contest world, including one a few years ago where a small contest run by a script consultant had one of the contest readers admit that they didn’t read all of the screenplays... and I don’t mean they just read the first 10 or 20 pages of each screenplay (which isn’t unusual for first round on small contests, since you can usually tell a really bad screenplay after only a few pages of poorly written sentences), but there were some screenplays that they never read a single page! I discovered that another contest that is part of a small film festival had *no* “celebrity” judges and every screenplay was “read” by the person running the fest/contest and she pocketed all of the entry fees herself. I have no idea if she read all of the screenplays or even if she read any of them! It was all about her making money. The good news about fly-by-night contests like this is that the internet spreads the warnings, so usually all you have to do is Google some contest to find out whether it has had problems in the past. Always do your research!
<br><br>
Since I can’t enter contests, I write and send out spec scripts.
<br><br>
<b><center>SPEC SCRIPTS</b></center>
<br>
Spec screenplays are the most versatile choice (even the screenplays you enter in contests are specs, right?) because there are so many different ways that you can submit them. In addition to contests, you can submit them directly to production companies (after a query and a request) and to managers (again - query and request) and agents (query and request), plus there are many other ways specs can open a door for you. One thing to keep in mind: the reason why anyone will request your screenplay is that the *concept* sounds interesting. Mangers and Agents and Producers are *business people* who only earn money when a script sells or a writer lands a writing assignment. (Producers are last paid, so they need a screenplay or writer who can create something that gets made if they want to get paid.) Even managers and agents who may be looking for writers they can send out for assignments will be looking for specs with great concepts (unless the writer is one of the handful who wins a contest). The way an Agent or Manager introduces a writer to potential employers is through specs - and the way they get people to read specs screenplays is the same way *we* get people to read our spec screenplays: a killer logline or killer elevator pitch that’s all about the concept. If your concept is dull or mundane or something that doesn’t sound like something millions of people worldwide will be lining up tp pay to see, it will be difficult to get and Agent or Manager to request your screenplay... and then difficult for that Agent or Manager to get reads for you. Yes - there are exceptions. Nothing is an absolute in this business. But you may have noticed that everything in the world is cutting frills and focusing on profit, and Agents and Managers and Producers are no different. Even with referrals, someone is going to ask, “What’s it about?” and then it’s up to the concept to sell them.
<br><br>
This is the reason why there is so much focus on that concept, and why so many new writers fail by writing a script that’s based on a dull or mundane idea. I used to say that TV was the only place where Private Eye and Cop stories were wanted, but if you’ve watched TV of late you may have noticed that the trend for *weird* cops and detectives has gone to extremes - a zombie who eats the brains of victims to solve crimes? So, unless you plan on using the contest method make sure you begin with a great idea! One of these Film Courage Interviews has my “100 Idea Theory” - where you should come up with 100 great ideas and then select the best of them all to script. A well written screenplay with a bland idea is going to be tough to get reads with... and a terribly written script with a great idea isn’t going to get you very far, either! As I’ve said before - there is no “or” in screenwriting. If the question is: "Which is more important, concept or execution?" The answer is: BOTH!
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And when we are looking at "tent spike" or "Hollywood Adjacent" screenplays, the question isn't "Good Screenplay or written to be made on a budget?" it's BOTH!
<br><br>
But spec screenplays can also *travel*, and I think that’s come up in one of these Film Courage segments. This is a business of referrals, and there are referrals you know about and ones that you don’t know about. If someone reads your screenplay and thinks it’s great and passes it to someone else in the industry (“You’ve gotta read this!”) that screenplay can travel all over town, from one person to another, and eventually land somewhere that matters. I’ve said before that a great spec script given to the *wrong person* or just left on the street in Beverly Hills has a pretty good chance of being discovered and landing you a gig. There are so few screenplays that get everything right that one which does will go places. People who complain about the gate keepers in Hollywood don’t understand that those gate keepers are *actively* looking for that great screenplay that will earn them points with the boss and further their careers. Everyone wants to be the one who discovered the next big thing!
<br><br>
That next big thing could be *you*!
<br><br>
Good luck and keep writing!
<br><br>
- Bill
<br><br>
<h2><center>NEWISH!</center></h2>
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Bill
wcmartellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18075242897910568801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20291006.post-31307418713224277752024-03-05T00:00:00.000-08:002024-03-05T00:00:00.123-08:00Trailer Tuesday: HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILLSince Friday was the 13th...
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THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (1959)
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Starring: Vincent Price, Carol Ohmart, Richard Long, Elisha Cook jr, Carolyn Craig. <br>
Written by: Robb White<br>
Directed by: William Castle<br>
Produced by: William Castle<br>
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William Castle was the king of gimmicks, and this film featured “Emergo” - which was nothing more than a plastic skeleton on a wire that shot out at the audience at a point in the film near the end...
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<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dFtLw4lbgP8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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The movie opens with screams over a black screen, and then Pritchard (Elisha Cook jr) says, “The ghosts are moving tonight, restless... hungry. May I introduce myself? I'm Watson Pritchard. In just a moment I'll show you the only really haunted house in the world. Since it was built a century ago, seven people, including my brother, have been murdered in it. Since then, I've owned the house. I only spent one night there and when they found me in the morning, I was almost dead.” Which sets the stage for the story without showing a single ghost or dead body. Haunted house movies often begin with the legend of the house, and both HELL HOUSE and THE HAUNTING have scenes where we hear about all of the terrible things that have happened in the house previously so that we fear for our new guests.
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After Pritchard is finished, we get Frederick Loren (Vincent Price) introducing the situation in voice over as we see our guests approach, “I am Frederick Loren, and I have rented the house on Haunted Hill tonight so that my wife can give a party. She's so amusing. There'll be food and drink and ghosts, and perhaps even a few murders. You're all invited. If any of you will spend the next twelve hours in this house, I will give you each ten thousand dollars, or your next of kin in case you don't survive. Ah, but here come our other guests...” And we get an introduction and brief bio of each character. In a movie that isn’t even 75 minutes long, using voice over to introduce the characters and basic situation gets us right into the story without wasting valuable film stock on all of those introduction scenes.
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This is an interesting haunted house, because despite Pritchard saying it’s 100 years old, it is ultra modern on the outside... a spooky cobwebbed set on the inside. The guests: brave test pilot Lance Schroeder (THE BIG VALLEY’s Richard Long), broke secretary Nora Manning (Carolyn Craig) who works for Loren’s company, gossip magazine columnist Ruth Bridges (Julie Mitchum), skeptical psychiatrist Dr. David Trent (Alan Marshal), and the house owner Pritchard... none have ever met each other or Loren, even though Nora works for his company. All are interested in getting paid $10k for 12 hours work... except Trent who is more interested in debunking the legend of the house.
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Moments after they meet, a door slams shut (on its own) and the chandelier begins moving... then crashes down at Nora... but Lance saves her.
<br><br>
Upstairs the charming Loren is waiting for his fourth wife Annabelle (sexy Carol Ohmart) to get dressed for the party. He knows she’s cheating on him; but she counters by saying he can’t prove it, can he? Loren knows she’s a gold digger and suspects she is going to try to kill him and inherit. All of this in fairly witty dialogue between them, before Loren goes downstairs to meet his guests.
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Pritchard pulls a giant knife from a secret compartment and shows it to the other guests, “This is what she used on my brother and her sister, hacked them to pieces. We found parts of their bodies all over the house, in places you wouldn't think. The funny thing is the heads have never been found, hands and feet and things like that, but no heads.” So there are two loose heads floating around somewhere in here?
<br><br>
Loren enters and mixes drinks for everyone - the caretakers will leave at midnight and the doors will be locked. No phones, bolted windows, no way out. Pritchard says that four men and three women have been murdered in this house, and Trent quips that there are four men and three women here now - that’s a ghost for each of them.
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Pritchard leads them on a tour of the house - pointing out a huge blood stain on the ceiling, and when Ruth stands under it... fresh blood drips on her hand! “It’s too late - the house has marked you!” They go into the massive wine cellar, where a past resident filled a vat with acid and tossed his wife in. “There’s been a murder almost everyplace in this house.” When Nora almost falls into the vat, Lance saves her again. Pitchard tosses something into the vat to show that there is still acid in there.
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When the tour moves on. Lance and Nora stay behind - our romance story (to counter the anti-romance of Loren and Annabelle). They poke around in the wine cellar until Lance finds a door that leads... somewhere. Once he gets through the door it slams shut and Nora can’t get it open! Then all of the lights go out and she sees the ghost of an Old Woman appear for a moment on the other side of the room, she races to get out of there! Nora gets help, says we’ll have to break down the door - it’s locked. Except it’s not locked... it’s open. Lance is on the other side, unconscious - hit in the head. Who could have done that? All of the others were together.
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Lance and Nora go back to the wine cellar to search for secret passages and when Nora is alone, the Old Woman Ghost zooms past her - scare moment. She screams and Lance runs in... but there is no trace of the ghost.
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When Nora races upstairs she bumps into Annabelle - who warns her not to go anywhere in the house alone... she is in danger. When Lance comes up stairs to look for Nora he bumps into Annabelle as well - and she makes the moves on him, and warns him that Loren is planning something... something sinister. The three wives before her died under mysterious circumstances.
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About 33 minutes into the film, Loren knocks on all of the guest’s doors to announce that it is almost midnight - last chance to leave the house before the doors and windows are locked and bolted for 12 hours. Nora tells him that she will be staying, then goes back into her room and discovers one of those missing heads when she opens her suitcase. Nice shock moment. She runs out of the room, takes a wrong turn, ends up in a strange hallway... dark, spooky... she is lost in the strange house. Then a hand grabs her from the shadows! An Old Man says, “Come with us before he kills you!” She escapes from the Old Man and races downstairs to the living room... where everyone else is. Screaming that she doesn’t want to stay here.
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A door blasts opens and the Old Woman Ghost and Old Man stand there!
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Loren introduces them as the Caretaker and his Wife... who will be leaving at Midnight and locking the doors. Nora wants out - she doesn’t care about the $10k. Then a wind blows through the room, rattling everything. Weird! When they turn back to the Caretaker and his Wife - they are gone! They have left and locked the door behind them! Now Nora is trapped in the house for 12 more hours like everyone else.
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At about 37:30 (the halfway point) they are locked in the house.
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Loren provides them all with *guns* (in cute little coffin shaped boxes), and Pritchard exclaims: “These are no good against the dead... only the living.” Trent thinks the guns are a bad idea - fear is likely to have them shooting each other. Annabelle says she doesn’t need a gun, and it goes back in it’s box.
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Nora drags them all upstairs to look at the severed head... but it is no longer there. Is she crazy?
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Lance goes to Nora’s room to comfort her (if you know what I mean) and finds her door unlocked and Nora isn’t there... but the severed head is hanging in the closet! He grabs the head and races downstairs to the living room... where Pritchard tells him that it is too late - the house has her now. They will never see her again.
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A scream from upstairs! Lance runs to the staircase where he sees... a woman dangling from a noose! Has Nora killed herself? Trent comes down the hallway, sees the hanging woman, and they take her down... and *without showing us her face* take the dead woman into a room and place her on the bed. Trent checks her pulse - pronounces her dead. Loren runs in, asks if Nora is alright, and Trent says, “She’s dead... your wife is dead” and we see the dead woman’s face for the first time: Annabelle!
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Lance leaves the room, notices curtains blowing at the other end of the hallway... an open window? A secret passage? Just as he gets to the curtains Nora pops up behind him and pleads, “Hide me!” Lance takes her to his room, where Nora claims that Loren tried to strangle her and then left her for dead. It was dark, but she’s sure it was Loren. Lance tells her that Annabelle is dead - and he thinks someone killed her.
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Pounding at the door. Lance opens it carefully - Trent on the other side of the threshold says he doesn’t believe Annabelle hung herself and he wants to meet with everyone (except Loren) downstairs.
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Loren is looking down at his dead wife, not exactly mourning, when there’s a noise behind him - Pritchard. “Your wife isn't there anymore. She's already joined them!” Loren says he’s drunk and throws him out of the room.
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In the living room (where most of this film takes place) Trent takes charge - and we are in AND THEN THERE WERE NONE territory as he explains that there are no ghosts, but one of them is a murderer. There was nothing Annabelle could have stood on before hanging herself. Loren says he believes she was murdered... by one of you. Lance chimes in that to want to murder someone, you must know them... but we were all strangers to Annabelle except Loren. He is the only logical suspect. The problem now is that one of them is a killer and now they are trapped with each other for 6 more hours. The plan: since all have guns, they will all stay in their rooms alone for the next 6 hours, and if anyone comes into their rooms - shoot them!
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At 56 minutes they are all locked safely in their rooms...
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Trent sees his doorknob moving, but when he opens the door - no one in the hallway.
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Blood drips on Ruth’s hand - the blood pool has appeared on her bedroom ceiling.
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Lance goes into Nora’s room (hormones) to make sure she’s safe... then goes exploring in that mystery hallway where the curtains were blowing before. Finds a secret passage in the wall and enters.
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The lights go out due to the convenient storm, and Nora thinks she sees a rope crawling through her window like a snake and coil itself around her legs! Floating outside the window - Annabelle’s ghost! When Nora grabs the gun, Annabelle floats away taking the rope with her. Nora freaks out, runs down the hallway with the gun... right into Annabelle’s hanging body near the stairs! She backs against a door... and a dead hand reaches around the door to grab her! She runs downstairs... where a dusty old organ begins to play a funeral dirge by itself! She screams and runs away.
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Upstairs - Trent knocks on Loren’s door and they aim their guns at each other. Trent heard a scream and running, thinks they should search the house: Loren downstairs and he will search upstairs. When Loren is gone, Trent goes into the room where Dead Annabelle lays on the bed, says to her corpse: “It’s almost over, darling. Every detail was perfect.” Then Annabelle’s eyes pop open, and she begins to rise! “Get me out of this hanging harness.” And at 65:20 minutes we get the scheme - Trent and Annabelle are driving Nora crazy, making her believe that Loren has murdered his wife and is now trying to kill her; and just waiting for Nora to find Loren and shoot him dead... so that Annabelle inherits everything and can run off with her lover Trent. “When you hear the shot, come down to the cellar”, Trent tells her before he goes.
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In the cellar: Nora and her gun search the darkness... as Loren enters from the shadows behind her. She lifts her gun and shoots him!
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Trent enters from a secret passage, opens up the vat of acid, drags Loren’s body to it as the lights flicker out again. In the darkness: A man’s death scream!
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Annabelle goes into the cellar looking for Trent, can’t find him. But the doors slowly creak closed one by one trapping her in the cellar. Trapping her in the darkness! Shadows everywhere! She creeps up to the vat of acid... bubbling... and a skeleton emerges from the depths... and *keeps* emerging! It comes out of the vat, and starts moving across the room towards her! (Emergo - and zips at the audience!) “At last you have it all, everything I have. Even my life, But you’re not going to live to enjoy it. Come with me murderess, come with me!” says Loren’s voice from the skeleton! She tries to open the door - locked! The skeleton grabs her - freaking her out. Then the skeleton slowly walks towards her, backing her into... the vat of acid! She falls in... and her body is dissolved.
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From the shadows Loren emerges - with a marionette rig - the skeleton was just a puppet. He tosses the rig and skeleton into the acid and all of the evidence is gone. When the others finally make it into the cellar, they find Loren standing over the bubbling acid. He tells them that Annabelle and Trent plotted to kill him - using Nora as an unknowing assassin - but he discovered their plan and filled her gun with blanks. When Trent tried to throw him into the acid, Loren struggled and Trent fell in. When Annabelle came down, she stumbled and fell into the acid. Loren is more than willing to turn himself over to the authorities and see that justice is done.
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The doors pop open and everyone is free to go.
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Pritchard looks at the bubbling acid - bones and skulls bobbing - and says, “Now there are nine. There’ll be more, many more. They’re coming for me, now... and then they’ll come for you!”
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Tomorrow we'll look at one of the great Corman adaptations of Poe starring Vincent Price.
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- Bill
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wcmartellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18075242897910568801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20291006.post-51026513659380180122024-03-01T00:00:00.000-08:002024-03-01T00:00:00.132-08:00Fridays With Hitchcock: HITCH 20: ARTHUR (s3e4)This is a great new documentary series called HITCH 20 that I am a "guest expert" on. The series looks at the 20 TV episodes directed by Hitchcock and here is the fourth episode of the third season, which looks at point of view and breaking the fourth wall in Hitchcock's work and in ARTHUR...
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Not the great Dudley Moore movie nor the terrible remake, but an episode of ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS directed by Hitchcock and starring that fellow who was the MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE...
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Once again I am in front of Universal Studios where this episode of HITCHCOCK PRESENTS was shot... and yes, they brought hundreds of live chickens and some chicken wranglers onto the lot and into the soundstage (this episode was shot indoors with some awesome background paintings making it look as if were out on a farm in the middle of the UK somewhere). Check out the shot where the police are searching - that’s an indoor set!
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The episode focuses on breaking the fourth wall, but underneath that is something pretty common in film - the use of Voice Over Narration to get us into the head of a potentially unsympathetic character. If a character may be difficult to identify with, one of the techniques often used is to allow us to see the world through their eyes by giving them a running commentary - usually funny and amusing and entertaining. Adding an extra layer of story. So in a movie like DOUBLE INDEMNITY where our protagonist is a murderer, it helps to know their motivations and understand them... and it also helps that Walter Neff is amusing so that the narration is entertaining. The example I often use is another film from the same director, SUNSET BLVD, where protagonist and narration Joe Gillis is not just a screenwriter, his narration is filled with amazingly witty lines. You could remove the narration and the film still works perfectly, but it is so much better with that added layer of entertainment... plus it turns Gillis and Neff (and Arthur) into our friends and confidants. They are telling us their secret thoughts.
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As I said in the episode, having Arthur talk directly into the camera also turns this into an odd satire on cooking shows, which were popular at the time. We watch Arthur prepare some meals, his presentation is beautiful, and he’s charismatic. Because cooking shows were inexpensive to produce in studios (still are) there were a bunch of them at the time, and the narration is just part of that.
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But the narration doesn’t let the writer off the hook for telling the story visually - we see the dishes in the sink, the disk as the ashtray, the broken cup... and the audience wants to kill her, too. She has disrupted his orderly life. The narration might get us closer to Arthur, but all of those images, plus Helen herself, make us fully understand the chaos she has brought to Arthur’s life.
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The actress who plays Helen, Hazel Court, may look familiar to you because she was a regular in all of those Corman Poe horror flicks we looked at last year during Halloween. THE RAVEN, MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH, and PREMATURE BURIAL among others. This episode even feels a bit like a Poe story. A UK actress who came to Hollywood and played all kinds of roles in lower budget movies and TV. I love her in this role - she manages to be irritating when doing minor things.
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One of the fun things is the noise the chicken makes in the opening scene of the film is the same noise that Helen makes when Arthur strangles her. You can decide whether it’s the chicken or Helen’s strangulation sounds.
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Which brings up strangulation - interesting, because that was the murder method in Hitchcock’s ROPE as well, and in both we side with the killers who then play a game of cat & mouse with an authority figure who is also a very close friend. In ROPE it’s their professor played by Jimmy Stewart, and here it’s the local constable played by Patrick MacNee who is his best friend. This is one of two episodes directed by Hitchcock that MacNee was in, what is that? 10% of the 20 episodes Hitchcock directed? The other episode is next up on HITCH 20, I think (this episode is Season 5 Episode 1 and that episode is Season 5 Episode 2). But the relationship between Arthur and the Constable is interesting because they are both close friends and on opposite sides of the law. There’s a great conversation about being alone, and therefor in control of your life. This gets to the core of what the story is about, aside from running your wife through an industrial strength grinder.
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Hitchcock often experimented with giving the audience a walk on the wild side by telling the story from the “villain”s point of view. ROPE and PSYCHO and this episode put us in the shoes of the badguys and show us the world through their eyes, and make us worry that they will be caught be the authorities. And just for the trivia side of things, the female lead in PSYCHO, Janet Leigh, was the female lead in THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE which starred Lawrence Harvey... the star of this episode ARTHUR. Everything is connected!
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- Bill
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Now to plug my Hitchcock books...
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<h2>HITCHCOCK: MASTERING SUSPENSE</h2>
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LEARN SUSPENSE FROM THE MASTER!
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Alfred Hitchcock, who directed 52 movies, was known as the “Master Of Suspense”; but what exactly is suspense and how can *we* master it? How does suspense work? How can *we* create “Hitchcockian” suspense scenes in our screenplays, novels, stories and films?
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This book uses seventeen of Hitchcock’s films to show the difference between suspense and surprise, how to use “focus objects” to create suspense, the 20 iconic suspense scenes and situations, how plot twists work, using secrets for suspense, how to use Dread (the cousin of suspense) in horror stories, and dozens of other amazing storytelling lessons. From classics like “Strangers On A Train” and “The Birds” and “Vertigo” and “To Catch A Thief” to older films from the British period like “The 39 Steps” and “The Man Who Knew Too Much” to his hits from the silent era like “The Lodger” (about Jack The Ripper), we’ll look at all of the techniques to create suspense!
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Films Included: NOTORIOUS, SABOTAGE, STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, THE 39 STEPS, REBECCA, TO CATCH A THIEF, FRENZY, FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT, THE LODGER, THE BIRDS, TORN CURTAIN, SABOTEUR, VERTIGO, THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1934), THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1955), SUSPICION, and NUMBER SEVENTEEN. 17 Great Films!
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Only 125,000 words!
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Accidentally still at the May Price of $3.99
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OTHER COUNTRIES:
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- Bill
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Of course, my first book on Hitchcock...
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<h3>HITCHCOCK: EXPERIMENTS IN TERROR</h3>
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HITCHCOCK DID IT FIRST!
