Sex In A Submarine

And The Nominees Are...

2012-01-24T06:39:00.000-08:00

Best Picture

"The Artist" Thomas Langmann, Producer
"The Descendants" Jim Burke, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, Producers
"Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" Scott Rudin, Producer
"The Help" Brunson Green, Chris Columbus and Michael Barnathan, Producers
"Hugo" Graham King and Martin Scorsese, Producers
"Midnight in Paris" Letty Aronson and Stephen Tenenbaum, Producers
"Moneyball" Michael De Luca, Rachael Horovitz and Brad Pitt, Producers
"The Tree of Life" Nominees to be determined
"War Horse" Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy, Producers

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

"The Descendants" Screenplay by Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon & Jim Rash
"Hugo" Screenplay by John Logan
"The Ides of March" Screenplay by George Clooney & Grant Heslov and Beau Willimon
"Moneyball" Screenplay by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin. Story by Stan Chervin
"Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" Screenplay by Bridget O'Connor & Peter Straughan

Writing (Original Screenplay)

"The Artist" Written by Michel Hazanavicius
"Bridesmaids" Written by Annie Mumolo & Kristen Wiig
"Margin Call" Written by J.C. Chandor
"Midnight in Paris" Written by Woody Allen
"A Separation" Written by Asghar Farhadi

Actor in a Leading Role

Demián Bichir in "A Better Life"
George Clooney in "The Descendants"
Jean Dujardin in "The Artist"
Gary Oldman in "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy"
Brad Pitt in "Moneyball"

Actor in a Supporting Role

Kenneth Branagh in "My Week with Marilyn"
Jonah Hill in "Moneyball"
Nick Nolte in "Warrior"
Christopher Plummer in "Beginners"
Max von Sydow in "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close"

Actress in a Leading Role

Glenn Close in "Albert Nobbs"
Viola Davis in "The Help"
Rooney Mara in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"
Meryl Streep in "The Iron Lady"
Michelle Williams in "My Week with Marilyn"

Actress in a Supporting Role

Bérénice Bejo in "The Artist"
Jessica Chastain in "The Help"
Melissa McCarthy in "Bridesmaids"
Janet McTeer in "Albert Nobbs"
Octavia Spencer in "The Help"

Animated Feature Film

"A Cat in Paris" Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli
"Chico & Rita" Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal
"Kung Fu Panda 2" Jennifer Yuh Nelson
"Puss in Boots" Chris Miller
"Rango" Gore Verbinski

Art Direction

"The Artist" Production Design: Laurence Bennett; Set Decoration: Robert Gould
"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2" Production Design: Stuart Craig; Set Decoration: Stephenie McMillan
"Hugo" Production Design: Dante Ferretti; Set Decoration: Francesca Lo Schiavo
"Midnight in Paris" Production Design: Anne Seibel; Set Decoration: Hélène Dubreuil
"War Horse" Production Design: Rick Carter; Set Decoration: Lee Sandales

Cinematography

"The Artist" Guillaume Schiffman
"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" Jeff Cronenweth
"Hugo" Robert Richardson
"The Tree of Life" Emmanuel Lubezki
"War Horse" Janusz Kaminski

Costume Design

"Anonymous" Lisy Christl
"The Artist" Mark Bridges
"Hugo" Sandy Powell
"Jane Eyre" Michael O'Connor
"W.E." Arianne Phillips

Directing

"The Artist" Michel Hazanavicius
"The Descendants" Alexander Payne
"Hugo" Martin Scorsese
"Midnight in Paris" Woody Allen
"The Tree of Life" Terrence Malick

Documentary (Feature)

"Hell and Back Again" Danfung Dennis and Mike Lerner
"If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front" Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman
"Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory" Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs
"Pina" Wim Wenders and Gian-Piero Ringel
"Undefeated" TJ Martin, Dan Lindsay and Richard Middlemas

Documentary (Short Subject)

"The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement" Robin Fryday and Gail Dolgin
"God Is the Bigger Elvis" Rebecca Cammisa and Julie Anderson
"Incident in New Baghdad"James Spione
"Saving Face" Daniel Junge and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
"The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom" Lucy Walker and Kira Carstensen

Film Editing

"The Artist" Anne-Sophie Bion and Michel Hazanavicius
"The Descendants" Kevin Tent
"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall
"Hugo" Thelma Schoonmaker
"Moneyball" Christopher Tellefsen

Foreign Language Film

"Bullhead" Belgium
"Footnote"
"In Darkness" Poland
"Monsieur Lazhar" Canada
"A Separation" Iran

Makeup

"Albert Nobbs" Martial Corneville, Lynn Johnston and Matthew W. Mungle
"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2" Edouard F. Henriques, Gregory Funk and Yolanda Toussieng
"The Iron Lady" Mark Coulier and J. Roy Helland

Music (Original Score)

"The Adventures of Tintin" John Williams
"The Artist" Ludovic Bource
"Hugo" Howard Shore
"Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" Alberto Iglesias
"War Horse" John Williams

Music (Original Song)

"Man or Muppet" from "The Muppets" Music and Lyric by Bret McKenzie
"Real in Rio" from "Rio" Music by Sergio Mendes and Carlinhos Brown Lyric by Siedah Garrett

Short Film (Animated)

"Dimanche/Sunday" Patrick Doyon
"The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore" William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg
"La Luna" Enrico Casarosa
"A Morning Stroll" Grant Orchard and Sue Goffe
"Wild Life" Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby

Short Film (Live Action)

"Pentecost" Peter McDonald and Eimear O'Kane
"Raju" Max Zähle and Stefan Gieren
"The Shore" Terry George and Oorlagh George
"Time Freak" Andrew Bowler and Gigi Causey
"Tuba Atlantic" Hallvar Witzø

Sound Editing

"Drive" Lon Bender and Victor Ray Ennis
"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" Ren Klyce
"Hugo" Philip Stockton and Eugene Gearty
"Transformers: Dark of the Moon" Ethan Van der Ryn and Erik Aadahl
"War Horse" Richard Hymns and Gary Rydstrom

Sound Mixing

"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce and Bo Persson
"Hugo" Tom Fleischman and John Midgley
"Moneyball" Deb Adair, Ron Bochar, Dave Giammarco and Ed Novick
"Transformers: Dark of the Moon" Greg P. Russell, Gary Summers, Jeffrey J. Haboush and Peter J. Devlin
"War Horse" Gary Rydstrom, Andy Nelson, Tom Johnson and Stuart Wilson

Visual Effects

"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2" Tim Burke, David Vickery, Greg Butler and John Richardson
"Hugo" Rob Legato, Joss Williams, Ben Grossman and Alex Henning
"Real Steel" Erik Nash, John Rosengrant, Dan Taylor and Swen Gillberg
"Rise of the Planet of the Apes" Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, R. Christopher White and Daniel Barrett
"Transformers: Dark of the Moon" Scott Farrar, Scott Benza, Matthew Butler and John Frazier

Okay - what got snubbed? And - with the controversy - should THE ARTIST have been nominated for best score?

The Comments Section is open!

- Bill

Amazon Semi-Finalists!

2012-01-19T16:56:00.000-08:00

Best Script Award: $100,000 - Semifinalists

12 Princesses Rob's 2nd Draft (Script 2)
› Writer: Rob Gardner

74 Hours Dan's 5th Draft (Script 5)
› Writer: Dan Hall

The Alchemist Agenda Marty's 7th Draft (Script 7)
› Writer: Marty Weiss

The Alien Diaries Glenn J.'s 8th Draft (Script 8)
› Writer: Glenn J. Devlin

America’s Ben Franklin in: The Electrocution String Jason's 3rd Draft (Script 3)
› Writer: Jason Ungate

Animal Heads Alexis's Original Draft (Script 1)
› Writer: Alexis Piza

BALL George's Original Draft (Script 1)
› Writer: George Gary

Blackburn Burrow Jay's 5th Draft (Script 5)
› Writer: Jay Levy

Brand New Bag of Blues Matthew's 6th Draft (Script 6)
› Writer: Matthew B. Morrell

Children of Others Barrington's 2nd Draft (Script 4)
› Writer: Barrington Smith-Seetachitt

A CLAUS WORTH FIGHTING FOR Lucas's Original Draft (Script 1)
› Writer: Lucas Clark

Cody & The Cubnappers Bill's 5th Draft (Script 5)
› Writer: Bill S.

Contrition David's 3rd Draft (Script 3)
› Writers: Erin Berry, David Pluscauskas

Dancaster's Pardon Ed's 2nd Draft (Script 2)
› Writer: Ed Gray

Darkest Before Dawn Sean Nichols's 2nd Draft (Script 2)
› Writer: Sean Nichols Lynch

Dead Reckoning Lauri's 3rd Draft (Script 3)
› Writer: Lauri

The Detourist James's Original Draft (Script 1)
› Writer: James Nash

Devil's Pass Michael's 5th Draft (Script 5)
› Writer: Michael Coady

Evolver Zaki's 2nd Draft (Script 2)
› Writer: Zaki Rubenstein

For Sale By Superhero James's Original Draft (Script 1)
› Writer: James Nash

Frank vs. God schminema's 2nd Draft (Script 2)
› Writer: schminema

Gaia 4 Jay's 4th Draft (Script 4)
› Writer: Jay Levy

GIDEON'S LAW Chris's Original Draft (Script 1)
› Writer: Chris Bullett

Going, Going, Gone Phil's 5th Draft (Script 5)
› Writer: Phil Hwang

Grand Theft UFO Chris's Original Draft (Script 1)
› Writer: Chris Keaton

Hipster & The Schoolgirl Jake's 6th Draft (Script 12)
› Writers: Brenton Lonkey, Jake Mynatt

Home Invasion Indigo's 2nd Draft (Script 2)
› Writer: Indigo Thomas

The House That Evil Built Michael's 8th Draft (Script 8)
› Writer: Michael Coady

I Think My Facebook Friend is Dead Donnie's 2nd Draft (Script 3)
› Writers: CT Clark, Donnie Clark

In The Silences Scott's 3rd Draft (Script 3)
› Writer: Scott Mullen

Indian Summer M.J.'s 2nd Draft (Script 2)
› Writer: M.J. Rust

LEON Kevin's 3rd Draft (Script 3)
› Writer: Kevin Scannell

Loved Ones Vicki's 6th Draft (Script 6)
› Writer: Vicki Speegle

Memory Christian's 2nd Draft (Script 3)
› Writers: Christian Davis, Alex Greenfield

My Father's House Alex's 2nd Draft (Script 2)
› Writers: Alex Greenfield, Ben Powell

The Nevsky Prospect L's Original Draft (Script 1)
› Writers: S K Berry, L Norgard

THE NIGHT RUNNER Richard's 2nd Draft (Script 8)
› Writer: Richard Stern

Origin Of A Species Matthew's Original Draft (Script 1)
› Writer: Matthew A Gossett

Pack Behavior Michael Ezell's 2nd Draft (Script 2)
› Writer: Michael Ezell

Rayfield Scott Ryu's 2nd Draft (Script 2)
› Writer: Ryu Miyaki

Return Fire Antony's 7th Draft (Script 15)
› Writers: Antony Davies, Joe Dinicola

Roadtrip Sex Party Jerry's 3rd Draft (Script 3)
› Writers: Jerry Sandhu, Errol Villegas

Rock Daddy Chad's Original Draft (Script 1)
› Writer: Chad Pennington

SUPER FAN Mark's 4th Draft (Script 4)
› Writer: Mark von Sternberg

The Text Andrew's 4th Draft (Script 4)
› Writers: Joshua D. Morrison, Andrew P. Sweat

Thanksgiving Day Parade Tom's 2nd Draft (Script 2)
› Writer: Tom Benton

Touching Blue Scott's 3rd Draft (Script 3)
› Writer: Scott Mullen

Villain Richard's 8th Draft (Script 11)
› Writer: Richard Stern

WizardsQuest: The Princess Queen Michael's 3rd Draft (Script 3)
› Writer: Michael Oldham

ZvG: Zombies Vs Gladiators Lauri's 2nd Draft (Script 71)
› Writers: Greggzane, Lauri, Michael Weiss

WOW! I know half the people on here! Two of my friends have *two* scripts in competition! I can't root for anyone, because that would be rooting against one of my other friends. Wish you could all win... but to get this far, I think you all have! Good luck to everyone!

- Bill

Lancelot Link: The Destroyer

2012-01-19T00:14:00.000-08:00

Lancelot Link Thursday! This week's links to some great screenwriting and film articles, plus some fun stuff that may be of interest to you. Brought to you by that suave and sophisticated secret agent...

Here are eight cool links plus this week's car chase...

1) 50 Originals For 2012!

2) Retro Posters of DIE HARD and DRIVE!

3) FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION - Oscar scripts, legal, free:
Universal Pictures.
Fox Searchlight.
Sony Pictures.
Dreamworks.
Some others!

4) THE BARK SIDE...

5) Bitter Script Reader on *George Lucas* having problems getting a film released!

6) Which Producers have deals with Which Studios? The answers!

7) Classic stars screw up lines:

8) VERTIGOED! - The VERTIGO theme stuck into other films.

9) And this week's car chase (did I show this before?) is from a movie by some kid named Luc Besson...

- Bill

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Expanded version with more ways to create interesting protagonists! Print version is 48 pages, Kindle version is once again around 155 pages!
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Hello?

2012-01-17T14:30:00.001-08:00

HELLO?

- Bill

Golden Globes

2012-01-16T02:53:00.000-08:00

Best Motion Picture - Drama
WINNER
The Descendants (2011)

Other Nominees:
The Help (2011)
Hugo (2011/II)
The Ides of March (2011)
Moneyball (2011)
War Horse (2011)

Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy

WINNER
The Artist (2011)

Other Nominees:
Bridesmaids (2011)
50/50 (2011)
Midnight in Paris (2011)
My Week with Marilyn (2011)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama

WINNER
George Clooney for The Descendants (2011)

Other Nominees:
Leonardo DiCaprio for J. Edgar (2011)
Michael Fassbender for Shame (2011)
Ryan Gosling for The Ides of March (2011)
Brad Pitt for Moneyball (2011)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama

WINNER
Meryl Streep for The Iron Lady (2011)

Other Nominees:
Glenn Close for Albert Nobbs (2011)
Viola Davis for The Help (2011)
Rooney Mara for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
Tilda Swinton for We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy

WINNER
Jean Dujardin for The Artist (2011)

Other Nominees:
Brendan Gleeson for The Guard (2011)
Joseph Gordon-Levitt for 50/50 (2011)
Ryan Gosling for Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011)
Owen Wilson for Midnight in Paris (2011)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy

WINNER
Michelle Williams for My Week with Marilyn (2011)

Other Nominees:
Jodie Foster for Carnage (2011)
Charlize Theron for Young Adult (2011)
Kristen Wiig for Bridesmaids (2011)
Kate Winslet for Carnage (2011)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture

WINNER
Christopher Plummer for Beginners (2010)

Other Nominees:
Kenneth Branagh for My Week with Marilyn (2011)
Albert Brooks for Drive (2011)
Jonah Hill for Moneyball (2011)
Viggo Mortensen for A Dangerous Method (2011)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture

WINNER
Octavia Spencer for The Help (2011)

Other Nominees:
Bérénice Bejo for The Artist (2011)
Jessica Chastain for The Help (2011)
Janet McTeer for Albert Nobbs (2011)
Shailene Woodley for The Descendants (2011)

Best Director - Motion Picture

WINNER
Martin Scorsese for Hugo (2011/II)

Other Nominees:
Woody Allen for Midnight in Paris (2011)
George Clooney for The Ides of March (2011)
Michel Hazanavicius for The Artist (2011)
Alexander Payne for The Descendants (2011)

Best Screenplay - Motion Picture

WINNER
Midnight in Paris (2011): Woody Allen

Other Nominees:
The Artist (2011): Michel Hazanavicius
The Descendants (2011): Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, Jim Rash
The Ides of March (2011): George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Beau Willimon
Moneyball (2011): Steven Zaillian, Aaron Sorkin, Stan Chervin

Best Original Song - Motion Picture

WINNER
W.E. (2011): Madonna, Julie Frost, Jimmy Harry("Masterpiece")

Other Nominees:
Albert Nobbs (2011): Brian Byrne, Glenn Close("Lay Your Head Down")
Gnomeo & Juliet (2011): Elton John, Bernie Taupin("Hello Hello")
The Help (2011): Mary J. Blige, Thomas Newman, Harvey Mason Jr., Damon Thomas("The Living Proof")
Machine Gun Preacher (2011): Chris Cornell("The Keeper")

Best Original Score - Motion Picture

WINNER
The Artist (2011): Ludovic Bource

Other Nominees:
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011): Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross
Hugo (2011/II): Howard Shore
War Horse (2011): John Williams
W.E. (2011): Abel Korzeniowski

Best Animated Film

WINNER
The Adventures of Tintin (2011)

Other Nominees:
Arthur Christmas (2011)
Cars 2 (2011)
Puss in Boots (2011)
Rango (2011)

Best Foreign Language Film

WINNER
A Separation (2011)(Iran)

Other Nominees:
The Flowers of War (2011)(China)
In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011)(USA)
The Kid with a Bike (2011)(Belgium)
The Skin I Live In (2011)(Spain)

Best Television Series - Drama

WINNER
"Homeland" (2011)

Other Nominees:
"American Horror Story" (2011)
"Boardwalk Empire" (2010)
"Boss" (2011)
"Game of Thrones" (2011)

Best Television Series - Musical or Comedy

WINNER
"Modern Family" (2009)

Other Nominees:
"Enlightened" (2011)
"Episodes" (2011)
"Glee" (2009)
"New Girl" (2011)

Best Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television

WINNER
"Downton Abbey" (2010)

Other Nominees:
Cinema Verite (2011) (TV)
"The Hour" (2011)
"Mildred Pierce" (2011)
Too Big to Fail (2011) (TV)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series - Drama

WINNER
Kelsey Grammer for "Boss" (2011)

Other Nominees:
Steve Buscemi for "Boardwalk Empire" (2010)
Bryan Cranston for "Breaking Bad" (2008)
Jeremy Irons for "The Borgias" (2011)
Damian Lewis for "Homeland" (2011)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series - Drama

WINNER
Claire Danes for "Homeland" (2011)

Other Nominees:
Mireille Enos for "The Killing" (2011)
Julianna Margulies for "The Good Wife" (2009)
Madeleine Stowe for "Revenge" (2011)
Callie Thorne for "Necessary Roughness" (2011)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series - Musical or Comedy

WINNER
Matt LeBlanc for "Episodes" (2011)

Other Nominees:
Alec Baldwin for "30 Rock" (2006)
David Duchovny for "Californication" (2007)
Johnny Galecki for "The Big Bang Theory" (2007)
Thomas Jane for "Hung" (2009)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series - Musical or Comedy

WINNER
Laura Dern for "Enlightened" (2011)

Other Nominees:
Zooey Deschanel for "New Girl" (2011)
Tina Fey for "30 Rock" (2006)
Laura Linney for "The Big C" (2010)
Amy Poehler for "Parks and Recreation" (2009)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Mini-Series or a Motion Picture Made for Television

WINNER
Idris Elba for "Luther" (2010)

Other Nominees:
Hugh Bonneville for "Downton Abbey" (2010)
William Hurt for Too Big to Fail (2011) (TV)
Bill Nighy for Page Eight (2011) (TV)
Dominic West for "The Hour" (2011)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Mini-Series or a Motion Picture Made for Television

WINNER
Kate Winslet for "Mildred Pierce" (2011)

Other Nominees:
Romola Garai for "The Hour" (2011)
Diane Lane for Cinema Verite (2011) (TV)
Elizabeth McGovern for "Downton Abbey" (2010)
Emily Watson for "Appropriate Adult" (2011)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television

WINNER
Peter Dinklage for "Game of Thrones" (2011)

Other Nominees:
Paul Giamatti for Too Big to Fail (2011) (TV)
Guy Pearce for "Mildred Pierce" (2011)
Tim Robbins for Cinema Verite (2011) (TV)
Eric Stonestreet for "Modern Family" (2009)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television

WINNER
Jessica Lange for "American Horror Story" (2011)

Other Nominees:
Kelly Macdonald for "Boardwalk Empire" (2010)
Maggie Smith for "Downton Abbey" (2010)
Sofía Vergara for "Modern Family" (2009)
Evan Rachel Wood for "Mildred Pierce" (2011)

- Bill

On The Red Carpet With Jason Voorhees

2012-01-13T08:07:00.000-08:00

Here's a flashback of a blog entry from 2009 - logged a few days before a Friday the 13th when I went to the premiere of the FRIDAY THE 13th remake...

This has been a busy week. I’m still playing catch up after turning in the quicky second draft (which I’m not counting as an official draft because I only made a few changes from the version we did our pile of meetings on) and on top off all the work that piled up over the holidays, on Thursday my parents were in town on their way elsewhere - and I had lunch with them, then on Friday my ex was in town and we spent the day together, and it’s been raining like crazy, and Saturday and Sunday I did a bunch of errands - and saw a movie Sunday night.... and then on Monday I went to the premiere of the new FRIDAY THE 13TH movie at Grauman’s Chinese Theater, then the party afterwards. My top secret remake is for the producer of F13, and I was invited to the big premiere... maybe buttering me up before I get fired. “Let’s invite Bill to walk on the red carpet with the stars, it will be a nice memory for him when we replace him with David Koepp.”

The question is always - eat first? Since I was early, I decided to grab some food at one of the Hollywood & Highland restaurants - this place where you look at pictures of food on a screen at your table and touch the screen - ordering by computer - and then the waiter brings the food to your table. Kind of cool - except when I had my touch screen menu in GRID RUNNERS it was the table surface instead of this monitor in the middle of the table. Not as cool as my sci-fi version.

Because it’s been raining in Los Angeles, and I don’t mean the usual light sprinkles that brings out the TV news logos for STORM WATCH!, this has been danged heavy rain - no car windshield wiper can keep up with it. Buckets. Monday it was supposed to rain, so they had set up tents on Hollywood Blvd and a tent hallway over the red carpet. Because a prompt man is a lonely man, I was already in the cinema when the stars arrived, but it’s strange when the rope is up to keep people away from *you* (instead of the other way around).

This link takes you to the red carpet slide show at IMDB... no shots of me.

Friday The 13th Red Carpet.

Dress was “business casual”, and since I have never worked in an office in my life, I have no idea what that is. I worked at Safeway, where we wore ties and aprons... and I worked in a warehouse where I wore jeans and steel toed boots. For the past 20 years I have worked as a writer... that is my business. Marcel Proust worked in his dressing gown and pajamas... in an interview Susannah Grant (ERIN BROCKOVICH) said she wrote naked (and she’s a very attractive woman) - could I show up at the premiere in my PJs or nekked and be allowed in? I wore a good pair of jeans, a black dress shirt, and a tan sport jacket... and noticed some people who appeared to be dressed in some new homeless style that must be all the rage in Paris - they looked like they were going through the dumpsters behind Grauman’s moments before. Others were in suits... and the women who weren’t subscribers to homeless chic were in hot evening wear.

In the lobby I bumped into the producer - my boss - and he seemed happy to see me, but didn’t say a word about that second draft. I’m fired for sure. My giant ticket has an assigned seat number on it, and the ushers are freakin’ Nazis about making sure you sit in the correct seat. They are polite, they show you to the seat... but then they stand there and make sure you sit in the seat on your ticket and not some better seat. All of the ushers are big guys - probably bouncers in real life. My seat is okay, on the left side aisle. The stars and real VIPs are sitting in the center section. The producer and his date are sitting in the center section, along with some entourage members. The stars are the last to arrive... except for the guy who plays Jason - he’s early, and squeezing out every second of fame he can. There’s actually a line of people getting autographs.

The Head Of Production guy from the company and his girlfriend come down the aisle, lead by a bouncer/usher, and he stops to say hello. He mentions that everybody loves my draft, but also mentions with FRIDAY THE 13TH coming out, everybody is just loving the producer - they expect it to be a big hit, and studio eager to work with him on the next project... which seems to be mine. Then the bouncer/usher prods the HOP and his GF down to their seats, and I don’t get to ask follow up questions... so does he think they really loved my script or are just saying that to kiss the producer’s butt? Too late... but I do notice the HOP and GF have worse seats than I do - way on the end of a row. How did I get a better seat? Maybe he *asked* for a seat in the corner so that he could zip out if he got a phone call?

Then, the last stars trickled in as the house lights went down and the movie started....

The new FRIDAY THE 13th is okay. Not a remake, not a re-imagining, but kind of a sequel to the first film... using parts of the first 3 original films. Totally respects the first film (and its end twist) even though it has Jason alive instead of drowned... and then we get a totally 80s style horror movie, just with a much bigger budget. Boobs and blood and some cool kills. I would tell you my favorite kill, but that would be a spoiler. Let’s just say, it’s at the pier. We eventually even get the shh-shh-shh-shh-ha-ha--ha theme, too. There was a scene where they are being chased by Jason and blast into the cabin and the stoner kid is smoking.... and I wish the lead (Jared Padelecki - who is as tall as I am) would have told the stoner “Shh-shh-shh” and the stoner kid would have laughed. I also wish they had Kevin Bacon and Betsy Palmer do cameos, that would have been cool. There are some okay kills (some recycled from the first 3 films), some okay suspense scenes, and some stuff swiped from SEE NO EVIL and HILLS HAVE EYES (remake) 2. Completely delivered - and has the longest prologue scene ever. It starts out funny, some great lines and a good scene where a guy and gal are trying to hook up but the nerd just keeps getting in the way. And once we see Camp Crystal Lake, it’s abandoned, desolate, spooky... kind of reminded me of Mandalay from REBECCA.

Four problems (for me at least):

1) We get the Jason legend up front, so the people have nothing to discover or learn over the course of the film. No goal, no secrets to uncover... nothing to do except get killed one by one in interesting ways with a machete. Most of these films (like the first one) have the kids piece together the mystery of why they are getting killed as they are getting killed one-by-one. That gives them a goal and a purpose, other than just having the machete strike them in an unusual way.

2) There are two sets of teen victims, and they are interchangeable. Both sets have stoner kids, both have geek kids, both have handsome a-holes, etc. They needed a better variety of characters, since these guys were all lunchmeat. And the characters need to be not complete cliches. Not only did we get two identical sets of teens, they were stock characters... not real at all.

3) Jason has zero motivation. Yes, I know it’s a FRIDAY THE 13TH movie, but there is a completely illogical kill in the film (actually two of them) that kind of make the film impossible. Yes, these kills are similar to ones from the original movies - but they didn't make any sense there, either. Jason has to have some reason to kill, and his motivation must aim directly at kids who go camping around Crystal Lake (like the camp counselors in the original, and all of the rest of the kids in the sequels). But here Jason kills some people who will bring in the authorities, and he can’t do that. There’s no reason for him to do it, and if he does it that will bring in the law. We don’t need an FBI task force at Crystal Lake headed by Will Graham and/or Clarice Starling.

4) and this ties to #1 - I love it when one of the characters fight back - that always gets a cheer from the audience. And you’d expect out of all of these *victims* that one person would have balls. Here, we *almost* get a fighting back scene - but it’s, um, nipped in the bud.

But I laughed and screamed and (this is sick) laughed at the more inventive kills and had a good time. It is what it is. It delivers what you want from a FRIDAY THE 13th movie. I think it's going to make some money.

Afterwards, I tracked down the producer to suggest a director I like (we don’t have one at this time - nor do we have our star anymore - and there’s a story behind that which I will tell after the statute of limitations runs out for this job) (oh, and I didn't tell him those 4 problems I had with the film - I'm not *trying* to get fired), and found him on the stairs - people passing him and congratulating him. He introduced some people to me as “the writer of the next one” - which made me feel like I am probably not going to be fired tomorrow - and then asked if I had a ticket to the afterparty in my envelope... *many* people didn’t get them. I had a ticket and free valet parking ticket with a map on the back. Cool that he made sure I had one. We all kind of walked out at the same time...

But the party was a block away at My House on LaBrea, so I decided to walk (with some other people) and they drove. Another rope to keep others out... but I got right in without a problem. The club was big, already crowded, and lines for food. There were also wait-people with trays of food, so I figured I’d avoid the lines, grab a beer, and grab stuff off trays. I ended up talking to another writer I know, a woman who I later discovered was a producer, and an FX guy I know. I know stunt men and FX guys - I have no idea why. I know Kane Hodder, who was Jason in some of the original films, he was also in at least one film I wrote.

Anyway, I’m not good at socializing. I don’t mingle well. I usually know somebody, and hang out with them at parties... but I had this pocket ful of business cards and I didn’t get out a single one. I basically sat in the corner and talked to people I already knew.

Okay, I have a thing for redheads. In any FRIDAY THE 13th movie (or clone) there are hot girls who get nekkid and get killed and the nice girl who keeps her clothes on and survives. This new film kind of mixes that up so that you aren’t sure who will die, but the nice girl from the first group of victims was this cute redhead, Amanda Righetti. I had joked on a message board that if anyone else was at the premiere to say hello to me (because I’d be wallflowering in some corner), but if I was with a hot starlet half my age - wait until she shoots me down before saying hello. The table we were at was away from the DJ so that we could talk... and most of the stars ended up in that area (so they could talk). That meant we were surrounded by hot starlets half my age in great evening gowns. Check out the IMDB slide show. Anyway, the FX guy went to get a round of drinks and I said if that redhead came over I would give away his seat. And here’s where it gets funny - FX guy comes back with drinks, other writer and producer go to mingle... and someone asks if they can sit down in the now empty seats... Amanda Righetti! And her boyfriend. So I say hello and try to start a conversation... but she completely shuts me down and focuses on her BF... and if I’m not sitting an inch away from her.

Eventually I do a circle of the club, Wes Craven nods and smiles to me - we were on a panel together once, but there’s no way he remembers my name. I’m just a familiar face. I also pass the Producer, his back to me, and overhear him say my name... but pass by before I hear the end of the sentence ("I'm firing him tomorrow!") - but that's my paranoia kicking in. Things seem to be going pretty good on this project. After drinking free beers and eating free food (chocolate chip cookie and chocolate milk shooters for desert), I split... passing some guy that looks a little like Carl Ellsworth (who wrote RED EYE and DISTURBIA and the LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT remake) and it wasn’t until I was out the doors that I realized it probably *was* Carl. I thought about going back to say hello, but instead I walked back to Hollywood & Highland and my vehicle and headed home...

Where a couple of streets over, every police and news helicopter was hovering and a couple dozen police cars and something like three SWAT trucks were ready for action because a night-long police pursuit had come to an end there. It had been on the news live for 2 hours as they chased this guy all over Los Angeles, ending up a couple of blocks away from my apartment. Eventually the helicopters stopped and I went to sleep.

Now I’ve only got a screening on Wednesday, a thing on Thursday, meeting friends for drinks on Friday... and all of the stuff still in my in basket from before the holidays.

2012 UPDATE: Nada! Zip! Zilch! We lost another star and another director and the perfect window of opportunity for this film closed. A strange thing happens when a project has been sitting on the desk for too long - the producer thinks it needs to be "made fresh" by doing a rewrite that changes the very reason why people liked it in the first place. Several months after this premiere, and *another* premiere I got invited to by the producer, he told me he had a new idea for the script to freshen it up... and I thought the idea was a script killer that would destroy the project. I was afraid if this version were ever put to paper if would kill the film's chances of *ever* being made - so I walked away. Could have made a rewrite fee - but would rather have the film get made. Except - the film has *never* been made, and the word came down that horror remakes were a thing of the past... so now I don't think it will *ever* be made. Pisser.

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: The Lies We Use To Tell The Truth - and Jean Claude Van Damm.

Movies: PUSH - One of those scripts that needed a lot of work or a great director... it didn't seem to get either. The story has this fatal flaw - the MacGuffin doesn't show up until act 3, and before that it's a lot of people talking in grungy rooms and every so often a completely pointless fight scene that doesn't accomplish anything and winning or losing doesn't matter to the story. So it's all filler material. Imagine RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, but instead of finding the ark and having it stolen and trying to steal it back... they don't find the ark until the very end of the movie, and the rest of the time Indy and the Nazis just say mean things to each other. Indy can't kill the Nazis because the movie would be over, and the Nazis can't kill Indy for the same reason... so it would just be pointless filler action. That's PUSH.

There's a point in one of the fights where Fanning tells Hounsou they can't kill Evans, it will change the future - so Hounsou tells his guy to stop. And I wondered - what was the point if all they can do is beat him up and let him go so that they can have another fight where they *have* to let him go. It's pointless. Everyone is just wasting time until Act 3 when we can actually have an action scene that changes the story... maybe.

Dialogue is often terrible and expositional, characters are often caricatures, and action scenes are pointless - and often silly (things that looked good on paper look like cartoons in real life - telekinetic guns are just funny to watch). Also, key elements aren't introduced until *way* too late - sinking the story. Again - it's like they were making it up as they went along, when the plot twists required things to be set up.

I think most acting is brought down by dialogue - but the acting is okay. Hounsou needed to be given more to do - he's one of those great guys who can elevate crap, and they mostly just had him stand there. Fanning is okay - drunk scene is a highlight. Belle looks stoned, and is playing the femme fatale, but in the most unsexy clothes you can imagine. Evans is kind of the lead, and needed more character - or at least some personality. Cliff Curtis has a great role, and he's also one of those actors you can put in a crap film and he makes it better (10,000 BC with Belle).

Plot, by the way, makes no sense.

Plus, what is The Division going to do with this stuff? We don't have a demonstration of what's possible, and we don't have a villain's plan to thwart. They are cardboard villains after a worthless MacGuffin.

Directing is crap. The whole movie looks like they forgot to color time it. The angles and composition are often weird. They have these ultra grainy shots, and at first I thought it was for a purpose... but then they'll have one when there's no remote viewing, so maybe there is no purpose. Shaky cam, quick cuts, the usual crap. It's difficult to make Hong Kong look this bad on film - it's lighted wrong. Things that should be magic on film end up being dull. Fanning is psychic and has a sketch pad where she draws these images of the future, and instead of the magical match of sketch and reality, it's just kind of there. Hard to screw something like that up, but they do.

The film needed to be more fun, more exciting, and more emotionally involving. Just kind of lays there like a carp. No envelopes were pushed, though they did use some pretty red envelopes as part of the story.

- Bill

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Lancelot Link Rises!

2012-01-12T00:09:00.000-08:00

Lancelot Link Thursday! Here is the New Year's first list of articles about screenwriting and the biz plus some fun stuff that may be of interest to you. Brought to you by that suave and sophisticated secret agent...

Here are seven cool links plus this week's car chase...

1) The Ultra Exciting Poster For The Oscars! - okay, it's boring.

2) Things screenwriters should just stop doing - NOW!

3) If *Stupid* Movies Were Remade As Oscar-Bait.

4) Detectives On Film.

5) Interesting British Location Names For Your Next Screenplay.

6) Lucas Film Christmas Cards Through The Ages - I really like the Nighthawks one.

7) WGA Awards - once again a bunch of films that will get Oscar Noms are not here! Pointing out how many movies are not WGA signatory.

And the car chase of the week...

PEACEMAKER - female director. It's about time Hollywood noticed that women *can* handle a big summer action flick and hire some! Kathryn Bigelow and Mimi Leder and Kimberly Pierce should be getting more work!

- Bill

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Scene Of The Week: Michael's First Kill from THE GODFATHER

2012-01-09T00:15:00.000-08:00

Originally I was going to take a scene every week this year and tear it apart and explain how it works, but let's see how this works: Here is the scene, let's discuss it in the comments section. I could probably spend a few pages telling you how much I love this scene, but in the event you haven't seen the two GODFATHER movies (no, there isn't really a third one) - Michael (Al Pacino) is the good, honest, war hero son of Mafia Don Corleone (Brando) and this is his first kill. The great thing about a great movie is that everything gets tied together in a single scene: this is a *plot scene*, it's also a violent scene (and this is a gangster flick), and a character scene, amd a story scene, and... well - let's talk about it!

Translation:

SOLLOZZO: "I'm sorry..."

MICHAEL: "Leave it alone." ( or ) "Forget about it."

SOLLOZZO: "What happened to your father was business. I have much respect for your father. But your father, his thinking is old-fashioned. You must understand why I had to do that."

MICHAEL: "I understand those things..."

[Waiter brings McCluskey's veal, then exits.]

SOLLOZZO: "Now let's work through where we go from here."

MICHAEL: "How do you say... ?" [Then Michael returns to speaking English.]

[After Michael returns from the bathroom]

SOLLOZZO: "Everything all right? I respect myself, understand, and cannot allow another man to hold me back. What happened was unavoidable. I had the unspoken support of the other Family dons. If your father were in better health, without his eldest son running things, no disrespect intended, we wouldn't have this nonsense. We will stop fighting until your father is well and can resume bargaining. No vengeance will be taken. We will have peace, but your Family should interfere no longer."

- Bill

Fridays With Hitchcock: TV show

2012-01-06T01:34:00.000-08:00

I'm going to save the next Hitchcock film until next Friday, and mention the TV show.

Hitchcock had a TV show from 1955-1962 that was similar to THE TWILIGHT ZONE - but with stories of suspense and mystery (usually with a twist end). He introduced each episode, and poked fun at the dreaded commercials. The show began as a half hour, and eventually became an hour long show. He directed a couple of episodes, but many of the others were directed by young TV directors who would later become famous film directors - like Robert Altman. It's fun to look for big movie stars in early roles, too - Robert Redford and Burt Reynolds pop up in episodes. Some of the episodes are great, some just good. Like all TV, there are a handful that made airdate and are in focus. Universal has been rolling them out on DVD... but you can see many of them *for free* on Hulu.com. There are commercials - but Hitchcock makes fun of them in his little monologues (though, these are new commercials - made after he was long in his grave). Here's a link:

Alfred Hitchcock TV Shows - Free!

And here's someone's compilation of Hitchcock monologues:

Next week we'll be back with another Hitchcock movie, but first... another one of those you-know-whats from you-know-who.

- Bill

DARK KNIGHT RISES trailer #3

2012-01-03T01:31:00.001-08:00

Here it is - can't wait until July!

- Bill

Happy New Year!

2011-12-30T22:04:00.000-08:00

From a film about the last time we had an end of the world event based on the date...

Hope you land an assignment or sell a script before December 21st!

- Bill

Why I Hate The Post Office

2011-12-30T05:27:00.000-08:00

I am standing in line with several USPS boxes filled with stuff, addressed, customs forms filled out, money ready for payment - completely prepared. The three people in front of me are completely unprepared - one just has the item to be mailed, no address label, no nothing. Another has not filled out their address label and has a used box with a bunch of writing on it including two addresses that must be marked out, one has not filled out customs forms. After waiting for the people in front of these three (who may have been unprepared, but I was too far away to know) and waiting for these three unprepared people who could have easily done what I had done and doing all of the crap out *before* getting in line, it is my turn.

My first items - no problem. Then I get to a USPS box and the postal worker tells me that I need a different customs form. Different than the ones that worked fine with the other boxes. "Why?" "The size of the box requires the over 4lb customs form." "But the box weights exactly 3 pounds. I have the under 4lb customs form - and at 3lbs, that is correct, right?" "No. You must have the over 4lb customs form for this." "But it is *under* 4lbs - wouldn't that be the wrong form?" "I will not mail this without the over 4lb customs form." "But it is *not* over 4lbs! Have I filled out the correct customs form for under 4lbs?" "Yes." "What is the weight of my parcel?" "3 pounds." "So this is the correct customs form, right?" "No. I will not mail your pacvkage unless you have filled out the over 4lb form." "This makes no sense to me." "Next customer please."

So I call the USPS, and after a long time on hold I get a human, who begins by telling me that I am correct. That the rules say I have filled out the correct form. I think this is solved... but it is not. Because after going over this several times the person on the phone says that there *is* a glitch in the system - and the computer will not accept the under 4lb customs form on this size box. I ask if I would be breaking the law by using the wrong customs form, and get put on hold for a long time again. Then I get transferred to International Mail where they tell me I need to use the under 4lb form if my package weighs less than 4lbs, and *not* to use the over 4lb form. This is international stuff, and you can not break these laws! I mention that the person that transferred me told me that the USPS box requireds that I used the over 4lb form no matter what the weight. They tell me that is wrong. They put me on hold while they consult some international dude - maybe a lawyer - and then come back to tell me that I am using the correct form, but it seems the PO computers have a glitch and will not accept this form, and she tells me the easy way to do this is just break the law and use the incorrect form - though she can not tell me to do that or advise me to do that. I ask, who does the prison time if I get caught? She says - not the post office. I ask if there is a legal way for me to mail this package. She says "No." WTF???? I say I do not want to break the law - especially if it is the post office that is wrong, here. She gives me a phone number to complain to a voice mail... and that's that!

So, already the post office hires slow moving people, allows unprepared customers to get service, and has a computer system that makes the employees go through a half dozen options when all I want to do is mail a danged package first class with none of the extra stuff they want to charge me for... but now they want me to break the law because their computer system is flawed?

This will only end when the US Postmaster General either does time (for forcing me to break the law) or calls me to apologize personally.

They are in debt because they are run by idiots.

Someday, a real rain will come...

See? I couldn't end the year with nice happy stuff about movies, I had to complain!

- Bill

These Films Are Treasures (2011)

2011-12-28T09:39:00.000-08:00

Every year the Library Of Congress' National Film Preservation Board selects 25 films that are pivotal in the history of American Cinema to save and honor. These are 25 of the very best American Films. Every year I post the list, this year I'm also posting the NFPB's descriptions of the films as well - you may never have heard of some.

Allures (1961)

 

Called the master of "cosmic cinema," Jordan Belson excelled in creating abstract imagery with a spiritual dimension that featured dazzling displays of color, light, and ever-moving patterns and objects. Trained as a painter and profoundly influenced by the artist and theorist Wassily Kandinsky, Belson collaborated in the late 1950s with electronic music composer Henry Jacobs to create elaborate sound and light shows in the San Francisco Morrison Planetarium, an experience that informed his subsequent films. The film, Belson has stated, "was probably the space-iest film that had been done until then. It creates a feeling of moving into the void." Inspired by Eastern spiritual thought, "Allures" (which took a year and a half to make) is, Belson suggests, a "mathematically precise" work intended to express the process of becoming that the philosopher Teilhard de Chardin has named "cosmogenesis."

Bambi (1942)

 One of Walt Disney’s timeless classics (and his own personal favorite), this animated coming-of-age tale of a wide-eyed fawn’s life in the forest has enchanted generations since its debut nearly 70 years ago. Filled with iconic characters and moments, the film features beautiful images that were the result of extensive nature studies by Disney’s animators. Its realistic characters capture human and animal qualities in the time-honored tradition of folklore and fable, which enhance the movie’s resonating, emotional power. Treasured as one of film’s most heart-rending stories of parental love, "Bambi" also has come to be recognized for its eloquent message of nature conservation.

The Big Heat (1953) 

One of the great post-war noir films, "The Big Heat" stars Glenn Ford, Lee Marvin and Gloria Graham. Set in a fictional American town, "The Big Heat" tells the story of a tough cop (Ford) who takes on a local crime syndicate, exposing tensions within his own corrupt police department as well as insecurities and hypocrisies of domestic life in the 1950s. Filled with atmosphere, fascinating female characters, and a jolting—yet not gratuitous—degree of violence, "The Big Heat," through its subtly expressive technique and resistance to formulaic denouement, manages to be both stylized and brutally realistic, a signature of its director Fritz Lang.

A Computer Animated Hand (1972)

 Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios, renowned for its CGI (computer generated image) animated films, created a program for digitally animating a human hand in 1972 as a graduate student project, one of the earliest examples of 3D computer animation. The one-minute film displays the hand turning, opening and closing, pointing at the viewer, and flexing its fingers, ending with a shot that seemingly travels up inside the hand. In creating the film, which was incorporated into the 1976 film "Futureworld," Catmull worked out concepts that become the foundation for computer graphics that followed. Watch it here!

Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment (1963) 

Robert Drew was a pioneer of American cinema-verite (a style of documentary filmmaking that strives to record unfolding events non-intrusively). In 1963, he gathered together a stellar group of filmmakers, including D. A. Pennebaker, Richard Leacock, Gregory Shuker, James Lipscomb, and Patricia Powell, to capture on film the dramatic unfolding of an ideological crisis, one that revealed political decision-making at the highest levels. The result, "Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment," focuses on Gov. George Wallace’s attempt to prevent two African-American students from enrolling in the University of Alabama—his infamous "stand in the schoolhouse door" confrontation—and the response of President John F. Kennedy. The filmmakers observe the crisis evolve by following a number of participants, including Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, Gov. Wallace and the two students, Vivian Malone and James Hood. The film also shows deliberations between the president and his staff that led to a peaceful resolution, a decision by the president to deliver a major address on civil rights and a commitment by Wallace to continue his battle in subsequent national election campaigns. The film has proven to be a uniquely revealing complement to written histories of the period, providing viewers the rare opportunity to witness historical events from an insider’s perspective.

The Cry of the Children (1912) 

Recognized as a key work that both reflected and contributed to the pre-World War I child labor reform movement, the two-reel silent melodrama "The Cry of the Children" takes its title and fatalistic, uncompromising tone of hopelessness from the 1842 poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. "The Cry of the Children" was part of a wave of "social problem" films released during the 1910s on such subjects as drugs and alcohol, white slavery, immigrants and women’s suffrage. Some were sensationalist attempts to exploit lurid topics, while others, like "The Cry of the Children," were realistic exposés that championed social reform and demanded change. Shot partially in a working textile factory, "The Cry of the Children" was recognized by an influential critic of the time as "The boldest, most timely and most effective appeal for the stamping out of the cruelest of all social abuses."

A Cure for Pokeritis (1912)

 Largely forgotten today, actor John Bunny merits significant historical importance as the American film industry’s earliest comic superstar. A stage actor prior to the start of his film career, Bunny starred in over 150 Vitagraph Company productions from 1910 until his death in 1915. Many of his films (affectionately known as "Bunnygraphs") were gentle "domestic" comedies, in which he portrayed a henpecked husband alongside co-star Flora Finch. "A Cure for Pokeritis" exemplifies the genre, as Finch conspires with similarly displeased wives to break up their husbands’ weekly poker game. When Bunny died in 1915, a New York Times editorial noted that "Thousands who had never heard him speak…recognized him as the living symbol of wholesome merriment." The paper presciently commented on the importance of preserving motion pictures and sound recordings for future generations: "His loss will be felt all over the country, and the films, which preserve his humorous personality in action, may in time have a new value. It is a subject worthy of reflection, the value of a perfect record of a departed singer’s voice, of the photographic films perpetuating the drolleries of a comedian who developed such extraordinary capacity for acting before the camera."

El Mariachi (1992) 

Directed, edited, co-produced, and written in two weeks by Robert Rodriguez for $7,000 while a film student at the University of Texas, "El Mariachi" proved a favorite on the film festival circuit. After Columbia Pictures picked it up for distribution, the film helped usher in the independent movie boom of the early 1990s. "El Mariachi" is an energetic, highly entertaining tale of an itinerant musician, portrayed by co-producer and Rodriguez crony Carlos Gallardo, who arrives at a Mexican border town during a drug war and is mistaken for a hit man who recently escaped from prison. The story, as film historian Charles Ramirez Berg has suggested, plays with expectations common to two popular exploitation genres—the narcotraficante film, a Mexican police genre, and the transnational warrior-action film, itself rooted in Hollywood Westerns. Rodriguez’s success derived from invigorating these genres with creative variants despite the constraints of a shoestring budget. Rodriguez has gone on to direct films for major studios, becoming, in Berg’s estimation, "arguably the most successful Latino director ever to work in Hollywood."

Faces (1968) 

Writer-director John Cassavetes described "Faces," considered by many to be his first mature work, as "a barrage of attack on contemporary middle-class America." The film depicts a married couple, "safe in their suburban home, narrow in their thinking," he wrote, who experience a break up that "releases them from the conformity of their existence, forces them into a different context, when all barriers are down." An example of cinematic excess, "Faces" places its viewers inside intense lengthy scenes to allow them to discover within its relentless confrontations emotions and relations of power between men and women that rarely emerge in more conventionally structured films. In provoking remarkable performances by Lynn Carlin, John Marley and Gena Rowlands, Cassavetes has created a style of independent filmmaking that has inspired filmmakers around the world.

Fake Fruit Factory (1986) 

An expressive, sympathetic look at the everyday lives of young Mexican women who create ornamental papier măché fruits and vegetables, "Fake Fruit Factory" exemplifies filmmaker Chick Strand’s unique style that deftly blends documentary, avant-garde and ethnographic techniques. After studying anthropology and ethnographic film at the University of California, Strand, who helped noted independent filmmaker Bruce Baillie create the independent film distribution cooperative Canyon Cinema, taught filmmaking for 24 years at Occidental College. She developed a collagist process to create her films, shooting footage of people she encountered over several decades of annual summer stays in Mexico and then editing together individual films. In "Fake Fruit Factory," Strand employs a moving camera at close range to create colorfully vivid images often verging on abstraction, while her soundtrack picks up snatches of conversation to evoke, in her words, "the spirit of the people." "I want to know," Strand wrote, "really what it is like to be a breathing, talking, moving, emotional, relating individual in the society."

Forrest Gump (1994) 

As "Forrest Gump," Tom Hanks portrays an earnest, guileless "everyman" whose open-heartedness and sense of the unexpected unwittingly draws him into some of the most iconic events of the 1960s and 1970s. A smash hit, "Forrest Gump" has been honored for its technological innovations (the digital insertion of Gump seamlessly into vintage archival footage), its resonance within the culture that has elevated Gump (and what he represents in terms of American innocence) to the status of folk hero, and its attempt to engage both playfully and seriously with contentious aspects of the era’s traumatic history. The film received six Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

Growing Up Female (1971) 

Among the first films to emerge from the women’s liberation movement, "Growing Up Female" is a documentary portrait of America on the brink of profound change in its attitudes toward women. Filmed in spring 1970 by Ohio college students Julia Reichert and Jim Klein, "Growing Up Female" focuses on six girls and women aged 4 to 34 and the home, school, work and advertising environments that have impacted their identities. Through open-ended interviews and lyrical documentation of their surroundings, the film strived, in Reichert’s words, to "give women a new lens through which to see their own lives." Widely distributed to libraries, universities, churches and youth groups, the film launched a cooperative of female filmmakers that bypassed traditional distribution mechanisms to get its message communicated.

Hester Street (1975) 

Joan Micklin Silver’s first feature-length film, "Hester Street," was an adaption of preeminent Yiddish author Abraham Cahan’s 1896 well-received first novel "Yekl: A Tale of the New York Ghetto." In the 1975 film, the writer-director brought to the screen a portrait of Eastern European Jewish life in America that historians have praised for its accuracy of detail and sensitivity to the challenges immigrants faced during their acculturation process. Shot in black-and-white and partly in Yiddish with English subtitles, the independent production, financed with money raised by the filmmaker’s husband, was shunned by Hollywood until it established a reputation at the Cannes Film Festival and in European markets. "Hester Street" focuses on stresses that occur when a "greenhorn" wife, played by Carol Kane (nominated for an Academy Award for her portrayal), and her young son arrive in New York to join her Americanized husband. Silver, one of the first women directors of American features to emerge during the women’s liberation movement, shifted the story’s emphasis from the husband, as in the novel, to the wife. Historian Joyce Antler has written admiringly, "In indicating the hardships experienced by women and their resiliency, as well as the deep strains assimilation posed to masculinity, ‘Hester Street’ touches on a fundamental cultural challenge confronting immigrants."

I, an Actress (1977) 

Underground filmmaker George Kuchar and his twin brother Mike began making 8mm films as 12-year-old kids in the Bronx, often on their family’s apartment rooftop. Before his death in 2011, George created over 200 outlandish low-budget films filled with absurdist melodrama, crazed dialogue and plots, and affection for Hollywood film conventions and genres. A professor at the San Francisco Art Institute, Kuchar documented his directing techniques in the hilarious "I, an Actress" as he encourages an acting student to embellish a melodramatic monologue with increasingly excessive gestures and emotions. Like most of Kuchar’s films, "I, an Actress" embodies a "camp" sensibility, defined by the cultural critic Susan Sontag as deriving from an aesthetics that valorizes not beauty but "love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration." Filmmaker John Waters has cited the Kuchars as "my first inspiration" and credited them with giving him "the self-confidence to believe in my own tawdry vision."

The Iron Horse (1924) 

John Ford’s epic Western "The Iron Horse" established his reputation as one of Hollywood’s most accomplished directors. Intended by Fox studios to rival Paramount’s 1923 epic "The Covered Wagon," Ford’s film employed more than 5,000 extras, advertised authenticity in its attention to realistic detail, and provided him with the opportunity to create iconic visual images of the Old West, inspired by such master painters as Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell. A tale of national unity achieved after the Civil War through the construction of the transcontinental railroad, "The Iron Horse" celebrated the contributions of Irish, Italian and Chinese immigrants although the number of immigrants allowed to enter the country legally was severely restricted at the time of its production. A classic silent film, "The Iron Horse" introduced to American and world audiences a reverential, elegiac mythology that has influenced many subsequent Westerns.

The Kid (1921)

 Charles Chaplin’s first full-length feature, the silent classic "The Kid," is an artful melding of touching drama, social commentary and inventive comedy. The tale of a foundling (Jackie Coogan, soon to be a major child star) taken in by the Little Tramp, "The Kid" represents a high point in Chaplin’s evolving cinematic style, proving he could sustain his artistry beyond the length of his usual short subjects and could deftly elicit a variety of emotions from his audiences by skillfully blending slapstick and pathos.

The Lost Weekend (1945)

 A landmark social-problem film, "The Lost Weekend" provided audiences of 1945 with an uncompromising look at the devastating effects of alcoholism. Directed by Billy Wilder and co-written by Wilder and Charles Brackett, the film melded an expressionistic film-noir style with documentary realism to immerse viewers in the harrowing experiences of an aspiring New York writer willing to do almost anything for a drink. Despite opposition from his studio, the Hays Office and the liquor industry, Wilder created a film ranked as one of the best of the decade that won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Direction, Screenplay and Actor (Ray Milland), and established him as one of America’s leading filmmakers.

The Negro Soldier (1944)

 Produced by Frank Capra’s renowned World War II U.S. Army filming unit, "The Negro Soldier" showcased the contributions of blacks to American society and their heroism in the nation’s wars, portraying them in a dignified, realistic, and far less stereotypical manner than they had been depicted in previous Hollywood films. Considered by film historian Thomas Cripps as "a watershed in the use of film to promote racial tolerance," "The Negro Soldier" was produced in reaction to instances of discrimination against African-Americans stationed in the South. Written by Carlton Moss, a young black writer for radio and the Federal Theatre Project, directed by Stuart Heisler, and scored by Dmitri Tiomkin, the film highlights the role of the church in the black community and charts the progress of a black soldier through basic training and officer’s candidate school before he enters into combat. It became mandatory viewing for all soldiers in American replacement centers from spring 1944 until the war’s end.

Nicholas Brothers Family Home Movies (1930s-1940s)

 Fayard and Harold Nicholas, renowned for their innovative and exuberant dance routines, began in vaudeville in the late 1920s before headlining at the Cotton Club in Harlem, starring on Broadway and performing in Hollywood films. Fred Astaire is reported to have called their dance sequence in "Stormy Weather" (1943) the greatest movie musical number he had ever seen. Their home movies capture a golden age of show business—with extraordinary footage of Broadway, Harlem and Hollywood—and also document the middle-class African-American life of that era, images made rare by the considerable cost of home-movie equipment during the Great Depression. Highlights include the only footage shot inside the Cotton Club, the only footage of famous Broadway shows like "Babes in Arms," home movies of an all African-American regiment during World War II, films of street life in Harlem in the 1930s, and the family’s cross-country tour in 1934.

Norma Rae (1979) 

Highlighted by Sally Field’s Oscar-winning performance, "Norma Rae" is the tale of an unlikely activist. A poorly-educated single mother, Norma Rae Webster works at a Southern textile mill where her attempt to improve working conditions through unionization, though undermined by her factory bosses, ultimately succeeds after her courageous stand on the factory floor wins the support of her co-workers. The film is less a polemical pro-union statement than a treatise about maturation, personal willpower, fairness and the empowerment of women. Directed by Martin Ritt, "Norma Rae" was based on the real-life efforts of Crystal Lee Sutton to unionize the J. P. Stevens Mills in Roanoke Rapids, N.C., which finally agreed to allow union representation one year after the film’s release.

Porgy and Bess (1959) 

Composer George Gershwin considered his masterpiece "Porgy and Bess" to be a "folk opera." Gershwin’s score reflected traditional songs he encountered in visits to Charleston, S.C., and in Gullah revival meetings he attended on nearby James Island. Controversy has stalked the production history of the opera that Gershwin created with DuBose Heyward, who had written the original novel and play (with his wife Dorothy) and penned lyrics with Gershwin’s brother Ira. The lavish film version was produced in the late 1950s as the civil rights movement gained momentum and a number of African-American actors turned down roles they considered demeaning. Harry Belafonte, who refused the part of Porgy, explained, "in this period of our social development, I doubt that it is healthy to expose certain images of the Negro. In a period of calm, perhaps this picture could be viewed historically." Dissension also resulted when producer Samuel Goldwyn dismissed Rouben Mamoulian, who had directed the play and musical on Broadway, and replaced him with Otto Preminger. Produced in Todd-AO, a state-of-the-art widescreen and stereophonic sound recording process, with an all-star cast that included Sidney Poitier, Dorothy Dandridge, Sammy Davis, Jr., Pearl Bailey and Diahann Carroll, "Porgy and Bess," now considered an "overlooked masterpiece" by one contemporary scholar, rarely has been screened in the ensuing years.