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We all know that Alfred Hitchcock was the Master Of Suspense, but did you know he was the most *experimental* filmmaker in history?
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Contained Thrillers like “Buried”? Serial Protagonists like “Place Beyond The Pines”? Multiple Connecting Stories like “Pulp Fiction”? Same Story Multiple Times like “Run, Lola, Run”? This book focuses on 18 of Hitchcock’s 53 films with wild cinema and story experiments which paved the way for modern films. Almost one hundred different experiments that you may think are recent cinema or story inventions... but some date back to Hitchcock’s *silent* films! We’ll examine these experiments and how they work. Great for film makers, screenwriters, film fans, producers and directors.
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Films Examined: “Rear Window”, “Psycho”, “Family Plot”, “Topaz”, “Rope”, “The Wrong Man”, “Easy Virtue”, “Lifeboat”, “Bon Voyage”, “Aventure Malgache”, “Elstree Calling”, “Dial M for Murder”, “Stage Fright”, “Champagne”, “Spellbound”, “I Confess”, and “The Trouble with Harry”, with glances at “Vertigo” and several others.
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Professional screenwriter William C. Martell takes you into the world of The Master Of Suspense and shows you the daring experiments that changed cinema. Over 77,000 words.
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Billwcmartellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18075242897910568801noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20291006.post-31053510869268144022024-02-29T00:00:00.000-08:002024-02-29T00:00:00.125-08:00THRILLER Thursday: The Closed Cabinet.
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The spider web fills the screen, it's Boris Karloff's THRILLER!
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THRILLER: The Closed Cabinet
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<b>Season:</b> 2, <b>Episode:</b> 10.<br>
<b>Airdate:</b> November 27, 1961
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<b>Director:</b> Ida Lupino<br>
<b>Writer:</b> Kay Lenard & Jess Carneol.<br>
<b>Cast:</b> Olive Sturgess, David Frankham, Jennifer Raine, Peter Forster, Patricia Manning.<br>
<b>Music:</b> Jerry Goldsmith<br>
<b>Cinematography:</b> Benjamin H Kline.<br>
<b>Producer:</b> William Frye.
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<b>Boris Karloff’s Introduction:</b> “Evil begats evil. And the evil does not die. The sins of the fathers doom the children through generations yet unborn. Impossible, you say? The superstition from the dark ages. Well, perhaps our story tonight will help you change your mind. We start with a curse and a riddle, inexplicabily bound together. Somewhere in this room lies the clue that will solve the riddle and lift the curse. But 300 years have passed since Dame Alice pronounced that awful curse, and still the riddle is unsolved. Tonight we are concerned with two brothers - the last of the cursed Mervyns and the women who love them. Our players are: Olive Sturgess, David Frankham, Jennifer Raine, Peter Forster, and Patricia Manning. Turn off your lights. Close your windows. And even of the wind should rise, relax... if you can! While we pick up our story in the year 1880, during the reign of her gracious majesty Queen Victoria, and when our tale is told, you’ll believe in curses as sure as my name is Boris Karloff.”
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<b>Synopsis:</b> A dark and stormy night. 1580. Lady Beatrice (Patricia Manning) discovers her abusive husband Hugh Mervyn is drunk, and using a dagger found in a secret drawer, murders him and then herself. The bodies are discovered by a Maid (Myra Carter), who finds the dagger next to Beatrice’s corpse and screams... Dame Alice (Doris Lloyd) comes running, takes the dagger from the Maid and then spots her son murdered on the bed... and puts a curse upon the family: “Out of evil comes death! In each generation there shall be a Mervyn who will bring shame and death to the family, for eternity... An end there shall be, but it is beyond the wisdom of man to fix it, or the wit of man to discover it. Who fathoms the riddle, lifts the curse. Pure blood, stained by the blood stained knife, heals the Mervyn shame, ends the Mervyn’s strife,” she says as she returns the dagger to its secret compartment.
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<b>1880:</b> The Mervin Castle. A coach pulls up and Evie Bishop (Olive Sturgess) steps out and is welcomed by her cousins Lucy Mervyn (Jennifer Raine) and George Mervyn (Peter Forster) and enter the castle... where handsome Alan Mervyn (David Frankham) descends the staircase and takes Evie in her arms. Alan lives in London and avoids the castle completely, but when he heard that Evie was coming to visit he braved a stay. Eveie has heard that the castle is haunted, that there is a room in the castle that is filled with ghosts... and she would like to stay there. She has never seen a ghost. As she jokes about ghosts, George and Lucy look very uncomfortable. Evie insists on staying in the haunted room, and when Lucy shows her to the room, the two men seem less than happy.
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In the “haunted room” (from the opening scene) Lucy tells Evie that several Mervyn relatives have died violent deaths in this room - which would account for the ghosts. The cabinet (where the dagger is hidden) is still there, and Lucy jokes about the legend of the curse. Though there have been a bunch of deaths in this room, Lucy believes it is due to the Mervyn men’s anger issues.
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Alan and George have an argument - Alan believes that the curse is real, and staying in this castle is putting Lucy’s life at risk. George believes it’s just hokum - sure, there have been a lot of murders in the family, but whose family hasn’t had them?
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As Evie looks around the castle, candles flicker where there is no breeze... and she sees the ghost of Lady Beatrice for a moment. Then the ghost vanishes. When Evie heads downstairs for dinner, she hears the two men arguing and listens in. When George leaves, she comes downstairs and talks to Alan - it’s love!
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When George and Lucy come in, Evie asks if their houseguest will be joining them? Who? The woman upstairs. The ghost!
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After dinner, Alan takes Evie on a tour of the castle’s hallways to look at the paintings of the family - stopping at Lady Beatrice. That’s the ghost she saw!
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A dark and stormy night... awakens Evie. Blows open the windows. She gets up and closes them, and when she goes back to sleep the ghost of Lady Beatrice pops up in a doorway. Trying to communicate with her. Warning her that she is the next victim of the curse?
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The next morning when Evie mentions the storm, she gets funny looks: there was no storm. Is she crazy? Alan takes Evie on a tour of the castle grounds, and she tells him that she wants to solve the mystery of the curse so that Alan will feel comfortable in his home. Evie wants to see the dungeon (doesn’t everyone?), but the door is locked to When Alan goes to get the key... the door magically opens as soon as he is gone. Nothing haunted about that at all.
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Evie goes in alone - lots of cobwebs down here, but none get on her face. She manages to completely avoid all of the webs and maintain her perfect hair. Doors open one-by-one in front of her, taking her down to the crypt... where she comes face to face with Hugh Mervyn! Well, a bust of him. And finds a cat-o-nine-tails *whip* on his coffin. What’s that all about? Deeper in the crypt she finds a secret room with Lady Beatrice’s coffin... and Lady Beatrice’s ghosts makes an appearance and points at Evie. That’s when Alan runs in, and the ghost vanishes. But was the ghost pointing at her or the wall behind her? On the wall, and inscription under the cobwebs: “Where woman sinned, the maid shall win. But God help the maid who sleeps here-in.” Alan tells her that no one in the family ever knew where Lady Beatrice’s coffin was. No one had ever discovered this secret room until now.
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George, with a riding crop in hand, tells Alan and Evie that they could not have found Lady Beatrice’s coffin - no one has found it for 300 years. Men in the family have looked for it and never found it, so how could Evie have found it? George loses his temper... and we get some angry exposition about how Lady Beatrice’s ghost appeared to their mother the night before she died... and now Lady Beatrice has appeared before Evie. George loses it and almost whips Alan. George’s temper is out of control! He storms out of the room.
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Alan drops a few pages of exposition on Evie about the curse... and how Hugh was physically abusive to Lady Beatrice until she killed him one night during a violent storm. The storm that was brewing inside her for all of those years of abuse by a drunken husband?
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That night, as Lucy plays the harp and George naps, Alan and Evie flirt... and then he sees her to her room like a gentleman... and they almost kiss. Victorian romance at its hottest! I believe this moment was put there to show that Evie was still a virgin - pure - and therefor able to lift the curse. But it’s not set up very well, and we don’t particularly care if they kiss or not - which is a mistake.
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Evie does not go to bed - she sits up, waiting for the storm to come. The storm waiting or the storm without? When it comes, it blows open the windows violently. Meanwhile, Alan looks outside his window - no storm, clear skies. This is a nice moment because it shows that the haunted room really is haunted. Evie goes to sleep and the storm blasts the windows open again... and Lady Beatrice appears. She raises her hand to beckon Evie... and Evie is back in time, drunk Hugh Mervyn sleeping in the bed she just got out of. Lady Beatrice points to the cabinet, and Evie finds the secret lever to open it... And takes out the dagger! She is possessed by Lady Beatrice!
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She moves to the bed, where Hugh is sleeping, raises the knife and... stops herself from stabbing him, but slices her hand in the process. She shows her bleeding hand to Lady Beatrice’s ghost, “The maid has won,” and the ghost vanishes, leaving Evie alone in the room. The bed is empty. The storm is gone.
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She runs out into the hallway, yelling for Alan. He runs from his room and they embrace in the hallway. She tells him what happened, shows him her hand... and there is no blood on her hand. He thinks it might be a nightmare, but she convinces him that she has lifted the curse. In the haunted bedroom, she tells him how to open the drawer... and he finds the dagger with Hugh Mervyn’s crusted blood on it... and another drawer opens and there is a scroll with the curse and, heck, Evie did it and lifted the curse! So he finally kisses her. They can be married with very little chance that he will physically abuse her and maybe even kill her during an argument!
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<b>Review:</b> The luck of laziness! I had intended on writing up all of these entries a couple of years ago, and had I done that I’m not sure I would have seen the subtleties in this episode or commented on them as much as will now that we’ve had the MeToo Movement. Though domestic abuse is not the same as inappropriately touching someone, they both fall under the umbrella of ahole male dominance. Though this episode doesn’t really work, I’m cutting it some slack because it’s “a very special episode pf THRILLER”, just like the alcoholism episode. It’s 1961 and domestic violence is a major problem in America (Time Magazine would do an article on the epidemic a couple of years later) and this episode is going to slyly get the message out disguised as a ghost story.
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I’m sure that Ida Lupino was hired to direct this episode to give it a woman’s sensibility, but it is not one of her better episodes. I think the screenplay may be getting in the way - but I wonder about the lead actress. The scenes where she *avoids* the cobwebs just seem odd - did the actress not want to get messy? Or was that seen as “degrading” to a female and not done in this episode? Either way, it removes the spooky element from the haunted house story. One of the elements of horror is the “Eeeew!” Factor. If you think of all of those moments in horror movies where you have went “Eeeeew!” mentally (or even outloud), that feeling of revulsion is one of the things that add to the dread and creepy feeling of the film. In horror movies people *touch* gross things and *step in* gross things and *back into* gross things and maybe even sit in gross things. Horror movies are filled with rats and bats and worms and corpses and all kinds of gross things that the characters encounter. There are things that look as if they smell bad in horror films. Things that get on your hands that you need to wash off *now*, but you are miles away from running water. Horror movies put their characters through hell - even the survivors - and that is part of what makes them work, and what makes the survivors strong.<br><br>
But for whatever reason, here we remove the revulsion and end up with a lead character who just wanders through a haunted castle and easily pushes aside cobwebs as if they are curtains dividing rooms. If someone thought that the women in the story have gone through enough abuse at the hands of their husbands that they needed to avoid abusing them with cobwebs, that was a mistake. It actually weakens a character if they don’t have to go through hell.
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I have noted the used of cobwebs and spider webs in earlier episodes, and how sometimes they are just a piece of the background and sometimes there are the focus of the scene. Revulsion is a “no budget” special effect that packs a punch, so you want to make cobwebs part of the scene - something that can not be avoided. So removing the revulsion was a mistake - no matter what the reason.
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Lupino does get a few of her creative shots in - and that’s one of the reasons why I love her in low budget films and TV work. Other directors will just do wide shot and close ups - coverage - but she gets those Hitchcock shots in there. Here we have a couple of great early shots - a nice shot through the coach windows as Evie arrives at the castle, and a creepy paranoid shot from a balcony above as Alan watches her enter the castle’s main room. Later in the episode is a great moving shot as the group relaxes in the castle main room at night, it circles them like a Brian DePalma shot. And there is a cool shot *through* the harp at George and Lucy. I suspect with so many locations, there wasn’t time for much else, and the rest is competently directed. I wish she had done more in the creepy dungeon and crypt scenes, but it’s TV. Made on a schedule with a hard deadline. They are okay.
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One of the other problems with the episode is Jennifer Raine’s decidedly non-British accent. She has some sort of Southwestern twang, and every time she opens her mouth it takes you out of the episode. Though the others don’t go full-on-British accents, they have that mid-Atlantic sound that Americans can understand but still sound vaguely British.
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Though I give kudos to the script for taking on an issue, the story is muddled and the curse and riddle are just a mess. Even after watching it several times, I’m not sure that either actually makes sense. And a clue to understanding the curse ends up written on a wall in Lady Beatrice’s tomb, but this is all still confusing. Too many moving parts to the curse. Too many foot notes. Instead of being something simple (and rhyming) it’s so convoluted you need to take notes through the episode... and even though I did that I’m still confused by it! The reason for the curse also is muddled - the mother of the murdered abuser curses her own family line? There was a better way to do it - having Lady Beatrice curse the family as she is being killed by her husband, but maybe the censors said no to that?
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I do like that the curse of domestic abuse is “handed down” from father to son in this story. George’s anger issues are seen as the family curse. But that scene where he has the riding crop in his hand really needed to create suspense and fear that he might use it on his wife, and not in a kinky way. Again, that may have been a censors thing - we don’t want to offend all of the wide beaters in the audience! We need to protect our ratings!
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So this episode isn’t very spooky or scary, even though it takes place in a nice haunted castle. Next episode works better - a “weird tales” story about people who communicate with the dead... and the dead aren’t happy with what is going on in the world of the living!
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- Bill
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B003NOGNQU/secretsofactions">
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<br><br>wcmartellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18075242897910568801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20291006.post-77334876324285942532024-02-28T00:00:00.000-08:002024-02-28T00:00:00.130-08:00Film Courage Plus: Individual Dialogue.FILM COURAGE did a series of interviews with me in 2014 and 2015 -about 36 (or more) segments total. That's almost a year's worth of material! So why not add a new craft article and make it a weekly blog entry? All I have to do is write that new article, right?
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<h2><center>INDIVIDUAL DIALOGUE</center></h2>
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Dialogue is two things: what a character says (the meaning of their words) and how they say it (their character peeking out from behind the words). Many scripts get the first part, but you also need the last part. Even if your dialogue is witty and fun, if it does not expose character and is interchangeable with some other character’s dialogue, it’s *lacking character*. That is a serious script problem (no matter what your name is, Woody Allen). So let’s look at ways to make your dialogue character specific.
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In the “Supporting Characters” Blue Book I explain my Barista Theory of attitudes and how they help define characters. The basic intersection between who a character is under their skin and how they speak is probably attitude. Because I write in coffee shops all over Los Angeles, I come into contact with many “baristas” who have the same basic lines of dialogue... yet all sound very different. One barista is unbelievably upbeat about everything and is the most sincerely positive person I have ever encountered. She will find the silver lining in any cloud. If you’ve just lost your job of 15 years, she’ll say, “That’s great! Now you can spend more time with your kids and family!” If you spill your coffee, “We just started a new pot, so your new cup will taste fresher!”
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Another barista is all about himself, so if you order an iced tea with melon syrup, he’ll say, “I like the berry syrup.” No matter what you say to him, his responses are always focused on himself. If two hundred people just died in a plane crash, he would find the way to make that about him. “Yeah, a tragedy that all of those people died, and the news report pre-empted my favorite show, ICE ROAD PIZZA DELIVERIES.”
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There are pessimist baristas, and needy ones who seem to want your approval, and baristas who see everything as a dig at them, and ones who *must* one-up you to show their superiority, and people who just don’t have the time for you, and ones who think everything is sexual (if you know what I mean, that’s what she said), and servers who are confused by almost everything, and ones who think their time is more important than yours, and people who are ultra-efficient and very detail oriented, and baristas who are amazed by almost everything, and ones who worry about the most unlikely things you can think of, and people who think everything is a question, and baristas who...
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Each of these attitudes and traits are things that come out in the phrasing of the sentence, not the information in the sentence. This attitude influences the way they react and act and speak and everything else. Take the same event, and each reacts according to their attitude. So the key to writing great dialogue is knowing your characters. Knowing how they see the world. All of us look through a “lens” and see the world in our own way, which influences everything else. How they think, how they physically react to a situation. I have a Script Tip on creating characters for your horror screenplay that gets into taking these different attitudes of different characters and figuring out how each will *physically* react to finding a friend dead. Because that “barista theory” attitude isn’t just great for dialogue, it’s how this specific character reacts to the world around them no matter what happens in the scene. That’s just who they are!
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Now, that might seem to be “surface characterization” to you, but it goes deep into who the character is, their past, and how they see themselves. Which brings us to ...
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<h2><center>BACKGROUND AND EDUCATION</center></h2>
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Imagine three baristas: One barely got out of high school and is working this job making coffee for people as a potential career because the coffee shop has health insurance. One went to college and majored in Music Theory and is working this job because it allows them to play in their band at night, and it will probably end up their career because it has health insurance. The third is a total brainiac who went to college and majored in science and is working this job at nights because their entry level science job doesn’t offer health insurance. How will each think about that melon syrup you asked for in your iced tea? How will each see a cup of regular drip coffee that someone orders? How will each’s education relate to making that pot of drip coffee? How they measure the coffee? How they pour the water into the coffee maker? Now look at how their education will come out in their dialogue. Not just their attitude, but their vocabulary, their phrasing, even their sentence structure. One of the things about being a writer is that you have to think using your character’s knowledge and experiences... which you never had! You need to use your imagination plus research to figure out how this character would speak. This character’s vocabulary might be entirely different than mine! I need to figure out how they would say this, not how I would say this.
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Background is another element. Imagine five different Baristas: One from Seattle, one from the Southern USA, one from the North Eastern USA, one from Texas, and one who just moved here from Portugal. Not only do these locations influence the vocabulary and phrasing of how each Barista speaks their “lines”, those different backgrounds will also add regional attitudes and regional vocabularies. If you take your pessimistic barista from Seattle and your pessimistic barista from the Southern USA and have them speak the same “line” it’s going to be completely different! Their backgrounds will peek through and the exact same “line” about having a $5 pastry to go with your drink will filter through their geographical backgrounds and sound completely different - even though both will be tinged with pessimism.
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<h2><center>PET WORDS & COMMON WORDS AND SWEARS</center></h2>
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Though that Seattle Barista and the Southern USA Barista will have different words they use to address customers, darlin’, those common words that we use every day like “Yes” and “No” need to be personalized to fit the specific character. This is one of those places where your vocabulary becomes important, because as the writer you are speaking for everyone! Even though I can usually “hear” my characters, I create a “cheat sheet” for each of them for when I have to do a rewrite later and might not hear their voices as clearly... or when I wake up still asleep but have to write 5 pages to make my quota and my deadline. So all of the common words and phrases that a character will say throughout the story - yes and no and right and wrong and hello and goodbye and anything else you can think of that will be said by multiple characters in your story: go on a “character sheet” with this character’s character oriented words they use to those common words. Hey, one character might say “Yes” and “No”, but the others all have to use some other words that mean the same thing - that *show their character*. There are dozens of words that mean “No”, and the character who says “Nope” or “I don’t think so” or “No way” or “Negative” or “I think I’m going to have to pass” or “Not on your life!” or “Negatory” or an of the dozens of other ways to deny or refuse will not only offer variety but make each character an individual... and memorable. So give each of your characters and *character specific* word for any common words that may pop up in your screenplay. Think of how *this character* would say “No” that tells us something about them.
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Let me tell you something about “Pet words” and those words that people use all the time. A good example of this is Paul Newman in HUDSUCKER PROXY” who says, “Sure, sure” as his answer to any question - whether he agrees or not. It’s his way of dismissing others. Real people often have these words and phrases that make up a big chunk of their dialogue - sometimes a word or phrase that they use while they think up the actual answer, sometimes a word or phrase that pops up at the end of many of their sentences, Friendo. Sometimes, well, it’s what I like to call a “weasel word” that, well, a character uses to give them time to, well, think of a good lie. (Which brings us to something I wasn’t going to talk about on this article, sentence structure, like Captain Jack Sparrow in the PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN movies who speaks in long convoluted sentences meant to make you think that he’s said something important while making you forget whatever question you just asked him. He speaks in a way designed to both confuse you and impress you. Think about sentence construction, too!) “Let me tell you something” prefacing a sentence is a pet phrase that a character might use. We are trying to find distinctive and interesting ways for characters to speak that show us character. This is not what they say, but how they say it.
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In the Dialogue Blue Book I talk about how I realized that I had a favorite swear word. I read one of my screenplays and it was all shit! Every single character had the same swear, which is my swear, and I may have broken a record for the amount of shit in a screenplay. Not only did all of my characters swear exactly the same, they amount of “shit”s in that script made all of them meaningless! This is a problem with F Bombs - if you use too many they eventually don’t matter. I’ve written a couple of U.S. Navy Co-operation movies, and rule #1 is that sailors can not “swear like a sailor”. Swearing is against the rules, and a sailor can be punished for it - and in a co-op movie you will have to show the punishment... or lose that day shooting on the aircraft carrier with Billy Dee Williams. So I had to find ways to do PG swearing. Which made my swears unusual and interesting. But in *any* screenplay, if you want your F Bombs to be explosive, think as if you are writing a PG movie and only get one or two of them. Find other swears for the rest - and finding character specific swears will make your dialogue more interesting and distinctive. There are plenty of PG things that are vile and disgusting and work just as well as an F Bomb. Spielberg got away with having one character call another “penis breath” in a family film... when you know what they really meant.