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Jodie Foster, Sir Anthony Hopkins and director Jonathan Demme won accolades for this chilling thriller based upon a book by Thomas Harris. Foster plays rookie FBI agent Clarice Starling who must tap into the disturbed mind of imprisoned cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter in order to aid her search for a murderer and torturer still at large. A film whose violence is as much psychological as graphic, "Silence of the Lambs"—winner of Academy Awards for Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Adapted Screenplay—has been celebrated for its superb lead performances, its blending of crime and horror genres, and its taut direction that brought to the screen one of film’s greatest villains and some of its most memorable imagery.

Stand and Deliver (1988)

Based on a true story, "Stand and Deliver" stars Edward James Olmos in an Oscar-nominated performance as crusading educator Jaime Escalante. A math teacher in East Los Angeles, Ca., Escalante inspired his underprivileged students to undertake an intensive program in calculus, achieve high test scores, and improve their sense of self-worth. Co-produced by Olmos and directed by Cuban-born Ramón Menéndez, "Stand and Deliver" became one of the most popular of a new wave of narrative feature films produced in the 1980s by Latino filmmakers. The film celebrates in a direct, approachable, and impactful way, values of self-betterment through hard work and power through knowledge.

Twentieth Century (1934) 

A satire on the theatrical milieu and its oversized egos, "Twentieth Century" marked the first of director Howard Hawks’ frenetic comedies that had leading actors of the day "make damn fools of themselves." In Hawks’ words, the genre became affectionately known as "screwball comedy." Hawks had writers Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, who penned the original play, craft dialogue scenes in which lines overlapped as in ordinary conversations, but still remained understandable, a style he continued in later films. This sophisticated farce about the tempestuous romance of an egocentric impresario and the star he creates did not fare well on its release, but has come to be recognized as one of the era’s finest film comedies, one that gave John Barrymore his last great film role and Carole Lombard her first.

War of the Worlds (1953) 

Released at the height of cold-war hysteria, producer George Pal’s lavishly-designed take on H. G. Wells’ 1898 novel of alien invasion was provocatively transplanted from Victorian England to a mid-20th-century Southern California small town in this 1953 film version. Capitalizing on the apocalyptic paranoia of the atomic age, Barré Lyndon’s screenplay wryly replaces Wells’ original commentary on the British class system with religious metaphor. Directed by Byron Haskin, formerly a special effects cameraman, the critically and commercially successful film chronicles an apparent meteor crash discovered by a local scientist (Gene Barry) that turns out to be a Martian spacecraft. Gordon Jennings, who died shortly before the film’s release, avoided stereotypical flying saucer-style creations in his Academy Award-winning special effects described by reviewers as soul-chilling, hackle-raising and not for the faint of heart.

***

This will probably be the last Blog Post for 2011. I was going to post some links tomorrow, but decided I'll save them until next week... since many people are away for the holidays. I would like to thank all of you who visit the blog - listen to my bitches about the biz, read my rants, and laugh with me about this strange business.

Next year we will finish up the Hitchcock films, I hope to make Scene Of The Week a regular feature, and may get to the background of all of my films (promised 5 years ago when I began the blog!). Plus - more general bitching about the biz and some looks at some of my favorite films.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Your *Second* High Concept!
Dinner: Sweet & Sour Pork at 3 Brothers.
Pages: Not going to get anywhere near finishing this new spec before the end of the year.
Bicycle: No.
Movies: MI:4, SH2, GWTDTre, HUGO...

IT'S BACK!
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Lancelot Link: Happy Holidays Everyone!

2011-12-22T01:00:00.000-08:00

Lancelot Link Thursday! He's been making a list and checking it twice - gonna find out who is naughty and who is nice... Also making a list of links to some great screenwriting and film articles, plus some fun stuff that may be of interest to you. Brought to you by that suave and sophisticated secret agent...

Goat Protocol?

Big Stars - Bigger Flops!

10 Worst Santa Movies!

For Your Consideration...

And this week's chase...

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL OF YOU! THANK YOU FOR VISITING THE BLOG!

- Bill

Book Report: Circle Of Enemies

2011-12-20T02:01:00.000-08:00

Because it's the holidays and I'm working on a script, I'm rerunning this... it *does* make a great holiday gift!

CIRCLE OF ENEMIES by Harry Connolly.

Though I just finished reading a new short story collection by Lawrence Block, I’ll get to that next Tuesday... because I still haven’t reported on my friend Harry’s latest book CIRCLE OF ENEMIES, which I finished reading a week ago. Took me long enough! But I did a quick rewrite on a script and read some other friend’s scripts and have been working on the Action Book rewrite. I’ve been busy!

“I’m Raymond Lilly, and I’ve lost track of the number of people I’ve killed.”

This is the third book in the 20 Palaces series - and the best so far. The first book, CHILD OF FIRE, opens with car thief Raymond Lilly getting out of jail... Ray was waiting for trial, had a crappy public defender, was guilty as hell and figured he was going to do time. By when he went to trial, his public defender was gone and a high priced uber-slick lawyer was in his place, and the lawyer makes him a deal: If Ray never tells anyone what he saw, the lawyer will work his magic and Ray will walk. Oh, and Ray has to take a job with the organization so that they can keep tabs on him. Ray agrees, and moments later he is walking out of the courtroom a free man. Sounds like the Mafia, doesn’t it? But the twist is - the high priced lawyer works for the 20 Palace Society - a group of sorcerers. What Ray saw was some sort of magic thing... and his new job is the driver for Annalise - a sorceress assassin who tracks and kills anyone who uses magic who is not a member of the society. There’s maybe a good reason for doing this - using magic often opens the door to a dark world where predators live. If those predators escape, they can kill a bunch of people and possibly destroy the world. So only members of the Society are allowed to use magic... Annalise or one of the other assassins kills anyone else, and destroys the predators. Oh, Ray has another job other than driving her around - he’s her “wooden man” - her decoy, her bait. If there is a predator on the loose looking for a human to consume, Ray’s job is to lure it into Annalise’s trap. Um, his life expectancy isn’t very long. Kind of a miracle that he made it to book #3.

Book #3, CIRCLE OF ENEMIES, opens with Ray between assassin gigs working in landscaping in the Pacific Northwest. He comes home, takes a shower... and Melly, an ex-girlfriend (it’s more complicated than that - read the book for the relationship details), appears in his apartment. She’s from his past life as a car thief in Los Angeles... how did she know where he lives? How did she get in? While Ray is wondering all of this, Melly tells him that he killed her, and killed all of his other pals in Los Angeles. That their deaths are *his* fault... and then she just vanishes. A dream?

(Melly’s real name is Carmella - Harry does a great job of giving people realistic nicknames and even creating some confusion when different people have different nicknames for the same person.)

Ray grabs his stuff and drives to Los Angeles to look up his old car thief gang... and discovers that they have been cursed with magic - and have superpowers thanks to predators living inside them... eating them from the inside out. And now Ray is faced with an impossible choice: kill them or call Annalise to come in and kill them. These people are/were his friends! The other part of this is that Ray believes he is responsible for this... and so do some of this ex-pals. Ray tries his best to find some way to solve the problem without killing his old friends, and that requires him to figures out where the magic came from and then find the sorcerer who did this and see if it can be reversed... before his friends die one-by-one when the predators are finished with them.

The reason why I like this series is that it’s a weird combination of a Dash Hammett hard boiled detective novel and H.P. Lovecraft. Violent as hell. I don’t read stuff in this genre (Urban Fantasy) but I get the feeling from looking at some of the other stuff that pops up on Amazon when I search for his books looks more whimsical and “fun” and Harry is dark and violent and hard as nails. In Book #2 GAME OF CAGES Ray is forced to kill a whole bunch of people who have been possessed - and the end of that book is relentlessly violent. Though this book is probably less violent, it is more personal - and people you like die. No punches are pulled. I get the feeling the other popular Urban Fantasy novels are BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID and this is THE WILD BUNCH. And, um, I like THE WILD BUNCH more than BUTCH CASSIDY (which may send me to Screenwriter Hell for admitting). These three books are serious stuff.

THE GOOD STUFF

Kindle version:

Since I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who might want to read it, let me be vague about some of the stuff I liked about it - but still explain why I liked those things.

I really liked that this is Ray dealing with people from his past - that made this more than just an entertaining story. It deals with lost loves and ex-friends and guilt and remorse and every messy friendship situation you’ve ever had. I think that’s what earned this that great review in Publisher’s Weekly.

I think it’s a cool idea to give superpowers to low life small time criminals - because they don’t want to rule the world, they just want to make a few hundred more dollars. They are men (and women) of limited ambition and limited dreams - and they use these new powers in ways that totally fit who they are. Because it’s small time crime, it’s gritty and real and not some crazy Lex Luthor or James Bond villain plan.

The story takes place in Los Angeles, but is centered in the Studio City area where I live - and it’s kind of cool. Harry and I once had coffee in my neighborhood Starbucks in Studio City, and it’s kind of fun to try and figure out what real business gets a fake name for the book.

There’s a totally frightening suspense scene where Ray has to save a kid from being sucked into the world of predators that had me on the edge of my seat.

One of the great things is that Harry creates easy to understand “rules” for his magical elements, and because Ray is just a guy - Ray (narrator) often comes up with a description of these things that uses stuff we can relate to. “Drapes” is a good example.

Harry has *great* chapter ends, designed so that you can not put down the book. This makes it a great read, but also means you will be trapped reading the damned book and not get anything done. One chapter ends with Ray discovering a note threatening to murder a child... hard to just put the bookmark in and set the book down after that.

CHILD OF FIRE - Kindle version - 99 cents!

You’ll have to read the book to understand this - but the most frightening scene to me was when Ray is given some superpowers that have a side effect of maybe removing some of his soul and turning him into more monster than man. This scene works because you *care* about Ray and even though he works for an assassin and sometimes has to kill people himself - he doesn’t take any of that lightly. He does not like killing people - even if they have been possessed by predators within. He’s a thief but not a killer. And now that this has happened, I’m worried about him. Yeah, he’s fiction, but in the world of this series he seems very real.

There’s a great comparison of actual toughness and bravery when Ray works with an ex-soldier Talbot who is the “wooden man” for another sorceress-assassin. The ex-soldier is Mr. Macho and has a pile of guns (Ray doesn’t carry) and the way each reacts to the same situation tells us volumes about both of them. It’s a great way to show character - and expose how a reluctant man of action like Ray is the real hero. The same sort of comparison is used between Annalise and Csilla (Talbot’s boss) to show how Annalise - who seems to care little about collateral damage - really does have a heart. She may be a brutal killer, and she may kill people who get in her way... but she *tries* not to kill anyone who is not a target. Csilla? Um, if the whole human race got in her way, she’d just kill us all. And these are the *good guys*!

CIRCLE OF ENEMIES is just in time to expose the evil behind Google Plus “circles”... and is a fast, action packed read. Because it’s Ray dealing with the people from his past... and the “sins” of his past... the story ends up having strong emotions below the surface. Ray is a man who doesn’t let his emotions show - and he’s damned busy fighting people and *things* from the “Empty Spaces”, but the situations are filled with tough decisions and the regrets and guilt and messy relationships we all have in our pasts. Can Ray save his ex-friends... who are now his enemies?

Makes a great holiday gift for people who like twisted violent stuff!

- Bill

THE BOOK TRAILER:

Fridays With Hitchcock: The Lady Vanishes (1938)

2011-12-16T00:49:00.000-08:00

Screenplay by the amazing team of Sidney Gilliatt & Frank Launder from a book by Ethel Lina White.

I was going to have a new entry - YOUNG AND INNOCENT - but LADY VANISHES was just released on BluRay, so I'm re-running it! New Hitchcock entries are on their way!

The second to last film of Hitchcock's British period is probably the film that got him to America – though it was one of a string of international hits he directed during this period. Along with THE 39 STEPS it is my favorite of his films from the British Period, because it is witty and fun and has some great suspense sequences and a clever storyline. I think one of the reasons why this film is beloved is that it's a two-fer – it's a great romantic comedy *and* a great thriller, complete with the standard Hitchcock big spectacle end. There's a TAMING OF THE SHREW vibe (the female lead is a spoiled rich girl) and the rom-com scenes *are* the thriller scenes – there's a great, *fun* scene where the couple is battling one the the villains and she kicks the male lead instead of the badguy. That scene is filled with fun, breezy dialogue – and it's an *action scene*! Most of the scenes do double duty – and it's difficult to imagine someone not liking this film. It's just a great time at the cinema. I probably first saw it at the old Telegraph Theater in Berkeley, which was upstairs from a laundromat. They once showed every single Hitchcock film, from silents through PSYCHO, and I was there for every single film. The funny thing was the number of people who only stayed until Hitchcock did his cameo – then they just got up and left! You know, Hitchcock shows up in the first ten minutes of many of his films. In LADY VANISHES he doesn't show up until the end, so those people saw almost the whole movie... and probably loved every minute of it. If you haven't seen it, the film is now public domain and there are many cheap (but good quality) versions out there, as well as a Criterion Edition... and many FREE copies online that you can stream.

Nutshell: Spoiled rich girl Iris Henderson (hottie Margaret Lockwood) and her bridesmaids (Googie Withers and Sally Stewart) are have taken over a hotel for a bachelorette party on skis when an avalanche strands the passengers of a train in the very same hotel. Though many of the passengers are strange Eastern European types, there are a pair of British businessmen named Caldecott (Naunton Wayne) and Charters (Basil Radford) plus a “honeymoon couple” the Todhunters (Cecil Parker and Linden Travers). When a group of dancing elephants keeps Iris awake, she meets her next door neighbor Miss Froy (Dame May Whitty) an elderly nanny. After bribing the hotel manager to throw the upstairs guest out, she meets him: flat broke music and dance historian Gilbert (Michael Redgrave – father of Lynn & Vanessa), a fellow Englander who becomes her nemesis/love interest in the film. Much of the charm of this film comes from his witty dialogue and their relationship.

The next morning when the train boards, Iris gets knocked on the head trying to help Miss Froy with her bags, and when she wakes up after a nap partway through the train journey Miss Froy has vanished and no one in the compartment or on the train remembers seeing her. Is Iris crazy? Did she *imagine* Miss Froy on the train? Or is there a conspiracy around the disappearance of this kindly old woman? With the help of Gilbert (who isn't riding in the coach section... he's riding in the baggage car) they try to solve the mystery of the vanishing lady.

Experiment: Though all but the first act of the story takes place on the train – a confined location – and this film might be seen as the predecessor for films like LIFEBOAT, the fun experiment wasn't Hitchcock's... it was the screenwriters Gilliatt & Laundner's. The witty writing team created these two businessmen, Caldecott and Charters, who are the R2D2 and C3PO of the film – we follow them into the story even though it is not about them, and like those two robots in STAR WARS they become our favorite characters in the film, showing up in scene after scene on the sidelines of the main story. Kind of a Greek Chorus. Though all of the characters in THE LADY VANISHES are witty and fun (even the villain!) these two characters steal the show... So Gilliatt and Launder carried them over into other scripts – and they show up in several films by the pair.

In NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH (1940) they are once again on a train... with always hot Margret Lockwood again (playing a different role) in the early days of World War 2. When the Germans invade Czechoslovakia (a great scene of planes turning the daylight sky dark), top scientist Dr. Bombash escapes to England... but his daughter Anna (Lockwood) is captured by the Nazis and sent to a Concentration Camp... where she meets handsome rebellious prisoner Karl (a sometimes shirtless Paul Henreid from CASABLANCA) and they escape together... and fall in love along the way. Once in England, Karl and Anna try to find her father – who has been hidden away by the British government. Once they find him, Karl reveals that he is a Nazi agent who set this whole thing up in order to find Dr. Bombash and kidnap him back to Germany! Now Anna must team up with actor turned spy Gus Bennet (Rex Harrison... yes, Dr. Doolittle as a spy) and they go behind enemy lines into Germany to rescue her father with Bennet pretending to be a Gestapo agent and Anna pretending to be his mistress. But that means they have to convince Karl to release him into Bennet's custody – love triangle complications ensue – and all of them end up on that night train to Munich... along with Caldecott & Charters who are trying to get the hell out of Germany before England enters the war and they end up POWs. The two bickering businessmen end up pretending to be German soldiers and are part of a big action ending on an elevated tram car over a snowy mountain canyon. Caldecott & Charters become action heroes!

In MILLIONS LIKE US (1943) they are soldiers in World War Two – supporting players in a story about British women on the homefront. I got this film because I'm a Caldecott & Charters completest, and really liked it. Gilliatt & Launder not only wrote it, they directed as well. It's a story of three sisters and their widower dad during World War 2, while all the men are off fighting the war. Patricia Roc plays Celia, the middle sister, who ends up working in an aircraft factory while her older sister works as a secretary to a Colonel and the youngest sister stays home with dad... in a practically deserted town. Celia has never been away from home before, and is taken under the wing of a more worldly gal living in the barracks named Jennifer. The story focuses on the women living without men, doing “Rosie the riveter” type work, and constantly having to scramble for the bomb shelter when their plant is attacked by German bombing missions. One of their “duties” is to be bused to the nearby Air Force Base for dances with the young men... and Celia falls in love with a young pilot Fred (Gordon Jackson from one of my favorite films IPCRESS FILE) and the troubles of a wartime relationship... and eventual marriage. This is one tear-jerking movie, with all three sisters falling in love and dealing with various types of heart breaks... and dad back home trying to be needed in time of war when he is really too old to do anything. Caldecott and Charters are soldiers (on a train!) in a scene where people are being sent to fight and probably die.

Gilliatt & Launder created these two great characters and kept putting them in screenplays that were made into films... where they cast the same two actors to play the roles! These characters became so famous they ended up in a film they didn't write (CROOK'S TOUR) and had a TV series in the mid-1980s (played by different actors as Wayne and Radford were dead by then). Today I don't think you could write an original screenplay and reuse the characters in another script, let alone have them played by the same actors. The closest we get to something like this is Michael Keaton playing Ray Nicolette in both OUT OF SIGHT and JACKIE BROWN – both based on novels by Elmore Leonard.

Hitch Appearance: In Victoria Station near the end of the film, dressed in a black overcoat and smoking a cigarette.

Hitch Stock Company: Basil Radford from YOUNG AND INNOCENT and JAMAICA IN, Dame May Whitty from SUSPICION, Cecil Parker from UNDER CAPRICORN, and Mary Claire from THE SKIN GAME and YOUNG AND INNOCENT.

Bird Appearance: There's a bird in a cage in the hotel lobby, and no shortage of doves once they discover the magician's equipment in the freight compartment.

Screenwriting Lessons: There are so many great things about THE LADY VANISHES it's difficult to know what *not* to talk about! So I've picked a handful of things the script does particularly well... and some of you who are fans will complain that I've left other things out. This film is *also* one of the four main examples on my WRITING THRILLERS audio class, and I'm going to try my best *not* to duplicate any information from there. The lessons I've decided to concentrate on are the film's unusual Act One, the great Supporting Cast, the crackling Dialogue (some great rom-com exchanges), and the use of Clues.

Unusual Act One: Probably *because* this story is a mystery at its core, it has an unusual Act One... they don't even get on the train until 25 minutes into the film, and the thing we might call the “inciting incident” - Miss Froy vanishing – doesn't happen until 32 minutes into the film. Usually Act One introduces the conflict, but here we don't get to the conflict until Act Two. So what the heck is Act One? It's a not-so-grand-hotel comedy that sets up all of the suspects, plants some important elements of the thriller plot while you aren't looking; and moves so fast you never notice the plot hasn't kicked in yet.

The film begins with a great overhead shot of the train buried in the avalanche and moves down to the village, to the hotel, and through the window... without a cut! It's a great combination of very detailed and realistic miniature and set – with a dissolve in there somewhere. Hitchcock films always have amazing miniature work, and we'll talk about that in more detail in the YOUNG AND INNOCENT entry (coming soon). Once inside the hotel lobby, the very first thing we see is Miss Froy heading down the stairs to the front desk – the lady who will eventually vanish is in the first shot. When Miss Froy opens the front door to leave, it blows wind into the room and Caldecott and Charters close it... and like R2D2 and C3PO in STAR WARS, we follow them for the first half of Act One. They are our identification characters at this point in the story, and serve to introduce us to the other characters. Act One is based around the hotel, as if there will never be a train in the film.

Caldecott & Charters are sitting in the hotel lobby with a huge group of people when the manager (Emile Boreo) announces that the train will be delayed and anyone who needs a room should register now. This gives us a chance to meet some of our suspects, as Caldecott & Charters end up at the very back of the line at the front desk. The honeymooning couple Mr. & Mrs. Todhunter have a quiet disagreement – he insists on two separate rooms. What's up with that? A little character mystery that becomes an element in the conspiracy later. Before Caldecott and Charters can secure their room, wealthy Iris Henderson and her two bridesmaids blast into the hotel and the manager jumps from behind the desk to help them... leaving C&C standing in line wondering why she is more important than they are. Iris tells the manager to send up some champagne and food... When he returns to the front desk he tells C&C that there are no more hotel rooms, but he can let them sleep in the maid's room.

All of the dialogue in LADY VANISHES is great, and in Act One (the not-so-grand-hotel comedy) much of the humor comes from the language barrier between C&C and the hotel staff. The manager tells them the maid will have to come up and remove her clothing... and that the room has no 'eat. Though, after a great deal of confusion wondering about food in the room, they figure out that the room has no *heat*... they really aren't sure what to expect from the big-boned but attractive maid. Are they sharing a room with her? Will she be naked? They aren't interested in any hanky-panky.

Usually in order to remove confusion it's a good idea to have one character “introduce” the next character in an ensemble script, and this film is a good example. Caldecott & Charters act as an “introduction device” in Act One – as well as being hysterically funny. They climb the stairs to the maid's room, passing the middle aged waiter bringing the champagne and food to Iris and her bridesmaids... and we follow the waiter inside. Um, the scene in that room is something right out of THE HANGOVER! All of the gals are in their underwear, and Iris is standing on a table hanging her wet clothes on a chandelier – and it's like an obstacle course of half-naked women for the old waiter. He is not comfortable – and that's before Iris asks for help to help her down from the table and he has to touch her half naked body with her crotch in his face. While the waiter pours champagne, we find out that Iris is marrying a man she doesn't love, but is wealthy and will provide her with stability. It's *strongly* hinted that she's sowed a pile of wild oats in her past and is ready to settle down. When the waiter leaves the room, he bumps into the maid on her way up to remove her clothing...

The maid speaks no English, and when she comes into the room C&C have no idea what she is there for. When she grabs clothing for a night out, Caldecott explains she can not change in the room... and she smiles and proceeds to strip. C&C face the wall while she changes. There are a bunch of gags in these scenes with hangers and hat boxes and clothing articles. C&C go down to dinner – and find the restaurant PACKED. People are fighting over tables. When they see a couple leaving a table they make a run for it, and end up sitting across from... Miss Froy. Because they all speak English, they have a conversation which is 90% Miss Froy boring them to death with her life's story. Because this scene is from C&C's point of view, it's everything that could possibly go wrong *to them*. So instead of a pleasant conversation with Miss Froy, they get the worst possible conversation... which is funny, but also a great way to disguise an exposition dump from Miss Froy. After they order steaks and baked potatoes the waiter says something they don't understand, and Miss Froy translates – due to the avalanche the restaurant has no food left.

When Miss Froy leaves, we follow her – the baton has been handed off to her character – as she goes upstairs to her room... which is next door to Iris. Iris is in the hallway, saying goodnight to her bridesmaids and says hello to Miss Froy. Now we get to the dancing elephants. Miss Froy hears a guitar player serenading on the street below her window and goes to listen... but suddenly there is a pounding in the room upstairs. Miss Froy steps into the hallway just as Iris does. Iris tells Miss Froy that she will call the manager and get rid of whoever is making all of that noise. The Manager goes upstairs to an attic room where Gilbert is recording the dance moves while three hefty villagers dance. Now we've been introduced to our male lead – each character introducing the next (C&C to Froy, Froy to Iris, Iris to Manager, Manager to Gilbert). After some complications, the manager evicts Gilbert...

But meanwhile we go back to Caldecott & Charters in the maid's room sharing a pair of pajamas (Caldecott wears the bottoms) and the bed and that old newspaper... as the maid enters. Charter's cover's Caldecott's naked chest from her view. She grabs her nightgown, and when she leaves Charters gets up to lock the door... when she enters to grab something from her dresser. Charters is undressed from the waist down and this gets milked for humor.

When the maid leaves, closing the door behind her...

Iris' room door opens and Gilbert enters, with his luggage. Iris is in bed, in her negligee, and we get the beginning of our rom-com story (about 20 minutes in). Some great dialogue here as Gilbert asks which side of the bed she wants – because he no longer has a bed for the night, he's *forced* to share hers. He unpacks some clothes, puts his toothbrush in the bathroom, runs a bath, starts to strip! This is the perfect rom-com couple – she's rich and beautiful and used to getting what she wants... and smart. He's a poor professor who is easy-come easy-go... and smart. All of the external, society things are at odds with each other, but underneath they have a lot in common. This is their “meet cute” and it is filled with sexual innuendo and some outright sexual comments. Margaret Lockwood is hot and sexy and smart – and in her negligee. He crawls over her in bed to get to the other side. The attraction is there – but both are pushing it away, because each is what the other *hates*. There's some great banter here, and even though a couple of the funny lines miss their mark, there are so many amusing lines that it really doesn't matter. From the other side of the closed bathroom door (naked?) Gilbert tells her that if she calls the manager to complain, he will tell *everyone* that she invited him into her room for the night... but if she tells the manager to give him his old room back he'll have a place to spend the night... other than her bed. Iris grabs the phone.

Next door, Miss Froy can now hear the man serenading below her window again, and hums along with the tune. What she doesn't know is the reason the music ends is that someone *kills* the man serenading. WTF? Hey, we're in a thriller! The next morning, as Caldecott and Charters are boarding the train, Miss Froy drops her glasses as she goes to get her bag and Iris picks them up to return them... but after giving them to Miss Froy someone *purposely* drops a planter from an upstairs window and it hits Iris in the head. Later we realize it was intended for Miss Froy – but we are definitely in thriller territory as a woozy Iris boards the train and says goodbye to her bridesmaids. As the train leaves the station, she passes out...

Supporting Cast: Iris comes to in a compartment with Miss Froy sitting across from her and most of the rest of our supporting cast in the other seats. We have the regal Baroness (Mary Clare) – who is a minister of culture for whatever country she is from. Senor Doppo (Phillip Leaver) and his wife (Zelma Vas Dais) and their little boy. We will later learn that Doppo is a magician whose famous trick is The Vanishing Lady. Because each of these characters is a potential suspect, they are fleshed out and distinctive.

The Baroness Atona is aloof and keeps to herself – but *doesn't* interact with others to such an extreme that we can feel how remote she is. This is an interesting character because it's what she *doesn't do* that defines her – while the little boy is cute and playful and Iris and Miss Froy watch him, the Baroness looks out the train window. Later, when she is questioned, it takes her a moment to turn away from the window and respond. She is above everything that happens in that train car.

Senor Doppo is one of the great minimal dialogue characterizations on film – he's got wild, expressive eyes and theatrical gestures and a massive smile. He always seems like he's having fun. Early on we see him doing a magic trick for his son (making something disappear!) and he looks as amazed as his child that the object has vanished. Throughout the film, Doppo has very little dialogue but manages to light up the screen whenever he's on – a flourish-wave and big smile are a threat in a later scene. This character may turn out to be one of the bad guys, but he doesn't let that stop him from smiling and having a great time in every scene that he's in. Characters like this are one of the reason this film is a favorite – he is *not* a traditional villain at all – you really like him and want to see him in more scenes... even if that means our heroes may get hit on the head a few more times.

Senora Doppo and the boy are almost symbolic of wholesome family – and their apparent honesty is the most lethal weapon in the film. Again – instead of the cliché, the characters in this film take characters who are up to no good and makes them wonderful people we wouldn't mind spending more time with. This makes it difficult for us to figure out who to trust – and who might be in on the conspiracy.

When Iris wakes up, Miss Froy says she looks like she could use a cup of tea, and helps her into the dining car... in the hallway Iris falls against Miss Froy pushing her through an open door into Mr. & Mrs. Todhunter's compartment, and when they slam the door and pull the shades Miss Froy says that honeymooning couples can be so shy. We eventually find out this is married couple are married to other people – having a *six week* affair/vacation while their spouses are back in England not suspecting a thing. Cecil Parker does such a great job of playing a manipulative stuffy prick that you hate him even before you find out he's a lawyer... and has no plan to divorce his wife and marry Linden Travers... he just told her that to get her into bed. The great thing about this character is that he has a logical story trajectory that plays through until the end. He's like Ellis (Hart Bochner) in DIE HARD – that guy who thinks because he's controlled everyone around him he can also control the bad guys... not realizing that he's completely out-matched.

Linden Travers has a great role as “Mrs” Todhunter – the bad girl who has been used and is about to be tossed aside and finds a way to get redemption *and* revenge in the same act! Though this is a subplot – and their reason for not wanting to get into any police inquiry about a missing woman, these scenes are incredibly well written and acted – and Travers' ability to show a brave face while we can see her crumbling within is amazing acting. This is a character who should *not* be sympathetic, but the script takes you inside her character and shows the scenes from her side – as she tries to out maneuver Todhunter's manipulations. He ends up bouncing her back and forth and she ends up emotionally battered every time she does the right thing. This is a Gloria Grahame type role, and she plays the hell out of it – giving you a strong impression in a handful of scenes.

The dining car is empty except for... Caldecott and Charters – our old friends! They are sitting at a table, discussing sports, and using all of the sugar cubes as little players as Charters tries to explain a play to Caldecott. One of the two waiters comes over, and Miss Froy pulls a box of tea and tells another of her endless stories – this one about how her elderly father and mother drink this tea every day, as do a million Mexicans. There's also a signature scene here where Iris asks Miss Froy her name, and the train whistle blows at the same time... so she writes her name in the dust on the window. Though we'll get to the clues in a moment, when you are writing a mystery based script it's important to make the clues *visual* and not call attention to them. When Miss Froy writes her name in the dusty window it is so natural that we never think it's going to come back later. Once the tea is served Miss Froy needs the sugar – and this ruins Charters' sports story... ruining his day *again*.

When they return to the compartment, the gentle rocking of the train puts Iris to sleep... and when she wakes up, Miss Froy is gone. She asks the other passengers in the compartment where the English Lady went, and they look at her like she's crazy – what English Lady? You were alone. The more insistent Iris is that there *was* and English Lady, the more they give her the funny looks and tell her she was mistaken, she came back from the dining car alone.

We are now 32 minutes into the film and the conflict has kicked in.

Iris goes to look for Miss Froy, stopping to ask the Waiter in the dining car if he has seen her. He has no idea who the heck she is talking about. She says: she gave you special tea – Harriman's Herbal. The Waiter says they serve their own tea, no special tea was made for anyone. They check the bill – Tea For One. Though the Waiters are bit players in the back of the scenes (except for this one) they still manage to have *characters*. The main Waiter has a perpetual snear and you aren't sure if he's up to no good... or is just pissed off at all of these pushy people he has to wait on. Why is Iris bothering him with this crazy story about an old woman and special tea? He has better things to do!

When you are writing a mystery, or any screenplay for that matter, you want to make sure the supporting characters are well drawn and memorable. Pat Duncan (COURAGE UNDER FIRE) once told me that the less time a character is on screen, the more vividly they need to be drawn... or they just become part of the scenery. In a story like this where some of these people may (or may not) be part of a conspiracy, they need to be memorable and fully formed even if they are only in a couple of scenes. We need to *know* these people, so that we can wonder if they are part of the conspiracy... or just people on a train. The mistake you might make in a mystery type screenplay is to create well drawn characters who are *guilty* but make the characters who will later be innocent sketchy and underdeveloped. Um, dead give away! One of the mistakes on my crappy film CROOKED is they *cut* the scenes with the innocent suspects (hey, why do we need scenes with these guys?) and then cast Gary Busey as the secret villain and cast *nobodies* in the other suspect roles. No secret there. They also changed everything else on that script including the *concept* - imagine THE LADY VANISHES without a lady who vanishes! So make sure even the innocent suspects are fleshed out and have real characters, some form of character arc or emotional conflict, and a subplot story in the background of the main story so they aren't just props.

Most of the supporting characters are also partially defined by their relationships, which helps with the rom-com aspects. Senor Doppo and his wife, Miss Froy who has never been married, the Todhunter “honeymoon couple”, the two long time bachelors Caldecott & Charters, Iris is going home to be married, and there's a Nun who comes into a film a little later. We'll look at her character and the Doctor who specializes in brain surgery in a moment...

Iris searches the whole train for Miss Froy, ending up in a baggage car at the end... which is filled with colorful singing and dancing hobo-types (poor villagers)... and her nemesis/romantic interest Gilbert. He says if he had known she was going to be on this train he would have stayed another week at the hotel. He hasn't seen Miss Froy and doesn't know who she is talking about...

Dialogue: One of the great things about this film is the clever dialogue. I can never understand why some people want boring realistic dialogue when you can have fun people saying fun things – imagine a comedy film filled with all of the “funny” things your co-workers say... would you really pay to see that? Part of what makes a film entertaining is crackling dialogue, and LADY VANISHES gives every character some juicy lines. Our male lead, Gilbert, has some great lines – smart ass responses to what everyone says. Hey, maybe this film is a *three-fer* because it works as a clever comedy in addition to a thriller and a rom-com.

Iris tries to get the heck away from Gilbert, but feels woozy and almost collapses. Gilbert comes to her aid and asks “What's the trouble?” “If you must know, something fell on my head.” “When? Infancy?” Iris is the straight man for Gilbert's banter – and he has a zinger for everything. “Can I help?” “Only by going away.” “Oh, no. My father taught me never to desert a lady in trouble... he even carried that as far as marrying mother.” So at 35 minutes in, the two team up to find Miss Froy – the train has not stopped, she must still be here somewhere.

In the hallway they see Senor Doppa talking to a distinguished gentleman, the brilliant brain surgeon Dr Egan Hartz (Paul Lukas) - Gilbert is impressed. “You flew over to England the other day and operated on one of our cabinet ministers.” “Yes.” “Tell me, did you find anything?” “A slight cerebral contusion.” “Well, that's better than nothing.” Dr. Hartz says he's picking up another case at the next station and accompany them to the hospital where he will operate.

You would never know that Dr. Hartz is the villain in this film – he's charming and witty and distinguished. If Gilbert wasn't the romantic lead, he could easily fit the bill (except he's a bit old) – he seems like he just stepped out of a country club cocktail party... somewhere in Prague. Lukas was a Hungarian actor who would win the Oscar for Best Male Actor for WATCH ON THE RHINE in 1943. His character is sympathetic to Iris, and wants to help – but also mentions that a knock on the head can create delusions. It's not that he doesn't believe Iris about Miss Froy, but that Iris may have imagined Miss Froy based on meeting her at the hotel... and Miss Froy was never actually on the train. Iris got knocked on the head, basically *dreamed* having tea with Miss Froy, and woke up in the compartment. The great thing about this character is that he's nice and polite and trying to be helpful... and what he says makes sense. Iris doesn't want to believe she *imagined* Miss Froy on the train, but it's possible.

When Gilbert questions the passengers in the compartment, they haven't seen her. When Dr. Hartz asks Iris what she looked like, she says that it's hard to describe her – she was a middle aged woman in oatmeal colored tweeds... and gives an amazingly detailed description, to which Gilbert quips that she must not have been paying attention. But the problem is, Miss Froy's description is kind of a generic middle aged woman wearing what generic middle aged women wear.

Dr. Hart offers to help Iris and Gilbert find her, but when they question Mr. Todhunter he says he has no idea who she is talking about. The reason why? Well, he doesn't want to get mixed up in any missing persons police business that might reveal his affair. Iris argues with him, but Mr. Todhunter doesn't back down, and Iris says *loudly* that she'll find Miss Froy if she has to stop the train to do it. This is overheard by Charters standing outside the restroom – Caldecott inside – knocks and enters and tells Caldecott that Iris is looking for Miss Froy. “Well, she's not in here.” The two realize if Iris stops the train they will miss seeing the big game, and decide to claim they never saw Miss Froy. Again, a character-related reason to deny Miss Froy's existence – which makes Iris look crazy. Dr. Hartz believes it's all an hallucination, thinks this is “Most interesting!” (his catch phrase) and excuses himself because they are about to stop at the station where he will pick up his patient.

Since this is the first time the train has stopped, Iris and Gilbert each take a side of the train to look for someone trying to smuggle Miss Froy off... but no one gets off the train. Instead only Dr. Hartz's patient (head wrapped in bandages, on a gurney from an ambulance, with a Nun/nurse in attendance) boards the train.

Though there is one more character who plays a pivotal role in the story (a woman dressed *exactly* as Iris described, but *not* Miss Froy), the Nun is the last important supporting character in the story. She is a deaf-mute – making communication impossible. But she also could not have seen Miss Froy, since she boarded the train *after* Miss Froy vanished. Later we will discover that the Nun is half-English/half-Eastern European – and this character has to make some tough decisions. She's what I call a *Pivot Character* - someone who starts out on one side and slowly changes to the other side. I've got a new chapter in the Action Book revision about this type of character – people like Tommy Lee Jones' Lt. Gerard in THE FUGITIVE. There are good guys who give in to the dark side and bad guys who see a chance for redemption. And the Nun is the latter – she is part of the conspiracy but slowly comes to realize she's on the wrong side and not only *helps* Iris and Gilbert, she eventually does what all bad guys who do good things (but still have an evil past) does – sacrifices herself so that others can live. Because of this change, the Nun is an interesting character with real depth. All of the supporting cast in LADY VANISHES are really well written.

There's a great dialogue exchange between the Todhunters where each tries to outsmart the other and gain the upper hand in their relationship – and the twists and turns in the conversation are amazing, and the wordplay is clever. “Have you taken leave of your senses?” “On the contrary, I've come to them.” These are two intelligent people battling each other with words – and these words are sharper than any sword and maybe just as deadly. A pair of supporting characters who get dialogue fit for a lead.

Clues: Now that Iris has been convinced that there was no Miss Froy, clues begin popping up that hint that maybe there *was* a Miss Froy. The great thing is that a bunch of clues have been planted already, and you didn't notice any of them! Remember Miss Froy writing her name on the dusty window? At the time there was a very good reason for that – the loud train whistle prevented Iris from hearing Miss Froy when she gave her name. You never suspected it was a clue, or that it would ever pop up again. It's was just a *visual* way for Miss Froy to relate information. Well, Gilbert and Iris are seated for lunch at the same table... but Gilbert lowers the window and we see the writing sink below their field of vision! This creates some great suspense, because *we* can see Miss Froy's name written in the dust but they don't notice it. We want to yell at the screen that the proof that Miss Froy exists is right there!

But they are engaged in a great conversation – because part of this story is a rom-com, and they are opposites (that attract) we get their first real conversation. Each lets their guard down and they reveal their true selves to each other. Iris is going home to get married to a man she doesn't love, but is dependable and financially secure. Gilbert is flat broke – when his parents died they left him straddled with their debts, and that is getting in the way of his dreams (his book on historical folk dance). Both are faced with unappealing futures – their common ground. And they genuinely enjoy each other's company. This is the key scene for the romantic subplot – after this scene, even though they each still have the same future (she's still going to get married) but they (quietly) acknowledge their attraction to each other. They end the scene as friends. All of this going on while that danged clue is right there on the window behind them! And just when Iris spots the writing on the window, they go into a tunnel and the smoke from the train engine obscures the writing forever.

In my Mystery & Noir Class, I explain many ways that clues can work in mysteries so that they are “invisible” the first time the audience sees them. The method used in LADY VANISHES is to give the clue a reason to be part of the story *before* it becomes a clue. Remember when Iris returned Miss Froy's glasses to her at the train station? Those glasses come into play later in the story when Gilbert finds them on the floor of a baggage car... and even then they don't seem to be a clue. He's fooling around, trying to cheer Iris up by doing impersonations using the things sitting around the baggage car as props. There's a Sherlock Holmes style deerstalker hat, there's a graduation cap, there's a pipe, there's a pair of glasses – he does an impersonation of a famous person with each prop... But when he gets to the glasses, Iris recognizes them as Miss Froy's. So she was *here* and she lost them in a struggle!

Remember Harriman's Herbal Tea? You thought that clue was finished when the Waiter said they did not serve her any special tea in that earlier scene. But later in the film Gilbert is standing by a window when the cook throws out the garbage... and a tea package sticks to the window – Harriman's Herbal Tea! This is actually the moment where Gilbert completely believes Iris – believes that Miss Froy exists, was on the train, was kidnapped (or worse), and there is a conspiracy involved to make Iris look crazy by denying that Miss Froy ever existed. The great thing about this clue is that the moment we see it, *we* know that Iris wasn't imagining things... without any clunky exposition. It's *visual* storytelling.

They realize the one person who can help them is Dr. Hartz, and go to his compartment, open the door, but only the Nun is there caring for the sick patient. Then Iris notices something odd - the Nun seems to be wearing high-heels. Is that allowed? Maybe she's not a nun after all? This leads them to wonder who is really under all of those bandages in Dr. Hartz's compartment? They go in and start to unravel the bandages when Dr. Hartz returns – busted! Hartz tells them this patient has no face – just raw flesh! That removing the bandages would *kill the patient*. And Gilbert and Iris realize they've gone too far and leave the compartment... But a Nun with high heels?

Okay, the biggest clue of all: Remember that guy serenading under Miss Froy's window who was murdered? Probably not – that was a long time ago. Well, he wasn't killed because he was singing off key or singing while people were trying to sleep – he was killed for the same reason Miss Froy was kidnapped (and will eventually be killed unless they can find her). That tune he was playing, the tune that Miss Froy hums in the train car while Iris is drifting to sleep? That is really a secret code and Miss Froy is a spy and Dr. Hartz is an evil villain and war is going to break out unless Miss Froy can get that code back to England! The tune is the MacGuffin! You just thought it was catchy as hell and kind of exotic. But it's actually what the whole film is about – a musical code.

And that's where you realize that Gilbert is an expert in traditional dance and music and that very first scene of his where he is playing a clarinet and taking notes on the overweight villagers dancing around his room was a set up for this pay off – eventually they will find Miss Froy who will hum the tune for him and he must memorize it... during one of those huge Hitchcock set pieces – in this case, a huge shoot out on the train between bad guy military types lead by Dr. Hartz and the passengers (our supporting cast). Caldecott and Charters are crack shots – they were in World War 1 – and trade quips while trading shots with the bad guys. All of the supporting characters fulfill their “story destiny” as Todhunter tries to manipulate and deal with the bad guys (like Ellis in DIE HARD), but first Mrs. Todhunter turns the tables on him and shows how tough she really is, the Nun risks her life to do the right thing, etc. Whether it's an arc or just a decision – each of the supporting characters is an important part of that big end scene... where Miss Froy is shot at while running from the train and falls down *hard* - probably dead. Now it's up to Gilbert to remember the tune in order to save the world!

Sound Track: That tune was written by Louis Levy, who does a great job of scoring the film. It's a little “big” at times, but not too obtrusive... never reaching Full Korngold status. Levy also wrote the music for THE 39 STEPS (another catchy tune that figures into the story), the original MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, SABOTAGE, THE SECRET AGENT... plus NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH and MILLIONS LIKE US. This guy composed the music for almost every British film you can think of pre-1958!

THE LADY VANISHES is a fun film that holds up pretty well today due to its humor, zippy pace, and sexual situations (PG, but lots of lingerie)... and because it's public domain, you can easily find a free copy online or a cheap DVD version. Check it out!

- Bill

The other Fridays With Hitchcock.

BUY THE DVD AT AMAZON:

Lancelot Link: Goat Protocol

2011-12-15T00:14:00.000-08:00

Lancelot Link Thursday! If you saw the trailer to the new MISSION IMPOSSIBLE movie and thought: A chimp could have easily climbed that building! Why did they call Ethan Hunt when they could have called Lancelot Link? Here is a list of links to some great screenwriting and film articles, plus some fun stuff that may be of interest to you. Brought to you by that suave and sophisticated secret agent...

Here are nine cool links plus this week's car chase...

1) The Black List! - Best As-Yet-To-Be-Made-But-Probably-In-Production-Already screenplays. Some are assignments, some based on novels, some by big gun screenwriters.

2) The Hit List (specs only) - this list is *only* for spec scripts - but again, many are sold or in pre-prod already. Still no list exists for script that did not sell but are freakin' great, and scripts by unrepped writers who have yet to be discovered that are freakin' great. Can someone get on that?

3) This is the time of year that studios post their screenplays that they hope will be nominated for Oscars, For Your Consideration.

4) SAG Awards SNUB Serkis!

5) Americans HATE Foreign Films!

6) Screenwriter's Round Table - from Thanksgiving time, I think I missed it.

7) How Ten Top Screenwriters Hone Their Craft - Hollywood Reporter Oscar Watch.

8) Biggest FLOPS of 2011!

9) Script Magazine sold to Writer's Digest - Yes, it's true. I'll keep you updated when I learn more.

And this week's Car Chase!

BOURNE SUPREMACY - I think I ran it before, sorry! But I'm not sure, so here it is... maybe again.

- Bill

IT'S BACK!
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The Thing Prequel And Suspense

2011-12-14T00:16:00.000-08:00

I once saw John Carpenter in Dupar's Diner in Studio City eating breakfast. He'd have a forkful of eggs, then amble outside and have a smoke, then come back in for another forkful of eggs. When he walked past me, I whistled the theme to ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13. He either didn't notice, or purposely ignored me. My guess is the latter. But even after he has said terrible things about the profession of screenwriting, and given us some recent stinkers – I am still a big fan.

Carpenter movies are well-crafted, goofy, fun. To me they are meatloaf and mashed potatoes – comfort food. You won't find them on the menu at some snooty restaurant, and gourmet chefs will look down their noses... but it tastes great! Carpenter is never going to win an Oscar, but 50 years from now some of his films will be classics in the same way his idol Howard Hawks' films used to be popcorn and are now masterpieces. Some of his films are some form of classics *now*. Can we talk about modern horror films without bringing up HALLOWEEN? And then there is that great remake he did of a film Howard Hawks may have secretly directed, THE THING.

You can tell THE THING is considered a classic by the amount of anger over the remake-prequel from the moment it was announced. I thought much of this was amusing, in the same way I find the current outrage over the new remake of SCARFACE to be amusing – um, remaking a remake isn't exactly sacrilege. Hey, this could be THE THING for a new generation! But the weird thing about the “prequel” was that it would be the story of the Norwegians from the first couple of minutes of the Carpenter version... except Carpenter's version has video of the Norwegians that is either footage from the Hawks' version or a recreation... making the *Hawks* version the prequel. Um, are they remaking the Hawks version?

Just before the new prequel came out, I posted a scene from the Hawks Version here that was also in the Carpenter Version as the video footage. That was an iconic scene that, um, found its way into one of my scripts (in a completely different situation). In the Hawks Version the scientists circle the flying saucer in the ice with arms stretched to get an idea of the size of the object, in my script a group of people – one of whom may be a werewolf – join hands in a circle and wait for the moon to come up (while one sings a bastardized song from ANNIE). The thing about THE THING is that you have *two* great previous versions you have to match in quality. That's tough.

WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT?

The problem with remakes is that people will compare them to the original – but the *solution* is that the original shows you the path to doing it right. Though you want it to be “the same but different” that doesn't mean you can just do a substitution thing like they did with HANGOVER 2 – because one of the things that make films work is their *originality*. Both ALIEN and ALIENS are spooky monsters in a dark house movies – and work in similar ways: isolating a member from the group in a dark place where we know that monsters lurk. But each tackles the basic idea from a different direction, and become different films. No “search and replace” involved in the screenplays. They understood that *originality* is one of the elements that made the first film popular, so they did something original and different for the sequel. Not a carbon copy – but still a member of the family.

And the two previous versions of THE THING were different and yet the same. The Hawks Version (directed by Christian Nyby) was a straight monster attack movie - and it was creepy as hell. A group of people living in isolation – no escape - with that carrot dude *somewhere* in the building. Not blasting through walls and killing people. Mostly hiding in the shadows. Suspense and dread were created by people walking through the Air Force Station hallways knowing that it was... somewhere. When the monster *does* attack – they are shock attacks where the creature is exposed for a couple of minutes before disappearing back into the shadows. I'm sure that one of the reason the “carrot-monster” played by James Arness (Matt Dillon from GUNSMOKE) is that make up effects weren't that great at the time, so keeping the monster in the shadows was a great way to keep it from looking stupid. But as we know from JAWS, that's also a great way to amp up the dread-factor. So our shrinking group of survivors – civilians and scientists and Air Force guys – must learn to work together to fight the monster and survive. I'm sure this was a Cold War anti-Commie movie about coming together for the common good (ironic, huh?).

The Carpenter Version is is a paranoid horror story about the difficulty in trusting people these days. Going back to the original story by John Campbell, screenwriter Bill Lancaster (Burt's son – writer of THE BAD NEWS BEARS... and *there's* a double bill) has a monster that basically takes over the bodies of others... so that trusted friend may actually be the monster in disguise. We have the same snow-bound lab full of scientists (though I think they changed poles) and the same dark hallways and the same possibility for a monster to spring from the darkness, but the difference is that the monster may also be that guy sitting next to you at dinner. This is a core change that makes the film all about trust. And I think that is why the Carpenter Version is still will us all of these years later. The film was not a theatrical success, but had a long shelf life on video... because it's actually about something. Sure, it's got cutting edge for the time special effects that crank it to 11 on the gross-out meter, and some snappy dialogue... but the theme of *trust* is something we can relate to even today. Every scene in the film ends up being about *trust* - and all of those great moments are trust related: the wire in the blood is all about “who can we trust”?

Though the Rob Bottin special effects were cutting edge then (and look amazing now – better than much of the CGI stuff in the remake) they were still smart enough to keep the monster mostly off screen and create *mystery* around it. Yeah, we got to get a good long look at the spider-head, but when the thing is in the dog cage it's mostly in the shadows. Familiarity breeds contempt – and that extends to monsters in monster movies. There are some great monster set-pieces where we see the monster, but like the Hawks Version the creature is never on screen long enough to wear out its welcome... or just become a boring effect. We fear the unknown – and the minute we “know” the monster too well, we can not fear it.

Which brings us to the “prequel”. I wanted to like it, because the first two versions are great and it would be swell if the third was great in its own way. The ALIEN series dropped the ball on the third film and never really recovered. Can THE THING have a great third entry? I really like Mary Elizabeth Winstead from SCOTT PILGRIM (and if you have not seen that one – it's a blast) even without blue hair... but she doesn't look the least bit Norwegian. And that angry guy from BOURNE IDENTITY who played Robert Mugabe doesn't look Norwegian, either. This film *is* about Norwegians, right?

FORSHADOWING IN THE SHADOWS

One of the things that I anticipated would be fun in this film would be the plants that all pay off in that scene in the Carpenter Version where MacReady and Blair visit the Norwegian camp. One of the things that made the 3rd STAR WARS prequel barely tolerable were the things leading up to Anakin becoming Darth Vader. So I was waiting to see which character was *defined* by using an old fashioned straight razor to shave with. That's unusual, so it's character related... but no razor is used in the film until their tacked-on ending. It's almost as if it became a “prequel” in post production. Talk about missed opportunities! A straight razor is such a cool thing for a character to use, that it would have added to the film even if it wasn't part of that tacked on ending. One of the great things about the Carpenter Version is that all of the characters – and it's a large cast – are distinctive and different. Each has an arc, too. I love how Gary shoots the Norwegian in that opening scene and takes flack from the others for *wanting* to use his gun, but the character gets this great moment of regret and sadness. He has taken a man's life. And if we take Gary or any of the other characters in the story and just follow them – they have their own story and their own journey in the film. In the “prequel” the characters are thin and not well defined... and none of them uses a straight razor.

By the way – if the fear was that showing one of the characters using the straight razor would be a dead giveaway that they'd be that frozen suicide dude at the end, the solution is to have another character *hate* that straight razor, think it's dangerous and doesn't want to be in the bathroom while the guy is shaving with it... and *that's* the character who uses the straight razor to kill themselves at the end. Or some fake-out version. But by *not* establishing that there even *is* a straight razor, that end just seems tacked on fake and makes me want to kill the filmmakers. But not with a straight razor. A ripe tomato.

The funny thing about the “prequel” is that it ends up being a remake of the Hawks Version, kind of... and yet also a "search and replace" of Carpenter's version. It's a monster attack movie in a snowbound location. But unlike the Hawks version – the monster is always in full light and they *dwell* on it! And it seems like every scene from the Carpenter Version gets a dopey version here: they did a "search and replace" on the wire in the blood scene and gave is a fillings in the mouth scene. Huh?

My main complaint with the prequel is that it's hollow - a movie about nothing. Not about a group of different people banding together to fight a common enemy like the Hawks Version (Cold War stuff) nor about the difficulty of trusting people in the modern world (Carpenter Version). It's just a monster attacking people. And it has no logic - if the creature doesn't want to be discovered why is it blasting out of places and killing people? And if it just wants to blast out and kill people, why doesn't it just do that (and the movie will be over in 10 minutes)? The story makes no sense at all. There is a point in the film where the monster has *escaped* - but then comes back just to kill some more people. It's one of those movies where the monster's goal seems to be: kill everyone, but kill the cute girl last.

The cute non-Norwegian girl.

ROM-COM THING

The Hawks Version had a female in the cast, the Carpenter Version was all testosterone – and used that as an element. The “prequel” has a female lead and another female character – and this might have been an interesting thing to make the film *about*. To give it a story between monster attacks. As silly as it sounds, rom-com THING would have been a good angle for this film: not the com part, but use romantic part - and have these isolated people hook up because they are lonely... "Trust in a relationship's a tough thing to come by these days." We all seem to live in some form of isolation these days – we used to interact with each other in person, but instead of sitting in Residuals Bar listening to me talk about THE THING you are reading this online and I am writing it online. We do more and more things *alone* - and we may even date people who we previously knew *from online*. So, take an isolated group of people who are stuck in the same building for months, maybe years... and they become more lonely and more likely to hook up and the dating pool is all shallow-end.

I can tell you from experience that a film crew – working together for 12 hour days and maybe staying at the same Holiday Inn on location will sprout a bunch of set romances. And that leads to set break ups and no shortage of awkward situations where people who just broke up badly must be inches away from each other. That's some great drama to happen between monster attacks – and can become part of the story when your monster assimilates the bodies and memories of its victims. Oh, and monster-wise: if I'm going to have a scene where two guys' heads meld together, one of those guys is going to be set up hitting on the other earlier in the film... and have the other guy turn him down flat and be creeped out having to work with him for the rest of their time in the research center. Put a bunch of guys in an isolated snow bound place together and a certain amount of homophobia will bubble to the surface – and we can explore that in the story. They could have made the monster elements about the characters and the story instead of just a series of attacks in full light.

So the “prequel” becomes nothing more than a crappo monster movie with a tacked on ending that turns it into a prequel. But not only is the version of the script that ended up on film lacking, the direction kills any suspense and dread and scares that might have existed even after the keep showing the monster for expended periods in full light. This director has no idea what he is doing and needs to be kicked out of Hollywood as soon as possible – or forced to watch good movies until he can figure out *what makes them good*.

SUSPENSE ON SCREEN

Okay - someone is walking through dark, spooky room... what is it we (audience) want to see? The person *walking* or what might be skittering in that shadow in front of them? It's all about POV - what is important isn't the person walking, it's *what they see* (or think they see). Only an idiot director would keep the camera on the girl with the flashlight and not show us what the girl *sees* with that flashlight! If you look at 1955s DIABOLIQUE's end - there's more screen time spent on what Vera Clouzot is looking at than on hottie Vera Clouzot looking. The long hallway, the sliver of light coming from the door - jeeze - is her dead husband in there *typing*? The key to creating suspense is to put the audience in the protagonist's shoes – and we can't be in their shoes and be looking at the shoes. The most important shots are *not* the star, but what the star is looking at. The problem with THE THING prequel is that we **never** see what she is seeing – we only see her looking. No suspense or dread in that at all. That DIABOLIQUE scene works – not because we see *the star*, but because we see *what the star sees* - and by alternating those shots we feel like we are in her shoes looking through the shadows. Wait... I can describe that scene from DIABOLIQUE, but why not just show it to you and talk about it afterwords?

OKAY: MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR SPOILERS!!!!!!!
THIS IS THE **END** OF THE MOVIE!!!!!!

The story until now: Vera Clouzot is a shy (but hot) school teacher who has inherited this huge old private school. She has also inherited a heart condition, and could drop dead at any time. She's frail. Isn't supposed to get excited. And discovers that her slimy husband has found excitement outside of their marriage... with another teacher at the school played by the sultry Simone Signoret. Now usually these two would be fighting each other, but did I mention the husband is slimy? What happens is both women turn against the husband, and decide to kill him. Over a holiday break, Signoret lures him to her house where the two women drug his wine and drown him in the bathtub, and then take his corpse back to the school in a huge wicker basket and throw his corpse in the school's swimming pool that is closed for he season. A drowning accident. But the body is never discovered, and when they find an excuse to drain the pool... no corpse. WTF? The two women panic – what could have happened to his body? Did animals drag it away? If so, how can they prove that he's dead?

Which brings us to the scene....

Okay, let's take a look at how it works.

1) She's sleeping and a sound wakes her up... Footsteps climbing the stairs - then light from across the courtyard.

2) She looks out her window and there is a light on in her husband's office. Notice that she looks out the window, then we see out the window (and from her point of view – in Hitchcock/Truffaut they talk about the remake of THE 39 STEPS and how instead of using Hannay's POV looking at the two men watching on the street, they have a non-POV eye-level shot of the two men, which doesn't come from anywhere and takes us *out* of the protagonist's shoes, undercutting our identification – when people say “well, maybe the editor decided to do that”, the problem is that the editor can only work with the shots the director gives her... and if the director doesn't have a plan for the sequence and just shoots coverage, you end up with a bunch of junk shots that do not work). We see what Vera sees, then back to Vera looking, as she decides to investigate.