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So be creative with your swears and make sure that each character has their own personal favorite swear that fits their character. In one of my scripts “Kitty crap” was a character’s individual swear, and everyone I met with on that script (48 studio meetings) loved that character’s distinctive dialogue and that swear.
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Think of how every line of dialogue is specific to the character speaking it, and they way they say it tells us something about the character. You want to be able to cover the “character slugs” in a screenplay and still know exactly who is speaking, because nobody else in the story speaks that way. Think about how your dialogue is an extension of the character’s attitude and education and background and everything else about them. It’s *their dialogue*. Make it sound like them, and only them.
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“Who said that?”
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- Bill
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<h2><center>MORE ON DIALOGUE!</center></h2>
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<blockquote>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dialogue-Secrets-Screenwriting-Books-ebook/dp/B0060SHUIQ/secretsofactions">
<img src="http://www.scriptsecrets.net/images/dialog.jpg"
height=250 width=180 ALIGN=LEFT hspace="10" alt="bluebook"></a>
<p>
50 Tips On Dialogue!</p>
<p>
<b>*** <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dialogue-Secrets-Screenwriting-Books-ebook/dp/B0060SHUIQ/secretsofactions">DIALOGUE SECRETS</a> ***</b> - For Kindle!</p>
<p>
<b>*** </p>
<p>
Expanded version with more ways to create interesting protagonists! How to remove bad dialogue (and what *is* bad dialogue), First Hand Dialogue, Awful Exposition, Realism, 50 Professional Dialogue Techniques you can use *today*, Subtext, Subtitles, Humor, Sizzling Banter, *Anti-Dialogue*, Speeches, and more. Tools you can use to make your dialogue sizzle! Special sections that use dialogue examples from movies as diverse as "Bringing Up Baby", "Psycho", "Double Indemnity", "Notorious", the Oscar nominated "You Can Count On Me", "His Girl Friday", and many more! Print version is 48 pages, Kindle version is over 160 pages!</p>
<p>
Only $4.99 - and no postage!</p>
</blockquote>
<br><br>
<A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0060SHUIQ/secretsofactions">USA Folks Click Here.</a>
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Other countries check your Amazon websites... it's there!
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Thank you to everyone!
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Bill wcmartellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18075242897910568801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20291006.post-72973566037249547092024-02-27T00:00:00.000-08:002024-02-27T00:00:00.131-08:00Trailer Tuesday: THE UNDERNEATH<i>Last week the original, this week the remake...</i>
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<b>Directed by:</b> Stephen Soderbergh.<br>
<b>Written by:</b> Soderbergh based on the novel by Don Tracy.<br>
<b>Starring:</b> Peter Gallagher, Elisabeth Shue, Alison Elliott, Paul Dooley, the great William Fichtner.<br>
<b>Director Of Photography:</b> Elliot Davis.<br>
<b>Music:</b> Cliff Martinez.
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The remake of one of my favorite films CRISS CROSS, Stephen Soderbergh’s THE UNDERNEATH (1995), which was his fourth film... and not a success. After the failure of this film he dove off the deep end, making some crazy low budget films... and found his soul again. It’s odd to think of Soderbergh as a crime film director, but when you look at the genre he keeps coming back to again and again it’s crime films... from OUT OF SIGHT to OCEAN’S 11. This is his first crime film, and he decided to remake a classic... which seldom works. My guess is that after SEX LIES AND VIDEOTAPE and the *great* KING OF THE HILL and the equally interesting KAFKA, he decided to do something mainstream that would earn him the studio cred to do that Clint Eastwood thing where you make one movie “for them” and they allow you to make one movies for you. But all of that backfired. The “one for them” flopped...
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Not because of the cast. Peter Gallagher plays the role Burt Lancaster played in CRISS CROSS. Sexy TV actress Alison Elliott played the ex wife played by Yvonne DeCarlo. The always creepy William Fichtner played the creepy Dan Duryea role. Paul Dooley played the “Pops” character. And Shelly Duvall pops up as the nurse in the hospital, and Joe Don Baker plays the guy who owns the armored truck company in cameos. These are all good actors, and Fichtner shines in his role. So, what was the problem?
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Every screenplay is made up of millions of choices, and every movie ends up being those choices plus a million other choices. The problem is, if you make one major wrong choice it all falls apart. Though you may think the idea of remaking a classic film like CRISS CROSS was the wrong choice, there are plenty of remakes that work. The problems usually come with the choices made while remaking the film. For a while Warner Brother was planning on remaking one of my favorite films THE LAST OF SHEILA (which is a great mystery film) as a *comedy* and getting rid of the mystery element. That never happened. But the big problem with remakes in Hollywood is often that they come up with some crazy drastic change that kills the story. Hey, the reason why the story was successful in the first place was because it *wasn’t* a comedy (or whatever). Why not fix some of the little problems instead of screwing around with what made it successful in the first place?
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The *good* changes in THE UNDERNEATH end up being instead of his younger brother getting married as the excuse he uses to himself for the reason he comes home again, it’s his *mother* getting married to the “Pops” character. This is great because “Pops” is going to be the casualty in the robbery, so in this version it’s his mother’s new husband who gets killed! More emotional, right? The other change is that instead of his old friend who is the cop who comes after him... it’s his *brother*! Again, upping the emotional ante. These were both great changes.
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Another change was the addition of a “nice girl” to give Gallagher a choice between his exwife (who is nothing but trouble) and this nice girl played by Elizabeth Shue. He meets her on the bus coming back to town, and she works in the bank branch where the robbery will take place in this version. Part of the new robbery scheme is to use information he gets from her to help Dundee’s gang pull the robbery. That makes her an unwilling accomplice, cool idea!
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But all of these good choices are undercut by the bad ones.
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Instead of our lead leaving town because he’s still hung up on his ex wife and even Los Angeles isn’t big enough for the both of them, Gallagher is a gambling addict who spends every cent the couple has on sports betting, and when he loses so much that the mob is going to kill him, he leaves town... leaving his soon to be ex wife to deal with all of the crap he’s left behind. Not only does this make our protagonist not a sympathetic guy, it removes the core of the story... that he’s still hung up on his ex wife. That’s the engine that runs the machine, and they remove it. Oh, and he never worked for the Armored Truck company, so there’s this silly convoluted way for him to get hired. Oh, and since the ex wife isn’t really a fan of his, the really uncomfortable scene in CRISS CROSS where he’s caught by Dundee with his ex and comes up with the robbery thing as an excuse and then must go through with it... no longer exists. All of the big dramatic scenes from the original are gone.
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And by making the protag a major screw up, having the cop be his brother this time around robs all of the drama from that! In CRISS CROSS the cop was his old friend, who really liked him and thought the ex wife was trouble... and that scene in the hospital when he confronts Lancaster and says he knows Lancaster had to be part of the robbery is a *heart breaker*. The cop knows his best friend became a criminal and has to deal with all of those mixed up feelings... and Lancaster has to deal with them, too. It’s like when your parents say you disappointed them... man, that’s tough to take! Now that the protag is a screw up, and *he* is the problem? No drama at all. The brother cop doesn’t have his heart broken because he never trusted his brother in the first place. He is *established* as hating his brother (Can’t believe you wore our father’s suit to mother’s wedding).
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And the robbery is almost an anti set piece here, with Pop’s death being just another thing that happens. No drama.
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The film uses different tints, as Soderbergh would later do in TRAFFIC, but here I could not figure out what the purpose was. Soderbergh also does a fractured chronology, a dozen times more fractured than CRISS CROSS but not as fractured as THE LIMEY. At first I though the colors (blue and green mostly) were past and present... but then we got a past scene that was green and I was confused. Then I thought it was story threads, with the robbery plot being green and the romance plot being blue, but it wasn’t that, either. There’s a scene that changes from blue to green midway, but then changes back. I rewatched that scene a couple of times but still can’t figure out why.
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The other thing Soderbergh does is an extended POV shot when Gallagher is in his hospital bed. It’s not all one shot, but we don’t see Gallagher in the hospital, just his POV. The problem here is that it isn’t used to effect. Instead of creating paranoia, it’s just a long POV shot. Because there is no focus on people passing the pebbled glass and the man sitting in the hallway just out of view as in CRISS CROSS, there is *absolutely no suspense in this scene*. It’s like a stunt shot that undercuts all of the emotions! Instead of finding a better way to do the scene, it’s a *worse* way... which is just a show off shot. Michael Bay filmmaking.
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And the film ends with a pointless and illogical twist that kind of undercuts the whole movie. I liked this movie more when I first saw it than I did when I watched it right after CRISS CROSS. It’s a misfire from a director who went on to do some really good crime films (THE LIMEY really is one of my favs).
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- Bill
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/The-Underneath-Peter-Gallagher/dp/0783229623/secretsofactions">
<img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51XXP7PSVJL._SY300_.jpg" ALIGN=center></a>wcmartellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18075242897910568801noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20291006.post-8413690287986722972024-02-23T00:00:00.000-08:002024-02-23T00:00:00.129-08:00Fridays With Hitchcock: Hitch 20: Banquo's Chair (s3e3)
This is a great new documentary series called HITCH 20 that I am a "guest expert" on. The series looks at the 20 TV episodes directed by Hitchcock and here is the third episode of the third season, which looks at the terror of the unseen in Hitchcock's work.
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/COUJ0NQq86c" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> off!
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<h2>HITCHCOCK: MASTERING SUSPENSE</h2>
<p><A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B01EZGTR4O/secretsofactions">
<img align="left" height="220" src="http://www.scriptsecrets.net/images/HitchMasterSM2.jpg"></a><br /></p>
LEARN SUSPENSE FROM THE MASTER!
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Alfred Hitchcock, who directed 52 movies, was known as the “Master Of Suspense”; but what exactly is suspense and how can *we* master it? How does suspense work? How can *we* create “Hitchcockian” suspense scenes in our screenplays, novels, stories and films?
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This book uses seventeen of Hitchcock’s films to show the difference between suspense and surprise, how to use “focus objects” to create suspense, the 20 iconic suspense scenes and situations, how plot twists work, using secrets for suspense, how to use Dread (the cousin of suspense) in horror stories, and dozens of other amazing storytelling lessons. From classics like “Strangers On A Train” and “The Birds” and “Vertigo” and “To Catch A Thief” to older films from the British period like “The 39 Steps” and “The Man Who Knew Too Much” to his hits from the silent era like “The Lodger” (about Jack The Ripper), we’ll look at all of the techniques to create suspense!
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Films Included: NOTORIOUS, SABOTAGE, STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, THE 39 STEPS, REBECCA, TO CATCH A THIEF, FRENZY, FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT, THE LODGER, THE BIRDS, TORN CURTAIN, SABOTEUR, VERTIGO, THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1934), THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1955), SUSPICION, and NUMBER SEVENTEEN. 17 Great Films!
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Only 125,000 words!
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Price: $5.99
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- Bill
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Of course, my first book on Hitchcock...
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<h3>HITCHCOCK: EXPERIMENTS IN TERROR</h3>
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HITCHCOCK DID IT FIRST!
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We all know that Alfred Hitchcock was the Master Of Suspense, but did you know he was the most *experimental* filmmaker in history?
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Contained Thrillers like “Buried”? Serial Protagonists like “Place Beyond The Pines”? Multiple Connecting Stories like “Pulp Fiction”? Same Story Multiple Times like “Run, Lola, Run”? This book focuses on 18 of Hitchcock’s 53 films with wild cinema and story experiments which paved the way for modern films. Almost one hundred different experiments that you may think are recent cinema or story inventions... but some date back to Hitchcock’s *silent* films! We’ll examine these experiments and how they work. Great for film makers, screenwriters, film fans, producers and directors.
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Films Examined: “Rear Window”, “Psycho”, “Family Plot”, “Topaz”, “Rope”, “The Wrong Man”, “Easy Virtue”, “Lifeboat”, “Bon Voyage”, “Aventure Malgache”, “Elstree Calling”, “Dial M for Murder”, “Stage Fright”, “Champagne”, “Spellbound”, “I Confess”, and “The Trouble with Harry”, with glances at “Vertigo” and several others.
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Professional screenwriter William C. Martell takes you into the world of The Master Of Suspense and shows you the daring experiments that changed cinema. Over 77,000 words.
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Billwcmartellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18075242897910568801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20291006.post-17475620569165306822024-02-22T00:00:00.000-08:002024-02-22T00:00:00.131-08:00Thriller Thursday: THE PURPLE ROOMThe Purple Room
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The spider web fills the screen, it's Boris Karloff's THRILLER!
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<b>Season</b>: 1, <b>Episode:</b> 7.<br>
<b>Airdate:</b> 10/25/60<br>
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<b>Director:</b> Douglas Heyes<br>
<b>Writer:</b> Douglas Heyes<br>
<b>Cast:</b> Rip Torn, Richard Anderson, Patricia Barry.<br>
<b>Music:</b> Pete Rugolo<br>
<b>Cinematography:</b> Bud Thackery<br>
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<b>Boris Karloff’s Introduction:</b> “Don’t be alarmed. The woman who just screamed is perfectly quiet now, as sure as my name is Boris Karloff. You see, she’s been dead for nearly a hundred years. Her bed is empty, and whatever it was that seemed to frighten her so is gone. *Seems* to be. But I can tell you this much: that bed won’t be empty much longer and other screams will soon be heard. Whose? Perhaps yours. Or those who will join us here: Mr. Rip Torn, Miss Patricia Barry, Mr. Richard Anderson, and... Well, it seems the rest of our cast can not be raised. They’re dead, you know. Spend a night with us in the Purple Room, if you dare! Let me assure you my friends, this is a thriller!”
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<b>Synopsis:</b> Born skeptic Duncan (an impossibly young Rip Torn... who you know as the gruff boss from MEN IN BLACK) has just inherited an old house in Baton Rouge which has been in the family for years... and is supposedly haunted. Duncan doesn’t care, the house is on valuable property some big company wants to buy so he figures he’ll flip it and make a fortune. Nice plan, but the will requires him to live in the house for one year before he can sell it... and stay in the house one full night along with the other heir... his cousin Oliver (Richard Anderson from SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN) and his wife Rachel (Patricia Barry). If he can not spend the full night in the haunted house his cousin Oliver gets it. So there’s a bit of a competition involved: who can stay the whole night in the house, Duncan or Oliver? Since Duncan believes in money but not ghosts, he sees no possibility of losing.
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Oliver, Rachel and Duncan drive to the house, in a remote area near a swamp... heck, it’s the PSYCHO house on the Universal backlot along with the swamp from the film... the art of using existing sets. They enter the house, which has no electricity and no phone and hasn’t been lived in for decades. Candles do little to illuminate the house. It’s spooky as heck. They climb the stairway to the bedrooms, and Oliver dares Duncan to sleep in the Purple Room... where all of the deaths have taken place including that most recent one 100 years ago. Duncan isn’t afraid of no ghosts, so he takes the room, even after Oliver relates the legend of the room...
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A hundred years ago Captain Jeremy Ransom and his wife of only seven days were alone in the house on honeymoon, when they heard strange sounds from downstairs. Ransom gave his gun to his new bride for protection and then went downstairs to investigate. After more strange noises, the new bride hears footsteps coming up the stairs... a strange shuffling and dragging that was *not* her husband. As the thing came closer and closer to her in the darkness, she fired the gun again and again... killing her own husband... who had been stabbed by a burglar downstairs and was staggering upstairs for help. Then she went mad and spent the rest of her life in an asylum.
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Oliver smiles: “This place is all yours... and everything it contains.”
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In the middle of the night Duncan hears strange noises from downstairs and wakes up. After he lights the candle, it blows out... and all kinds of weird things begin happening in the Purple Room. Things move all by themselves. Duncan believes it’s Oliver and his wife trying to scare him, they’ve just rigged the room ahead of time. When things keep happening and he sees a picture on the wall move, he pulls the picture away... and there is just the wall behind it. The *solid* wall. WTF? He hears more noises downstairs, grabs his gun and heads downstairs.
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Where something lurks in the shadows.
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A knife flies at him, sticking into the floor.
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The thing in the shadows moans and starts shuffling towards him. It’s Ransom’s ghost! Face rotted, knife sticking from its bloody chest. Dragging its leg as it gets closer and closer and closer to him. Duncan fires his pistol at it again and again and again... and the things keeps coming towards him!
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Closer and closer and closer!
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Duncan screams, clutches his chest and falls to the floor.
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The rotting corpse walks right up to him... and pulls off his mask, it’s Oliver. Rachel comes out of the shadows and checks his pulse... he’s *dead*. Not part of the plan at all! They were just supposed to scare him enough that he left the house, not *kill him*. Change of plans. They carry his body out to the car, drive down the road to the swamp and drive the car off the road into the swamp, put Duncan behind the wheel, and walk back to the house. Now they can claim that Duncan got scared in the middle of the night and ran... and Oliver and Rachel had not a thing to do with his death.
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Back at the house they clean up and remove all of the planted tricks and devices to scare Duncan... and then go to bed in the Purple Room. It *is* the master bedroom in *their* new house, after all. But in the middle of the night they hear strange noises from downstairs. A prowler? Oliver grabs Duncan’s gun, pours out the expended blank shells and loads it with *real* shells, then starts out of the Purple Room. But Rachel is frightened, so Oliver gives her the gun and goes downstairs to confront the prowler.
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In the dark and spooky house, Oliver tries not to be afraid... but some *thing* is creeping up the stairs towards him, dragging its leg just like the Captain Ransom legend. When the thing gets closer, closer, CLOSER Oliver stumbles and falls down the stairs... the thing continues up the stairs... to the Purple Room!
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Rachel is terrified as the thing opens the bedroom door and stumbles inside. She fires the gun, again and again until it clicks dry. Killing the thing. She carries the candle to the thing... and it’s *Duncan*. Not a fatal heart attack after all, he was unconscious and weak... And she has shot him six times. She goes downstairs and finds Oliver, shook up but okay. Tells him that she has shot Duncan... and that’s when the police come after finding the abandoned car and hearing the shots. Oliver and Rachel are headed to prison.
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<b>Review:</b> Not only do we get the PSYCHO house and swamp, we get a great Weird Tales type story! After last week’s talky crime drama, the show finally seems to get on track with an episode that fulfills the promise of the series’ name. My favorite episodes of the show are thrillers filled with nail biting suspense and the Weird Tales stories that creep into horror (though usually with a twist). I want to be on the edge of my seat or scared to death, and my favorite episodes deliver on this. Though nothing from THRILLER can ever beat the Hitchcock UNLOCKED WINDOW episode for sheer terror, some get pretty close.
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This one is just okay. Not enough Haunted House stuff to build our terror before Duncan comes face to face with dead Captain Ransom downstairs, it needed several more “gags” up in the Purple Room when Duncan wakes up. Since Oliver and Rachel have had plenty of time to rig the room, you’d thing they would have come up with at least as many things as in THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL. I’m guessing somewhere along the line the writer/director feared there wasn’t enough time to show *how* Oliver managed to do anything really weird after Duncan supposedly drops dead. But I think the audience would have gone with it, since we went with the blown out candle gag and the moving painting with a solid wall behind it. He should have gone whole hog and had all kinds of weird stuff happening in the Purple Room. Remember, this was made at a time when film special effects where often done with thread and smoke and mirrors. The audience would accept any crazy thing happening in the room, because they really had to do it for the episode. If the writer/director thought the audience might have questioned a bunch of weird stuff, all he had to do is have Oliver say he apprenticed under a magician when he was a kid or something.
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The *direction* is also not doing much to ramp up the suspense and dread. Lots of great moving camera shots, but makes the mistake of not showing the POV of the protagonist, which is where all of the suspense and dread resides. I don't understand how there can be directors out there who don't get this, but in my blog entry on <a href="http://sex-in-a-sub.blogspot.com/2011/12/thing-prequel-and-suspense.html"> THE THING prequel</a> I noted that was the big problem with the film... and used an example of how to do it right from DIABOLIQUE. Other THRILLER episodes have some great direction that really adds suspense and dread. Ida Lupino directed a bunch of episodes and hers are awesome. That woman knew what to do with a camera! Most of the creepy stuff here is done by keeping things bathed in shadows, and that *does* work a little.
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The best thing about the episode is the great twist where Oliver and Rachel’s attempt to fool Duncan into believing the Captain Ransom ghost haunts the house mostly backfires... but then they replicate the legend without thinking when they hear the noises downstairs. Oliver gives her the gun the same way Ransom gave his bride the gun a hundred years earlier. Love the irony! That’s what we expect from a Weird Tales type story, the scheme bites the schemers on the ass!
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Weird Tales this week, edge of the seat thriller next week!
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Bill
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<br><br>wcmartellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18075242897910568801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20291006.post-62005473581521223912024-02-21T00:00:00.000-08:002024-02-21T00:00:00.143-08:00Film Courage: Writing From Desperation. FILM COURAGE did a series of interviews with me at the end of 2014, and then again at the end of 2015. There were 36 (or more) segments total. That's almost a year's worth of material! So why not add a new craft article and make it a weekly blog entry? All I have to do is write that new article, right?
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<b><center>WRITING FROM DESPERATION</center></b>
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So you have quit your day job and given yourself a year or two years or whatever is in your bank account to make it as a professional screenwriter... and as that deadline gets closer and closer and you haven’t sold anything, panic and desperation begins to set in... and you realize that low budget horror always sells, and even though you absolutely hate horror, you decide to write a horror screenplay so that you can make enough money to avoid having to work for a living... Good idea?
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Terrible idea.