3) She opens the door and looks down the hallway... and WE see down the hallway from her POV. She walks down the hallway. She hears footsteps... and we see someone walking – this is a break in POV, and I think it doesn't work well. It splits us from knowing only what Vera knows and also having the additional knowledge that there is a man walking in the hallway. In the film there is a nosy cop – and I'm sure this was put here to suspect the nosy cop of setting her up... but *that* undercuts the scene. I think these shots are stumbles... but there are only a couple of them, and the rest of the scene just kicks ass.

4) She enters the next hallway. Looks down the long hallway... and WE see down the hallway from OVER HER SHOULDER at a faint light at the end of the hall (this is a great moving shot). An Over The Shoulder Shot is a great combo of POV *and* Star – even though it's usually just the star's back. Sometimes there's enough of the side of their face that it's really the best of both shots. Here the shot continues to see a door open *behind her* and someone step out. The cop?

5) The sound of the typewriter pounding away in the office. How is that possible? She walks down the long hallway, and this is the core of the scene. We cut back and forth between her cautiously walking to her husband's office and a POV shot of her getting closer to the office door... the light slicing from under it. In NORTH BY NORTHWEST we get shots of Cary Grant running and looking over his shoulder alternating with the zooming crop duster heading right at him. One of the great things in that sequence is the *pacing* - the length of the shots (in frames) becomes shorter with each shot – making the scene more and more frantic as it goes on. This was a common suspense editing technique in the days of Steinbeck Film Editors where actual physical frames of film were part of cutting. You counted frames and created a rhythm... or created an anti-rhythm to throw the audience off. Now, with editing on digital media I'm not sure editors even think in terms of frames anymore. The technique of shaving a frame or three with each shot to build tension may be lost.

6) When Vera gets to the end of the hall, the office door slowly opens sending a slice of light towards her – as if it's searching for her... and finds her!

7) She cautiously enters the office – and again we get shots of her alternating with her POV of inside the office – this puts us in her shoes and builds suspense up the wazoo. She sees the typewriter on the desk with a piece of paper in it – and that is two shots. She moves to the typewriter (shots of her, POV shots of the dark spooky room), pulls out the paper, and reads it – and we get a POV shot of the paper so that *we* can also read it. Her husband's name over and over again.

8) Footsteps coming from the darkness in her husband's room. She runs like hell.

9) Shots of her running all the way back to her bedroom - her running away, her running towards, her feet running. This is all about panic.

10) In her bathroom, she splashes water on her face... sees something and clutches her heart – this is a great tease shot, because we have not yet seen what she sees... THEN we get her POV shot of her dead husband's corpse in the bathtub. How did he get there? Who put him there? The nosy cop?

11) She backs up, looks... Her POV of her husband rising up!

And that's how you create a suspense scene on film. It's not just shots of cute Mary Elizabeth Winstead holding a flashlight walking from room to room – it's WHAT SHE SEES. That flashlight's pale beam searching the shadows and things skittering in the darkness.

I thought THE THING “prequel” was a let down on many levels, but just as a monster attack movie, the *director* screwed up by not giving us those POV shots and only shooting the star wandering around with a flashlight. Is that because they think it is all about the star? Or because they are *not* thinking about the audience and how to create emotions within the audience? Alternating shots of the character and shots of what the character sees goes back to the pioneers of cinema – they knew how to do this stuff... how come directors today don't seem to know it?

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Research For Story - and BLUE CRUSH... some warm weather background on a chilly day!
Dinner: China Wall in Concord, CA - all you can eat Chinese food.
Pages: Well, I finished revising the Action Book... and today I wrote this blog entry, and I *still* plan to write a new spec by the end of the year in warp drive mode!
Bicycle: No... but a long walk.

Movies: THE MUPPET MOVIE - I laughed, I cried. But, then, I love The Muppets. And the Muppets are back - in a great fun film filled with big Hollywood musical numbers. It's the most old fashioned musical made in the past couple of decades. I loved it - but that made me wonder who the audience for this nostalgic flick about smart-ass puppets is: It seems to be made for fans of the 70s TV show and the 1979 movie... and we are, um, old people. Will kids like this film? That's actually part of the plot - are the Muppets *relevant* in 2011? Well, whether they are or not - they are still entertaining. There's a huge musical number with thousands of dancers on Hollywood Blvd, a great song about being a man or a muppet than opened my tear ducts, and some other great stuff. At one point I thought we were going to go full-on MEET THE FEEBLES when they round up the old gang, but they kinda pulled that punch. A nice return for these furry friends, but I think the script needed another pass - especially in the Kermie-Piggy subplot. Also - considering all of the guest stars from the past, why pick these people? James Carville?

Movies: DESCENDANTS - Screw Sean Penn, George Clooney is our greatest living actor. Clooney manages to be a *real* movie star, plus do films like this that are small and interesting and dramatic... and the dude can act. There are scenes in this film that require a bunch of emotions playing behind his smile - and he does an amazing job of showing you each layer of emotion. The story: Clooney is a Hawaiian businessman whose wife gets hurt in an accident and is not expected to live - so this absent father must now take care of his two daughters while he tracks down all of his wife's friends and family to break the news that she's got about a week of life left. It's a sad movie, and an angry one. Here's a great screenwriting lesson: the story may sound like a small drama, but it has stakes up the wazoo. Clooney is the most hated man in Hawaii - his family owns a huge chunk of the island, and they may sell it to turn it into condos and crap. That's the big business deal that he's working on. And his family - "the cousins" - have formed groups and each has a developer to sell to - and Clooney is the man in the middle getting beat up on all sides... and that's before his wife gets in the accident and has about a week to live. His two daughters? Not some sweet sitcom kids - one is a recovering drug addict in a boarding school for problem kids, and his youngest (aged 10) is about to be expelled from school for acting out big time. She's a hellion. He has no idea what to do with these girls. So instead of some small quiet drama - he's in the eye of a tornado of crap... and his wife will be dead in a week. High stakes. Not some little story about a dying wife - the fate of Hawaii hangs in the balance, here. Oh, and I forgot to mention that the wife has/had a HUGE secret that is uncovered along the way. One of the things I liked about the film was how every character gets a great moment - there's this idiot stoner that the teen drug addict daughter *brings with them* as they go to tell friends and family of the wife to go to the hospital and say goodbye *now* because she'll be dead in a week. This dofus is great comic relief - when scenes get tense he says something stupid (and in one scene someone has a negative reaction to that) - but he also gets a great scene later in the film where you understand him. The two actresses playing the girls are both great. This is not a great film - but it's a very good one. And all of the cast does a great job - especially Clooney, who manages to use his charm in dark scenes where I think any other actor would have taken it too far. He gives a great layered performance.

- Bill

IT'S BACK!
*** SECRETS OF ACTION SCREENWRITING *** - For Kindle!
*** SECRETS OF ACTION SCREENWRITING *** - For Nook! (coming soon)
Why pay $510 for a *used* copy of the 2000 version when you can buy the Expanded 2011 Version - now over 460 pages - for $9.99? NEW Chapters! NEW Techniques! NEW Examples! It's the book pro screenwriters recommend! An Oscar Winner and the co-writer of FOUR of the Top 20 Box Office Movies Of All Time recommend it! (which is probably why someone is selling a used copy for $510.) Filled with techniques you will not find anywhere else!
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NEW!
*** DIALOGUE SECRETS *** - For Kindle!
*** DIALOGUE SECRETS *** - For Nook! (coming soon)
Expanded version with dozens of ways to improve your dialogue! Print version is 48 pages, Kindle version is almost 200 pages!
Only $2.99 - and no postage!

NEW!
*** YOUR IDEA MACHINE *** - For Kindle!
*** YOUR IDEA MACHINE *** - For Nook!
Expanded version with more ways to find great ideas! Print version is 48 pages, Kindle version is around 155 pages!
Only $2.99 - and no postage!

NEW!
*** CREATING STRONG PROTAGONISTS *** - For Kindle!
*** CREATING STRONG PROTAGONISTS *** - For Nook! (coming soon)
Expanded version with more ways to create interesting protagonists! Print version is 48 pages, Kindle version is once again around 155 pages!
Only $2.99 - and no postage!

SECRETS OF ACTION SCREENWRITING!

2011-12-11T13:56:00.000-08:00

Yes, I'm yelling... sorry!

So, way back in the year 2000 the last version of my book Secrets Of Action Screenwriting came out and went through a couple of printings without any revisions, and sometime before those books were gone I realized I needed to rewrite the first 6-8 chapters of the book - especially the first 4 - because they were pretty much unchanged from the xeroxed pages I had given friends before there was even the thought of a book. That stuff needed work! Plus, the book had gotten old. So I decided to do a rewrite before it went back into print... then life happened and it got shoved aside. Again and again.

Soon the book had gone out of print... and people began paying crazy prices for used copies on Amazon and eBay. Here is *yesterday's* Amazon used price:

Yes - that says $510 for a book with a cover price of $21.95!

And it sold on eBay once for $999.00 (um, almost a thousand bucks! Wish I got some of that! I guess that means people thought it was good.)

All of this has amused me over the years.

And people keep asking me when the new edition is coming out, and just when I get ready to start the rewrite, some script job comes up.

It just kept getting pushed back on the Big To Do List again and again... never getting To Done.

One of those years, the big Publishers Convention came to Los Angeles and I took what few copies of the book I had left and gave them to interested publishers - and there were a few... and I got some e-mails and some calls about the book and how I was doing on the rewrite... but what I had really wanted out of that was a contract with a firm deadline so I would be forced to rewrite the book.

But this year I decided I HAD to get it finished no matter what.

About halfway through the year I did a Kindle experiment with the Ideas Blue Book - which is probably #3 or #4 today on the Amazon Screenwriting Best Sellers, because it always is. And while actually doing the rewrite I "goofed off" by rewriting two more Blue Books and putting them up (to keep me fresh on the coding side). (And that came in handy, because the coding on Secrets ended up a nightmare - but you'd never notice from the book. Still has a couple of minor issues like a list where the first item has a "1." and the rest have ")"s - pisser) But, um, the book is finally finished. Over 460 pages. (Kindle doesn't have page numbers, so I had to go by number of words divided by average page of the paper book version - and that doesn't include title page, bio, etc junk - and *that* was 463 pages.)

The new edition is completely rewritten, has new chapters and new information and - like the old version - is technique based. Tools, no rules.

Oh, and I thought about pricing it at $510... but the last version sold for $21.95, so I thought a fair price might be... $9.99.

So, almost twice as many pages, for less than half the 2000 original price.

CLICK HERE for more info!

PS: I really wanted it to be 500 pages, and missed it by that much...

- Bill

Fridays With Hitchcock: Marine

2011-12-09T00:54:00.000-08:00

Could someone explain Tippi Hedren to me? Okay, she’s Melanie Griffith’s mom, and she owns this big wild cat sanctuary - there’s even this self produced movie she made called ROAR that’s about living with and loving big cats - starring her whole family, including a kid version of Melanie. They have lions sleeping on the end of their bed as anyone else might have a big dog. So you get the idea that Tippi is an outdoor girl... except her image is ultra-glamourous. A director I know recently cast her in a film as a homeless woman... and she showed up perfectly manicured and in eveningwear. No dirt make up for Tippi! This made the scene... unusual... as you couldn’t figure out why wealthy looking society woman Tippi would be looking for a handout. Even in ROAR she seems more like a socialite with exotic pets than someone you might catch camping in the wild, or living in some cabin in the middle of nowhere. Tippi always comes off like a Barbie doll come to life - made of plastic.

Hitchcock had a thing for blondes, and most of his films starred blonde leads - you can go all the way back to THE LODGER (1927) which opens with a screaming blonde woman and a night club marque that says “Tonight - Golden Curls”. From Ingrid Bergman to Grace Kelly, Hitch always cast blondes in the female lead role - and when he was casting THE BIRDS he “discovered” Hedron and was grooming her to be the next big thing. Well, that didn’t work out so well. She’s mostly know for THE BIRDS but the follow up, MARNIE, didn’t catapult her to stardom. Part of that is the film’s problem... the rest?

Nutshell: MARNIE (1964) is kind of a big glossy Tennessee Williams soap opera - which makes it silly when it should have been gritty. Marnie (Hedren) takes an office job in a new town, works her way up to a position of trust, then steals all of the money in the safe and splits... changing her name and her hair color and getting a job in some other city and doing this all over again. The money she steals goes to her disabled mother living in a slum in Boston... well, sort of. She buys her a mink stole - which is exactly what all of the folks living in the slums need. The hair steals the show, here - and is often so distracting you lose track of the plot.

MARNIE takes place in New England, but seems to take place in some version of the South - just without the mint juleps and hoop skirts. People do have these grand balls and ride horses and go on fox hunts. Marnie owns a horse, that is boarded while she’s off stealing money in different colored overly-coiffed hairdos.

When Marnie, light red hair, interviews for a new job, the boss Mark Rutland (Sean Connery) thinks her recognizes her as the brunette who robbed his friend’s company - so he hires her, even though her resume is light... and he promotes her to that position of trust where she has access to the safe. Before Mark took over his father’s company, he was studying to be a zoologist and all of this is some kind of experiment to see how long it takes her to rip him off. I guess when you’re a handsome rich dude, you do experiments like this - I wouldn’t know.

As Mark studies Marnie, he notes all of her strange quirks... She can’t stand the color red - whenever she sees red, the whole screen goes red and the image is tinted red for a moment afterwards. (The sountrack album was a bright red disk.) Thunder and lightning totally freaks her out - she cowers in the corner like a dog. She can’t stand to be touched by men - she’s a frigid virgin (I’m not sure if that is technically possible, but that’s what she is). Eventually she robs him and runs away. Because this has to be the most screwed up woman with the most complex hairdo he has ever met, he finds her and marries her. Now, Mark is a chick magnet - this is prime James Bond era Connery - and he could have any woman he wants. In fact, his dead wife’s sister (Diane Baker) who lives in his grand country home, throws herself at him constantly... and she’s hot. So when Mark decides to marry a frigid virgin klepto with color red and lightning issues, you wonder what’s up with that?

They take a honeymoon cruise where there is no honeymoon... until Mark basically rapes his wife - and she just lays there like a carp. Of course, with Hedron’s acting it’s hard to tell what’s frigid and what’s just normal. When they return from the cruise, the soap opera kicks into high gear as the dead wife’s sister begins investigating Marnie’s past and Mark’s buddy who was robbed by the brunette version of Marnie is invited to a grand ball and Marnie’s horse breaks a leg on a fox hunt after Marnie sees the color red on the Huntmaster’s vest... and Marnie grabs herself a gun and blasts the horse. All sorts of silly soapy complications... and Mark continues his study.

Just to make this all kind of relevant, Mark’s father is played by Alan Napier who played Alfred on the BATMAN TV show. He doesn’t have much to do in the film.

SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS!

Eventually Mark figures it all out, and we get our big Tennessee Williams family secret reveal... He takes Marnie back to her mother’s slum apartment where Carrie White style ultra-religious mom reveals she was filthy whore who screwed an army of sailors (or should that be a navy of sailors?) Including a young Bruce Dern as a sailor who hugs a child version of Marnie (also with overdone hair) and it’s implied that maybe he does more... so Marnie’s filthy whore mom tries to kill him. When she fails, and Dern starts beating on her, child Marnie grabs a firepoker and kills horny sailor Bruce Dern... red blood flowing, lightning flashing, thunder crashing.

Now that Marnie has gotten that off her chest, she hugs Mark and you just know that whole frigid thing is over and they’re gonna go home and get it on... “Don’t touch the hair!”

Hitch Appearance: Boring - he comes out of a hotel room.

Great Scenes: Again, a shortage of great scenes kills this film. When Marnie robs Mark’s safe, there’s a little suspense with a cleaning lady mopping the floor of the office, so that she has to take off her shoes and sneak out... and then she drops a shoe! This scene is almost a split screen - with Marnie stealing and sneaking out on the right side of the screen, with a wall splitting the screen, and the cleaning lady mopping on the left side. But this whole scene goes to hell after Marnie drops her shoe - making a loud noise - and the cleaning lady does *nothing*. Hey, she’s deaf! This removes any suspense the scene may have built... but the split screen concept is kind of cool, and probably influenced Brain DePalma.

There are some, um, interesting images in the film, including the opening shot of a purse that looks like female genitalia (there's a pun in there somewhere) - and some other suggestive shots throughout the film. Something kinky about Marnie riding bareback on her horse Forio in a skirt - the shots focus on bare flesh and horse mane.

The set pieces - the fox hunt, the grand ball, the horse races - all seem soapy and silly instead of exciting and interesting. When she shoots her horse, the gun in her hand might have been used for suspense... but it’s just kind of there. The big reveal at the end doesn’t really work, because - even though Marnie has all of these quirks - the film doesn’t spend as much time digging into that mystery as they spend on Marnie’s hair. So the reveal doesn’t shock us or suddenly solve the big mystery... it’s just kind of there. Hey, ultra religious mom was a filthy whore! I don’t care. I think part of this is just not caring about Marnie, because she always seems non-human. Distant, plastic, cold.

Sound Track: Lush, beautiful Bernard Herrmann score. If the film sometimes seems like Hitch was trying to find some way to remake VERTIGO, the score does a great job of making it seem like VERTIGO 2: THE REVENGE.

MARNIE isn’t as good as SPELLBOUND, another Hitch film about a character with a repressed memory (and the main film parodied by Mel Brooks in HIGH ANXIETY) . The best thing about MARNIE is that, since we’re moving backwards through Hitch movies, the best films are on the horizon... and that bright red vinyl disk with Herrmann’s score - his last to be heard on a Hitchcock film.

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Something .
Yesterday’s Dinner: Ceasar Chicken Salad at Fuddruckers.
Movies: Yes, I have seen DARK KNIGHT... and I will blog about it!
Bicycle: Bought a can of that Fix-A-Flat stuff that worked for a day... then the tire went flat again. It's the rear tire, changing a tube is labor intensive, so I haven't gotten around to it - been busy with all kinds of other things. So I've been off the bike for about a week, now. Busy weekend - POINT BLANK & BULLITT at the Egyptian - so I probably won't fix the flat until early next week. Problem is - I'm eatin' all kinds of bad food in celebration and need to work some of it off!

Lancelot Link: Book Of Shadows

2011-12-08T01:00:00.000-08:00

Lancelot Link Thursday! It's list and awards time! Though the Black List comes out *tomorrow*, we're getting a jump on the season with a list of our own - a list of links to some great screenwriting and film articles, plus some fun stuff that may be of interest to you. Brought to you by that suave and sophisticated secret agent...

Here are eight cool links plus this week's car chase...

1) British Independent Film Awards - the winners! Hey, and a shout out to the beautiful Johanna who produces the awards and runs them. She is just amazing! I've been to the BIFAs a few times, and Johanna is the reason I got the invitation.

2) BETTER than the Black List, it's the WISH LIST!

3) Best Horror Films of 2011! Congrats to my friend Keith who has *two* films on the list!

4) In Competition At Sundance - 2012!

5) WGA Awards Nominees.

6 Tis The Season For Tattoos!

7) That's Tom Cruise doing his on stunts in MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL.

8a) Diablo Cody talks to Frank Darabont about NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3 at the New Beverly. (Thanks to Jeff!)

8b) Part 2 of the Darabont interview. The sequel!

Tomorrow I will post and tweet the link to the Black List as soon as it comes out. Meanwhile, here is this week's car chase!

NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN - Car and motorcycle!

- Bill

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Robot Monsters With Breasts!

2011-12-07T00:28:00.000-08:00

Some movies are so bad that they're good... and others are bad and weird and make you wonder about the people who made them. Here are two of the strangest films I have ever seen - both are about robot monsters and both have no shortage of topless women...

EXTERMINATOR CITY is a train wreck of a film that combines puppet robots and GIRLS GONE WILD. You know how some films require that you consume a 12 pack in order to enjoy them (I've written many of these)? This film requires you to drop acid *and* do mushrooms to fully understand the story. The robot puppets are kind of MST-3000 style - and the only thing that moves is their mouths. The bodies don't move, the camera doesn't move. I got the feeling the whole film was made by one guy with a tri-pod. He would set up the camera, then operate the robot puppet. There are no "two shots" of robots - that would require an extra person. So we get close up of Cop Robot intercut with close up of Psychiatrist Robot. Never both in the same shot. Never any two characters in the same shot. No long shots or wide shots at all.

The "story" has a robot serial killer attacking big breasted women just as they begin playing with their upper torso bundles of pleasure for no reason. But the robot serial killer is never in the same shot as the babes - and they aren't even on the same tape stock - the robots are crisp, the babes are fuzzy grainy - maybe shot on the director's mom's camcorder. There is *never* a shot of the robots *and* the babes. Even the killing scenes have no interaction.

The robot serial killer was an exterminator - and kills all kinds of big plastic toy bugs. Oh, and mounted animal heads on his walls often talk to him. He's crazy... It doesn't make much sense, but it's just so weird you keep watching to see if it ever makes sense. No - it gets *weirder*. The Robot Cop begins to develop the traits of the Robot Serial Killer! And those plastic toy bugs show up all over the place. It's like NAKED LUNCH made by a really horny 13 year old boy obsessed by robots!

Because there are never any shots where the robots *move* or enter a room, there are these crazy shots used to connect scenes - a really bad miniature building with a toy space ship on a wire zipping past really fast. I think he made it really fast so that we wouldn't be able to tell it was some toystore model, but it ends up so fast that we aren't sure *what* it is. This is Ed Wood film making at its finest. "Perfect!"

The only humans in this film are the topless babes... puppet robots play every other role.

I found out about this movie on a message board where people were discussing the weirdest movie they have ever seen. This was the "winner". I'll tell you, it's hard to imagine any film that is weirder now that I've seen it... but, you should *not* see it. EXTERMINATOR CITY is like a giant zit on someone's face - not pretty to look at, but can you really *not* look at it?

Meanwhile, LADY TERMINATOR is a film that should not be seen sober. It’s a Indonesian knock off of TERMINATOR, but obviously someone in the legal department was worried, so the opening of the film sets it up as based on the legend of the South Sea Queen (I think) who had 100 husbands and bite off all of their man-parts with an eel she hides in her woman-parts. Blood sprays from many a man’s groin area in this film. Like a garden hose of red liquid. Not subtle or realistic. Well, after husband #100 pulls out the eel and saves his man-parts, the South Sea Queen puts a curse on his family - specifically his great grand daughter - and returns to the sea.

Cut to decades later, this smokin’ hot babe who could not act her way out of a rice paper bag, claims to be an anthropologist studying for her thesis who is researching the South Sea Queen legend. Whenever she said she was an anthropologist, it got a laugh - like Denise Richards as a nuclear scientist in that James Bond movie.

Just when you are about to leave the cinema because her acting is so bad it actually hurts, she dons a bikini and dives into the cursed area of the South Sea where the Queen vanished, and comes back as the Lady Terminator... hell bent on finding that Great Grand Daughter and killing her.

And now we get the silliest rip off of TERMINATOR you can imagine, as this often topless killing machine (not really a machine, just a possessed anthropologist) chases the Great Grand Daughter chick - who is a disco singer (so that we can get a bunch of disco numbers throughout the film) and also uses the eel hidden in her woman-parts to bite the man-parts off a bunch of guys. Yes, she comes naked from the ocean and steals the clothes from some punkers on the beach (and bites off their man parts with her hidden eel), yes there is a TechNoir bar scene where she finds the Great Grand Daughter chick singing and machineguns at least a hundred extras, yes there is a scene where her eye is injured and she cuts it out... then washes it off in the sink, dries it on a towel, and replaces it, yes there is a scene where she drives a car into the police station and kills at least a hundred extras dressed as cops with a machine gun, yes she (thankfully) doesn’t talk much as the Lady Terminator. She just walks around bare chested with a machinegun and kills people. Just like Ah-nuld did.

But the funniest parts of this movie are when they try to make it look like it takes place in America. The cops - in a police station unlike any you have ever seen before (there are sofas and recliners) have a never-ending conversation about how much they love hot dogs. After about the third hot dog conversation you wonder if there is supposed to be a strang Gay subtext to these scenes... and wonder if this is plot related. Will the Gay cops save the day because they don't put their man-parts in lady-parts and are immune to the Lady Terminator?

Two of the cops are some sort of Starsky & Hutch undercover team - one has a dyed blond mullet that does not match his very ethnic features at all. They say strange things like, “I’m here in the States” which make you wonder where they might have been before. It’s just crazy - bad!

The often topless Terminator chick can not be killed - she takes a million bullet hits that don’t scar her smokin’ hot body at all, her car gets hit by missiles (and even the car is unscratched!) and almost at the end of the movie after she has caught fire and comes out of it with a totally burned face - but her boobs are completely undamaged. This film has its priorities!

Oh, for some unexplained reason after catching on fire and losing her machine gun, she develops laser rays from here eyes that burn men’s man-parts off. The writer of this film has some issues.

What are your favorite So Bad They're Good movies and So Weird You Won't Believe It! movies?

- Bill

NEW!

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Expanded version with more ways to find great ideas! Print version is 48 pages, Kindle version is around 155 pages!

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NEW!

*** CREATING STRONG PROTAGONISTS *** - For Kindle!

*** CREATING STRONG PROTAGONISTS *** - For Nook!

Expanded version with more ways to create interesting protagonists! Print version is 48 pages, Kindle version is once again around 155 pages!

Only $2.99 - and no postage!

NEW!

*** DIALOGUE SECRETS *** - For Kindle!

*** DIALOGUE SECRETS *** - For Nook!

Expanded version with more ways to create interesting protagonists! Print version is 48 pages, Kindle version is almost *200* pages!
Only $2.99 - and no postage!

The Man In The Mirror

2011-12-04T21:06:00.000-08:00

A few years back I had a producer *very* interested in an action script of mine, so he wanted to meet with me at his offices on Wilshire. Now, these first meetings are similar to first dates – they like your work and want to enter into a business relationship with you, but want to make sure you're compatible. You're going to be spending time doing rewrites through pre-production and then production and maybe even post production – and if you may end up locked in a room together (with a bunch of assistants and other execs) arguing about the story, they want to make sure they can work with you and you don't smell bad. I think I mentioned in a Script Tip about the time I was up for an assignment – and they liked my work and another writer's work and met with both of us... and the other writer showed up sweaty and smelly and generally unkempt. My guess is that he'd done a hard night of partying the night before and not at his best... and I got the job. That was another project that never got made – an invisible credit. (I've also been the “smelly one” - I once had a meeting with a producer in Ah-nuld's building in Venice and got a flat tire on the way there, so I ended up late and greasy and dirty. Gas station bathrooms aren't the best place to clean up really greasy hands and sponge off your clothes. Even though I explained the situation, my fingers were crusty looking. I did not get that job).

So these first meetings are usually to size you up and generally discuss the script and the situation and see if you bring anything else to the table in addition to the script... or if there's some “leach” attached to the damned script that will cause them problems in the future. Sometimes they don't want to buy your script at all, but they have another project that needs a writer. And sometimes it's one of those first dates where you really hit it off... and then he just never calls you again – there was something going on behind the scenes and they may have *wanted* to buy your script or hire you for a project, but there was some political reason they couldn't do it. I've had situations where the company had two partners who were secretly fighting and because one really loved your script, the other had to hate it (even if they also loved it) just to screw with their partner. Been there a couple of times. Also *many times* been in the situation where the development executive loves your work but producer doesn't seem interested at all... or the other way around. You're there to “sell” the other half of the equation, and the fact is – that is sometimes impossible.

But the other thing that often happens at these meetings is that they ask you to do a free rewrite. Usually they say they are going to take the script to the studio or the cable network or whatever for funding and think the script could use another pass. Now I'm supposed to Just Say No to that, but if they have great notes that will actually improve the script, I'm probably going to do it. Everything depends on the notes. If the notes really do improve the quality of the script, I'd be a fool to say no. A better screenplay has a better chance of being made (or, at least, getting me paid). But if the notes will screw up the script or if they are trying to anticipate the studio of cablenet's notes, the answer is usually no. Not for free. If Ashok had asked me to put a sex scene in CRASH DIVE because HBO will want one, I'd have said no – that would ruin the script and since none of us are mind readers, we don't really know what HBO will want changed. Once the money is there – I'm an employee and I might have to add that sex scene (well, I did – after a great deal of debate), but I'm being *paid* to make that change. I wouldn't make it for free. And, just to show you how pointless it is to try to anticipate notes – though HBO *insisted* on the sex scene in CRASH DIVE, it never came up in STEEL SHARKS. That film has no sex scene at all – and it was all the same people involved! So unless the note is making an *artistic* improvement in the screenplay, you have to pay me first. And until I've been paid... it's *my* screenplay.

So, back to this producer and my action screenplay – he had some notes and was wondering if I might do a free rewrite to improve the chances of the studio giving him the money to buy my script. “What kind of changes did you have in mind?” “Well, I just don't believe this villain.” “Why not?” (others had really liked the villain – but maybe this guy had some notes to improve the character). “He's kind of a cliché, don't you think?” The villain in this script was a businessman who was egotistical and verbally abusive to his employees... and he'd screwed up a major business deal and turned to a criminal activity temporarily in order to make up for his financial loss... but he found himself *liking* the illegal work because it allowed him to screw the rules and do his own thing. He was kind of modeled after DeLorean... but as a bad guy who would rather kill than be caught. The producer continued, “Why couldn't he be something like a Middle Eastern terrorist or something?”