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pn3LvaBkhh0" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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One of the unwritten rules in screenwriting is to never write about screenwriters or writers or Hollywood - it’s incestuous and the general film audience usually can’t relate to the characters... and being a screenwriter is not a common fantasy, like being a superhero or being a tough guy or falling in love or any of the other things that are part of the “dream fulfillment” of the movies. But every once in a while, a Hollywood insider does a “tell all” movie about their experiences in the business (carefully turned into fiction) and sometimes those films are successful... like the great SUNSET BLVD () directed by Billy Wilder (a screenwriter) and written by Wilder and Charles Brackett and D.M. Marshman, Jr. It’s one of the handful of Film Noirs about screenwriters, and a great example of what can happen to you when you are writing from desperation.
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In the opening scene, screenwriter Joe Gillis is dead in the swimming pool of a decaying Hollywood mansion, then we flashback to how he came to be in this pool... A crappy Hollywood apartment where he is 3 months behind in his rent and about to be evicted, when there is a knock at the door - a couple of guys from the collection agency who have come to reposes his car, and would like him to hand over the keys. Joe tells them that he loaned his car to a friend who drove it to Palm Springs, sorry. Check the apartment garage if they don’t believe him. After they leave, he goes to the parking lot where he has hidden his car, and heads to the Paramount Lot where he has a meeting with a producer named Sheldrake, who might buy his script and get him out of this financial mess... He pitches the script to Sheldrake, who is skeptical - it doesn’t sound very good. Gillis lies, and says that 20th Century Fox is also interested in it. Sheldrake buzzes his Development Girl, who comes in with the coverage. “I covered it, but I wouldn’t bother. It’s from hunger. It’s just a rehash of something that wasn’t very good to begin with.” (That’s about 6 minutes into the movie - it doesn’t waste any time.) Gillis pleads with Sheldrake for any kind of assignment, he needs the money. But he is sent on his way...
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Because when you write from desperation, it shows.
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When you just hack out something for a buck, it shows.
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When your heart isn’t in it, it shows.
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One of those things that producers often say that they are looking for in a screenplay is “passion” - they want this to be the story that you have to tell (not just for money), the story that is a part of you, that has soul. All of the things that tend to disappear when you are writing from desperation, when you are writing from panic. Though the cliche of the serious writer in their garret with only beans to eat while they complete their masterpiece is romantic, in real life that’s no way to write anything that’s actually good. I have a Script Tip called “Projectors” about how whatever we write can’t help but show our feelings and attitude and emotions - our writing *is* who we are - so if you are a bitter angry person, you will be writing bitter angry stories that are probably not going to be entertaining.
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After I sold COURTING DEATH to a company at Paramount and moved to Los Angeles, I had 2 years worth of rent and expenses plus a production bonus when they made the film. Except they didn’t make the film. I spent two years like Joe Gillis - holed up in my apartment writing screenplays - and had done absolutely no networking or work to get some other screenplay sold. I could have written all of those screenplays in my hometown of Concord, CA and saved a bundle! Los Angeles is a very expensive place to live. So when my two years of rent and expenses was almost spent, I went into panic mode and tried to figure out how to sell a screenplay. But I was trying to sell the screenplays that I had written from my heart and soul (even though they contained explosions) before I realized that I was running out of money. And I sold one, that managed to get made. And there were others that got me studio meetings and a couple that ended up optioned. I realized that I needed to spend more time on the business side of the screenwriting business and from that point on I actually became a professional screenwriter (as in, I continued to sell screenplays and land assignments).
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Another writer I knew was not as successful, and called me in the middle of the night asking if he could crash at my apartment because he’d just been evicted and everyone else he’d called had turned him down. I didn’t know this guy very well, and was probably at the bottom of his list of people to call, and I turned him down as well. I realized that I never wanted to be in that position, and decided that if I was getting close to running out of money again, I would just get a day job. And at one point back in those early years, I had one - working in a wine shop in the Brentwood district, a few blocks from where O.J. Simpson would later murder his wife and her friend. Allegedly. But I realized that it was better for me to write with confidence and heart and soul instead of writing from panic and desperation.
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Better for you to do that, too.
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So if you give yourself some arbitrary deadline like 5 Years Until I Make It or whatever, don’t quit that day job! You can write 1 page a day and have 3 first drafts in a year... which is what I did when I was working at the warehouse. That’s how I wrote COURTING DEATH (which sold and got me to Los Angeles) and a bunch of other screenplays, some that sold, some that got me assignments, and some that nothing happened with. Lots that nothing happened with! That’s how screenwriting works - you will write a stack of screenplays in order to sell one or land one assignment. So you need something to pay the bills in the meantime.
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<b><center>DAY JOBS FOR SCREENWRITERS</center></b>
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You don’t want to be writing from desperation. It’s difficult to write when you are worried about financial problems, so it’s best to have an income while trying to break in. What you want is a “disposable job” rather than a career. A career will get in the way of your career! I always picked jobs that I wouldn’t want to do for the rest of my life, as an incentive to write and not do it for the rest of my life. If I got too comfortable at my day job, it became my real job. So I looked for jobs that would pay the rent, didn’t require me to think much (so that I could be figuring out scenes at work) and had regular hours so that I could plan my writing around it. I know people who work in advertizing and do other things that are writing based day jobs and that’s good news and bad news; the good news is that you are writing and getting paid for it, the bad news is that you might use all of your creative energy writing ad copy for a toilet cleaner. But if you have a steady and stable job that is paying the bills, keep it until you have made enough money to survive for at least a year...
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And then don’t be afraid to go back to work. There’s no shame in not being evicted and panic calling some guy you know in the middle of the night to see if you can crash at his place, you know, just until you sell something.
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But once you get to Los Angeles, there are some day jobs that put you into contact with peopel in the business, and are better than working in a warehouse. In the “Breaking In Bluer Book” I have 15 ways to make connections in Los Angeles, and some of them are day jobs like working as an Office Production Assistant, Reader, Writer’s Assistant or Personal Assistant, and a bunch of others. But jobs that put you in contact with people in the business can be helpful - I know a limousine driver who takes people back and forth to the airport (and other places) and often has celebrities in the back of his limo... and became a Film Producer because he managed to option a screenplay and sign some second tier movie stars from the back of his limo, and then give the package to a few investors and producers and distributors in the back of his limo. Only in Hollywood! But the kind of job that puts you in contact with upscale clients that is in that “disposable” classification is a great way to make connections while you are paying the rent, and because it’s disposable you can quit when you sell a screenplay and then come back to it later if you need to. That was part of the reason why I choose working in the wine shop in Brentwood - celebrities and producers buy wine and I might meet them. That was the plan. I learned that movie stars and producers had personal assistants that did all of their shopping for them... so that’s maybe a better job choice.
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But aside from the “disposable jobs” that put you in contact with people in the business, there are also disposable jobs that you can just pick up and drop whenever you want, and those are also good if you have moved to Los Angeles and suddenly find yourself in need of a job to keep from worrying about paying the bills so that you can concentrate on your screenplay and put your heart and soul into it. Scott Frank, writer-director of QUEEN’S GAMBIT (based on the Walter Tevis novel), told me that he trained to be a bartender because that was a job that you could do anywhere and there was always someone hiring. Lots of actors and actresses wait tables between acting gigs, and Kathleen Turner went back to waiting tables after filming her star-making role in BODY HEAT... she has talked about waiting tables when the posters with her picture started going up around town. If you ask any waiter in Los Angeles what they are auditioning for, they will have an answer!
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<b><center>IT’S GOTTA HAVE HEART!</center></b>
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But the main thing to do is find a way to be able to focus on your writing, and not be worried about looming eviction like that writer who wanted to crash at my place just, you know, until he sold something. He never had another film credit, so maybe he never sold anything? He might have become like Joe Gillis in SUNSET BLVD - just writing ‘From hunger. It’s just a rehash of something that wasn’t very good to begin with,” and being so desperate and panicked that they are unable to put your heart and soul into your work.
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You don’t want to just hack out what you think they want, because they don’t want hack work - they want something that you care about, that you are passionate about... that is also wildly commercial and will sell a bunch of tickets. What you write from hunger and desperation is going to smell of hunger and desperation - it’s not going to be that story that you needed to needed to tell. Later in SUNSET BLVD Joe Gillis bumps into that studio reader who trashed his script at a New Year’s Eve party, and she tells him that she read over all of the scripts he had submitted to the studio and found one with a great supporting character that she thought should have been the main character. Joe says that he knew someone like that character, and that subplot was personal and emotional to him... and the reader said that showed, and he should break off that character and write a new script about them... and he does. And that’s also what you need to do - find the stories that you are passionate about that also have commercial appeal and write those. Write the kind of movies that you regularly pay to see every week in the cinema - that you would stand in line to see! And you can’t write those from desperation! As writers, we are our “instrument” - we create from within, and it’s difficult to do that if you are worried about something else... so find the ways to be comfortable enough that you *can* create.
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Good luck and keep writing!
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- Bill
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<blockquote>
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Thank you to everyone!
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Bill
wcmartellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18075242897910568801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20291006.post-49461542825150526742024-02-20T00:00:00.000-08:002024-02-20T00:00:00.133-08:00Trailer Tuesday: CRISS CROSS
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CRISS CROSS (1949)<br />
<b>Director:</b> Robert Siodmak<br />
<b>Writers:</b> Daniel Fuchs, based on a novel by Don Tracy.<br />
<b>Starring:</b> Burt Lancaster, Yvonne DeCarlo, Dan Duryea.<br /><br />
This is one of my favorite movies, but I have no idea when I first saw it. Most likely on the Late Late Show. Back in the old days, when there were only 3 networks and a handful of local stations with local programming, they always had a late night movie. Networks like NBC would show some fairly new movie during prime time, kind of the way HBO has fairly new movies today. So the late show movies were always something old, from the 1940s or 1950s... stuff like CASABLANCA. After the late show movies there was... nothing. TV stations closed down for the night at 2 or 3AM and after the sign off (America The Beautiful over The Blue Angels flying in formation) there was a test pattern until the Farm Report the next morning. No infomercials. When I came home from working at the Movie Theater, I’d usually watch the Late Late Show on Friday and Saturday nights and catch some classic film... and that probably included CRISS CROSS.
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hyw8fLBDXvI" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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CRISS CROSS is a film noir based on a novel by Don Tracy and kicks off our Don Tracy Appreciation Week. Don who? you ask... hey, me too! The only reason why I know this novelist’s name is from the opening titles of CRISS CROSS, but when I came to this week’s Thriller Thursday episode it was based on a novel by... Don Tracy. Hey! What a weird coincidence! So I looked him up online and discovered his two most famous novels ended up as this movie and that TV episode. Tracy was a journalist who hit it big with his second novel “Criss Cross” and then crashed and burned with his third novel “How Sleeps The Beast?” about racial conditions in the modern south... which was too controversial for the times. After returning from World War 2, he shifted gears and wrote some sprawling historical adventure novels like “Crimson Is The Eastern Shore”, “Roanoke Renegade”, and “Carolina Corsair”. He came back to noir with “The Big Blackout” (Thriller Thursday) and in the sixties he wrote a detective series about a military policeman solving crimes on base and off (kind of like NCIS). Because this was the Paperback Revolution, he also wrote a huge stack of TV and movie novelizations under a pseudonym. A recovering alcoholic, he wrote an AA self help book in the 70s. Oddly, I have never read any of his detective series, even though those were the kinds of books I hunted for in used bookstores. Now I’m going to try and track some down.
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But CRISS CROSS...
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The film opens with Steve Thompson (muscular Burt Lancaster) making out in a night club parking lot with his ex wife Anna (sexy Yvonne DeCarlo who you may know from THE MUNSTERS), who is married to some other guy now... Slim Dundee (the slimy Dan Duryea who improves every movie he is in) a local crime boss. They enter the club separately, but later that night Thompson and Dundee get involved in a fight in a back room of the club, and Thompson’s detective pal Pete Ramerize breaks it up and asks Thompson if he wants to press charges. Thompson says no, then ends up with Dundee and his gang in the men’s room washing up... and we discover the fight was just for the sake of the detective.... but got out of hand because Dundee thinks his wife Anna may be fooling around with her ex husband. Thompson is an armored truck guard who is the inside man for a robbery by Dundee and his gang scheduled for the next day.
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When the Armored Truck goes on a pick up, the two guys packing huge bundles of money into bags are talking about how their wives overpay on laundry soap by 3 cents... this kind of contrast is one of the things that makes the film great.
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About 13 minutes into the film, just before the robbery, the Armored Truck now filled with bags of money, Thompson remembers how he came to be here...
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And we get to the meat of the story in a 50 minute flashback (in an 88 minute film)... which is not a crime story, but the story of a man with a broken heart. Thompson returns to Los Angeles after years of drifting from city to city, working a variety of odd jobs, trying to forget Anna... his ex wife who broke his heart. Film Noir is all about the four Ds: Darkness, Destiny, Despair, and of course Doom... and Destiny plays a large part in Thompson’s homecoming. When he gets to his family house, no one is home... so he wanders through the city ending up at... the night club where he and his ex wife used to hang out. He tries to call her several times, but something always gets in his way... like a warning.
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The night club has a separate bar attached, and there are two great recurring characters in that bar that you will remember long after you’ve forgotten the plot of some recent hit film. The bartender (Percy Helton) who thinks Thompson might be an undercover checker with the Alcoholic Beverages Commission is a real character, and it’s fun to watch their relationship change as time goes on. The lush who sits at the end of the bar all day (Joan Miller) is one of those great characters and great performances that makes you feel as if you’ve known her all of your life. And it’s *unusual* to make that drunk at the end of the bar a woman... you feel like she was maybe Rosie The Riveter during the war and afterwards her life went south... and here she is. I looked up the actress who played that role and she worked consistently. One of the great things about writing during the studio system was that they had all of these great character actors under contract and you could write a role for them. In the Supporting Characters Blue Book I talk about some of the great characters who pop up as Pirate #7 or Cowboy #9 (and often played both roles in different movies) and how well developed those little roles were. You remembered them. There’s a nice bit in CRISS CROSS where the Bartender is trying to tell someone how much he appreciates the Lush, his favorite customer... and she doesn’t know if she should be insulted or not. It’s a great moment for both of them. Oh, and at one point in the night club Anna is dancing with some handsome young man... a no lines extra in the film... played by a not yet famous guy named Tony Curtis!
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But Thompson and Anna are destined to bump into each other... and that happens. He knows that she is wrong for him, that if they get back together again he will just end up heartbroken again... and that’s what happens. As soon as they begin dating again, she hooks up with Dundee and *marries* the mobster, leaving Thompson stood up at the night club. When Dundee leaves on business, destiny brings them together again... but this time he’s fooling around with a mobster’s wife.
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How destiny brings them together: Dundee has to catch a train on business and at the last minute *doesn’t* take Anna. Thompson is at the train station... after learning about their marriage he’s thinking about splitting town to avoid the pain of bumping into her. An employee behind a center counter bends down for a moment and Thompson gets a glimpse of the woman on the other side... Anna. Thompson tries to avoid her by going outside... but Anna has gone outside as well. She plans on getting in her car and driving home... but Dundee’s #2 man is in the car, driving it to the city where Dundee is going so that they’ll have a vehicle there. Which leaves Anna and Thompson the only two people with nowhere to go outside the train station. Destiny keeps bringing them together... and if Dundee finds out about it they are both dead.
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Let me take a minute to mention the Los Angeles locations. Union Station is the train station, and they really shot there. I know that sounds silly, but movies were made on the backlot at this time, and there was some train station set that all movies used. CRISS CROSS went out on the streets of Los Angeles, and you get all kinds of great shots of places in the city that no longer exist. The trolley cars, Hill Street, the old houses, this film is a moving snapshot of Los Angeles in the late 40s. It’s fascinating to watch just for the scenery.
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When they eventually get caught together by Dundee, Thompson tries to talk his way out of it... by saying that he actually was there to talk to Dundee. See, he has a job that needs some criminals. Thompson has gotten his old job as an Armored Truck guard back, and has a scheme to commit a robbery. Needs criminal help. Dundee and his gang come in on the robbery... and now Thompson’s cover story for being with Anna has turned him into a criminal. Maybe there’s a fifth D in Noir: degradation. Thompson would do anything to get Anna back, he has never gotten over her... she’s in his blood. And going from respected armored truck guard to criminal just to keep her in his life is a major fall for him. The problem is: he says it off the top of his head to pacify Dundee... but it all becomes too real when they bring in a planner and put together a crew and buy vehicles and explosives and fake uniforms and gear up to do the job.
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Which leads us up to that sixty three minute mark with Thompson back behind the wheel of the Armored Truck as they head to the ambush... and our final twenty five minutes of the film.
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Don Westlake writing as Richard Stark wrote a series of heist novels featuring a guy named Parker, and a handful of them are armored truck robberies... and no two are the same. The “high concept” in a heist story is the method they use to pull the heist. You need something original. The robbery here involves a monthly factory payroll delivery in cash, a tanker truck that will block the road to the factory to keep away the police, and other elements... but the main thing is the inside man: Thompson. He not only has to remove the third guard (who would stay in the truck and shoot the robbers) but put the second guard at ease when he thinks continuing the cash delivery might be dangerous for just two guards. In the planning scene we see how the plan *will* work, but execution is where things tend to go wrong...
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And if you were Dundee and you had a chance to kill the guy who was sleeping with your wife during the robbery, what would you do? So instead of Thompson’s rule that the other guard (his friend Pops who is dating Thompson’s mom) and of course himself will not be harmed in the robbery; Pops is killed and Dundee tries to kill Thompson. The two exchange gunfire, wounding each other... but Thompson manages to kill a bunch of the other robbers... but the money and Dundee vanish.
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Thompson wakes up in the hospital a hero... but his detective pal Pete Rameriz knows he had to be part of the robbery, and warns him that Dundee is still alive and will be hunting him. Which leads to a *great* sequence of complete paranoia as Thompson is trapped in his hospital bed, leg and arm in casts and elevated with cables... and suspicious people linger in the hospital hallways and shadows pass just outside his field of vision... often falling over the pebbled glass window. This has you on the edge of your seat. One particular guy is sitting in the hallway... and Thompson asks the nurse to bring him in. Ends up being a nice guy husband whose wife was in a car accident instead of one of Dundee’s thugs. Now Thompson *begs* the husband to stay with him (so that no one can sneak in and kill him in his sleep), but the husband says he needs to stay outside his wife’s door incase she wakes up... leaving Thompson alone.
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Since this entry is now twice the usual length, I’m going to stop before we get to the ending... but what’s interesting is how it remains the story of a man with a broken heart, still in love with his ex wife, right up until the end. I think one of the things good films do is have an emotional throughline that is connected to theme. It’s Thompson still being hung up on his ex wife that drives the whole story... from the dramatic side of the story to the crime side of the story. These things are all connected. This is one of my favorite movies because all of the pieces come together perfectly... and I think we all still have some past love in our blood... and wish we could get over that long ago broken heart.
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I suspect that CRISS CROSS is one of the Coen Brothers favorite movies, since Lancaster’s character often says “Sure, sure” a phrase said often by Paul Newman’s character in HUDSUCKER PROXY and there’s a dialogue from Anna, “I didn’t do anything wrong” which is echoed by Thompson later... and a very similar thing happens in BLOOD SIMPLE with the line “I didn’t do anything funny.” I think it would be fun to look at Soderbergh’s remake of CRISS CROSS next week...
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Bill
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wcmartellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18075242897910568801noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20291006.post-11952630471628508902024-02-16T00:00:00.000-08:002024-02-16T00:00:00.121-08:00Fridays With Hitchcock: HITCH 20: POISON (s3e2)
This is a great new documentary series called HITCH 20 that I am a "guest expert" on. The series looks at the 20 TV episodes directed by Hitchcock and here is the second episode of the third season, which looks at the terror of the unseen in Hitchcock's work.
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Notes on the episode:
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<b>First off:</b> How cool is the Poking The Tiger graphic? That totally made my day!
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Many things get cut for time, so let’s talk about them here...
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<b>1)</b> Once again, sorry for the sound issues - I think that’s why so little of my comments end up in this episode.
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<b>2)</b> Though this story takes place somewhere in the tropics it was shot on the Revue Lot in Studio City (now CBS Radford) on a soundstage. The next three episodes covered were shot when the show had moved a couple of miles down the street at Universal, so that’s where I’ll be for those episodes.
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<b>3)</b> This story by Roald Dahl is probably best known as a famous radio drama from Escape Radio Theater starring Jack Webb and William Conrad - that show’s most famous episode. Because this story deals with the unseen, radio is a perfect medium for it... our imaginations are already primed because we have to imagine everything else... so when you add that poisonous snake we can easily imagine the worst. Here is a page with a link to that episode: <a href="http://escape-suspense.typepad.com/files/escape_1950.07.28_poison.mp3"> ESCAPE RADIO THEATER - POISON.</a>
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4) Hey, speaking of the unseen and that clip from JAWS - one of the cool things about this episode is that it deals with *dread*, which is a cousin to suspense. I think I talk a little more about that at the end of the episode. Dread is the “fuel” for horror because it’s roots are in “fear of the unknown” - we know that something terrible may happen but we don’t know when that will happen: it’s the Hitchcock bomb under the table and ticking clock... with no clock. When we can’t see the threat and we don’t known when or where it will strike, this creates unease in the audience and fear. Though people often credit the mechanical shark breakdown with the success of JAWS (because without the shark they had to depend on dread) I’m fairly sure that Spielberg is a smart enough filmmaker to know how dread works and had probably seen CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (from the same studio as JAWS) and knew that it’s more effective *not* to show the monster before the attack to create dread... which is fear of the unknown, and often unseen.
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<img src="http://www.scriptsecrets.net/images/HitchMasterSM.jpg" height=220 width=150 ALIGN=LEFT BORDER="1">
By the way - even in a monster movie you eventually must show the monster (as this episode eventually shows us the snake) because the audience needs to know that it actually exists. Seeing is believing. Watch JAWS again and note how the *fin* is in almost every scene just before the shark attack. Just because the shark is below the surface and can not be seen before the attack doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist - you still need to show it, so that the audience will know it. The monster is there - in the shadows - and eventually you must show it when it attacks!
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The technique of dread may be an element of horror movies, but it can be used in any genre. One of the Trailer Tuesdays in rotation is on the noir film GUN CRAZY which uses dread in it’s final scene - where our protagonist couple are trying to escape from the police and end up huddled together in a foggy swamp with the *sounds* of the police and their barking bloodhounds all around them. Because we can not see these threats, they create dread. It’s not suspense - a known threat (ticking clock or something we can see) but dread which deals with fear of the *unknown* and/or *unseen*.
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This episode of HITCHCOCK PRESENTS uses elements from other genres - like dread from horror movies and the heist genre. I think that’s important for filmmakers to remember - just because your story is in one genre doesn’t mean you can’t use the tools and techniques of other genres. You want to use every tool and technique to make the best possible movie... so know the techniques and how they work!
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5) As I said in the episode - whether it’s suspense or dread, you need to poke the tiger and remind the audience that the threat is there, so they don’t forget. You may think, “of course they won’t forget, that’s what the story is about!” but suspense (and dread) will *dissipate* if you don’t keep reminding the audience... and when something is unseen you have to keep those tiger pokes coming. The character’s coughing is a great way to poke the tiger - think of how often something like a sneeze is used in comedy films to do the same thing. Come up with a list of “pokes” to keep your suspense bubbling! “The chloroform will be very cold, but don’t move!” Coughing, sweating, his buddy poking and prodding, the chloroform, the tube, and everything else that can keep the suspense in the forefront of the audience’s mind! Keep poking that tiger!
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6) In Hitchcock’s explanation of how suspense works, he talks about the bomb under the table that we know will go off at a specific time and the clock on the wall counting down the minutes... and the two people at the table talking about something innocuous like *baseball scores*. That last part is often forgotten or misunderstood by filmmakers and screenwriters... and of course, development folks. You not only don’t want any conversation that will distract from the suspense, you also want conversation that is *pointless* - if someone is saying something important or interesting or with purpose then the audience will understand why they aren’t focusing on the bomb under the table (or whatever the suspense generator is). That dissipates the suspense because there is other important information in the scene. So suspense *increases* if the conversation is meaningless... like that wrong number when phoning for the doctor in POISON. Not just the wrong number, but *talking about it* afterwards instead of getting right back to dialing that phone and getting help. Frustration is an element of suspense - “Don’t just stand there, do something! Do something!” One of the notes I’ve gotten in suspense scenes from clueless Development Execs deals with dialogue like those baseball score conversations... they just don’t understand the basics of how suspense works! You *want* that wrong number and then the silly conversation about making the mistake before dialing it again - that ramps up the suspense!
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7) The Heist Genre element that I mention in the show: Heist movies usually have a scene where the plan is discussed step-by-step, and this episode uses that technique with the doctor’s plan to knock out the snake. He explains exactly what he is going to do, so that the audience can *anticipate* each step and its effect before it happens. Suspense is the *anticipation* of a known action... so the audience is now able to anticipate the outcome of each step in the plan... and wonder if things will go wrong. If they don’t know what is going to happen, there is no suspense - just things happening. Because we know what is *supposed to happen* in a heist scene, when something doesn’t happen as planned the audience worries that it will cause larger problems. Here, each step in the plan to knock out that poisonous snake has the ability to go wrong and cause larger problems (well, the guy will be bitten and die - that’s a pretty big problem), so as each step is meticulously done and small problems occur, the audience is on the edge of their seats worried that even small deviations in the plan may have fatal consequences.
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8) Love the ironic twist ending!
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Next episode of HITCH 20 I’ll be a couple of miles down the street at Universal Studios, where the show moved to after this season.
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- Bill
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Of course, I have my own book on Hitchcock...
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00H1IM31I/secretsofactions">
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<h3>HITCHCOCK: EXPERIMENTS IN TERROR</h3>
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00H1IM31I/secretsofactions">Click here for more info!</a>
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HITCHCOCK DID IT FIRST!
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We all know that Alfred Hitchcock was the Master Of Suspense, but did you know he was the most *experimental* filmmaker in history?
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Contained Thrillers like “Buried”? Serial Protagonists like “Place Beyond The Pines”? Multiple Connecting Stories like “Pulp Fiction”? Same Story Multiple Times like “Run, Lola, Run”? This book focuses on 18 of Hitchcock’s 53 films with wild cinema and story experiments which paved the way for modern films. Almost one hundred different experiments that you may think are recent cinema or story inventions... but some date back to Hitchcock’s *silent* films! We’ll examine these experiments and how they work. Great for film makers, screenwriters, film fans, producers and directors.
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Films Examined: “Rear Window”, “Psycho”, “Family Plot”, “Topaz”, “Rope”, “The Wrong Man”, “Easy Virtue”, “Lifeboat”, “Bon Voyage”, “Aventure Malgache”, “Elstree Calling”, “Dial M for Murder”, “Stage Fright”, “Champagne”, “Spellbound”, “I Confess”, and “The Trouble with Harry”, with glances at “Vertigo” and several others.
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Professional screenwriter William C. Martell takes you into the world of The Master Of Suspense and shows you the daring experiments that changed cinema. Over 77,000 words.
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hitchcock-Experiments-William-C-Martell-ebook/dp/B00H1IM31I/secretsofactions">UK Folks Click Here.</a>
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.de/Hitchcock-Experiments-William-C-Martell-ebook/dp/B00H1IM31I/secretsofactions"> German Folks Click Here.</a>
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.fr/Hitchcock-Experiments-William-C-Martell-ebook/dp/B00H1IM31I/secretsofactions"> French Folks Click Here.</a>
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.es/Hitchcock-Experiments-William-C-Martell-ebook/dp/B00H1IM31I/secretsofactions"> Espania Folks Click Here.</a>
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.ca/Hitchcock-Experiments-William-C-Martell-ebook/dp/B00H1IM31I/secretsofactions"> Canadian Folks Click Here.</a>
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Billwcmartellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18075242897910568801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20291006.post-42258020094670561072024-02-15T00:00:00.000-08:002024-02-15T00:00:00.123-08:00Thriller Thursday: ROSE'S LAST SUMMERRose’s Last Summer
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The spider web fills the screen, it's Boris Karloff's THRILLER!
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<b>Season:</b> 1, <b>Episode:</b> 5.<br>
<b>Airdate:</b> 10/11/1960<br>
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<b>Director:</b> Arthur Hiller<br>
<b>Writer:</b> Marie Baumer, based on a novel by Margaret Millar<br>
<b>Cast:</b> Mary Astor, Lin McCarthy, Jack Livesey<br>
<b>Music:</b> Pete Rugolo<br>
<b>Cinematography:</b> John L. Russell<br>
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<b>Boris Karloff’s Introduction:</b> “Rose French. In the blur of memory the face grows dim, but do you remember the name? Twenty years ago, Rose French... the remarkable Rose French.. As a servant girl or as a princess? She was a quicksilver star in a celluloid heaven. If a woman would sell her soul to achieve such fame, what wouldn’t she do to get it back? Poor Rose, that was all she wanted, to relive the past. And those who loved her, Frank Clyde for instance, could do nothing to stop her. For the comeback trail could lead to strange and sinister places. To a lonely garden, into a night of terror, it could even lead to the face of a painted doll. For the comeback trail is a journey without maps, sure as my name is Boris Karloff. Poor Rose French, and her last desperate summer. That’s the name of our story: Rose’s Last Summer. Let me assure you, my friends, this is a thriller.”
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<b>Synopsis:</b> Mary Astor famously explained the Five Stages Of Stardom: “Who's Mary Astor? Get me Mary Astor. Get me a Mary Astor Type. Get me a young Mary Astor. Who's Mary Astor?”
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Rose French (Mary Astor) is a once famous movie star, a real doll; now a washed up drunk living in a crappy apartment in Los Angeles... forgotten by time. She was married to three men... and divorced by them. Two were pretty boy actors who lived off her fame, one was a Howard Hughes like millionaire who may be the only man she has ever loved. But now she is alone. When she gets an unusual acting job out of the blue, she takes it... No fame or fortune involved, no spotlights and red carpets; that’s not what Rose is looking for. Just a chance to practice her craft... in some town in California called LaMesa. What’s the role?
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A few weeks later, Rose French is found dead in LaMesa, in the garden of some dead millionaire’s toy manufacturer’s mansion. The young doctor at the rehab facility where she once dried out Frank Clyde (Lin McCarthy) and that Howard Hughes like ex husband Dalloway (Jack Livesey) show up at the inquest, where it is revealed she died of a massive heart attack, and had been in poor health for years. The two men team up, because the doctor had examined Rose not that long ago, and she had *no* heart condition and was in pretty good health for a boozer. Did someone kill her? Poison her and make it look like a heart attack? They head to LaMesa to investigate.
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The garden of the dead toy manufacturer’s mansion is accessible from the street, did she just wander in and die? While poking around they spot an old woman watching from the window, and ring the bell. They talk to the son of the toy millionaire, Willet Goodfield (Hardie Albright) and his wife Ethel (Dorothy Green), about Rose’s death, and they claim they know nothing. She was just this strange woman who wandered into their yard and dropped dead. When they ask to talk to Willet’s mother, who may have seen something from her window, Willet tries to dissuade them. When they insist, old Mrs. Goodfield yells from upstairs that she will see them.
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Mrs. Goodfield is heir to Horace Goodfield’s Sweet Marie Doll fortune, and old woman who walks with a cane and spends much of her time confined to her bed. She’s cranky, but answers Frank and Dalloway’s questions. She didn’t see anything, but it’s a tragedy that the woman died on their property. When Dalloway continues with a bunch of follow up questions, Mrs. Goodfield orders him out of the room, she needs her rest. While this is going on, Frank pokes around the house and discovers a piece of evidence that makes it look like Rose may have been inside the house. Frank and Dalloway leave highly suspicious of the family, and do further investigation...
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Now we get our big twist, much like in the classic thriller MY NAME IS JULIA ROSS, the role Rose was hired to play is playing is a real person... Mrs. Goodfield. Millionaire toy maker Horace Goodfield left his fortune in an odd trust: his widow must live to her sixty fifth birthday for she and Willet to inherit... but the widow has a bad heart, and the family is afraid she will pass away before her birthday. So they hire Rose to play the window in the event she dies before her upcoming birthday. Rose does an amazing job, and Willet and his wife have trouble telling them apart. But when Mrs. Goodfield does die before her birthday, they have to figure out some way to get rid of the body... and decide to dye her hair, put her in Rose’s clothes with all of Rose’s ID and place it in the garden. Plan worked: nobody thought it was Mrs. Goodfield, and when her birthday rolled around Rose played the role perfectly and Willet got his hands on his father’s fortune...
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But when Rose wants her money so that she can go back to her life, Willet asks, “What life?” You see, Rose is *dead*. Rose has nowhere to go, no life to live... nothing. Willet gives her a bottle of booze to wash away her depression... and when she’s passed out drunk they carry her out to their car to dispose of her. But Rose was *acting* passed out, and she escapes, running for her life as Willet and Ethel chase her in the car trying to run her down. A nice suspense scene, ending with Frank and Dalloway arriving at the Goodfield mansion with the police, hearing the screams from the car chase a few streets over, and rescuing Rose. Nice ending as Rose and Dalloway walk off together.
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<b>Review:</b> MY NAME IS JULIA ROSS is about an actress who gets trapped in the role of a real person who was murdered, and can’t escape after she discovers they are setting her up as a suicide. This episode tells a similar story, but through characters outside the conflict who are investigating the mystery. This works fine, because by the halfway point we switch POVs and get Rose’s story, the character who *is* inside the conflict. What’s great is that Mary Astor gets to play duel roles, and pulls off both of them. When she is playing Mrs. Goodfield, you don’t recognize her at all and think she may be part of the conspiracy to kill Rose. And in the flashback sequence, she gets a *third* role, playing the real Mrs. Goodfield under the name “Helen Quintal” in the opening credits so that the audience won’t jump ahead of the story... the way Hitchcock did publicity shots with the chair for Mrs. Bates. She does a great job of playing the real Mrs. Goodfield against Rose playing Mrs. Goodfield, and manages to make each distinctive. So we get a great performance by Mary Astor at that time in her career she was probably the latter “Who is Mary Astor?”
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The episode does some stock footage jet setting, from Dalloway’s yacht to San Francisco (where Horace Goodfield died) and from gritty downtown to the luxurious gated estate. All of this is very convincing, and gives the show some scope. Though the car chase and attack scene is tame compared to what we might expect on a TV series today, it’s great for the time. The novel it’s based on is by Margaret Millar, who was Mrs. Ross Macdonald (“Archer” filmed as HARPER with Paul Newman) and a great crime novelist in her own right. Again we get PSYCHO cinematographer John L. Russell shooting the episode, and Arthur Hiller who would go on to direct the hit LOVE STORY as well as critical favorite THE HOSPITAL does a good job... but on a show like this it’s all about pacing, and this episode works well.
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Though not on a par with some of the great edge of your seat suspense episodes or the creepy horror episodes of the show, this is a solid entry that really showcases the talent of Mary Astor... and makes you realize there should *never* be a time when Hollywood asks “Who is Mary Astor?” just because an actor or actress is older. Mary Astor doesn’t play a 30 or 40 year old in this episode, and looks great... no crazy plastic surgery. For an actress who was a star in the silent age, and the femme fatale in the Bogart version of THE MALTESE FALCON, she gives a great star turn here and shows that she could still act circles around most actors half her age. What is the reason for that? Oh, yeah: *Experience*.
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FADE OUT.
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Bill
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B003NOGNQU/secretsofactions">
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width=180 ALIGN=LEFT BORDER="1" alt="Buy The DVD!"></a>wcmartellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18075242897910568801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20291006.post-26927409720799425402024-02-14T00:00:00.000-08:002024-02-14T00:00:00.139-08:00Film Courage Plus: Researching LocationsFILM COURAGE did a series of interviews with me at the end of 2014, and then again at the end of 2015. So why not add a new craft article and make it a weekly blog entry? All I have to do is write that new article, right?
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<center><b>LET'S TALK LOCATIONS!</b></center>
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One of my early movie crushes when I was a kid was Leslie Ann Warren, who played CINDERELLA in the TV version of Rogers & Hammerstein’s musical back in 1965. I was 8 years old! It’s not that she was cute (she still is) but the song she sang “In my own little corner in my own little room I can be whatever I want to be” - that was (and is) me! So maybe I really have a crush on Oscar Hammerstein? Only he’s definitely not as cute. But I was a clumsy unpopular kid who lived in my imagination - and could be whatever I wanted to be. I think that’s a major part of being a writer, whether you have seen the musical version of CINDERELLA or not. We imagine ourselves doing exiting and amazing things... while we sit at our laptops or tablets or whatever we write on. But how do we write about being a cowboy or astronaut or spy or whatever exciting life of we have never lived that life? How do we write about all of those exotic places that the story takes place in (the old west, space, cool international cities) if we have never been there? We need to combine our imaginations with research.
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One of the things that I talk about in the clip is my script that takes place in Finland - a country that I have never been to. About ten years ago, I landed an assignment with a company that had connections to a company in Finland and was looking to do a co-production that was similar to TAKEN - a fast paced action revenge film. They called me, and I pitched them an idea that was similar to TAKEN but different. Everything I write has some autobiographical thread in it, so my idea was: what if a guy who writes spy novels, and knows all kinds of things about the spy world, went to a big event with his wife, and she wore the exact same dress as the President’s wife... and got kidnaped by mistake? Now our novelist hero has to get her back before the bad guys realize that they have the wrong person and kill her. He writes about spies, but can he live that life for real? (I can be whatever I want to be!). The whole deal was to take advantage of shooting in Finland, but I have never been there! And the Finish co-producers *live there*.
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In the old days, when I had to write about some foreign country, I bought a bunch of travel books. I found that the “Let’s Go!” books were great because they were designed for backpackers and usually had interesting “non tourist” places to check out. They also had really good descriptions of places, even if they didn’t have pictures. This was in the pre-internet times, where you couldn’t just Google someplace. So I had to find other books (usually in the library) that had photos of places that sounded interesting in the books. The problem always was - these were glamor shots of buildings and streets, made to look as beautiful as possible. And I was sure that in real life those places didn’t look as nice. But I wrote a giant stack of spy and thriller screenplays and even a couple of novels using the “Let’s Go!” books and travel picture books and the occasional travelogue film. Worked fine, some of those screenplays sold and were optioned...
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But for the Finland screenplay? Since the internet had been invented, I went online. I discovered that Helsinki often doubles in movies for St. Petersburg, Russia - so that’s where I began my story. I found the sections of the city that they used in other movies and the sections of St. Petersburg that they were supposed to be. I found everything I needed online. In the clip I talk about looking at people’s vacation videos of Helsinki online - Google search. Made me feel a little like the crazy killer Frances Dollarhyde in “Manhunter” (1986) who works at a film developing lab and selects his victims by watching their home movies. Creepy! But watching a bunch of family’s home videos of their fun Finland vacation gave me multiple angles of locations and all of the small things that never made it into those pretty pictures in the travel books. One of which was a guy with a push cart who sold fish snacks (and sodas and everything else). In two different home videos! This guy is always there! So I put him in my screenplay.
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<b><center>DETAILS</center></b>
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Which is a great lesson in research. Find the details that make it seem real. Look for the things that are unusual and distinctive about the location... and look for locations that are different than anywhere else on earth. If you are writing a scene in Finland, don’t have scenes take place at a location that could be anywhere else. Not only do the details create a vivid image in the reader’s minds, they add a level of reality that your slugline can’t do on its own. Details are like anything else in your “description” - they need to be part of the story and “action”. So my guy with the push cart who sold fish snacks wasn’t just part of the description, he was critical to the scene. My spy novelist hero, when searching for his kidnaped wife, asks the street vendor questions that will help him find her or the people who took her. You don’t want to include *pointless* details in your screenplay, so you need to find a way to make all of the details important to the story... and the great part about that is that it makes the details memorable.
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One of the odd things with my guy with a push cart is that the production companiy’s readers who *lived* in Finland knew exactly who I was talking about. That guy is a fixture in that neighborhood. Though you may not have a producer who is familiar with the details that you use as part of your story, details are convincing. A vague description of something sounds less credible than one with a specific detail that makes you feel as if you are there. One distinctive details is worth hundreds of words about something general. And words are gold in screenwriting. You don’t want to spend words on worthless things... or use too many words.
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Thanks to the internet we can be virtually anywhere. Google Street View allows us to see those great details anywhere in the world. I think I might have mentioned my screenplay that takes place in Detroit, a city I have never been to, and finding a You Tube video that gave me a guided tour of one of my locations. I also used Street View when I did a recent rewrite to improve the description of a specific location. I wanted to make sure that people in Detroit wouldn’t think I had never been there. I had written a screenplay ages ago, “Recall”, about the auto industry and even though I had read some books I had managed to get some things wrong (reading about a location isn’t nearly as good as seeing it with your own eyes). Though it might be nice to actually go there, as writers we end up writing about places all over the world... that we have never been to. My “Hours Of Darkness” screenplay takes place in Seattle, a place that I hadn’t been to since I was 5 years old. I had seen multiple pictures of one of my locations... but none of them showed the railroad tracks that ran behind the building.
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That came from a *map* - another great tool when dealing with places that you never have been. One of the great moments in Wesley Strick’s “True Believer” screenplay is when our lawyer hero realizes that two locations that seem far from each other are actually close to each other and connected by an alley. That’s the clue that helps them prove their client innocent of murder. So grab a map for locations where you have never been and look for the details that may not be in pictures. Maps are great research tools!
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<b><center>UNIQUE LOCATIONS</center></b>
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Unusual locations make it look as if you are very familiar with the city or country that you are writing about. As someone who was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area I get bored with the generic locations in most movies (and the Golden Gate Bridge... which is the *second* most important bridge in the city - nobody ever shows the Bay Bridge that connects Oakland and San Francisco). There’s a travelogue element in going to the movies, so I want to show the audience places that other films haven’t shown them. If I’ve seen it in another movie, I want to find someplace else to set the scene. So in my “Past Lives” screenplay I have a scene in Tommy’s Joint - a bar and restaurant that’s kind of the DMZ - where a cop might be having lunch at a table next to a crook. It’s a fascinating place that I have never seen in a film. My big suspense ending takes place at one of the *two* Dutch Windmills in Golden Gate Park. You probably didn’t even know there were Windmills in San Francisco. So I am showing you something that isn’t in the usual “Welcome To San Francisco” montage.
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Every city has “tourist places” and places that the residents know of, and part of making your story seem real is finding those places that don’t usually end up in films... and making them part of the story...
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Though the way that can backfire is if they shoot your screenplay in Vancouver.
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But think of the “Travelogue” element when writing your screenplay - where can you set a scene that shows the audience someplace fun and exciting to visit, so that the audience feels as if they have been on a vacation while watching the film? Growing up, I loved how the James Bond movies took me to exotic places around the world, and set scenes in those places so that I could see more details than if it were just that “Welcome To Tokyo” montage. In YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE a scene is set at a Sumo Wrestling Match - the wrestling is going on in the background, but you feel as if you are right there! Because every word is gold in a screenplay, you want to *incorporate* these interesting locations into your story, so we get the “travelogue” in the background... and it’s required to go to that exotic location by the story itself.
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One of the things that I found in my Finland screenplay research was an ancient island fortress that is now a park. I asked if we could film there, and found out that parks are an “easy permit” and inexpensive. There were rules - I couldn’t have explosions or fires or anything else that might damage the old fortress, but I could have scenes where people are chasing each other and fighting hand to hand. Great!