Hmm, the fallen businessman is cliché, but Middle Eastern terrorists are not? Was I missing something?

I explained that I wanted to get away from the Middle Eastern terrorist because they had become cliché, and asked him for the titles of some films with legit businessmen who had done something criminal... and found themselves liking it. (Okay, Craig T. Nelson in ACTION JACKSON.) But he didn't come up with that film or any other, it just “felt cliche” (but Middle Eastern terrorists didn't?).

Right about then, the producer's assistant came in with a message, and the producer *yelled* at him for interrupting our meeting, then proceeded to do many of the things the egotistical businessman had done in my screenplay... basically treating this guy like crap.

And it suddenly all made sense to me.

The reason why the producer didn't like the villain was because *he was just like him*!

And as he screamed at (and maybe threw things at) his assistant, I decided I would not make this change because it would not improve the script if the bad guys were a bunch of Middle Eastern terrorists... and they did not buy the screenplay (and I still own that sucker!).

But I realized one of the issues with screenplays not selling (or whatever) is that the characters or story make the producer uncomfortable... because he “resembles that remark”. There are characters and subjects and scenes that are difficult to get to the screen, not because they are taboo or non-commercial or some other reason... but just because someone on the food chain from script to screen sees their own flaws and wants that part removed.

A cousin to this are those things that *work too well*, and make the reader or producer or studio executive feel things they would rather not feel – so they want them out. Can you imagine the rape scene from DELIVERANCE making it all the way to the screen today? I don't think it would be cut because the audience might not like it, but because the executive would be really horrified by it – which is the intent of the scene.

And this made me wonder how many subjects and scenes and characters *I* avoid because they make me feel uncomfortable? How many *good things* do I leave out because they frighten me or expose me or make me feel things I would rather not feel? Would my scripts be better if I included those things? I have said before that a script should scare you – that it should be personal enough and real enough and deal with things that cut right into you. Emotional things, rather than bland things. But the first step to writing those things is to realize that you may be avoiding some subjects *because* they are painful or too personal or make you look bad. Instead – be brave and dive into those things. Here's the thing – we can't really control our subconscious, so those things are going to come out anyway. That producer had no idea what a freakin' dead giveaway it was when he wanted to change the egotistical businessman into a bunch of Middle Eastern terrorists.

I refused to do the free rewrite and did not sell that script or work with producer on any future projects... but I did learn something.

- Bill

Book Report: Secrets Of Action Screenwriting

2011-11-29T07:50:00.000-08:00

It's Book Report Tuesday...

Though I have read a pile of books, what you really want to know is Where The Hell Is The Secrets Of Action Screenwriting?

That's a very good question. Originally it was supposed to be finished by... well, originally probably 2005. But it was supposed to be finished last year, then in July... then about every month since then. I *thought* it would be done by November 1st, so I put an excerpt in Script Magazine's November issue back in August... but November 1st passed without the book being finished. Then the plan was to have it finished by the end of this month... which is tomorrow.

The weird thing is – I'm working on it and working on it... and still haven't finished it. So, a couple of days ago when I finished the last major rewrite chapter (where almost nothing remained the same), I decided to add up the word count to see how close I was. The remaining chapters are “easy” (except for 3 that need more than a touch up), so they won't take much time. And by the 10th new chapter I realized I had more words than the original 240 page book... and that's why it's been taking me so long! I pretty much wrote a whole new book!

So the good news is: Next week the new version of Secrets Of Action Screenwriting should be available for sale on Amazon and B&N in e-book format – probably around 500 pages, and for only $9.99 (the 2000 price was $21.95). There will be a paper version, but now my problem is *price* - I could have sold the 240 page version for the old price of $21.95 and made a couple of bucks even though paper and printing prices have increased... but a 500 page book? I'm going to have to figure this out – and probably do some editing.

But I hope by this time next week there will be a place to click and buy it here. For $9.99 at Amazon... and that's for a rewritten version that will be about 500 pages!

- Bill

RIP: Ken Russell... Billion Dollar Brain

2011-11-28T02:53:00.000-08:00

Director Ken Russell has passed away - he was one of those interesting British directors from the 60s and 70s who was making films up until his death. The thing about a Ken Russell movie was that it would always be visually interesting, often in an acid trip kind of way.

I wrote this a couple years back about his very first film...

Last week I had an entry about one of my favorite movies, THE IPCRESS FILE starring Michael Caine. That was his first starring role after playing bit parts and supporting in films and TV series, and he performed like a veteran. The film was both a critical and financial success - and based on the first in a series of novels by Len Deighton - so you know what happens next...

Sequels.

The first sequel, FUNERAL IN BERLIN, is one of those great Cold War movies - directed by James Bond vet Guy Hamilton (GOLDFINGER) and is pretty good. Not as great as IPCRESS, but it’s a fine second film. Maybe because it didn’t measure up to the wild director of Sidney J. Furie, the producers decided to bring in someone arty for the third film, so they hired the flamboyant Ken Russell to direct BILLION DOLLAR BRAIN.

Ken Russell is an interesting director, and I believe this is his first feature film. He would go on to direct WOMEN IN LOVE a couple of years later, which features Alan Bates and Oliver Reed wrestling naked - I am still trying to remove those images from my mind. He would then specialize in over the top musicals and musical biographies like THE BOY FRIEND, THE MUSIC LOVERS, TOMMY, MAHLER, LISZTOMANIA, and VALENTINO before going through ALTERED STATES and coming out the other side as a kind of kinky horror movie director with the wacky CRIMES OF PASSION and GOTHIC and LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM. I believe he is now making erotica with a consumer camcorder - and I’m sure it’s inventive and strange. Russell is one of those crazy geniuses like Orson Welles who needs someone to tell him when he has gone too far, someone to tell him when he has ventured into the really weird.

There was no one like that on BILLION DOLLAR BRAIN... so we have a movie where the army is dressed in white outfits with purple helmets and look like a bunch of penises (or penii) and everything is bright and crazy and the plot goes way off the rails about halfway through and it seems to be a parody of James Bond movies. You keep expecting a big musical number to break out. Ed Begley Sr is so over the top he ends up in the stratosphere somewhere. I have no idea what this movie is - but it is *not* a Harry Palmer movie. I saw it at the American Cinematheque a couple of years ago double billed with FUNERAL IN BERLIN, and it was entertaining in a "How Much Acid Did Ken Russell Drop Before Making This Film" sort of way... but not a Harry Palmer movie.

But here is the trailer...

And here are Maurice Binder's opening titles - you can see they are turning Harry Palmer into some sort of artsie-fartsie James Bond, instead of the more realistic look at espionage from the first two films.

Though this movie is completely crazy, and killed the franchise dead for a couple of decades, you may want to check out Russell’s WOMEN IN LOVE and some of his other films - he’s a wild director, and with material that isn’t supposed to be realistic he makes some interesting films. I've seen most of them. (Amanda Donahoe is mostly naked in LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM...)

- Bill

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Lancelot Link: HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

2011-11-24T00:45:00.000-08:00

Lancelot Link Thursday! If you wonder what the President has for dinner on Thanksgiving after he pardons the turkeys, here are some articles about screenwriting and the biz plus some fun stuff that may be of interest to you. Brought to you by that suave and sophisticated secret agent...

Here are five cool links plus this week's food chase...

1) Gee That Movie Poster Looks Familiar!

2) Some People Take Researching Serial Killers To An Extreme!

3) Cool Film Posters From Another Time!

4) Doug Richardson - DIE HARD 2 writer on The Worst Note He Ever Got!

5) 20 Stunts Gone Really Wrong.

Today is THANKSGIVING in the USA, a time when we eat until we explode... much like Mr. Creosote. So - no car chase this week...

Happy Thanksgiving!

- Bill

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Carbon Arc Projectors

2011-11-21T00:27:00.000-08:00

My first job (other than moving lawns and delivering papers and helping my dad) was at the Century Movie Theater in Pleasant Hill... where I was a doorman, an usher, and acting manager (which required me to run the projectors sometimes).

Back in those days they didn't have digital projectors, they didn't even have those platters that held a whole film... Films were in reels that were 20 minutes or less and had to be changed over from one projector to another seemlessly - you've seen how that works in FIGHT CLUB.

But what FIGHT CLUB didn't have the balls to show you - or the research to mention - is that projectors did not have *bulbs* back then... they used *fire*. There were not light bulbs bright enough to project a movie on a screen that far away, so the only other option is FIRE. A carbon arc. So I had to learn how to run the projectors and replace the carbons (probably once a night for each projector) in case the projectionist got sick or drunk or just didn't show for some reason. The show must go on - and that meant I had to run the projectors. And I did this *many many many* times.

A couple of years later I had a job as manager/projectionist at a little indie cinema and ran the projectors 6 nights a week. Those projectors also used fire and had a changeover about every 17 minutes. Here's how that works...

- Bill

Fridays With Hitchcock: The Trouble With Harry

2011-11-18T01:06:00.000-08:00

Though Hitchcock is most closely associated with thrillers, most of his films have humor... and he actually made a romantic comedy and some other non-thriller films, plus this nice little comedy. Don’t expect to laugh out loud at THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY, it’s more of a “smile comedy” - gentle humor. And though it isn’t a romantic comedy, it is a comedy about romance... and a dead guy. The trouble with Harry is that he’s dead. Though I’m sure this comparison will result in angry comments, the film is kind of like WEEKEND AT BERNIES... just not as stupid and a lot more charming. Screenplay by John Michael Hayes who also wrote REAR WINDOW and TO CATCH A THIEF and THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH remake for Hitchcock... and I believe is still alive and writing. The dialogue in this film *sparkles* - lots of double meanings and clever lines... and all of it low key.

Nutshell: Little Arnie (Jerry Mathers - the Beav) is playing army in the woods when he hears gun shots - three of them - and hits the dirt. When he thinks it’s safe, he approaches, toy gun ready for action, and discovers Harry (Philip Truex) dead. When he runs home to tell his mom, a hunter comes out of the woods, rifle in hand - Captain Wiles (Ed Gwenn - Santa in Miracle On 34the Street). He approaches Harry’s body carefully, sees that he is dead... and realizes it’s his fault. He fired three shots - he hit a can, he hit a sign... and he hit Harry. Before he can hide the body, a freakin’ parade of people walk past... and either don’t notice Harry (they aren’t looking down) or in the case of a homeless guy, sees Harry and Harry’s fancy shoes - and takes them. By the time the Captain goes to drag Harry away, he’s discovered, corpse’s feet in hand, by town spinster Miss Gravely (Mildred Natwick - who played spinsters all of her life) who asks, “What seems to be the trouble, Captain?”

No one in this film reacts to the dead guy as you would expect... and that’s part of the fun. No one is shocked that Harry is dead, they all just see him as an inconvenience. Miss Gravely kicks Harry’s body a few times to make sure he’s dead.

And here’s where the story gets weird... in order to remove Miss Gravely’s attention from the dead guy, the Captain begins flirting with her. It’s awkward - both are past middle aged and single all of their lives. But anything to keep her from thinking about the dead guy. Miss Gravely asks if he’d like to come over for tea and muffins later. Harry is the “love corpse” - bringing couples together in this film!

Our hero is abstract artist Sam Marlowe who has just moved into this small town, and has put his strange paintings up for sale at the general store. He’s fussy about getting them right-side-up, even though they’re just blobs of paint. When he’s out sketching in the woods, he comes across Harry... and sketches him. Then discovers the Captain hiding behind some trees. They discuss the Harry problem... and that’s when little Arnie and his mom Jennifer (Shirley MacLaine in her first film) come to check out Harry... and Jennifer does something strange - she says Harry deserved it, instructs Arnie not to tell anyone about Harry, and the two leave.

Sam helps the Captain bury Harry... which ends up being an amusing scene.

Since Jennifer seems to have known Harry, Sam tells the Captain that he will talk to her and find out whether she’s going to call the police.

Oh, the police in this small town is a part time deputy sheriff named Calvin Wiggs (Royal Dano - one of those character actors who is in every movie ever made). Wiggs gets paid by the arrest - so he’s like a commission cop, out to make a sale. When someone says they heard shots in the woods, he’s going to try to close the deal and arrest someone. He’s in direct contrast to Sam, who is all about art - not money. All of the characters are in contrast to each other in this film. We have an older couple and a young couple, etc.

When Sam slyly interviews Jennifer about Harry, he discovers that Harry was her evil ex-husband... and she clobbered him when he showed up at her doorstep. She’s sure that *she* killed Harry. Of course, the sparks of attraction fly and now Sam wants to cover up Harry’s death to help the woman he’s falling in love with.

And when the Captain goes to eat muffins at Miss Gravely’s house, he finds out why she was so casual about Harry’s dead body earlier - she’s certain that *she* killed Harry. She was taking a walk in the woods and this strange man accosted her, so she hit him repeatedly with her shoe... and he went down, dead.

CAPTAIN
A real handsome man's cup.

MISS GRAVELY
It's been in the family for years.
My father always used it... until he
died.

CAPTAIN
I trust he died peacefully. Slipped
away in the night?

MISS GRAVELY
He was caught in a threshing machine.

Now we have three possible Harry-killers (four if you add little Arnie with his toy gun) and one commission cop looking for the body.

Harry’s body gets dug up and re-buried a bunch of times, and the body is dragged all over town... ending up in Jennifer’s bathtub at one point. Eventually, they solve the Harry Problem and the film is over. The end.

Hitch Appearance: Early in the film, walking down a country road.

Sound Track: This is the very first movie Bernard Herrmann scored for Hitchcock - and it’s a fun, jaunty bit of music that keeps the tone light and frothy while they are discussing what to do with a dead guy.

Great Scenes: One of the great things in this film is the look - beautiful color photography of New England in the fall - everything is red and yellow and orange. It’s like a bunch of the best postcards you’ve ever seen.

Dead Body: Another great thing about HARRY is how Hitchcock finds the perfect framing and angle and composition to make the dead guy *funny*. Shot after shot has you *laughing* at a dead person - which is not exactly normal. The two things going against laughter from a dead body on screen is that is’s a dead body... and the actor is severely limited in delivery and gesture. So finding that one perfect angle that makes the dead body look silly is required... and that takes someone who understands film. There is a shot of the *feet* used at the end of the film (and earlier) that makes a dead guy funny as hell. Every time someone stumbles on Harry we get another funny angle of the dead guy.

Captain’s Rifle: I’ve said before that there is often a fine line between thriller and comedy, and HARRY lives on that line. There’s a great little suspense scene that is *funny* as the Captain, with his rifle, the one that shot Harry, must walk past Deputy Sheriff Wiggs... so he tries hiding it, and isn’t entirely successful. We worry that Wiggs will notice the rifle, but the Captain trying to keep it hidden is funny. Note that this is all about the situation... and the tone used in the film. Change the tone to straight thriller and you have a great little suspense scene as the suspect has to walk past the policeman while carrying the murder gun.

Harry In The Tub: Another comedy- suspense scene has Harry in Jennifer’s bathtub... just as Deputy Sheriff Wiggs shows up! At this point in the story, they’ve spent the whole day burying and digging up Harry, but Miss Gravely has decided to confess to Wiggs that she killed Harry by accident. It was really self defense, Harry accosted her. But Harry is covered with dirt. So they have put him in the tub to clean him up, and are cleaning his clothes (which ends up funny because each has a cleaning method they think works best, which leads to a debate over something trivial in the grand scheme of things)... and that’s when Wiggs shows up. Now they have to keep Wiggs from accidentally opening the door to the bathroom or finding the clothes hastily hidden around the room. All of the cast is here - our older couple, our young couple... and Arnie. And it’s Arnie who comes out of the bathroom, leaving the door open so that we see Harry’s legs hanging over the edge of the tub looking silly, and asks, “What’s Harry doing in our bathtub?” Hitchcock used keeping the dead body hidden from authorities to create suspense in ROPE, but here a similar situation is played for laughs.

Art Trips Up Artist: Wiggs has come to Jennifer’s house because of Sam’s sketch of Dead Harry... which perfectly matches the description of the dead guy the homeless guy says he got his overly fancy shoes from. Just like in a thriller where the protagonist’s life is used against him, here we have an artist’s skill at sketching someone - and making it lifelike (I guess deathlike in this case) is what leads the Deputy Sheriff to Sam - as suspect! Sam is the only person in this whole film who we know didn’t kill Harry. Now Sam must find a way to explain the sketch of the dead guy to Wiggs... and that creates comedy.

The Millionaire & The Secret: While the Harry Problem is going on, down at the General Store, a Millionaire driving by has noticed Sam’s paintings, and returns with an art critic. The Millionaire wants to buy all of the paintings - and will pay millions. But Sam has no use for money, so he makes a deal - everyone gets to make a wish, and the Millionaire will make that wish come true in exchange for the paintings. This is a great piece of cinema magic, because *you* start to think of what you might wish for. All of the wishes are the perfect mix of fantasy and practical - like Jennifer who wants a big delivery of fresh strawberries every week - even when they are out of season. The only wish we do not hear is Sam’s - he whispers to the Millionaire. This creates suspense and mystery for the rest of the film - what did he wish for?

THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY is a magical light comedy about a dead guy who brings couples together... Imagine pitching that logline! With Halloween coming up, it might be a fun film to watch (the fall setting - and it’s about a dead guy), and it’s okay for kids - though I’m not sure the pacing is fast enough for kids.

- Bill

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Scene Of The Week: THE THIRD MAN

2011-11-15T00:48:00.000-08:00

The scene of the week is a nice bit of threatening dialogue from THE THIRD MAN, and a reunion between two old friends Holly (Joeseph Cotton) and Harry (Orson Welles)... after one of their funerals. The great thing about this conversation is how charming and fun Harry makes his threats and his justifications for criminal activities. He's a bad guy you just want to hang out with.

The British Film Institute selected THE THIRD MAN as the Best British Film Ever Made - and it's hard to argue with that. It does a million things right, it has one iconic scene after another, some amazing lines (this scene doesn't have the film's best lines!) and is a great thriller with a huge action-chase set piece at the end which has been lifted in dozens of other films. If you haven't seen it - check it out. Actually filmed in the rubble of Post WW2 Vienna!

Comments section is open for discussion of the scene.

- Bill

Fridays With Hitchcock: Topaz (1969)

2011-11-11T01:44:00.000-08:00

Screenplay by Samuel Taylor based on the novel by Leon Uris

The worst of Hitchcock's two cold war movies made in the mid-60s, this film was based on a big best selling beach read by Leon Uris - one of those ripped from the headlines things about the secret shenanigans behind the Cuban missile crisis, filled with as much intrigue between the sheets as behind the doors of the embassies... and a cast of thousands. And the major problem with TOPAZ is probably with the source material's scope. Novels are an entirely different medium than screenplays and the movies that come from them. There are many things that you can do in a novel that just don't work in a movie. A movie is viewed all in one gulp and we expect the story needs to flow and the pieces connected to each other. Usually the audience does what I call the “skin jump” where they imagine themselves as the lead character and live the story on screen vicariously. They imagine they are James Bond or Indiana Jones or Neo from THE MATRIX or the character looking for love in a romantic comedy.

A book is a completely different animal – though there are books that you might read in one gulp, for the most part books are read chapter-by-chapter and we put a book marker in and set it aside. We may take days or weeks or even months to read a single book. So the focus is often on the *chapters* rather than the overall story. Even if a chapter ends with a cliff-hanger, it also usually works as a self-contained unit, giving us someplace to put a book mark and set the book aside. Due to the way the story is delivered to us – chapter by chapter – a book can be episodic and doesn't need to be from the protagonist's point of view. Because we can “get into a character's head” it is easier for us to identify with everyone, even the antagonist. We can bounce from character to character without ever being pulled out of the story. So the problem with adapting some novels is that they work so much differently than a movie works that our best set is probably just to toss the book and just run with the concept... or just leave it as a book. Some things are more at home in the medium they were created in.

The big problem with TOPAZ is that there is no lead character - it bounces back and forth between characters - so most of the scenes “star” minor characters that we haven't really gotten to know. The tone also works against it – a “ripped from the headlines” story often plays like a “just the facts” documentary, which means low key drama and less focus on emotions and drama. Combine that tone with no lead character to identify with and we end up with a story that was probably exciting in book form but ends up dull on screen. The screenplay is by Sam Taylor who wrote VERTIGO, but his skill set may not have been able to tame this all- over-the-place novel. The film just isn't very good...

Experiment: A big one! The film actually has four plots - and each is like its own little story. This film paved the way for movies like PULP FICTION. Different lead characters in each story with some overlapping characters who show up in more than one story, and one character who connects all four. It's a great experiment that probably comes directly from the novel's structure – but like most experiments, it fails. But let's look at it anyway, since PULP FICTION shows that it *can* work. Here are the four stories...

In Denmark: A top ranking Russian and his family defect to the USA.
In the USA: While the Cuban delegation is in town, secret documents are photographed that hint at Russian missiles sent to Cuba.
In CUBA: Spies find the Russian missiles.
In FRANCE: A high level spy ring in the French government is exposed.

Wow, that seems almost linear and not nearly as complicated as the movie is.

Anthology films like PULP FICTION contain more than one story, so the whole thing can't be broken up into the traditional three acts because the over-all story is actually a collection of smaller stories. Other anthology films include the horror anthology ASYLUM and the dramatic anthology O. HENRY'S FULL HOUSE, the Neil Simon comedy PLAZA SUITE and Ray Bradbury's weird tales anthology THE ILLUSTRATED MAN, not to mention Stephen King's horror anthology CAT'S EYE.

These are collections of short stories all with a similar genre or writer... but there's something else holding all the pieces together. A thematic structure that connects the stories.

Your anthology is usually going to have some sort of a common theme. A collection of short stories is collected for some reason. If you are a famous writer like Stephen King or Neil Simon, that might be a good enough excuse to lump a bunch of stories onto the same reel of film. Even if you *are* a famous writer, why are these stories all in the same collection and other stories not? In TOPAZ the stories are connected because they are all part of an over-all story in the same way an anthology movie like ASYLUM where the new psychiatrist at a mental institution interviews each of his murdered predecessor's last patients to see if he can figure out which one is the killer. Even though each segment is it's own self-contained story, they are also part of a larger story. In TOPAZ each of the four stories has a beginning and middle and end, but each is also a piece of a larger story. That story doesn't really have a traditional beginning-middle-end... In fact, Hitchcock ended up filming three different endings to TOPAZ and the test audiences hated every single one of them, forcing him to cobble together and ending from the footage on the cutting room floor.

An anthology film may be exploring love after divorce, or people facing their own mortality, or maybe flawed people searching for redemption like PULP FICTION. Each story usually explores the theme, showing different aspects of the theme or different characters struggling with elements of the theme. Basically, you are exploring the theme of redemption or mortality through different stories. One of the problems with TOPAZ is that there is no theme connecting all of the stories, so we just have some minor threads of one story's plot that just happen to connect to the next story's plot – and sometimes those threads aren't very strong.

Remember, the more specific you can be about what your theme is, the deeper you can explore it. If your theme is "love" you won't be digging as deep into the subject as if your theme is "first love" or "the end of love" or "the love of my life" or "second chances at love" or "love hurts" or "love is blind" or... well, love is a vast subject. Figure out what theory about love you want to explore in your stories and then come up with different stories that explore that theory. The PULP FICTION stories are a great example...

The first story with Travolta and Uma - what happens?
The second story with Bruce Willis as the boxer - what happens?
The third story with Travolta and Jackson and Harvey Keitel - what happens?

Now let's look at the wrap around - what is Samuel L. Jackson's life plan?

See how all four deal with issues of redemption? The problem with TOPAZ is the four stories above have no thematic connection... except maybe a character who sends another character to do something dangerous that may result in their death. Um, not as uplifting as a search for redemption. In fact, kind of off-putting. When you add that to the episodic nature of the story and the lack of a protagonist and we end up with something that is really hard to get into and really hard to like.

Okay, now let's take away Sam Jackson and Bruce Willis and John Travolta from PULP FICTION and replace them with unemotional and uncharismatic and mostly unknown actors. When a star plays a role, for good or for bad, their baggage comes with them. Though Travolta and Jackson play *killers* - both are charming guys who usually play roles that we like or admire (or are just bad-asses in the case of Jackson) so we instantly buy into them. We have liked them in past roles, so we like them in PULP FICTION the moment they walk into frame. But when Frederick Stafford (who?) walks into frame, we have no idea who the hell he is and he has to “earn” our identification... and in TOPAZ the characters are each on screen for only a brief time before we are on to the next character. Not enough time to get to know them, let alone like them or care about them or hope they resolve whatever problems we really don't have enough time to learn about.

Nutshell: In the USA segment, an American CIA agent (John Forsythe) wants to bribe the secretary (Donald Randolph) to Castro's right hand man (John Vernon) to steal his papers.... but doesn't want it traced back to the USA, so he goes to his pal in the French espionage pal (Frederick Stafford) who is having problems with his wife (Dany Robin) to get his son-in-law (Claude Jade) to provide a sketch of the secretary so that his agent (the late great Roscoe Lee Brown) whose cover is a florist, can pretend to be a reporter for Ebony Magazine in order to get past security and bribe the secretary so that he can photograph the papers. Oh, and Castro's right hand man has a head of security and the florist has an assistant and the son-in-law is obviously married to the French espionage pal's daughter and... well, there are no shortage of characters in this one segment alone! And the character who does the actual spying stuff is Roscoe Lee Brown - a peripheral character who we will never see again.

That's the big problem with the story - in the Cuba section it's not any of our main characters who sneak onto the military base to photograph the missiles, it's some characters we've never seen before who are only in this once sequence... so when they are in trouble, we don't care. They are disposable characters... and *all* of the characters in this film are disposable - they do their little bit of the story and then we never see them again.

It's like a movie about the extras instead of stars.... and there are no movie stars in the film. Zilch. Hitchcock had paid *half* the budget of his previous film TORN CURTAIN on Newman and Julie Andrews' salaries and that film bombed... so he ditched stars completely for this film, and it suffers because of it. The closest we have to a lead character is the French espionage guy - but he never goes on any dangerous missions himself - he hires someone else. Which means he ends up with soap opera plots - his marriage is in trouble, he's having an affair with an agent, his wife is having an affair with a guy who ends up being a Russian spy, his daughter and son in law have issues... All kinds of silly things that make for a great beach read, but don't work very well on the big screen.

Hitch Appearance: A nurse pushes him through the airport in a wheelchair... then he stands up and walks away.

Great Scenes: Here's where the film really dies - even the worst Hitchcock film usually has a couple of great sequences... but here we get nada. Because the tone is realistic and documentary, there are no real suspense scenes. Let's look at each of the four stories individually...

Denmark: What’s interesting to me about this segment is that it seems to be written for paranoia - but just falls flat. Only a few years later we would get some of the greatest paranoid thrillers of all time - THE PARALLAX VIEW and THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR and MARATHON MAN - but here the paranoia just never takes hold. Would it be the shift in society after Watergate that sparked the paranoid thrillers that followed? Was this movie just made too soon?

At the Russian Consulate a Guard looks out a peephole, into a mirror - all we see is his face in the mirror... watching. Boris Kusinov, his wife and daughter leave the Consulate... the man in the mirror watching. A moment after they leave, a KGB man exits the Consulate and follows. The Kusinov family walks down the streets of Copenhagen... followed by the KGB man. When the KGB man passes a parked car, the man and woman inside get out and join him - 3 KGB Agents following the Kusinovs.

Because this is shot realistic instead of evocative and emotional, the bit where Kusinov realizes they are being followed and walk between a row of buses *just* as another bus comes to block the KGB Agents falls flat. It seems kind of clever, but there is no suspense at all. The Kusinovs think they have lost the KGB Agents and join a tour group for a china figurine factory. Then the daughter spots one of the KGB Agents... except it’s boring. The daughter splits away from her father and mother, drops a figurine so that she will be taken to the office... and uses a phone to call...

CIA Agent Mike Nordstrom (John Forsythe) - the puppet master of this story. He tells the daughter to be at a department store just before closing and they will help them get rid of the KGB followers. Forsythe is ultra-low key, completely unemotional.

When the department store closes, the Kusinov family leaves and a group of CIA Agents block the KGB Agents. Kusinov and his wife and daughter run to where Mike waits on the street with a car... but the daughter is hit by a bicycle as she is running to the car... goes down screaming in agony and *not moving* while the KGB Agents get past the CIA Agents. Is she an idiot? Probably - but this piece of manufactured suspense doesn’t work at all because Mike just grabs her and helps her to the car. It’s but it's no big deal. A little suspense generated, but it’s over in a blink.

After that they go to the airport, put the Kusinovs on a plane, fly to Washington, DC and take them to a safe house where they are debriefed. Boring on purpose - so that it seems realistic. Kusinov is a KGB Agent himself, and he’s seen many top secret US papers. The CIA boss asks Kusinov if he’s ever heard the word “topaz” used - and Kusinov says it’s a gem stone. Hey, it’s also the title of the movie, so maybe it’s important?

Just then Mike gets a call... from French spy Devereaux (Frederick Stafford - also bland) who asks him to come to dinner. Why would he ask him to dinner? Why is that an important question? But in this movie, an offer of dinner is *exciting*.

Mike and Devereaux have dinner, along with Mrs. Devereaux (Dany Robin). After she excuses herself, Devereaux says that Paris *knows* they have Kusinov - but how did they get the information? You might think this question would drive the rest of the film - but it’s basically forgotten for the middle two stories. So for *half* of this LONG 143 minute film, the whole “topaz” thing (mole in the French Intelligence Bureau) doesn’t even come up. Until the last segment, it’s just this single line - how did Paris find out about Kusinov defecting?

Now, here is the problem with this segment: not exciting, and no real story. Unlike any of the three stories in PULP FICTION, we just have stuff happening. Compare it to THE GOLD WATCH or the last story where they blow the kid’s brains all over the inside of the car and have to call Mr. Wolf for help. Those stories were *stories* and had beginnings and middles and ends. Here we just have this fragment... It was all about the Kusinovs - but we will never see them again!

New York: Devereaux and his wife go to New York on holiday because his daughter and son in law will be in town - son in law is a journalist who is covering the Cuban delegation addressing the United Nations. When they check into their hotel they find Mike waiting for them... Kusinov said that the Cubans have some top secret papers with them about some top secret thing those danged Cubans are doing... could Devereaux find out what those papers say? The son in law has sketches of everyone from the Cuban delegation and they find the sketch of the #1 Cuban Guy’s assistant Uribe - who has been known to take a bribe now and then.

This segment is all about what the Cuban Guy’s secret papers say. Oh, #1 Cuban Guy is played by a bearded John Vernon from POINT BLANK and ANIMAL HOUSE.

Now we have Mike as puppet master pulling Devereaux’s strings... and Devereaux as puppet master pulling the strings of his informant Dubois (Roscoe Lee Brown) who pretends to be a reporter from Ebony Magazine to bribe Uribe to steal the #1 Cuban Guy’s briefcase with the secret papers so that Dubois can photograph them. There’s a suspense scene that doesn’t work at all where Dubois photographs #1 Cuban Guy while Uribe steals the briefcase a few feet away, and then some suspense that doesn’t work where #1 Cuban Guy is looking for a document that may be in the briefcase... while Uribe and Dubois are in a bathroom down the hall taking pictures of the documents. The problem with both of these scenes is that they are shot blandly (to keep the film real looking) and, well, what the hell do we care about Dubois? He’s a puppet of a puppet!

#1 Cuban Guy finally notices his briefcase full of top secret papers missing and grabs #2 Cuban Guy (red beard) and they kick down the bathroom door and see Uribe and Dubois taking pictures of the documents. Dubois jumps out the window, and there is a chase... but it's not very exciting. It’s emotionless action, and part of that might be that we don’t really think of Dubois as anything more than a pawn in the story... that story experiment biting the film in the butt big time. Well, Dubois gets the camera to Devereaux during the chase - and then the rest of the chase doesn’t matter because if they catch Dubois - what does it matter? He’s a pawn, so we don’t care about him... and he doesn’t have anything important on him.

Off screen - Devereaux develops the film, meets with Mike, discovers the Russians are shipping something into Cuba that may be nuclear missiles, and Mike pulls the puppet strings again so that Devereaux will go to Cuba to investigate...

Which brings us to On Screen after all of this happens and Devereaux is having a big soap opera argument with his wife because she thinks he has a mistress in Cuba and wants him to quit his job and pay more attention to her and... well, soap opera stuff. It’s as if someone notice how completely unemotional this film has been and decided to throw in some fake emotions half way through. But who cares?

Cuba: This segment is all about photographing what is on the ship that just arrived from Russia - are they nuclear missiles?

So Mike’s puppet Devereaux goes to Cuba where he *does* have a mistress - Juanita (played by Karin Dor from the James Bond movie YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE). Juanita is *also* the mistress of #1 Cuban Guy! She gets around. She is also the head of the Cuban underground. So Mike has Devereaux have Juanita have her agents the Mendozas (middle aged husband and wife) go to take pictures of the ship. Okay - how much do we care about the Mendozas? They are only in a few minutes of this film, we have no idea who they are other than Juanita’s agents... and we kind of have no idea who Juanita is other than Devereaux’s mistress. We are so far removed from any characters we *might* care about that what happens to the Mendozas doesn’t matter.

Well, due to a bird taking their picnic sandwich (I’m not making that us) the Cuban Army spots the Mendozas and gives chase. A really short chase... and they are captured because the woman is bleeding. Not a big scene. Hitchcock talked about using blood as a trail of “bread crumbs” for bad guys in an interview about another film, but here it’s not really used here. Still a great idea, and I’ve used it (complete with a fake out trail to throw the pursuers off the trail) in a film. Here it seems like more of an excuse for capture - the agents notice the bleeding and slap the cuffs on her.

But the camera and the pictures get back to Devereaux, who leaves Cuba just as #1 Cuban Guy figures out what is going on (thanks to #2 Cuban Guy recognizing Devereaux from New York) and the Mendozas are killed, Juanita is killed, but Devereaux gets away.

The film shows nuclear missiles being unloaded from a ship... and Devereaux’s wife leaves him... and Mike tells him that there is a mole in French Intelligence named Topaz, and would Devereaux go back to Paris to flush him out?

Paris: The last segment is unmasking Topaz. From this description is may seem like these pieces all fit together - but for that whole center section of the film we have completely forgotten about Topaz, and once Topaz is unmasked... there will still be nukes in Cuba. This doesn’t resolve the problem at all.

Devereaux has lunch with French espionage agents (including an impossibly young Philippe Noiret) and when one of the French guys leaves he goes home to... Devereaux’s wife who he is having an affair with! Dunt-dunt-daaaa! And when she leaves she sees Noiret arriving (or maybe it was the other way around) and Devereaux gets his son in law to go to all of the French Intelligence guys as a journalist and say “TOPAZ!” to see if they react... and gets a reaction from Noiret... and the son in law gets captured off screen and escapes off screen and maybe even goes to Disneyland off screen, but shows up after Noiret has been murdered by Topaz and Devereaux’s cheating wife sees the sketch of Noiret and realizes she saw him at her lover’s house and that means the lover is Topaz and that means we can grab our coats and leave the cinema.

There was originally a different ending - a scene where Devereaux and Topaz (who is his wife’s lover) have a duel to the death in a sports arena... but audiences laughed at test screenings and Hitchcock had to change it to an off camera suicide. Actually, there were a couple more ending tries that failed before Hitch was forced to find cutting room floor footage and create the suicide.

Music: Maurice Jarre does an okay score that sounds a lot like his JUDGE ROY BEAN score - so maybe he recycled it.

The best thing in TOPAZ is probably the *seamless* integration of actors into a real Castro speech. It shows the power of editing to make you believe things that never happened. But this sort of trick may make the film seem “real” but doesn’t make it engaging and interesting and involving. We are not pulled into the story.

The whole film is kind of ho-hum and shows the problem with doing experiments in a script and film - most experiments fail. That’s why we call them experiments. Even though some of the experiments in Hitchcock’s films don’t entirely succeed, they usually have a handful of great scenes, or the experiment itself is interesting to watch (like in ROPE). Here we discover the importance of having a protagonist who is involved in the entire story - *the* pivotal character in each segment. He learn this because this experiment fails - four stories with four different protagonists squeezed into a 143 minute film doesn’t give us much time to care about any of these people or get to know them... so they remain chess pieces moved around the board to tell the story. The more you split the focus among different protagonists, the more you split our emotions so that we don’t have time to care.

- Bill

The other Fridays With Hitchcock.

SECRET SALE!

Lancelot Link: Their First Assignment

2011-11-10T00:50:00.000-08:00

Lancelot Link Thursday! If you believe that monkey from RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES should get nominated for best actor, here are some articles about screenwriting and the biz plus some fun stuff that may be of interest to you. Brought to you by that suave and sophisticated secret agent...

Here are EIGHT cool links plus this week's car chase...

1) The Brit List - Best Britsh Unproduced Screenplays!

2) Hollywood's Most Overpaid Stars - who isn't worth their pay check?

3) Michael Bay and His Explosions - charts and graphs and data!

4) What if you wrote a novel by taking 6 page chunks of other novels and just changing the names?

5) Uni Chief Ron Meyer on the TOWER HEIST video on demand fiasco.

6) Shane Black On IRON MAN 3

7) Writers who make the most money per word are profiled.

8) The Found Footage Genre.

An this week's car chase features Gary Busey - a guy I've worked with 2 or 3 times...

- Bill

The Secrets Of Action Screenwriting

2011-11-04T00:58:00.000-07:00

If you got the new issue of Script Magazine, there's an excerpt from the fully revised version of THE SECRETS OF ACTION SCREENWRITING... and I fully expected it to be available by now. But things happened. It looks like it will be available in 2 weeks, now.

I also expected to have a new entry in Fridays With Hitchcock up today - THE LADY VANISHES. But I'm still working on it. I'm going to try to get it up by the end of today. Problem is - it's another monster! I'm at the intended word count right know... but only half done! So check back later today or tomorrow and you should find it.

Meanwhile - all 3 of the Blue Books are in tghe Amazon Top 10! Kind of cool.

- Bill

Lancelot Link: On Stranger Tides

2011-11-02T00:59:00.000-07:00

Lancelot Link Thursday! Here are some articles about screenwriting and the biz plus some fun stuff that may be of interest to you. Brought to you by that suave and sophisticated secret agent...

Here are five cool links plus this week's car chase...

1) The Last Movie Camera.

2) Dictator Kidnaps Director - Makes Epic!

3) From my friends at Raindance - Coen Brothers Screenplays!

4) Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher? What does the novelist have to say? (Did Tom Cruise take the role because he wanted to stretch?)

5) Director so out of control that it's *weird* - are they still making a movie?

And the Car Chase of the Week!

SUPERCOP - and I've been on this road in Hong Kong!

- Bill

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November Issue Of Script Magazine

2011-11-01T00:02:00.000-07:00

The new issue is out now!

They Gave us the Business: An Interview With Margin Call’s J.C. Chandor
by Bob Verini

It was the “Masters of the Universe” who turned all Americans into high rollers during the “Me Decade,” but it was the ordinary Wall Street Joes and Janes who brought the ride to a halt. A scintillating new suspenser, Margin Call — from first-time feature filmmaker J.C. Chandor, suggests how and why they did it.

From Script to Screen: The Rum Diary
by David S. Cohen

To adapt Hunter S. Thompson’s The Rum Diary, screenwriter Bruce Robinson (The Killing Fields) had to break a promise, go off the wagon, and risk the wrath of Thompson’s fans.

Writers on Writing: J. Edgar
by Dustin Lance Black

Scribe Dustin Lance Black (Milk) bucked preconceived public opinions in his search for the “real” J. Edgar Hoover when cracking the script for his powerful biopic of the enigmatic founder of the FBI, J. Edgar.

The Last Ride: An Interview With Writer Howie Klausner
by Randy Rudder

Howie Klausner (Space Cowboys), along with co-writer Dub Cornett, remained true to history while scripting the last days of music legend Hank Williams while retaining just enough creative license to leave their fingerprints on this touching story of an icon gone too soon.

An Interview With Final Draft, Inc. Hall of Famer Steven Zaillian
by Ray Morton

This October, Steven Zaillian (Schindler’s List) was presented the Final Draft, Inc. Hall of Fame Award, adding to his already extensive list of accolades — an Oscar®, a WGA Award, a BAFTA, a Golden Globe®, a Humanitas Prize, and, just last year, the Writers Guild of America, West’s Laurel Award honoring a lifetime of achievement. Script takes a look at his inspiring career as Zaillian recounts how he has honed his craft over more than two decades of penning unforgettable screenplays.

Beyond the Page: Change of Art
by Peter Hanson

Searching for new ways to explore his favorite themes led screenwriter Joe Forte (Firewall, Say I Do) to a thriving second career as a painter.

What are Your Real Chances of Success?
by Corey Mandell

Writers know it’s not easy to launch and sustain a career. After all, the odds aren’t necessarily stacked in your favor. But, what exactly are your chances of making it in the industry? The answer might surprise you.

Goldman’s Rule on Structure
by John Buchanan

No element of a successful script is more important than a solid, effective structure. And no fundamental discipline of screenwriting is more misunderstood or misapplied. Here experts weigh in on the art of mastering structure.

10 Tips for Talking to Hollywood
by Peter Hanson

Practicing savvy techniques can help ensure you’re taken seriously by the film industry — even before you’re a working professional. Learn why the movie business is just like any other private club: Once you learn the secret handshake (metaphorically speaking), you can get in the door.

Booze Control: Terence Winter and a Sip of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire
by David Radcliff

Last year, Terence Winter (The Sopranos) traded Mafia stories for tales of gin mills and moonshine during Prohibition-era Atlantic City in the first season of HBO’s gripping drama Boardwalk Empire. The result was a smash-hit cable series that left frenzied fans immediately clamoring for the show’s second season.

Pacing Your Script
by Mike Kuciak

One of the elements that makes a professional-level script stand out is it moves in a speed and rhythm that feels like what we’re used to seeing in a theater. There are several common missteps that often contribute to making the pacing slow or uneven in a screenplay. Finding and addressing them will help turn your works into fast, fun, professional reads.

Wind From the East, Part 2: Manga and Anime
by Northrop Davis

Script further examines the growing influence of Japanese manga and anime in Hollywood and the opportunities the global medium presents to creative minds looking to start a career in film or television.

Script Secrets: Hero is Villain?
by William C. Martell

For every yin there is a yang, for every hero there is a villain … unless they are the same person. In an excerpt from his book The Secrets of Action Screenwriting, columnist and professional scribe William C. Martell explains this unique story situation.

For more info:
http://www.ScriptMag.Com

- Bill

The 13 Days Of Halloween: Halloween (1978)

2011-10-31T00:06:00.000-07:00

Tonight I'm having cocktails at the Rabbit In Red Cocktail Lounge...

I don't think HALLOWEEN is the scariest movie ever made, but it's the film of the day. Saw it when it first came out - and probably saw it the next night, too. Here's what HALLOWEEN did - it wasn't the first stalk and slash film, but it was the first one to get it right... so all of the ones that came after it copied and stole from it without mercy. The cavalcade of bodies scenes comes from this film - even though PSYCHO kind of sets the stage with Mrs. Bates in the fruit cellar. And one of the reasons why we all saw it was because it was Janet Leigh's daughter.

Carpenter really took the time to *build* the suspense and create the dread - and the film sticks with you. He also came up with story details that made it seem real... and frightening. And, unlike the stupid remake, Carpenter knew the way to scare the crap out of you was to show a perfectly normal suburban family and world... and have the killer come from that world. The cute little kid who knocks at your door tonight? Michael Myers. He's sweet and polite and maybe a *member of your family* - and he could just take a knife and stab the life out of you...

If he saw you having sex. It's not about family (stupid sequels), it's not about some pagan cult crap (stupid sequels), Michael sees his sister naked and kills her. Michael sees PJ and Nancy in sexual situations - and kills them. Dude doesn't like sexual situations!

Carpenter's shots are elegant, he makes Michael into a ghost - he's there one minute and gone the next... so you never know when or where he will pop up. This film still works (unlike the remake). The film was made for $300k... and made $58 million.

I think it's on Hulu *free* today.

- Bill

The 13 Days Of Halloween: The Haunting (1963)

2011-10-30T01:07:00.000-07:00

"It was an evil house from the beginning - a house that was born bad."

I first saw this film in grade school on a rainy day when instead of going out to play we went to the multi-purpose room for a movie... and instead of just getting wet outside, all of us got scared to death and probably scarred for life. This film scares me *now*.

THE HAUNTING doesn't have any blood at all... yet it has regular scares throughout the film - and lots of DIRECT CONFLICT between the source of the scares and the protagonists. This is tricky, because THE HAUNTING is about ghosts and has no special effects - no guys in sheets, no double exposure FXs, nothing we can *see*.

The biggest mistake of the remake was turning it into a CGI fest... we fear the unknown, when we see a bunch of FX, it isn't unknown anymore.

"'Unknown.' That's the key word. 'Unknown.' When we become involved in a supernatural event, we're scared out of our wits just because it's unknown. The night cry of a child. A face on the wall. Knockings, bangings. What's there to be afraid of? You weren't threatened. It was harmless, like a joke that doesn't come out."

Though we can't see the ghosts in the original, we CAN see what they do. The original version of THE HAUNTING has five characters and only one of them dies - at the very end. But they are constantly in peril throughout the film, and often in conflict with each other. Even though nobody dies for 99% of the film's running time, there are a bunch of big scary scenes - it's as much fun to have a character *almost* killed as it is to have them killed.

"Haven't you noticed how nothing in this house seems to move until you look away and then you just... catch something out of the corner of your eye?"

It's a haunted house story about a team of ghostbusters who are going to "cleanse" a very haunted house. Richard Johnson is the professor leading the expedition into the world's most haunted house. Claire Bloom and Julie
Harris are two different kinds of psychics, Rusty Tamblin (from my INVISIBLE MOM movie) represents the owner of the house and the actress playing Johnson's wife (can't remember her name). The scares are (brilliantly directed) scenes with ghosts pounding on the walls or doors samming on their own or people almost being swept off balconies by the wind or spiral staircases becoming untethered and almost falling over or people having to walk down long hallways in the dark while wind or shadows chase them. The ghosts are constantly chasing our heroes! The ghosts are looking for fresh blood - and our five ghostbusters are in peril from the moment they enter that house. The ghosts don't just call on the phone and breathe heavy, they actively try to kill every member of the team!

"Look, I know the supernatural is something that isn't supposed to happen, but it does happen."

Though the most famous scary scene is probably that spiral staircase sequence, my favorite couple of minutes of absolute terror is a scene where ghosts pounding on the door to Harris and Bloom's bedroom actually begin to push the door inwards - bending it to the breaking point! The door just keeps bending inwards. Will the ghosts break through the door to get our team of psychics? This scene goes on so long you almost pass out from holding your breath in fear! And that door bows so far inwards you know it will break any minute! No blood (but the scene will drain the blood from *you*!) but scary as hell! This is the kind of "old school horror" audiences
are looking for - direct conflict between the terrifying and the protagonists... and when a movie like PARANORMAL ACTIVITY (1,2,3) comes along, the reason why it's a success is that it builds that sense of dread that gets us on a primal level...

Real suspense based on a real threat.

"When people believed the earth was flat, the idea of a round world scared them silly. Then they found out how the round world works. It's the same with the world of the supernatural. Until we know how it works, we'll continue to carry around this unnecessary burden of fear."

The best part about the original HAUNTING is that between these great bloodless scare scenes, you get to "catch your breath" with scenes of mentally unbalanced romance as Julie Harris interprets everything that Richard Johnson does as proof that he's secretly in love with her. The guy's married and doesn't even flirt with her - but she's so delusional that she's sure it's love. This is almost as creepy as the ghost attacks (just in a different way). So the "valleys" in the ghost story are "peaks" in the twisted romance story (kind of Harris's character coming of age late in life - she's been sheltered since that incident where stones rained on the family home when she was a kid... and has never been on her own or in love before). There are no slow spots in a (good) movie, just different kinds of excitement.

Robert Wise, the director, got his start as editor of a little film called CITIZEN KANE... and went on to direct CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE and BODY SNATCHER for Val Lewton. After that, he directed a string of great films - everything from ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW to WEST SIDE STORY to THE SOUND OF MUSIC to ANDROMEDA STRAIN. I think he kind pf blows apart the autuer theory because all of his films are just *good* - but I don't see much connection between them other than - *good*. THE HAUNTING was the height of his career - and it's a million times for frightening than the remake.

It was totally cool working with Rusty Tamblyn on INVISIBLE MOM - I made sure to show up on his days. It was totally cool.

Though THE HAUNTING is okay for kids - no sex, no blood, no gore - know that it is damned scary...

- Bill

The 13 Days Of Halloween: The Exorcist (1973)

2011-10-29T01:08:00.000-07:00

My first job(other than moving lawns and delivering papers and helping my dad) was at the Century Movie Theater in Pleasant Hill... when THE EXORCIST opened. I was too young to see the film, but old enough to work in the cinema... so I ended up seeing it 144 times. I can tell you how each scene works, how many shots are in the stair roll at the end, and all kinds of little details about the film.

But the big details are what make it scary.

The film (and novel) was a product of its time - but has also seemed to stand the test of time. The turbulent late 60s and early 70s, when children grew up too fast and became fouled mouthed hippies who believed in free love. Your kid was having sex and doing drugs and saying words that would make a sailor blush. So a film about a kid who goes through all of that - because they are possessed by Satan - connected with the audience on a primal level. The perfect film for parents.

But one of the reasons why it is with us today is that it's also a perfect film for kids. You reach puberty, and all of these crazy things happen to you - and it's as if you are possessed. You are not in control. I think the best horror films are the ones that take some real life problem and twist it - so that you can imagine this (impossible) thing happening to you, or someone you love. THE EXORCIST manages to work for parents of teens *and* teens. Plus, people who used to be teens and have had parents. The idea of someone you love turning into a monster is *emotional* and scary.

It's amazing how much fear a few gallons of split pea soup can produce.

- Bill

The 13 Days Of Halloween: Rosemary's Baby (1968)

2011-10-28T01:08:00.000-07:00

ROSEMARY'S BABY deals with a first pregnancy... and all of the unexpected feeling and side effects. Rosemary (Mia Farrow) is a typical New York newlywed - her husband (John Cassavettes) is an actor in commercials, not famous, more the struggling type. She's quit her job so that they can start a family. When she becomes pregnant, it's a joyous occasion, but she isn't quite sure what to expect - are these odd pains she keeps having normal? What about the weight loss? The strange cravings for raw meat? Hey, pickles and ice cream is one thing, but raw meat? Is that normal? Her new doctor tells Rosemary that every pregnancy is an individual experience, you can't compare it to your friend's pregnancies. It's impossible to know what to expect. Some pregnancies are easy, some are hard... some are painful. Feeling it kick is one thing, but did it just *bite* her? What's growing inside Rosemary? It's a baby, but a baby *what*?

The great thing about this film is how it takes a normal thing and twists it - even if you have never been pregnant, you know someone who has - and nothing that happens is *that* strange. But just enough strange that Rosemary wonders what the hell is going on.

Did the nice old couple next door give her a glass of unusually potent wine which lead to a not-so-immaculate conception involving Satan? Was she drunk, or did that guy really have horns? Was it all a dream? She wakes up with claw marks on her back and there's this thing growing inside of her causing strange cravings, dizziness, nausea, and depression. Rosemary's husband and the next door neighbors seem to be controlling her life - telling her what she should do for the sake of the baby. Pregnant for the first time, she doesn't want to do anything that might harm the baby. When she stops drinking those strange tanis root "vitamin drinks" the baby begins twisting her guts - making her so sick she can't even stand up. The baby is controlling her! Hey, it could be worse - she just gets ultra-morning sickness... her husband's business rival is suddenly struck blind the day before his job interview!

Rosemary's loving husband starts out thinking her strange beliefs about their neighbors are just a side effect of her pregnancy. The more weird stuff she uncovers, the more he believes she's just imagining things. Of course, her loving husband is a member of the Satanic cult. He's turned against her - allowed Satan to have his way with her in exchange for a role on a TV series... let's hope it wasn't the CHARLIE'S ANGELS revamp.

ROSEMARY'S BABY is not a scream-outloud scare movie - it's all slow build and things that are slightly creepy. But because it seems like something happening in the real world, it gets under your skin - this could really happen!

- Bill

The 13 Days Of Halloween: DAWN OF THE DEAD (2004)

2011-10-27T00:09:00.000-07:00

So, I'm not usually one for remakes - and I'm a big fan of Romero's original DAWN OF THE DEAD because it's all about how consumerism has turned us all into zombies wandering through the mall mindlessly shopping - but the 2004 remake with a script by SLITHER's James Gunn works on its own terms. When I first did my Horror Screenwriting class at the Raindance Film Festival in London, I didn't bring any clips... but *did* have the DVD of DAWN OF THE DEAD in my luggage, and found an illustration of almost every point I was going to make in the film.

The opening scene is *textbook* horror - we start out in suburbia on a normal morning...

As you can see, in very little time we have gone from order to chaos, and the police and authorities are powerless, and the monster could be anyone - the littel girl next door, the man you love - ANYONE. You are not safe.

- Bill

The 13 Days Of Halloween: Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)

2011-10-26T01:09:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid this was one of my favorite movies... because it was funny *and* scary. And it was so scary when I was a kid that parts of it were seen through the fingers covering my eyes. Though Bob Hope had made a comedy horror film before, this is the movie that does it best - and I think inspires most of the others. The great thing about the film is that it never makes fun of the monsters and treats the horror elements seriously. So there are real scares.

Universal studios had their two big box office draws fading fast - the monsters from their monster movie series and their comedy team Abbott & Costello - and some genius at the studio deciced to combine them in the kind of "MEETS" movie that we might come up with as a joke today (HANGOVER MEETS JASON?). But the studio wanted to protect their monsters and not have them ridiculed, and that resulted in a great film where the comedy team ends up in a horror movie and cracks jokes in response to the situations. They never laught at the monsters - they never make fun of them... they are real, and the conflict - the danger - is the fuel for the gags.

In that clip Lou Costello is not making fun of Dracula - he believes in him! He believes he is real danger.

In my horror class I talk about this film, and how the comedy makes the horror more frightening and the horror makes the comedy more funny. They compliment each other. In successful modern horror comedies they treat the horror elements seriously - but the characters are funny. Everything from PIRANHA to THE HOWLING to AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON to SLITHER to BLACK SHEEP to SHAUN OF THE DEAD to SCEAM keep the scares real but has funny characters making jokes while they are in danger.

(My first produced script, the Oscar nominated NINJA BUSTERS, was inspired by this film... and even has a version of the Dracula coffin scene above... just with Ninjas.)

I don't remember whether the first time I saw this film as a kid was on TV or at one of the Bob Wilkins Creature Features roadshow screenings he did during the summer at the middle school behind my house. They would take over the multipurpose room and show films for kids and raffle off prizes. I'm sure the purpose was to keep us from getting into trouble, but these films were an important part of my life growing up. We didn't have much money when I was a kid so the only time I ever saw a movie was either at the drive in (reflected off the back window of the car while I was *supposed* to be asleep on the back seat) or those rare times we saw a Disney film at the cinema where my Aunt Norma worked (she'd sneak us in). But just going to the movies? Didn't happen. So these weekly summer showings were like heaven - it was all of the kids from my neighborhood - all of my friends (Mickey Gillan, Mike Webb, Bob Hayes, John Thomas, etc) and we'd sit together and scream at the monsters and laugh at the jokes. Once I won an autographed picture of Godzilla!

Now that I'm writing movies, I often write funny horror movies inspired by ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN...

- Bill

PS: Here's John Landis talking about the film on TRAILERS FROM HELL:

The 13 Days Of Halloween: Sisters (1973)

2011-10-25T01:10:00.000-07:00

Brian DePalma is one of my favorite directors, and not just because he does a great job of immitating Hitchcock - I love his comedies like HI MOM! and HOME MOVIES... and his dramas like CASUALTIES OF WAR. Though he makes a mis-step or two, he's always interesting and has done some amazing visual experiments - he's the king of split screen. My favorite faux Hitchcock film of his is OBSESSION, but his film SISTERS is creepy and has enough jump moments to keep you above your seat when you aren't on the edge of it.

We basically have the old "Two sisters: One Good, One Evil" - but this time they have a deeper connection. They were conjoined twins. Danielle and Dominique. The problem is - which one is this? The nice one, or the psycho? The movie opens with a Candid Camera type TV show where a guy in the men's locker room at a gym sees a hot blind girl come in and start taking off her clothes. How long before he tells her she's in the wrong locker room? After the episode is over, the guy and the girl hook up - she's Danielle and she lives in a NYC apartment with her sister Dominique. They go back to her place, her sister is out, and make love. The next morning, the guy discovers that today is Danielle's birthday... goes out and buys a cake... but when he comes back, runs into Dominique...

The scene ends with him writing Help Me on the window in his blood, and reporter Jennifer Salt sees it and calls the police. Dominique splits, leaving Danielle with the dead guy. Great split screen sequence where Danielle's ex-husband (Bill Phantom Of The Paradise Finley) is trying to clean up the blood and dispose of the body on one side while Jennifer Salt is leading the police up to the apartment on the other side. Instead of cross cutting for suspense, our eyes do the cutting as we look back and forth between the two sides of the screen.

The great thing about this film is that it's PSYCHO and REAR WINDOW and FREAKS and EYES WITHOUT A FACE and several other flicks all put into a blender and turned into one seamless story that never seems like it rips off a specific movie. The ending is in a mega-spooky metal institution - and is ultra-creepy.