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But while researching the island fortress, I discovered many things that made it into the story, including a fairly new emergency tunnel *under the sea* that was built in the 1970s. Ambulances and fire equipment could quickly get to the island, now... but that also meant there was a way to get there other than the ferry boats. And usually long tunnels have places to turn out and maintenance rooms along the way... so I had my villain using a maintenance room as his hideout, and when they triangulate a cell phone call it shows that the villain is in the middle of the sea! On a boat? They look for a boat and there isn’t one. So how is it possible? Our hero eventually finds out about the new tunnel - and finds the villain. Researching locations finds story possibilities that you didn’t even know existed. You *need* to research locations!
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<b><center>LOCATION IS CHARACTER?</center></b>
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My COWBOY NIGHTS script is kind of "cowboy noir" and takes place present day. The protagonist gets fired from a dude ranch and heads to the city, where he becomes involved with a femme fatale who has a robbery scheme. In order to make the protagonist's choice to hook up with the femme fatale something we could see - visual, and not just words on the page - I created a nice cowgirl as a potential romance. That meant there *was* a choice - the femme fatale wasn't the only woman available. The protagonist now must make a physical choice between the two women, and that nice cowgirl he doesn't end up with becomes a physical symbol of his wrong choice when things go south in the robbery scheme. Also, she allowed me an ending where our protagonist gets a shot at redemption and a future.
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There are several scenes in the script where the protagonist and femme fatale have sex, and one where the protagonist and nice cowgirl make love. Now, you can see the distinction between those two things on the page - I've used different words - but how do you make sure those words show up on screen? How do you turn words into something visual so that they do not stay on the page? In both scenes, the protagonist has sex with a woman. Sounds like the same scene... but what if I used *Locations* to help tell the story?
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The first thing I did was look at what made the two female characters different. The femme fatale was a city girl and the nice cowgirl was a country girl - and all of the basic character things and specific character things that come from that. I wanted to use location as one of the elements to explore character - even if it was so subtle most people wouldn't consciously notice. The sex scenes with the femme fatale were all rushed and in urban locations. The rushed element matched the hustle of city life, but also fit the story - the femme fatale is the wife of a small time gangster and these sex scenes are cheating on her husband, so they have to be fast so they don’t get caught. But the scenes could have taken place in beds or anywhere - I decided to use previously established urban locations that would make these sex scenes part of the city. One takes place in an alley, one is in a car parked in a busy parking lot, one is in the husband's place of business. None of the scenes take place in a location that is *not* obviously a city.
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The nice cowgirl love scene takes place in the country - which fits her character - and is also relaxed and unrushed. They have a picnic in a beautiful outdoor location after a horse ride. Where the femme fatale’s sex scenes are surrounded by car horns and buildings; the nice cowgirl scene takes place surrounded by trees and wild flowers without a building in sight. I high-lighted all of the simple beauty of nature, and the simple beauty of the cowgirl. When they make love, they take their time, and are surrounded by the best scenic location the location scout can find. Because the location is beautiful, the audience will subconsciously find the sex scene to be beautiful as well. The location is doing its part to tell the story and reveal character.
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The other difference between the two types of sex scenes was also designed to show that the tone of these scenes was different: The sex scenes with the femme fatale always took place at night and in darkness. The love scene with the nice cowgirl took place is bright daylight. Bad girl and nice girl, darkness and light. Hey, seems obvious when I say it, but how often do you *consciously* notice the time of day in a sex scene? This is something that the audience *feels* more that *realizes*. A simple thing we do in the slugline that changes the tone of the scene and changes the way the audience sees the actions. As different as – NIGHT and – DAY!
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Locations can be instrumental in telling your story - and researching them is easier now than it ever has been. So takes some time to think about the best location for your scenes. The best location for your story. Locations that are evocative and distinctive...
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Then they will probably film it in Vancouver.
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Good luck and keep writing!
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- Bill
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<br><br>wcmartellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18075242897910568801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20291006.post-65027231116206984822024-02-13T00:00:00.000-08:002024-02-13T00:00:00.395-08:00Trailer Tuesday: THE LAST OF SHEILA (1973)
Two years ago the new KNIVES OUT film GLASS ONION made me think of this film...
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<b>Directed by:</b> Herbert Ross.<br>
<b>Written by:</b> Anthony Perkins & Stephen Sondheim..<br>
<b>Starring:</b> Richard Benjamin, Raquel Welch, James Coburn, Ian McShane, Dyan Cannon, James Mason, Joan Hackett.<br>
<b>Produced by: Herbert Ross</b> .<br>
<b>Music by:</b> Billy Goldenberg, with the song “Friends” by Bette Midler.<br>
<b>Production Design by:</b> Ken Adam - all of the great James Bond films.
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THE LAST OF SHEILA is one of my favorite films, and arguably the best mystery film ever made (and if you want to argue about it - head to the comments section!). Mystery films are a dead genre now, and even in those years when they were popular, they were not that popular. This film comes from a point in the 1970s where MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS and CHINATOWN were hits on the big screen (with a bunch of Agatha Christie films popping up afterwards), and shows like ELLERY QUEEN on the small screen. Whenever I say that Mystery Films Are Dead, a bunch of people chime in with the titles of cop shows... which are not mysteries. Mysteries are an audience participation genre - and the best example of that is probably the ELLERY QUEEN show, where just before the final commercial Ellery or the announcer would tell the audience that they have all of the clues to solve the crime - all of the evidence - and during the commercial break you were supposed to be the detective and explain to your family who did it and why and what all of the evidence that *proves* that they are the killer before the commercials are over and Ellery Queen brings all of the suspects together and does his version. You didn’t *guess* who did it, you *deduced* who did it using the evidence you were shown. Your job as a reader or a viewer in a mystery is to pay attention to the clues and motives and knowledge of means and each suspect’s opportunities and figure out who done it...
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Which is why the genre is either dead or back for a few years and then dead again. The audience has to *work at it*... and most people don’t really want to think in the cinema. In fact, most development executives don’t want to have to think while reading a script. Every time I sell a mystery script, the first thing that happens in rewrites is a “mysterectomy” where the mystery and clues are removed and it is turned into a straight thriller. That way the director and prop guy and everyone else doesn’t have to worry how many martini glasses on the table have lipstick marks in every scene. But for some reason, in the 1970s, the genre was hot and people *wanted* to solve the puzzles... and THE LAST OF SHEILA was made.
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It’s an original Screenplay by Anthony Perkins (Norman Bates) and Stephen Sondheim (a bunch of Broadway musicals like WEST SIDE STORY) who may have been a couple at the time, and if you look at the relationship between the Richard Benjamin character and the James Coburn character, you might wonder if there may be some autobiographical elements in there. I have no idea, but Sondheim *was* a puzzle nut - and so is Coburn’s character. The film was directed by Herbert Ross, FOOTLOSE, GOODBYE GIRL, PLAY IT AGAIN SAM, and a million other big hits... And the cast is amazing - you may not realize that Richard Benjamin was a *huge* movie star at the time, he was the lead in WESTWORLD! The *star*! You know who James Coburn and Raquel Welch and James Mason are, Dyan Cannon was a star - and once married to Cary Grant - she is still alive and *hot* at 81!, Joan Hackett played the “nice girl” lead in a bunch of movies like SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL SHERIFF, and the fairly young new face was some intense British actor named Ian McShane... The plot is clever, the dialogue is clever and it’s a blast to watch. And it’s a movie industry story as well as being a mystery!
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Egomaniacal and cruel big shot film producer Clinton Green (James Coburn) has a party at his mansion in the Hollywood Hills... he is probably the most hated man in Hollywood, and lives to make people squirm. There’s a great shot where we start in a luxury car where the driver is smoking a joint, and it is passed from Parking Valet to Parking Valet until we can see through the mansion window, where Clinton and his wife Sheila (Yvonne Romain) are fighting... then storms out of the house and down the winding road... where she is hit and killed by a car. Great shot of her corpse reflection as the car backs up to see if she is dead or alive before speeding off. The police never find the car or discover who was driving. It is an unsolved crime, and the seed from which this whole film grows.
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One year later, Clinton invites a group of Hollywood types to spend summer on his yacht in the Mediterranean playing games and soaking up the sun... all of them were at that party where Sheila was killed... all of them are suspects in her death. Clinton types the name on the invitation, and then we are introduced to the character in their natural habitat...
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Big time agent Christine (Dyan Cannon) used to be fat, and this is a great performance - she *acts* fat, even though she’s hot. The role may have been written for a plump actress, but Cannon plays it as a recent Jenny Craig grad who just knows she’s going to put on all of the weight in the near future - she’s hitting on all of the men, and acting really insecure. This counters her tough-gal occupation, and she is introduced in her office barking orders followed by “Kiss, kiss” - insincere manners. Totally Hollywood!
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Alice, (Raquel Welch) as the hot movie star who is no longer in her 20s, but is still a star. But for how long? Welch will remind you of Julia Roberts today - at that strange age where you don’t know what’s going to happen to her career. Is she going to play *moms*? Is she going to become a character actor? What happens when you hit your “hot babe” pull date? She is recently married to...
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Anthony, (Ian McShane) is Alice’s super intense Manager/Husband and great as a brawler, an insecure slice of beefcake. They are introduced in the airport and Alice is mobbed by Paparazzi... and Anthony actually slugs a photographer and breaks his camera and then slugs someone else. This guy can not keep his temper under control, and when Alice tries to be apologetic, he scolds her - these people will ruin her image!
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Philip (James Mason) a once famous film director who is now doing TV commercials and not liking it. Introduced shooting an oatmeal commercial with a bunch of bratty little girls, one of them sits on his lap... and pees on him. Philip is always aloof but never mean - and Mason is one of those actors who can deliver any line and make it sing. Philip is floating along on some higher level than everyone else - he’s a director! that’s a step down from God - but at the same time, he is afraid he might not land a job directing Clinton’s next film.
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Tom (Richard Benjamin) is the screenwriter, who is broke and really needs a job... his last gig was doing on set rewrites on a low budget spaghetti western. It’s strange to think that Benjamin was a star once because he’s so unlike what we think of as a star today... but he’s an everyman when that was popular. When I first saw this film, I was a kid and wanted to be a screenwriter - so this was the perfect hero. But his character Tom is a “cautionary tale” about screenwriters. He has a stack of scripts that haven’t sold - including “Freak Show”, which he would love to sell to Clinton. He is currently living off his wife...
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Lee (Joan Hackett), whose family has been in the film biz for generations and she has childhood memories of sitting on Mason’s lap. Lee’s family money ($5 million in 1973 money) has been supporting Tom while he tries to sell a script. She says paying for everything isn’t a problem... but you can see on both of their faces that it really is. Both characters are introduced at her luxurious home, where he’s laying around on the sofa instead of writing and she is drinking non-alcoholic beverages.
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So those are the guests on the cruise, our suspects - each was there the night Sheila was killed by the hit and run driver, and did I mention the games? On the first day of the cruise everyone is given a card with the name of a criminal on it, like “The Shoplifter” - none of the other players knows what criminal is on your card. When the yacht docks at some exotic locale, Clinton gives the group a clue at exactly 8pm, and then each of them scrambles to follow the clue to some other clue and find the Shoplifter’s Lair before everyone else. So the clue in the Shoplifter game is a silver key marked Sterling 18k. What does it mean? This is a French port, so one of the players realizes that French for key is “Clef” - and there’s a jazz club with that name... Others think the “sterling” on a silver key is the clue. Everyone has a theory... and they follow the clue leads to a clue leads to a clue.
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There’s a great bit in this game where a tourist couple wandering through the village keeps crossing paths with each of the players - connecting them with each other.
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Once you find the Shoplifter’s Lair there is a clue with the identity of whoever holds The Shoplifter card. It’s a crime scene with a dead detective (dummy) and clues to the killer. You know that the criminal is a Shoplifter, because all of the clothes and other items in the room still have their price tags on them. Follow the clues and you will find which one of our players has the Shoplifter Card... and you get points. “Everything with Clinton is points,” Tom says. Once the person holding The Shoplifter card finds the Lair, the game is over - a sign is placed at the Shoplifter’s Lair that says The Game Is Over - and everyone else is a loser. No points for them! Oh, and there’s a time limit - when the boat headed back out to the yacht leaves, you’d better be on it!
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There is a chart of who has won and lost each round in the yacht’s cabin, and the person who solves the most games is the ultimate winner (and may end up with a job on Clinton’s next film). If you have The Shoplifter card, you want to solve it before everyone else so that the game is over and you are the only winner of that round. A fun little game for rich Hollywood types to play, except - did I mention the cruel streak?
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Each of the crimes on the cards are things a member of the group has actually been accused of. As is explained a bit later - Clinton wouldn’t give the actual shoplifter The Shoplifter card, because everyone would get angry and quit. So no one knows the cruel element of the game until enough games are played that the pattern appears. And that is when the real fun begins... because some of the crimes on the cards are more than just embarrassing, they are blackmail material.
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You are a Shoplifter.<br>
You are a Homosexual.<br>
You are an Informant.<br>
You are an Ex-Convict.<br>
You are a Little Child Molester.
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Oh, and one of the cards says You are a Hit And Run Killer on it.
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So Clinton’s real game is to expose Sheila’s killer at the end of the cruise, while ruining everyone’s lives along the way. “That’s the thing about secrets. We all know stuff about each other, we just don’t know the same stuff,” as Alice says... she was actually once busted for shoplifting early in her career, and it was covered up. Tension builds and soon there are attempts on people’s lives - a really frightening scene where someone turns on the ship’s propellers while Christine is swimming near the rear of the yacht and she is swept towards the giant rotating blades!
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But this story isn’t just a murder mystery, it’s also a showbiz story! And each of these folks being tortured by Clinton’s game also wants to be in his new movie - the story of his dead wife to be titled “The Last Of Sheila”. Each of the players is competing with each other for the attention of the most hated man in Hollywood, and backstabbing each other to climb over each other’s corpse to reach the top - a job on this proposed film about the murder victim. If you are in the business, or just a big enough movie fan to get the jokes, it’s a lot of fun as it skewers the film business... especially those second tier studio flicks with stars who are trying to hold on to their stardom and directors and writers who are no longer on their way up...
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Super intense Anthony is not very good at kissing ass, but does his best...” My aspirations do run closer to the production end of things, if you know what I mean. What would you say, and please be absolutely frank, to me asking you for an associate producership on this upcoming film?” What Clinton would say is - a humiliating fake crying sound, boo-hoo-hoo, that morphs into laughter. He cuts off Anthony’s balls in front of everyone else. And that makes the others both afraid of Clinton and happy that with Anthony out of the running, maybe they will win Clinton’s favor. It’s vicious!
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<A HREF="https://www.amazon.com/Last-Sheila-Richard-Benjamin/dp/B008RNYMPG/secretsofactions">
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Okay, someone is murdered in addition to long dead Sheila (or it wouldn’t be much of a movie) at the halfway point, and the director and screenwriter partner up to solve the murder in a Holmes & Watson kind of thing. The screenwriter, Tom, leading the investigation... which only makes sense because the screenwriter is the brains of any film. But the director, Philip, actually finds the big clue at an unexpected moment. The way these two work together is great, and James Mason has played Watson a few years later in MURDER BY DECREE.
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The great thing about this film is that it completely plays fair - the audience can play along and solve the murder themselves. The clues are all there. In fact, the great thing about the ending when Tom and Philip are taking it clue-by-clue explaining who did it and how, is that they show you a clip from the movie you have already seen... and this time you notice the killer picking up the murder weapon! Before, you saw the exact same piece of film and didn’t notice it. (Though the new piece of film continues to show the killer actually pocketing it... the original clip stopped just before they put it in their pocket.) But everything was right there on film and you could have easily followed the clues to the killer. Ellery Queen could have popped up before the end and said you had all of the information to solve the crime. The film clips we have already seen are the reason why I love this film because I was paying attention and missed some of the clues. In the cinema, you wonder if the clip is the same in the denouement on video you can literally zip back and compare! Dang - the killer used that amazing skill earlier in the film!
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And one of the great things about how this story plays fair, is that there are three different solutions to the murder in the film - the first one makes sense if you noticed some of the clues, the second one if you noticed most of the clues, and the last if you noticed all of the clues. That way we have different prime suspects you can build a case for, and we can have an obvious suspect and a least likely suspect and still have a twist ending with the actual killer. We also have Sheila’s murder and the victim halfway through the story - they may or may not have been killed by the same person. So even if you are a mystery fan, there are all kinds of variables that have been carefully set up to throw you off the track!
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There is a great scene where they lay all of their cards on the table and we see the secret crimes for the first time... and Tom asks each to pick the card that is their secret. Needless to say, no one wants to admit to being any of those things. So there are disputes over who *wants to be* the Homosexual - which isn’t nearly as bad as a Child Molester or a Hit And Run Killer. And then there’s a fight over who gets to be the Ex-Convict! These characters are all clever and witty, but none are very nice (except Welch’s Alice, who is way too sweet to be a sexy movie star... and that’s what makes the character interesting). Each character is well rounded to begin with, and once you discover who has what secret, you see realize small things in their personality have set these revelations up. They are twists, but completely logical. Once the Hit And Run Killer is revealed, you can watch the film again and if you focus on that character you not only can see all of the clues... you can see a great performance by that actor. In the background of scenes they react to discussion of Sheila differently than other characters. You don’t notice this first time through, but it’s an amazing performance.
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Another great element of this screenplay is that the title, “The Last Of Sheila”, is kind of “punned” throughout the story. It has different meanings at different times. So it’s the death of Clinton’s wife, it’s the title of the movie he is planning to make, the yacht is the “Sheila” so it is where Christine is almost mangled by the propellers, and a secret clue to the killer... part of Clinton’s cruel games.
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This is one of the films I use as an example in SECRETS OF ACTION SCREENWRITING along with THE VERDICT on how to not lose the audience when your identification character becomes a suspect. When the hero may be the villain. Usually in a mystery, like MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS, the detective is not a suspect. But here, both our Holmes and our Watson have great motives and enough clues to make us wonder if they are going to be revealed as the killer. And because we have a shallow suspect pool, there is a character in this story who we have grown to like... who ends up being a killer. I’m not going to spoil the ending, but the film manages to pull off the seemingly impossible task of *not losing the audience* after this killer is revealed. This story walks a dangerous tight-rope and doesn’t fall, which is a miracle. Great writing skills involved in this.
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And the locations are fantastic - one of the games takes place in an abandoned monastery on a tiny island at night, with only candles to illuminate the dark spooky hallways. It's a great creepy location, and all of the players are dressed as monks so you can not tell them apart. This sequence is almost like a horror story - lots of spooky atmosphere and scares. Though most of the story is on a yacht in the Mediterranean - beautiful and fun - the games are at night and in interesting locations like the monastery.
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And quotable dialogue: “The harder you try to keep a secret in, the more it wants to get out.”
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What is frightening is that Hollywood wants to remake this film... as a comedy! Huge mistake! The best way to remake this film - use the original screenplay and do not change a single word. Maybe hire a typist to change any anachronisms, but DO NOT HIRE A SCREENWRITER because they may change something that is already perfect. Of course, Hollywood doesn’t do that, so they will probably hire some version of this movie’s Tom to do a rewrite that isn’t nearly as good as the original. The recent remake of MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS turned it into an action flick at times, because mysteries are a hard sell today... so maybe they should just put off any remake until mysteries come back into fashion? Then they don’t need to make it as a comedy or an action film, they can just make it as a mystery?
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THE LAST OF SHEILA is a great mystery film, but if you don’t want to play along and solve the crime like Ellery Queen, it’s a vicious look at Hollywood with a bunch of great performances... and starring that guy who starred in WESTWORLD. Warner Archive has it on DVD, sold at Amazon and other fine retailers.
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- Bill
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wcmartellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18075242897910568801noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20291006.post-11242198131394152002024-02-09T00:00:00.000-08:002024-02-09T00:00:00.237-08:00Fridays With Hitchcock: HITCH 20: Dip In The Pool (s3e1)This is a great new documentary series called HITCH 20 that I am a "guest expert" on. The series looks at the 20 TV episodes directed by Hitchcock and here is the first episode of the third season, which looks at the importance of shot selection in Hitchcock's work on screen.
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Notes On The Episode:
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Many things get cut for time, so let’s talk about them here...
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<b>1)</b> First off - sorry for the bad sound! My friend who was scheduled to shoot my episodes this season landed a studio gig and couldn’t shoot the first two episodes, so I called another friend who does sound on movies (thinking that the sound is more important than the picture, right?) and ask him to do me a favor... He shows up completely unprepared, with no headset - so he has no idea what any of this sounds like until it’s too late to do anything about it. Weird, because I have a pair of cheap headphones in my camera bag (with my cheap camera). So the first two episodes this year will have iffy sound quality in my segments. He did save my ass by helping out, so maybe beggers can't be choosers. But the sound sucks. Now on to the episode itself...
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<b>2)</b> This story hits the ground running when it comes to characters - the Wife appreciates things that are internal and emotional (experiencing all of these wonderful places on vacation) and the Husband is completely external. This opening discussion does a great job of defining their differences as they discuss their vacation plans. I love her line, “That’s the whole trouble with you, William. If you can’t drink it, wear it, or ride in it you think it has no value.” Finding a great jab like that which both sums up the character and is the kind of witty put down that makes the audience laugh is a great two-fer. That’s not an OTN line of dialogue because it’s *mean*. The Wife has put up with a bunch of his crap in this conversation and she gets the last word (sort of).
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<b>3)</b> Is that line the trigger for the Husband’s bet? This gets into the “tennis plotting” thing in my SECRETS OF ACTION SCREENWRITING - every action causes an equal and opposite reaction, and the characters knock the tennis ball of plot back and forth between them. The Husband triggers the Wife’s comment, her comment triggers his wish to prove himself (he’s very insecure), and it goes back and forth until we reach the end.
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<b>4)</b> Leading The Audience. This is a big part of playing the audience like a musical instrument, though it has to do with the story elements rather that the shots (actually, in harmony with the shots). As writers our job is to Always Be Leading. We know this isn’t the best marriage in the world, then the Husband bribes the Steward for a vial of pills. He takes the vial of pills with him when he mixes his Wife’s drink. What does this lead the audience to believe? What does the audience expect to happen next? By leading the audience to jump to a conclusion, what *actually* happens becomes unexpected. Hey, this is HITCHCOCK PRESENTS, people poison each other on this show! So the audience jumps to the conclusion that the pill vial may be poison and the Husband will put some poison in his Wife’s drink and kill her... But the “twist” is that they are seasick pills and the Husband just doesn’t want his Wife to see his weakness - he’s seasick and needs to take a pill to keep from vomiting. The great thing about this is that it isn’t just leading the audience to jump to that poisoning scenario (adding a bit of excitement in this opening scene) it’s also all about *character* - the Husband not wanting to appear weak. Remember, he’s all about appearances, about the external.
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The other nice little bit of Leading The Audience is the word “Pool”. Just as the Husband is lead to believe that this “pool” might involve swimming, so does the audience at first. The great thing about words with multiple meanings is that they can lead to confusion, and confusion creates realistic dialogue (we look at that technique in the Dialogue Blue Book). Always be looking for words with multiple meanings to use in dialogue, then lead the audience to think one meaning is being used when it is actually another meaning. That creates unpredictable dialogue which seems real. The odd thing about leading the audience is that the more a writer *plans* the more the result seems *unplanned*. If a conversation is about the “Ship’s Pool” the audience will jump to the conclusion that it is the swimming pool on the ship, instead of a *betting* pool on the ship.
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<b>5)</b> Last but totally not least - this episode has a busted twist. The twist comes out of the blue and makes no sense at all! This lead me to re-read the Roald Dahl short story again to see where the episode went wrong. The answer: casting.
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000TXPXD2/secretsofactions">
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In the short story, the two women passengers are also Aged Mother and Middle Aged Daughter... but the “witness” was the Aged Mother who is slyly established as suffering from dementia, so the Daughter doesn’t believe her. Somehow in casting these roles were reversed and a middle aged actress was cast in the “Aged Mother” role and an elderly actress cast in the “Middle Aged Daughter” role. I know that sounds confusing, but the results are that the twist end where the Mother is not believed because she has dementia is flipped so that the Daughter is disbelieved by her Mother. Why? Never set up! Makes no sense at all! So the twist end is more of a WTF? moment than a twist.
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<b>How they could have fixed this:</b> The earlier scene where the Husband and the (witness) Daughter character bump into each other in the passageway should have given her dialogue with double meanings. One meaning should have seemed innocuous and the other clearly showing that the character is delusional. Just off the top of my head, the word “unbalanced” can deal with rocking boats and sanity. That’s the obvious choice, with a little thought I could probably come up with the more clever version... but it just shows you how easy this problem was to solve (yet it didn’t get solved). Even if the script was written with the intention of the “witness” character being that Aged Mother, you still want to do all that you can at the script stage to make the story work. As writers we have no control over casting, so I always write for the worst possible casting choice instead of the best possible casting choice - just in case. You don’t want to depend on everything going right, because there are so many variables in making a film that something is always going to go wrong. Often many things! So you want the screenplay to be the very best that it can be and not depend on the competency of others. I’m sure the casting choice on this episode made sense at the time (I’m guessing that the younger woman seemed like a potential love interest in that earlier scene so they swapped the roles of Mother and Daughter... not realizing that would bust the twist ending). A plot twist is revealing what has always been true, so in earlier scenes that trust must be present. There is a Leading The Audience element to this - we want to lead the audience to *not* see that truth earlier in the story, even though it is there. Something like dialogue with two meanings or actions which can be understood in two different ways or a clever diversion so that we are too busy looking at A when the obvious trust is B are things that can help a twist. The HITCHCOCK PRESENTS show was famous for it’s twist endings, so this is something that they should have under control.
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I think the next episode up is POISON, based on a famous short story that was adapted into a famous ESCAPE RADIO THEATER episode.
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- Bill
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Of course, I have my own book on Hitchcock...
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00H1IM31I/secretsofactions">
<img align="left" height="220" src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00H1IM31I.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg" /></a><br />
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<h3>HITCHCOCK: EXPERIMENTS IN TERROR</h3>
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00H1IM31I/secretsofactions">Click here for more info!</a>
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HITCHCOCK DID IT FIRST!
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We all know that Alfred Hitchcock was the Master Of Suspense, but did you know he was the most *experimental* filmmaker in history?
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Contained Thrillers like “Buried”? Serial Protagonists like “Place Beyond The Pines”? Multiple Connecting Stories like “Pulp Fiction”? Same Story Multiple Times like “Run, Lola, Run”? This book focuses on 18 of Hitchcock’s 53 films with wild cinema and story experiments which paved the way for modern films. Almost one hundred different experiments that you may think are recent cinema or story inventions... but some date back to Hitchcock’s *silent* films! We’ll examine these experiments and how they work. Great for film makers, screenwriters, film fans, producers and directors.
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Films Examined: “Rear Window”, “Psycho”, “Family Plot”, “Topaz”, “Rope”, “The Wrong Man”, “Easy Virtue”, “Lifeboat”, “Bon Voyage”, “Aventure Malgache”, “Elstree Calling”, “Dial M for Murder”, “Stage Fright”, “Champagne”, “Spellbound”, “I Confess”, and “The Trouble with Harry”, with glances at “Vertigo” and several others.
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Professional screenwriter William C. Martell takes you into the world of The Master Of Suspense and shows you the daring experiments that changed cinema. Over 77,000 words.
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hitchcock-Experiments-William-C-Martell-ebook/dp/B00H1IM31I/secretsofactions">UK Folks Click Here.</a>
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.de/Hitchcock-Experiments-William-C-Martell-ebook/dp/B00H1IM31I/secretsofactions"> German Folks Click Here.</a>
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.fr/Hitchcock-Experiments-William-C-Martell-ebook/dp/B00H1IM31I/secretsofactions"> French Folks Click Here.</a>
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.es/Hitchcock-Experiments-William-C-Martell-ebook/dp/B00H1IM31I/secretsofactions"> Espania Folks Click Here.</a>
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.ca/Hitchcock-Experiments-William-C-Martell-ebook/dp/B00H1IM31I/secretsofactions"> Canadian Folks Click Here.</a>
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Billwcmartellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18075242897910568801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20291006.post-1905402968645028332024-02-08T00:00:00.000-08:002024-02-08T00:00:00.291-08:00Thriller Thursday: The Big BlackoutThe Big Blackout
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The spider web fills the screen, it's Boris Karloff's THRILLER!
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<b>Season:</b> 1, Episode: 12.<br>
<b>Airdate:</b> 12/6/1960<br>
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<b>Director:</b> Maurice Geraghty<br>
<b>Writer:</b> Oscar Millard from a novel by Don Tracy<br>
<b>Cast:</b> Jack Carson, Charles McGraw, Nan Leslie, Jeanne Cooper.<br>
<b>Music:</b> Pete Rugolo<br>
<b>Cinematography:</b> <br>
<b>Producer:</b> Maxwell Shane<br>
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<b>Boris Karloff’s Introduction:</b> “Our friend is in big trouble, because his name is Burt Lewis... was he also once a man named Bill Logan? He doesn’t know. Because until he took the cure, he spent two years in an alcoholic black out, and for long periods of time he couldn’t remember anything. Did he do something in that time for which a man with a gun has come to get him? He doesn’t know. All at once his big blackout has caught up with him. That’s the name of our story: The Big Blackout. And our principle players are Miss Nan Leslie, Mr. Charles McGraw, Miss Jeanne Cooper, and starring Mr. Jack Carson. Sure as my name is Boris Karloff, I advise you to slide back in your chair and take a firm grip on it, because this, my friends, is a thriller!”
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<b>Synopsis:</b> Somewhere between Travis McGee and Woolrich’s BLACK CURTAIN is this Florida based story of a charter boat captain who may or may not have been a criminal in the two years he can’t remember. Total alcoholic blackout. The story opens with Burt Lewis (the always manly Jack Carson from MR. & MRS. SMITH, THE MALE ANIMAL, MILDRED PIERCE) getting a phone call in the middle of the night from the local motel owner that they have a drunk. Burt is the local AA guy, a recovering alcoholic who knows the best way to handle drunks. He tells his sleeping wife Midge (Nan Leslie) he’s headed out...
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The Paradise Motel looks a heck of a lot like the Bates Motel... except it’s in Florida, right? Hot motel owner Ethel (Jeanne Cooper) leads Burt to one of the rooms where a guy who checked in under the name “Adams” is passed out drunk on the bed. In really bad shape. Ether is the widow of Burt’s dead best friend... and she needs a man... now. Burt reminds her that he’s married and they search the drunk guy’s room for contact information while they wait for an ambulance to take him to a local rehab facility. Burt finds a gun... and a note in the drunk’s wallet that says “Bill Logan is using the name Burt Lewis at Sea Beach. He runs a charter boat. Find him and ask him things. When he tells you what we want to know, put him away”.
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Ethel tells Burt that the drunk was asking all kinds of questions about him, so she thought they might know each other. Burt has never seen this guy before in his life... or has he? That two year blackout... what did he do back then?
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The next morning Burt goes to his boat to grab his gun in case things go south... but is interrupted by a strange old man named Hawkins (Paul Newlan) who wants to hire him for a fishing charter and asks a lot of questions about Ben Logan. The old guy gives him two crisp $50 as down payment on the fishing trip... which is way too much. Burt leaves without taking his gun.
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Burt goes to the rehab clinic to talk to “Adams”, but the doctor tells him “Adams” isn’t ready for visitors, yet. Burt pretends to leave, but heads to the back door and breaks in... passing an old drunk named Charlie Pringle (Chubby Johnson) who apologizes for falling off the wagon but asks if Burt could find him a bottle somewhere... and sneaks into “Adams” room. He approaches the man, tries to wake him... but when he rolls “Adams” over there’s a bullet hole in the man’s head!
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Mean town cop Wright (the always growling Charles McGraw) accuses Burt of killing “Adams” and asks where he got a pair of crisp $50 bills... did he rob the dead guy? Wright just hates ex cons... and where do you think Burt dried out? Prison. He had fallen in with the wrong crowd while drunk... but what else might Burt have done while he was drunk? Who would send a hitman after him? Burt is prime suspect in Adam’s murder, even though he never saw the guy before in his life (or did he?).
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Wright tells his deputy Burt’s backstory: they used to be friends, until Burt’s wife and kid were killed in a car accident and he became a drunk... then a criminal.
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At home, Burt’s wife Midge is waiting with Ethel the slutty motel owner. Both want to know what happened... but Ethel’s questions make it sound like she thinks he did it. When Ethel leaves, two hoods enter the house. Burt recognizes Fisher (Robert Carricart) from prison, who wants to know about Logan. They grab his wife, start beating on Burt...
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Conveniently cop Wright shows up, the two thugs leave through the back door... and Wright gets another chance to hassle Burt. When Burt says the two men were looking for someone named Ben Logan, Wright reacts for a moment... then goes back to playing tough cop. He says they’ve found the gun that killed “Adams” and shows it to him... it’s *Burt’s gun!* He says he’s never seen it before. When Wright leaves, Burt heads to the liquor cabinet... then stops himself.
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Burt decides to take his wife to the motel just in case the thugs come back. He realizes that whoever killed “Adams” had to walk right past Charlie Pringle’s rehab clinic room, and that crazy drunk would ask anyone walking past to get him a bottle to help him dry out. Burt calls the clinic and is told Charlie skipped... so now Burt must go from bar to bar looking for Charlie. A great device, because Burt is faced with temptation again and again. In joint the bartender tells him that Charlie was there, but left because he had some big deal meeting that would make him enough money to pay off his bar tab...
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That’s when cop Wright shows up to hassle him... Burt says he’s there looking for Charlie, and Wright says Charlie’s dead: the victim of a hit and run. Everyone Burt comes into contact with gets killed. Burt looks down at a drink on the bar... almost takes it, but resists.
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Burt calls one of his prison pals to get some background, and is told a man named Ben Logan was smuggling drugs into the country and stole $700,000 worth of product... and Logan was using a fishing boat... and just happened to have the same initials as Burt Lewis. Hence, all of these hit men coming after him.
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The next morning is his fishing charter with the old man named Hawkins, who questions him relentlessly about Ben Logan... Hawkins is the father of a man killed by Logan, and is out for revenge. And here’s the twist: Hawkins knows that Burt *isn’t* Logan, because his son sent a picture of himself with Logan in the background. That’s when he gets the call on his radio... the motel owner was beaten up and his wife has been kidnaped!
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Thug Fisher calls: wife for information. Burt meets them in an abandoned boathouse and shows him the picture of Logan from Hawkins... that *is* the guy they are looking for. Burt explains that guy is dead: he was Ethel the motel owner’s husband. *Ethel* must have the $700k in drugs (or have sold it, since she always seems to have money). Fisher leaves to get the drugs or the money from Ethel, and Burt kicks some ass with the thug they leave behind to guard him and his wife. You have Jack Carson in your episode, there’s gonna be a fist fight!
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Burt races to the Motel, gets there after an off screen gun battle where all of the thugs are killed and Ethel is seriously wounded. Burt now knows that Ethel was the one who killed “Adams” and Charlie and framed him... to keep her part in the stolen $700k in drugs secret. But what was *Burt’s* part in this? Was he involved during those 2 years of alcoholic black out? He asks Ethel on her deathbed (in front of cop Wright) if he was involved in the drug running... and she says he wasn’t. He was too drunk to be dependable. And also, too honest. She dies, and the spider web closes over the screen as the episode ends.
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<b>Review:</b> Though not one of the best episodes, it works okay for TV... and you can tell it was condensed from a novel (because it has some crazy story short cuts here and there). The main problem ends up being the wife character, who is underwritten and has awful dialogue (and/or is an awful actress). But it keeps the mystery as to who is Ben Logan going throughout... with plenty of false suspects, especially officer Wright and Hawkins. Because we are looking for a *man* we never suspect that Logan might be the motel owner’s dead husband... and she is basically “Logan” at this point.
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One of the great things this episode does is tie the protagonist’s emotional conflict (he’s a recovering alcoholic) into the story in many different ways. The idea that *he* could be Logan and not remember due to his alcoholic blackout is the engine that runs the machine, here... but every place Burt goes is somewhere booze is served (except for the rehab center, which is filled with his mirror images). This is a story where the physical conflict and emotional conflict are twisted together so tightly that every scene about the plot ends up also being about the character. Even the cop Wright’s antagonism is due to a past scuffle they had when Burt was drunk which has left Wright physically scarred. The motel owner Ethel is *constantly* drinking in front of Burt... but asking if it’s okay first (calling attention to it!). The assassin who calls himself “Adams” (fake name) is a drunk! And the witness to the murder Charlie is a drunk, which means Burt has to hang out in bars to find him. There are scenes where Burt is home, and tempted by alcohol in the liquor cabinet... he is surrounded by the thing that brought him down, and the constant pressure of that murder frame tightening on him has him looking at that escape the bottle provides.
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Another great thing the episode does is use visual storytelling... Burt’s gun has two pieces of tape on the grip. When officer Wright shows Burt the murder gun, it has two pieces of tape on the grip. We *instantly* know this is Burt’s gun and feel the same thing the character feels. Burt doesn’t show any reaction at all, that would land him ion handcuffs. But we know what he’s thinking and feeling because *we* are thinking and feeling the same thing. “Crap, that’s *his* gun!” It’s those two pieces of tape that make it work, finding the specific that is easy for the audience to spot.
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Next week on Thriller we’ll look at an episode reminiscent of “Strangers On A Train” that deals with gambling addiction.
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Bill
<br><br>
<A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B003NOGNQU/secretsofactions">
<IMG SRC="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B003NOGNQU.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg" height=220
width=180 ALIGN=LEFT BORDER="1" alt="Buy The DVD!"></a>wcmartellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18075242897910568801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20291006.post-35532675777105387122024-02-07T00:00:00.000-08:002024-02-07T00:00:00.148-08:00Film Courage: When Should You Abandon A Screenplay?FILM COURAGE did a series of interviews with me at the end of 2014, and then again at the end of 2015. There were 36 (or more) segments total. That's almost a year's worth of material! So why not add a new craft article and make it a weekly blog entry? All I have to do is write that new article, right?
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<b><center>WHEN TO ABANDON A SCRIPT?</center></b>
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The two screenplays I talk about here (and everything else on "the shelf") had gone all the way to FADE OUT. It's so much easier to fix a screenplay that is written than one that is not. The shelving thing only works if you don't abandon them!
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You are halfway through a screenplay and it just isn’t working... what should you do? If you finish it, it is just going to be a finished terrible screenplay - why waste the time on that when you could write something better?
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We have all been there, and in the clip I say that you should just finish it, even if it stinks. Here’s why - if I have a finished screenplay that needs a serious rewrite, I am much more likely to do that rewrite. But if I have a half finished screenplay, that’s not a rewrite, that’s a write plus a rewrite... And I will never do that. You might be different, but that just seems like too much work to me. It’s not just rolling a boulder uphill, the boulder has sharp spikes coming out of it!
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One of the problems with quitting a screenplay is that it becomes a habit - and I know many writers who have the first forty pages of dozens of screenplays, but not a single one that is finished. They are quitters. The minute it gets difficult, they quit. The minute they hit a rough patch, they stop writing instead of figure out the problem and get past it. Here’s the thing: there is no market for the first 40 pages of a screenplay. Nobody cares about the first 40 pages of a screenplay - that’s garbage. People buy *finished* screenplays. Finished. Finished and rewritten a couple of times until they are great. That’s what matters. Those 40 page misfires? Nobody cares. And these people quit after the first rough patch! Screenplays are filled with rough patches that you have to struggle with and stick out and figure out.
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<b><center>ARE YOU A QUITTER?</center></b>
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"Talent is a wonderful thing, but it won't carry a quitter," Stephen King.
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When things get difficult or unpleasant, is your first thought to quit rather than stick it out and see if it gets better?
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Do you quit writing a script if you get bored?
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Do you quit writing a script if you get to that difficult part of Act 2 when it's all an uphill climb?
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Do you have a bunch of half written screenplays and half read books and failed relationships and half finished projects?
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Do you just quit at the first sign of difficulty or boredom when you try to watch a foreign film or something else that might take just a little work on your part?
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Are you trying to avoid work?
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Anything that might require a little effort on your part?
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Are you a Quitter?
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Hey, Bill, watching a foreign film with subtitles and a plot that only makes sense to French people isn't the same as writing screenplays!
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I don't think so. I think it's all the same.
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You are either a Quitter or you see things through to the end. You get over that difficult Act 2 hump. You do the next rewrite and the one after that and after that. You stick it out. The key to success is sticking it out. Not being a Quitter. Not giving up when things get rough. The things about those French films is that the first few can be work, but after a few you get the hang of it, you build up your “French Film Muscles” (which is different that Jean Claude Van Damm who is Belgian, like Hercule Poirot from MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS) and it becomes less work with every French Film until you actually might enjoy watching French Films! So stick it out!
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Now here's the thing: sticking it out is no guarantee of success. You could finish that screenplay (or French Film) and all of the rewrites and still not sell it or even get anyone to read it.
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But Quitting? Guaranteed failure.
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Guaranteed.
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I know this from experience. I have not finished a script and had someone looking for just such a script... And I have also been the one with the finished script because I stuck it out when things got tough or the script started to bore me or it required that 4 Letter Word that everyone hates: WORK... and had the very script that someone was looking for. I also have watched a lot of French Films - LEON: THE PROFESSIONAL is a French Film. It has lots of explosions!
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And I have learned that even when I stuck it out and the script still didn't turn out and I shelved it, I had still ACCOMPLISHED SOMETHING. Finished the script. And many of those scripts I eventually figured out how to fix, and some sold and were made into films. Because I could rewrite a finished screenplay. That was doable. But a half finished script? That's not a rewrite, that's a *write*. I could still do that, but it's a double whammy. It's pushing the boulder uphill AND it's covered in sharp spikes. A finished screenplay is still in play - it's still *something*.
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So step one is DON’T QUIT! Stick it out! Do the work, even when it becomes hard - finish the screenplay!
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<b><center>BUT I’M JUST STUCK!</center></b>
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Okay, now that the Quitters have all left the room because I used that 4 Letter Word (“work”), what should you do when you hit that wall? When you are stuck and you want to quit? When you want to abandon the screenplay or novel or French film? Should you Phone A Friend or Poll The Audience or do some sort of 50/50 like on WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE?
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Nothing irks me more than people who hit a roadblock in their story and go to a messageboard to “poll the audience” for ideas on how to get past the roadblock. The reason why is because every story is it’s own story, the story that *you* are telling, and if you gave 10 writers the same basic story idea and they all wrote a story, you would end up with 10 different stories about 10 different things... because we all see a story from our own individual angle. It’s YOUR story and no one else can know what happens next. Sure, you might just be looking for random ideas from others that might spark something, but eventually you will get into a situation where you are working on an assignment against a deadline and there is no one else but you to spark those ideas. So figuring out how to get past the roadblocks in a story are things that you need to learn to do by yourself. Writing is a “by yourself” occupation (until you get the producer’s notes and the star’s notes and the director’s notes and the gaffer’s notes... but even then, they expect YOU to figure out how to implement them). You go into a room alone and write (even if it’s a Starbucks). So you will need to be self reliant and figure out how to spark your own ideas. You can’t Phone A Friend... but you can do some form of 50/50 - figure out the possible answers and then narrow them down. So here are five ways to get past the roadblock...
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<b>1) JUMP OVER IT FOR NOW</b>
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The most common solution - skip it until your brain is fully functioning, I outline my screenplays so I know that this scene made sense and worked in my imagination at some point in time... but there just isn’t enough coffee in the world to figure it out today. I could spend the whole day trying to figure it out... and maybe never succeed... or I could move on to the next scene and write that. But before I jump ahead, I leave myself a note...
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When I'm stuck I look at the scene I'm working on and ask myself:<br>
<b>1)</b> What is the purpose of this scene in the story?<br>
<b>2)</b> What are the pieces of information this scene must communicate to the audience?<br>
<b>3)</b> What does the protagonist (or antagonist) want in this scene?<br>
<b>4)</b> What stops them from getting what they want? What is the struggle?<br>
<b>5)</b> What will happen if they don’t get what they want or need in the scene?<br>
<b>6)</b> What does the protagonist (or antagonist) *feel* in this scene?<br>
<b>7)</b> What do I want the *audience* to feel in this scene?<br>
<b>8)</b> What are the important events that happen in the scene (for later scenes)?<br>
<b>9)</b> What happens at the beginning of the scene?<br>
<b>10)</b> What happens at the end of the scene?<br>
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Those ten things are a “placeholder” for the scene when I move on to the next scene... and most of the time answering those ten questions helps me figure out the scene well enough to write it. It may not be the best version of the scene, but the best version will come in rewrites. I’m just trying to move forward instead of stack stuck in the mud. If I can’t figure out the scene, those ten things are the clues that will help me later, so that I know what the heck the scene was supposed to be when I come back to write it. The events at the beginning and ending of the scene are there to help me get on to the next scene - if I know the outcome of the scene and figure out a basic idea of how the scene will end, that helps me get into that next scene.
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<b>2) BACK UP AND TRY AGAIN!</b>
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Often it isn’t the scene that I am trying to write that’s the problem, it’s that I have taken a wrong turn a few scenes back, and I need to back up to that fork in the road and take a different path. So begin by going back one scene and looking at the possible outcomes of that scene and the “trajectory” of the story due to those outcomes. If you had chosen one of the other possible outcomes, would you be back on the right track? Think through what would happen next if you had taken a different path... if one of the elements fro the ten things above for the previous scene had been different, where would you be now? What direction would you be headed?
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Sometimes going back just one scene will show you where you took the wrong turn, sometimes you will have to go back a few scenes. Don’t delete the scenes that you have already written - the wrong turns that lead you to a different destination - save them in a file just in case this ends up being a wrong turn, too! But usually when you spot the wrong turn, you will see the route that leads to the destination and you will be back on the road and making good time again!
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<b>3) GO TO THEME</b>
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Often the reason for being stuck is that there are too many possible directions to take the story and you don’t know which is the best way... or none of the possibilities seem attractive. This is when I usually go to theme to try and break through the block. In the “Outlines & Thematic” Blue Book and several articles for Script Magazine, I show how every single element in a story is connected. Every character, every scene, every line of dialogue, everything is part of that whole... so when you get stuck if you look at what that connection is you might find your way out.
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In one of my Script Magazine articles I look at ANTMAN & WASP and how each of the main characters is part of a troubled father daughter relationship, so if you were writing that story and got stuck, you might want to look at how the scene effects the farther-daughter relationship in that plot thread and what it’s doing to resolve that troubled father daughter element... and if the answer is “nothing” than maybe you have found the problem with the scene. Or maybe it has everything to do with that, but the scene writes that thematic element into a corner and you’re stuck... and have to rethink how the scene deals with that issue.
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In a couple of Script Tips I look at writing my BLACK THUNDER screenplay for Showtime that was remade by Sony as a Steven Seagal flick a decade later - and how the theme was Concealment For The Purpose Of Deception - and how characters often conceal important information about themselves from others in order to protect themselves, but that concealment may be doing more harm than good. So if I got stuck on a scene when writing that script, I went back to that theme - what is the connection between this scene and concealment? Who is trying to conceal information and for what purpose? What would happen if that concealed information were discovered? And often this showed me the path for that scene. Hey, this was a movie about fist fights and things that blow up, but knowing that theme helped me get it written in 3 weeks to make a deadline. Whenever I got stuck I had a key to the story that might open that door that got me through the scene. So look at your theme - since it secretly connects everything, how is this troublesome scene connected?
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<b>4) WHAT IS THE ANTAGONIST DOING?</b>
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Story is conflict, and the antagonist (or force of antagonism) is the source of that conflict. Sometimes you get stuck because the conflict has dissipated and there is no strong reason for the story to continue. Nothing is driving the story anymore, so it’s out of fuel and coasting... and you need a conflict fill up.
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This can be caused by a week central conflict, or an unmotivated antagonist, or a protagonist that isn’t part of the conflict (on the sidelines and every once in a while the conflict touches them, but they aren’t the target of the conflict). Those are serious structure issues, and though I don’t usually suggest rewriting until you have finished the first draft, this may be a case where you want to do back and solve the basic structure issues before moving forward. But maybe if you know what the problem is, you can keep moving forward just by figuring out how you will fix it and imagining that you have made that fix earlier so that you can get back on track with this scene. Many problems are based in basic structural issues and the protagonist not being the target of the conflict, which explains all of those books on structure and the general focus on structure in screenwriting.
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Connected to this is the External Conflict. We are writing SCREENplays so we need conflicts that show up on screen. If your conflict is internal and emotional and can not be seen on the big screen, that will often lead to a dead end or nothing actually driving the story. I like to think of stories as a Protagonist must resolve an emotional conflict in order to resolve a physical conflict or else something bad will happen. So you may have the emotional conflict (which is internal and can not be seen on screen) but your story may have a weak physical conflict and no “or else” factor... two things that the antagonist brings to the story. So the reason for your story stalling out might be a weak antagonist or a passive antagonist or no antagonist at all... and usually the antagonist drives the story. They bring the conflict.
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Conflict is the fuel that runs your story - the antagonist (or force of antagonism) is the source of that conflict... so if you have lost sight of the antagonist and the conflict, your story can hit a roadblock. You may think that it’s you as a writer that’s out of gas, but ot’s your story that is out of gas. Go back and fill the tank! (Or charge the battery, if you drive an electric story.)
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<b>5) WHAT DOES THE PROTAGONIST NEED?</b>
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The two things that drive a story are the antagonist who brings the conflict and the protagonist whose need forces them to deal with that conflict. So you might be stuck because your protagonist has no strong need. Just as a passive antagonist can cause your story to stall out, so can a passive protagonist. This is the flipside of the antagonist issue and often pops up in action and thriller and horror screenplays where the plot is driving the story. The protagonist can end up uninvolved in that story and you wonder why they heck they are putting up with all of these problems? Why don’t they just go to a summer camp other that Crystal Lake? If the protagonist doesn’t have a strong enough need to continue down the road that puts them in danger, you will be constantly trying to find excuses for them to keep going... and will run out of excuses the way a story without a strong antagonist runs out of gas (or electricity) and just peters out.
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So the problem might be the Protagonist’s Need. If they don’t have one and are just a pawn in the story, that’s a problem. If they have a weak need (“But I want to go camping!”) that is also a problem. You may need to rethink your protagonist and find the reason why they MUST keep going down the conflict road no matter how bad it gets. Again, you can either go back and fix this or move forward and finish the first draft and then go back and fix it. There are writers who can get stuck in a GROUNDHOG DAY loop rewriting the first part of a screenplay forever without ever moving forward... and if you suspect that might be you, it’s better to finish the screenplay before going back to fix problems.
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<b><center>WHEN YOU REACH THE END...</center></b>
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I think the most important thing is to put in the WORK and figure out how to get past that roadblock and reach the end of your screenplay. Get it finished. After you type FADE OUT it may still be a screenplay that doesn’t quite work, but it’s a *finished* screenplay and you are more likely to come back to it later. I have a bunch of finished screenplays that don’t quite work, and now they are “shelved” while my subconscious figures out the problems... and it usually does! I had a script with a great high concept that hit a few snags along the way - it was a mystery and only had one suspect - so when I finished it I shelved it until I could figure out how to solve that problem. A couple of years later I was grocery shopping or something and figured out how to solve the One Suspect Problem... and furiously jotted notes and then did the rewrite. But I’m not sure my subconscious would still be working on that problem had I not finished the screenplay... if I didn’t have all of that WORK invested in that story.
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Yes, you will sometimes get halfway through a screenplay and you want to quit. You get partway through a foreign film and you want to quit. You get halfway through some classic novel and you want to quit...
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But if you do, you are a QUITTER!
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You are avoiding the HARD WORK required to reach the goal and ACCOMPLISH SOMETHING! You are like a marathon runner who just gives up! Hey, man, this running stuff is hard, I'm just gonna quit and grab a beer...
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Don't be a QUITTER!
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Don’t abandon that screenplay!
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You can’t Phone A Friend or Poll The Audience... you just have to do the hard work and figure it out on your own. And you can do that! It’s not easy, and you may want to quit every once in a while... but don’t! Just work hard until you break on through to the other side of that roadblock! You can do it!
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Good luck, and keep writing!
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- Bill
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<p>OUTLINES & THE THEMATIC!</P>
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height=220 width=150 ALIGN=left hspace="10" alt="bluebook"></a></p>
<p><b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B078BR44DB/secretsofactions">OUTLINES & THE THEMATIC Blue Book.</b></b></a></p>
<p>ARE YOUR SCENES IN THE RIGHT ORDER?<br>AND ARE THEY THE RIGHT SCENES?</p>
<p>Your story is like a road trip... but where are you going? What's the best route to get there? What are the best sights to see along the way? Just as you plan a vacation instead of just jump in the car and start driving, it's a good idea to plan your story. An artist does sketches before breaking out the oils, so why shouldn't a writer do the same? This Blue Book looks at various outlining methods used by professional screenwriters like Wesley Strick, Paul Schrader, John August, and others... as well as a guest chapter on novel outlines. Plus a whole section on the Thematic Method of generating scenes and characters and other elements that will be part of your outline. The three stages of writing are: Pre-writing, Writing, and Rewriting... this book looks at that first stage and how to use it to improve your screenplays and novels.</p>
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wcmartellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18075242897910568801noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20291006.post-46972720984011129612024-02-06T00:00:00.000-08:002024-02-06T00:00:00.140-08:00Trailer Tuesday: RIVER'S EDGEBecause I saw Roebuck a week ago...
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RIVER’S EDGE (1986) written by Neal Jimenez, directed by Tim Hunter.
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I have called Keanu Reeves “The Luckiest Actor In Hollywood” because he has been in so many hit movies. But maybe it *isn’t* luck? Maybe Keanu actually selects roles that he finds interesting or scripts that he thinks are mind blowing page turners? Keanu has not only been in a bunch of big box office hits, he has also been in a bunch of art house favorites like MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO and PERMANENT RECORD. Oh, and the now forgotten film RIVER’S EDGE which not only launched the career of screenwriter Neal Jimenez, it also brought back Dennis Hopper and probably paved the way for the films of David Lynch. The film is based on a true story, a murder that happened in the Sacramento area; and my friend Tom’s uncle was one of the investigating officers on the case. The story made the news because it was one of those “shocking how immoral our children have become” outrages, since all of the kids in the high school not only knew about the murder, they had visited the body for fun. Kind of like a field trip. Cool! A dead girl! Dare you to touch her!
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My other odd connection to this film is the actor who plays the teen killer Samson, Danny Roebuck, is a friend of a friend of mine and I’ve met him a couple of times. Danny is one of those actors who is in *everything*, from being the cop on Matlock to the dad in the Cody Banks movies. He’s a great guy, a real fan of horror movies, and when I was trying to “earn” my producer credit on CROOKED I got my friend Duane (the pawnshop owner from PULP FICTION) to talk to him about playing suspects... except the producers decided not to hire them and to hire complete unknowns (who were their friends) instead. So, instead of a group of suspects that you recognized so that you didn’t know who the guilty party was because *all* of the suspects were recognizable actors... there were a bunch of unknowns and Gary Busey. Who do you think the killer is? I didn’t know Danny when I first saw the film, didn’t know Tom’s uncle investigated the case, and had never heard of screenwriter Jimenez. I just thought the film was great.
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The movie is all about how this younger generation is desensitized and unemotional, and that carries through the film in several story threads in addition to the main story. High school kid Samson (Danny Roebuck) murders a girl in his class Jamie (Danyi Deats) after having sex with her at the edge of the (Sacramento) river, then stops to have a cigarette as if nothing has happened. Ten year old problem kid Tim (Joshua Miller) watches this happen from a bridge... but doesn’t go to the police. Later Tim tells a group of high school kids, including his older brother Matt (Keanu) and perpetually stoned Layne (Crispen Glover) plus a couple of Jamie’s friends including Clarissa (Ione Skye) about the dead body... and they take a field trip. All of the kids look at the dead girl, kick her to make sure she’s dead, etc... and even though they all knew her, none of them seems to care. It’s just kinda cool. They go back to school and their every day lives as if nothing had happened.
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Except both Matt and Clarissa separately realize they feel terrible, Jamie was their friend... and even though Layne wants everyone to rally around Samson, can they really support the friend who killed over the friend who was murdered?
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Matt’s home life is hell, his mother is a nurse with an unemployed boyfriend... his bother Tim makes that kid from THE OMEN seem well mannered (Tim takes baby sister Kim’s doll and chops it up) and steals cars, smokes pot, robs houses and eventually steals a gun with the intention of killing someone. This is a *ten year old*. The little sister’s “dead doll” runs an amazing parallel to the dead girl at the river’s edge, and the doll’s grave eventually triggers Matt to call the police anonymously about dead Jamie and Samson. And narking on Samson is what leads to Kid Brother Tim gunning for Matt.
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The police question all of the kids, and ask Matt how he feels about Jamie’s death, and he answers: “I don’t know.” Even though he was disturbed enough to anonymously call the police, he is still desensitized to emotions. The policeman says he’s tired of hearing “I don’t know how I feel” from all of the kids he interviews. They all say the same thing: none of them feel.
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Samson is hiding out at drug dealer Feck’s house (Dennis Hopper in a signature weird role), where Feck lives with his blow up doll Ellie. Yes, he has a long term romantic relationship with an inflatable girl. Feck is another parallel story: he once contributed to the death of the woman he loved and still feels guilt over it. At first Feck thinks Samson has much in common with him, but then he realizes Samson feels nothing and no longer wants to hide the killer.
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Matt confesses to Clarissa that he called the police, and they realize they may be the only two people in their school who are disturbed by Jamie’s death. Both have been plagued by nightmares and guilt. This leads to romance: both care, and care about each other. While they are making love they hear gunshots...
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Feck has taken Samson to the river’s edge and killed him. In the process, Feck’s inflatable doll Ellie blows into the river, later prompting one of my favorite lines in the movie when the kids spot the blow up doll in the water: “That's Ellie. Feck's girlfriend. I wonder what she's doing here?”
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Talked to Danny last night, and he sent me this awesome shot from the set!
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The chilling thing about this film is how what was true about the younger generation in the 80s being desensitized and not caring seems even more true today. There’s a TV commercial for mobile phones that talks about the joy of being alone... and isn’t the least bit ironic. We live in a world where people don’t interact with other people, we interact with *screens*. Think about how crazy that is for a moment. There are people today who text each other when they are sitting across from each other. Talk about desensitized! THE RIVER’S EDGE held a mirror up to the 1980s... and had no idea things would only get worse. Keanu gives a great performance, as does Danny Roebuck and Dennis Hopper and everyone else in the cast. Let me mention one of the greatest acting jobs in the film: Danyi Deats as the dead Jamie. Imagine having to play dead for an entire film! Deats is a TV and Music Video producer now (some of Sting’s videos). This is one of those lost movies where everyone gave an amazing performance, and screenwriter Jimenez would go on to adapt Tony Hillerman’s Native American cop mystery THE DARK WIND and write and direct the amazing film WATERDANCE after he became paralyzed. He was one of the team of poker playing screenwriters who contributed to the fun film SLEEP WITH ME (famous for the Tarantino speech about TOP GUN as a Gay love story). If you like gritty, edgy flicks, check out RIVER’S EDGE.
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Bill
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PS: That set shot has a digital watermark, so steal it and I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you!wcmartellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18075242897910568801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20291006.post-32848257618976624772024-02-02T00:00:00.000-08:002024-02-02T00:00:00.123-08:00Hitchcock's Lost TV Episode (s2e4)
In 1955 Alfred Hitchcock became the world's most famous director thanks to his TV show ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS. The show ran from 1955 to 1962... when it expanded into the ALFRED HITCHCOCK HOUR and continued to run until 1965. An entire decade as one of TV's top rated shows... with Hitch doing comic introductions and warning us about the upcoming commercials. Hitchcock directed a handful of episodes over the years as well.<br><br>
In 1957, NBC decided to do an anthology series called SUSPICION which would be a mix of *live* TV and filmed episodes, hosted by Dennis O'Keefe (LEOPARD MAN) and co-produced by Hitchcock's company... with many of the filmed episodes using Hitch's TV crew (who would later make the movie PSYCHO). The very first episode was directed by Hitchcock... and has kind of been lost over the years. O'Keefe split after hosting several episodes and the odd mix of live and filmed didn't catch on... and the show didn't have enough episodes for syndication (only 40 episodes were made), so it never popped up in reruns like HITCHCOCK PRESENTS or the other show that used most of the HITCHCOCK crew - THRILLER hosted by Boris Karloff. So this Hitchcock directed episode has been unseen for years. Based on a great short story by Cornell Woolrich (REAR WINDOW) who is one of my favorite writers and the master of suspense on paper.
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And that episode is the subject of the new episode of HITCH 20.
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Of course, I have my own books on Hitchcock...
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<h2>HITCHCOCK: MASTERING SUSPENSE</h2>
<p><A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B01EZGTR4O/secretsofactions">
<img align="left" height="220" src="http://www.scriptsecrets.net/images/HitchMasterSM2.jpg"></a><br /></p>
LEARN SUSPENSE FROM THE MASTER!
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Alfred Hitchcock, who directed 52 movies, was known as the “Master Of Suspense”; but what exactly is suspense and how can *we* master it? How does suspense work? How can *we* create “Hitchcockian” suspense scenes in our screenplays, novels, stories and films?
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This book uses seventeen of Hitchcock’s films to show the difference between suspense and surprise, how to use “focus objects” to create suspense, the 20 iconic suspense scenes and situations, how plot twists work, using secrets for suspense, how to use Dread (the cousin of suspense) in horror stories, and dozens of other amazing storytelling lessons. From classics like “Strangers On A Train” and “The Birds” and “Vertigo” and “To Catch A Thief” to older films from the British period like “The 39 Steps” and “The Man Who Knew Too Much” to his hits from the silent era like “The Lodger” (about Jack The Ripper), we’ll look at all of the techniques to create suspense!
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Films Included: NOTORIOUS, SABOTAGE, STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, THE 39 STEPS, REBECCA, TO CATCH A THIEF, FRENZY, FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT, THE LODGER, THE BIRDS, TORN CURTAIN, SABOTEUR, VERTIGO, THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1934), THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1955), SUSPICION, and NUMBER SEVENTEEN. 17 Great Films!
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Only 125,000 words!
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Price: $5.99
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00H1IM31I/secretsofactions">
<img align="left" height="220" src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00H1IM31I.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg" /></a><br />
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<h3>HITCHCOCK: EXPERIMENTS IN TERROR</h3>
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00H1IM31I/secretsofactions">Click here for more info!</a>
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HITCHCOCK DID IT FIRST!
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We all know that Alfred Hitchcock was the Master Of Suspense, but did you know he was the most *experimental* filmmaker in history?
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Contained Thrillers like “Buried”? Serial Protagonists like “Place Beyond The Pines”? Multiple Connecting Stories like “Pulp Fiction”? Same Story Multiple Times like “Run, Lola, Run”? This book focuses on 18 of Hitchcock’s 53 films with wild cinema and story experiments which paved the way for modern films. Almost one hundred different experiments that you may think are recent cinema or story inventions... but some date back to Hitchcock’s *silent* films! We’ll examine these experiments and how they work. Great for film makers, screenwriters, film fans, producers and directors.
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Films Examined: “Rear Window”, “Psycho”, “Family Plot”, “Topaz”, “Rope”, “The Wrong Man”, “Easy Virtue”, “Lifeboat”, “Bon Voyage”, “Aventure Malgache”, “Elstree Calling”, “Dial M for Murder”, “Stage Fright”, “Champagne”, “Spellbound”, “I Confess”, and “The Trouble with Harry”, with glances at “Vertigo” and several others.
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Professional screenwriter William C. Martell takes you into the world of The Master Of Suspense and shows you the daring experiments that changed cinema. Over 77,000 words.
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hitchcock-Experiments-William-C-Martell-ebook/dp/B00H1IM31I/secretsofactions">UK Folks Click Here.</a>
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.de/Hitchcock-Experiments-William-C-Martell-ebook/dp/B00H1IM31I/secretsofactions"> German Folks Click Here.</a>
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.fr/Hitchcock-Experiments-William-C-Martell-ebook/dp/B00H1IM31I/secretsofactions"> French Folks Click Here.</a>
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.es/Hitchcock-Experiments-William-C-Martell-ebook/dp/B00H1IM31I/secretsofactions"> Espania Folks Click Here.</a>
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<A HREF="http://www.amazon.ca/Hitchcock-Experiments-William-C-Martell-ebook/dp/B00H1IM31I/secretsofactions"> Canadian Folks Click Here.</a>
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- Billwcmartellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18075242897910568801noreply@blogger.com4