Music by Bernard Herrmann, who did so many great scores for Hitchcock. DePalma uses all of *his* stock company of actors, from Jennifer Salt to Bill Finley to Charles Durning - the only guy who doesn't show up is DePalma discovery Robert DeNiro. One of the great things in the end is when Jennifer Salt is attached to Dominique in a FREAKS inspired scene... so there's kind of a PERSONA reference going on there as well. This was a drive in movie that did really well and put DePalma back on the map after GET TO KNOW YOUR RABBIT flopped big time, and though it was schlock horror back then, today it's a Critereon DVD with a bunch of extras. The music is creepy enough to give you nightmares! And a textbook on how to use split screen. You'll never sit on a sofa bed again.

- Bill

The 13 Days Of Halloween: Freaks (1932)

2011-10-24T00:10:00.000-07:00

Tod Browning was one of the most gifted silent directors, with films like THE UNHOLY THREE and THE UNKNOWN to his credit when he was hired to direct DRACULA - which became a massive hit. His follow up movie pretty much ended his career. FREAKS was his pet project, a story that takes place in a carnival freak show and starred actual freaks. Even though this was a pre-code movie (no censorship or ratings existed for films) the studio demanded that it be cut and cut and cut... and the version released was too disturbing for the audience at the time. The film was officially banned in England and unofficially banned in the United States (MGM locked it away) until the late 60s, early 70s when the legend of the film resulted in some prints and a midnight showings... and a new audience. I saw it sometime in the late 70s, and it was most disturbing.

A Fan Made Trailer...

The film is now part of our culture - the "Gobble-Gobble One Of Us" scene pops up in everything from SOUTH PARK to DePalma's SISTERS. Interesting that DePalma was inspired by the film for SISTERS because the story has some similarities to CARRIE which he would also direct...

The freak show for a travelling carnival are like a family - they all watch out for each other. The film shows you the every day life of the freaks - and it's fascinating. The Human Torso - a guy with no arms or legs - lights his own cigarette. Armless woman uses her feet as hands. The Siamese Twins date. When hot trapeeze artist Cleopatra learns that midget Hans is rich, she seduces him, marries him... and then slowly poisons him so that she can inherit his fortune and run away with the Strong Man. Only, what you do to one of the Freaks, you do to all... and they may seem harmless, but they get their revenge for being abused by Cleopatra and the Strong Man.

One of us...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C4uTEEOJlM

Like CARRIE, the film is a slow build to a big finish when they get their revenge... but that end is the stuff of nightmares!

- Bill

Today's Amazon ranking:

The 13 Days Of Halloween: Don't Look Now (1973)

2011-10-23T02:11:00.000-07:00

The last entry in Fridays With Hitchcock was JAMAICA INN based on a novel by Daphne DuMaurier... and this film is also based on one of her stories (as was THE BIRDS). And here we have another one of my favorite directors Nic Roeg - who began as a cinematographer on films like Richard Lester's brilliant PETULIA starring the always beautiful Julie Christie... who also stars in DON'T LOOK NOW along with Donald Sutherland. This is one of those creepy movies that gets under your skin - you may watch it and only be scared at the end and think it's not so bad... but days later it will flash back into your memory.

And memory is what the film is about - Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie lose their little girl in a tragic accident and it tears them apart. Sutherland takes a job in Venice, Italy - hoping that they can use the time away from home to put their marriage back together again. But everywhere he looks in Venice he keeps seeing his dead daughter... and the two strange women they meet in a restaurant have seen her, too. One is psychic - and has seen their daughter's ghost. Oh, and there is a serial killer on the loose in Venice as well - bodies popping up everywhere. All of these things are connected, but we don't understand the connection until the very end.

Roeg is an amazing stylist - he loves to connect elements by *image* instead of chronology. This gives the film a poetic feel. It's a beautiful horror film. Oh, and there's a famous sex scene that rumor has it was not staged but real. This is not a *scary* film, it's a *creepy* one.

- Bill

Today's Amazon Ranking:

The 13 Days Of Halloween: Dead Of Night (1945)

2011-10-22T00:11:00.000-07:00

James Wan who directed SAW has a thing about killer puppet movies, and I'll bet it can all be traced back to seeing this film as a kid on TV. I know *my* fear of killer puppets stems from this, and the knowledge that Grover on Sesame Street is really a serial killer. But all of the ventriloquist dummy movies like William Goldman's MAGIC come from this creepy film.

An architect arrives at a country estate and has a strange feeling of deja vu. The group of people at the estate each tell stories of terror... while the architect's deja vu increases. Has he been here before? He feels as if he has heard each story before... and feels like something terrible will happen when the last tale has been told. Each of the stories is frightening, but the ventriloquist and the dummy that controls him is the one most people remember...

The cast is worth noting, since most of them were in Hitchcock's LADY VANISHES (next up on Friday's With Hitchcock next month). Not only do we get a variation on Caldecott & Charters, we get Bridesmaid Googie Withers and leading man Michael Redgrave! It's the whole gang! The cast is great, the film is spooky... yet realistic enough that you believe everything that happens no matter how crazy. The film was from Ealing Studios, famous for comedies... but this may be their most famous non-comedy film.

Five great stories of terror, with the "wrap" at the country house with our group. Directed by 4 different directors. "Christmas Party" is about a girl at a Christmas Party who finds a hidden staircase that leads to... "The Haunted Mirror" is about an newlywed couple - the wife buys a mirror that is... haunted. "The Hearse Driver" is about a man who dreams a hearse drives by him and the driver says: "There's room for one more"... and then his dream seems to come true. "Golfing Story" is about two golfers (Wayne & Radford) make a bet on the golf course - winner gets to marry the girl they both love, and the loser must die. "The Ventriloquist" is the most frightening of all, about a ventriloquist who thinks his dummy is out to get him... and he is. Often stories like this peter out at the end, but DEAD OF NIGHT has an ending that will give you nightmares!

"There's room for one more."

- Bill

The 13 Days Of Halloween: Black Christmas (1974)

2011-10-21T00:12:00.000-07:00

Before there was John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN there was Bob Clark's BLACK CHRISTMAS - the original "We've traced the call... it's coming from INSIDE the house!" movie. I caught this at a drive in on a double bill with Larry Cohen's IT'S ALIVE - and IT'S ALIVE was the "A" feature! But this film really creeped me out, and also had me laughing outloud. Margot Kidder's phone number had me laughing for months - because this was a time when people didn't say things like that in the movies.

But the main thing about BLACK CHRISTMAS is that it's spooky and probably the first "kill a bunch of people in a house" movie. Okay, TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE was released the same year, so it may have technically been the second movie with that basic plot - but BLACK CHRISTMAS is the version of that basic plot that you can trace through HALLOWEEN to SCREAM. In fact, HALLOWEEN began as a sequel to BLACK CHRISTMAS.

The great thing about this film - other than the call coming from inside the house - is the way the characters turn against each other when the bodies begin to pop up. Also a great cast - Olivia Hussey who was Juliet in ROMEO & JULIET plays the lead, Keir Dullea from some damned Kubrick movie was her boyfriend, John Saxon plays the cop in a horror movie for the first time, Andrea Martin from SECOND CITY is one of the gals, Margot Kidder is *hot* as one of the other gals - she had already starred in Brian DePalma's SISTERS and the next year would play the female lead in THE GREAT WALDO PEPPER opposite some guy named Redford. SISTERS is coming up in a couple of days...

What the heck, I love Larry Cohen, so let's look at the trailer for the "A" film on the double bill many years ago...

What I love about Larry Cohen movies is that the guy always has a social or political message in his weirdass horror films. His films like THE STUFF are complete cult flicks, but underneath it all are about something important. Here we have mutant killer babies caused by prescription drug side effects - kind of the ultimate Thalidomide baby. By the time Cohen got to IT'S ALIVE 3: ISLAND OF THE ALIVE he was doing a cult horror film that dealt with AIDS babies (except they were the killer mutant babies in the series).

He's one of my favorite filmmakers and one of those prolific screenwriters who is hit and miss - but when he hits he knocks it out of the park. Still alive and kicking and making films. He wrote PHONE BOOTH and CELLULAR! His last screenwriting credit was a couple of years ago... but his first writing credit was 1958. Oh, and he created the TV show THE INVADERS.

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: EVERY STORY ASKS A QUESTION - Is yours asking the *right* question?
Dinner: Chicken, potatos, corn at Boston Market.
Pages: Almost finished another chapter - but got sidetracked.

The 13 Days Of Halloween: Night Of The Living Dead

2011-10-20T00:13:00.000-07:00

One of the other films I first saw on Bob Wilkins' Creature Features was the original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD – and it freaked me out! I think it freaked out everyone who saw it, and basically created the modern zombie film. Before that, Zombies were from Haiti and under the spell of a Voodoo Priest... after NOTLD zombies were flesh eating undead friends and relatives. The reason this works even today is because it takes regular people and turns them into the monsters. You can not trust *anyone*. The person sitting next to you in the cinema or on the sofa in your living room can turn into a flesh eating goul!

When I was a kid I used to scare the crap out of my little sister by saying “I am the monster!” - and the idea that someone you know and love can suddenly turn into a monster is at the heart of many horror films. In NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD Barbara and her brother go to visit their father's grave on the same day a satellite from Venus crashes in the country side and brings the dead back to life... a harmless old man puts the bite on her brother, killing him... Barbara eventually runs into her brother Johnny again - but now he's a mindless zombie with a taste for human flesh. The people who you love have lost their free will and have turned into monsters! "They're dead! They're all messed up!" Some of the other survivors in the farm house, Cooper and his wife, watch their cute little daughter slowly turning into a monster... then she attacks Cooper and eats him! When mom tries to stop her, she attacks and eats her, too. You can't reason with these zombies, all you can do is shoot them in the head or burn them. And if one bites you? You lose your free will and start thinking of your friends and loved ones as lunch. That's a scary core concept!

The other element of NOTLD is the gore factor – which was way beyond anything I had ever seen at that time... and is even pushing the envelope by today's standards. Of course, the guts they eat are animal parts – but even *that* is pretty sick! Though Romero has said the casting of Duane Jones as the lead was not intended to make a racial point, the timing was in the film's favor – it hit at the height of the Civil Rights Movement and showed a hick sheriff killing an innocent African American man – our hero!

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD is the ultimate in friends turning against you. You can't trust anyone, because they may turn into a zombie. Kids attack and eat their own parents! Don't see it with someone you love... you'll wonder about them later.

- Bill
TODAY'S JACK-O-LANTERN:

IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: HIGH CONCEPT... OR HIGH STAKES? - Global or Personal stakes.
Dinner: Chicken Caesar Salad to make up for all of the junk I've been eating lately.
Pages: Finished a chapter on the Action Book!

Today's Amazon Rank:

The 13 Days Of Halloween: The Creature From The Black Lagoon

2011-10-19T00:13:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, one of the most scary movies I had ever seen was THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON. May have been on Bob Wilkins' Creature Features or on C3PM Theater on KCRA (Sacramento). The movie is really creepy, and uses the water to hide the monster the same way JAWS used the water to hide the shark. You never know when or where it will strike. The film also has great music with some of the earliest use of "stings" - dant-dunt-da! The group of people, isolated, with a monster out there... somewhere... builds dread. Every time someone gets into the water because there's a tree or something in the way of the boat, you worry that the creature will attack. This was one of those movies I watched as a kid with hands covering my eyes - peeking between my fingers.

Not as scary as an adult, but still *fun* - it has some real suspense and real thrills and actually has an environmental message (great shot of a cigarette butt being thrown into the lagoon... camera dips underwater to show the Creature looking up at the butt and garbage floating in his pool). I didn't notice the environmental stuff when I was a kid. This is one of those films that people my age saw on TV as kids and remember - which is why Universal keeps trying to remake it (latest attempt was with Will Smith). The cheese-fest ANACONDA owes just about everything to this film.

For a while there was a slot machine in Vegas based on BLACK LAGOON, and I always played it becuase it had clips from the film with some clever quips. I have no idea if kids today would find this scary, or just silly - there's no gore at all... but when people dangle their feet in the water and you know it's down there, that scared the heck out of me when I was young!

- Bill
TODAY'S JACK-O-LANTERN:

IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: HOW You Tell The Story - It's not just the story, it's how you decide to tell it... backwards?
Dinner: Pork chop, salad, potatoes... danged cold is still hanging in there!
Pages: Half a chapter on the action book rewrite plus a thing that I needed to work on for months... that I finally finished.

Fridays With Hitchcock: Rebecca (1940)

2011-10-14T07:04:00.000-07:00

Screenplay by Joan Harrison and Robert E. Sherwood, story by Michael Hogan and Philip MacDonald, based on the novel by Daphne Du Maurier.

“Do you think the dead come back to watch the living?”

Hitchcock is one of the best known directors in the world, a director who understood the language of film like few others (and is studied in cinema classes), has probably had more books on cinema written about his work than any other director, and most people know what he looks like and sounds like... yet he never won an Oscar! He was given one of those consolation prize Oscars before he died... but for all of the visual experiments and story experiments he did to push the envelope of cinema, and for all of the precise, quality direction he did in his 53 films (where every shot was carefully chosen to create emotion in the viewer), he got nada. REBECCA won the Best Picture Oscar... but that went to Selznick, the producer.

I think it’s interesting that a quiet costume drama has a better chance of winning a Best Picture Oscar than a movie that makes you feel something - maybe once a movie becomes something experienced on an emotional level it can no longer be analyzed intellectually - and those Oscar voters set it aside.

When I am writing Script Tips for the website, the most difficult films to use as examples are the ones that engaged me - where I became so caught up in the story and characters that I forgot I was watching a movie and felt as if I was just living that story. These are the films that I must see several times before I have the ability to pull myself out of the film enough to analyze the story and jot down notes... yet even then I find myself sucked into the tale no matter how hard I fight it. But a bad movie? My mind is free to wander and analyze all of the faults - the reasons why it is *not* engaging me. Same with a dispassionate movie, or a story “told from outside” where I am viewing what happens but not emotionally involved in the outcome. Those are the easy ones to write Script Tips about, because I’m sitting on the sidelines - they don’t involve me emotionally, only intellectually. Yes, this means those bad parody films like DATE MOVIE only involve me intellectually - I have no emotional connection to those stories and can easily analyze why the suck. One of the reasons why I love AIRPLANE so much is that it actually pulls me into the story emotionally every time, even though it’s a parody. I find myself wanting Robert Hayes to get over his fear of flying and save the passengers and get back together with Julie Haggerty. So it doesn’t matter what the *genre* of the film is, I get pulled into the story based on the writing and characters and situations and direction.

And emotionally involving films are kind of frightening, because we are no longer in control - we are just along for the ride. A great film kidnaps us, and whisks us away to their world for a couple of hours. We forget we are sitting in a cinema... and maybe we aren’t. Maybe a great film transports us in our minds into the world of that film, and leaves our mortal shells in that sticky-floored theater. We are swept away by the film, whether we like it or not. This loss of control may be uncomfortable to some people, so they attempt to intellectually reject these films. I know many people who hate horror movies because they get scared - the very thing a horror movie is supposed to do! Though I understand not wanting to be frightened, this is intellectually rejecting a film *because it works*. The film is stronger than they are, so it is feared and rejected. A film that makes them feel little or nothing, that does *not* sweep them away, is something they can control and therefor like. That staid costume drama is an *easier* film for them to watch than a genre film that kidnaps them for two hours and then dumps them back in their cinema seat emotionally spent. Part of the intellectual is to reject the emotional. To be *civilized*.

Hitchcock films are also filled with plot twists - they are designed to fool you into believing one thing, then springing in that twist Again, critics don’t like to be *fooled* because it makes them into fools - so they often dislike films with plot twists or decide that it is as cheap plot device... because it worked. They may be intellectuals, but they were tricked! By a genre movie! They must say they saw the twist coming, because if they didn’t they are admitting to being fools. Plot twists make them feel stupid, so the *must* dislike and belittle a film with a plot twist in order to save face. So add plot twists to your emotional story and you have a film that critics will dismiss... because it works.

So Hitchcock never won an Oscar... though his film REBECCA did. Who wants to reward the kidnapper who makes you feel like a fool?

Nutshell: REBECCA is a Gothic Romance - a popular fiction genre where the paperback cover usually shows a woman in a nightgown fleeing a castle with the silhouette of a stern man in the window. This subgenre dates back to the novels of those wacky Bronte Sisters, and at times REBECCA seems like a contemporary version of the first half of WUTHERING HEIGHTS by Emily... and by some coincidence Laurence Olivier was hot off playing Heathcliff in the film version only a year before playing Maxim in REBECCA. JANE EYRE by that other Bronte Sister has a similar haunted dude the chick falls for named Eddie Rochester (not the Jack Benny one). Gothic Romances always have some dark, troubled romantic dude who has some terrible secret, hooking up with some innocent young woman who is not prepared for a guy with this much baggage. So she’s running away in her nightgown while he’s looking out the window in silhouette. (Weird Bill aside - the only part of that I had to look up was the year Olivier was in WUTHERING HEIGHTS!)

REBECCA is kind of the Cinderella story from Hell.

Our leading lady (who has no name and is called “The Second Mrs. De Winter” sometimes in the film, and “I” in the screenplay) (Joan Fontaine) is the mousey assistant to tasteless rich blowhard Edyth Van Hopper (Florence Bates) and her job seems to consist of being constantly insulted and doing all sorts of menial tasks. She is at least ten times as intelligent and Mrs. Van Hopper even though she is in some sort if servant class. While on vacation in Monte Carlo, the boorish Mrs. Van Hooper keeps trying to force herself into the company of rich, brooding widower Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier) who does everything possible to avoid her - even though she never gets the hint. Maxim seems to be the only one who notices our leading lady’s wit, and they begin going out together... only Maxim isn’t exactly the best companion. He’s a quiet, brooding man who seems to be haunted by... something. But our leading lady seems to cheer him up, and when the vacation is over, Maxim asks her to marry him. By this point I think she’d marry Jabba The Hutt to get away from Mrs. Van Hooper, so she says yes, they are married in a civil ceremony, and go on a fabulous honeymoon in Europe. Maxim may be quiet and preoccupied by... something... but he’s still a great catch. He’s rich and lives in a massive estate named Manderley and is handsome and kind.

When they return from the honeymoon, things begin to go wrong for our leading lady. She is basically a servant who must now be a princess - and that includes managing the huge mansion and huge staff... headed by the seemingly evil Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson - stealing the show). Mrs. Danvers was the personal maid to Maxim’s first wife, Rebecca, and remains loyal to the dead woman. Our leading lady just isn’t in the same league as Rebecca was, and Mrs. Danvers manages to sneak this into every single conversation the two have. If the giant mansion and all of the servants weren’t intimidating enough, Mrs. Danvers seems to be trying to be making her life hell. Add to all of this - Maxim seems even more preoccupied at home than when he was on vacation. He takes “distant” to new lengths. Our leading lady pokes around the big house, but one room is locked - Rebecca’s bedroom (about twice the size of my entire apartment) - which has been kept exactly as it was the day she died. Creepy!

Our leading lady becomes obsessed by Rebecca in two ways - there is a mystery surrounding her death and no one talks about it, and she tries to dress and act like Rebecca in order to win the attention of the distant Maxim. Rebecca’s life and death include all kinds of strange things - she drowned while sailing, but was an expert swimmer. He also seemed to have a “cousin” (ultra-suave George Sanders) who may have actually been her lover. And there’s a boathouse that no one is allowed to go near - which may be where the lovers met. And many mysteries within the house that concern Rebecca, which Mrs. Danvers is trying to make sure our leading lady does not solve. The other element - our leading lady trying to become Rebecca - is something that pops up in other Hitchcock movies like VERTIGO. Here we have our intelligent but unsophisticated leading lady trying to do a full makeover into the ideal society woman... but when she asks Mrs. Danvers what Rebecca was like in order to duplicate it, she’s usually sabotaged.

Eventually she goes to Maxim and asks about Rebecca’s death, and he tells her what happened - he killed her! Not the answer she wanted to hear. (Actually, he doesn’t say he killed her, he says “I put her there” when asked how she ended up in that sailboat at the bottom of the sea... but in Brian DePalma’s excellent Hitchcock homage OBSESSION - written by the great Paul Schrader - the Maxim-like widower tells his fiancé who is trying ever-so-hard to be like his dead first wife that he killed her. It’s a much better line, kind of the Paul Schrader rewrite of REBECCA 35 years later.)

Well, our leading lady pokes around some more and discovers that Maxim didn’t kill Rebecca, he found her dead and planted her body in the sailboat to avoid a scandal. He didn’t love Rebecca - she was a manipulative slut who only married him for his money and when she died it was the best thing that ever happened to him... except he’s worried that someone will open up the whole can of worms and discover he covered up her death... and now our leading lady has done that very thing!

Experiment: This is Hitchcock’s first film in the United States after a successful career in England, so he’s kind of playing it safe. The cast is mostly British and the story is from a novel by Du Maurier who wrote the novel Hitch’s previous film was based on JAMAICA INN and the story THE BIRDS was based on. But the film is almost the opposite of Hitchcock style suspense - instead of big suspense set pieces the film works mostly on mood. This is interesting because it almost works by the *absence* of action, by the stillness of locations and story and Mrs. Danver’s face. For a director whose style is action oriented, moving camera and editing oriented, the lack of movement ends up being an experiment.

Hitch Appearance: Walking past a phone booth.

Sound Track: Another great Franz Waxman score.

Great Scenes: Though the film does have some great scenes, like when Mrs. Danvers sabotages our leading lady at the costume ball, what makes the film work is the mood, the way it turns the Cinderella story on its head, the secrets and reveals, and the way it always seems to put three characters together with shifting alliances. So let’s look at those aspects of the story.

Mood: The film establishes the mood right out of the gate - which is exactly what you want. The opening image not only sets the tone for the entire story, it also sets up the story itself. We open at night on a winding driveway leading to the huge country estate named Manderley - the mansion shrouded in fog and darkness. Our unnamed leading lady says in voice over, “Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter for the way was barred to me. Then, like all dreamers, I was possessed of a sudden with supernatural powers and passed like a spirit through the barrier before me. The drive wound away in front of me, twisting and turning as it had always done. But as I advanced, I was aware that a change had come upon it. Nature had come into her own again, and little by little had encroached upon the drive with long tenacious fingers, on and on while the poor thread that had once been our drive. And finally, there was Manderley - Manderley - secretive and silent. Time could not mar the perfect symmetry of those walls. Moonlight can play odd tricks upon the fancy, and suddenly it seemed to me that light came from the windows. And then a cloud came upon the moon and hovered an instant like a dark hand before a face. The illusion went with it. I looked upon a desolate shell, with no whisper of the past about its staring walls. We can never go back to Manderley again. That much is certain. But sometimes, in my dreams, I do go back...” The mansion is from her past - a memory in the darkness. It begins as a dream, but as we get closer to the mansion, the fog breaks and we see that it is the skeleton of a mansion - burned out by fire. Some tragedy has taken place here. The beautiful mansion destroyed. The fog concealing, and then revealing the shocking wreckage - and that is how the story works as well. Dark things are revealed. Things have been destroyed in the past...

Beginning with a strong image is a great way to open any kind of screenplay, and here the image of the once beautiful mansion in ruins prepares us for the rest of the story.

Situation and location are important elements in setting the mood, as is time period. Imagine a children’s playground in summer... now imagine that same playground in the dead of winter. These are some of the tools we use when setting mood, along with word choice. The opening of any screenplay can be used to establish mood and location through word choice and description that is poetic... before getting down to the nuts and bolts of action oriented description. But even after a strong image opening, the choice of words used in your action/description is critical to maintaining that mood. I bought a hard copy of the REBECCA script, hoping to post a few evocative descriptions as an example, but this was an adaptation, and the only available version was the shooting script - which was pretty dry and mechanical. I would suggest a script like this is where you get to use the *writing* skills in screenwriting and find the most evocative words you can to paint the picture, without becoming verbose. The key is not to use *many* words, but to use *the right* words - the one that add tone and mood and feeling to the actions.

But every situation, every scene, should be used to create mood. Because this is a romance, there is a “meet cute” - that clever scene where the romantic couple meet. In a rom-com it would be a funny scene, but in REBECCA our female lead comes upon Maxim at the edge of a cliff where he is about to jump to his death. They have an awkward conversation and he moves away from the cliff so that she’ll go away.

After they get married by a justice of the peace - a brief scene of happiness - they drive through the rain to the hulking mansion Manderlay.

Manderley is not a location that is surrounded by life and people - it is secluded at the end of a long, winding, drive - completely isolated from everyone. Though it is surrounded by nature - it seems to be autumn, and the trees are barren. This gives us not only isolation, but *desolation* as an element of location. These things create mood in the background of every scene. The mansion itself is big and empty - creating isolation and desolation even when the scenes are indoors. The mansion is mostly empty rooms shrouded in darkness. To add to the mood, our leading lady is often exploring the closed west wing... where Rebecca used to live. The rooms are not lighted, and she dare not bring a candle or flashlight. Other great locations that create mood are an abandoned beach house filled with cobwebs and dusty boating equipment. Locations, time of day, characters, and story are all selected to create that mood of death and danger and darkness. Consider location as an element of mood.

Negative Cinderella: Once Maxim and our leading lady get to the fairy tale castle of Manderley, the fairy tale romance is over. Because she can never measure up to Rebecca, and everything is a minefield waiting for her to make the wrong step.

There are four minefields in Manderley, beginning with Cinderella having no idea how to be a Princess. She is supposed to be in charge ogf the house, and that includes the huge staff of servants... but she is a servant herself and has no idea how to order people to do things. Not because she isn’t intelligent enough, but because she isn’t aggressive enough - she is still that mousey little "paid companion". Questions about the dinner menu (which is *printed out* every day) need to be answered right away. The gardening staff is here, what do you want them to do? She has no personal maid of her own, which means someone will have to be pulled from some other job to take care of her. She is in charge of correspondence, and there is a huge desk with drawers full of envelopes and stationery and an address book - all monogrammed with Rebecca’s initials. She doesn’t know who any of these people are - and when she scans down the address book everyone is some form of royalty or society... except her. She has no idea that there is a “morning room” where you have tea in the morning, and some other room for later in the day. All kinds of rooms and rules and customs she is unaware of... and she is so far out of her league that everything she does is a potential mistake (and usually an actual mistake). Suspense is built around her not knowing “the rules”, being completely out of her depth and making mistake after mistake. How will she keep from looking like a fool? When she knocks over a China Cupid on her desk and it shatters, she hides the pieces in a drawer rather than call for a maid to clean up the mess. Being a Princess means that if she uses the wrong fork at dinner, people will think she’s an not worthy of being Max’s wife.

Another minefield is that monogrammed stationery... and Rebecca`s ghost. Though there is no translucent figure or someone in a sheet, Rebecca’s ghost is still present in every scene. “Mrs. DeWinter always...” She lives in the shadow of the former mistress of the house, and *everything* has her monogram on it - her territory is marked. Scene after scene has our leading lady bumping up against the memory of Rebecca - the perfect woman. It’s bad enough that Mrs. Danvers and the other servants seem to be constantly comparing her to Rebecca, but even Maxim changes at Manderlay - he’s more moody, always brooding, and distant. Rebecca is present in every scene, every decision that our leading lady makes, and every time Maxim looks at her. In a scene where she cries, Maxim hands her a handkerchief... with Rebecca’s monogram! Maxim seems to still be in love with his dead wife, using our leading lady as nothing more than a romantic band-aid to cover his pain. REBECCA is a ghost story without a physical ghost - just the strong memory of Rebecca, and almost everything in Manderlay is a reminder of Rebecca and a part of Rebecca and designed by Rebecca or created by Rebecca. There is no escape from Rebecca - she haunts our leading lady no matter where she tries to hide in Manderlay.

To give the ghost of Rebecca a human form, we have Mrs. Danvers - who began service at Manderlay as Rebecca’s personal maid. She is constantly peering over our leading lady’s shoulder, waiting for her to make a mistake... waiting to point out how much more sophisticated Rebecca was. She asks our leading lady if Maxim approves of her terrible hair style... which makes her doubt Max’s affections when she probably needs them most. It is impossible for our leading lady to win Mrs. Danver’s approval, yet that seems to be what is required to exist in Manderlay. Mrs. Danvers has kept Rebecca’s room exactly as it was - like a shrine to the dead woman. Her brush in *exactly* the same place - not a centimeter to the right or left. When our leading lady sneaks into Rebecca’s room, Mrs. Danvers *materializes* in the room to discover her, and then gives her a full tour - every single moment designed to compare our leading lady to the always superior Rebecca. Rebecca’s lingerie was hand made by nuns - how can you compete with that? Also - you can see right through Rebecca’s night gown - her body so perfect that she wanted it to be seen.

Mrs. Danvers is a great character - and maybe the model for Hannibal Lecter - she is almost never shown moving - she just appears in a room... or disappears. Her face is always so still it looks dead - the only expression she has is disdain. Her voice is quiet and expressionless - almost robotic. She provides a few shock moments when she suddenly appears somewhere to criticize our leading lady, then vanishes in the time it takes you to look away. The use of stillness, long pauses, and a slower pace builds suspense by creating *denser* conflict - and Mrs. Danvers character is that stillness incarnate. By the end of the tour it is obvious that our leading lady will never measure up to Rebecca - it is impossible. And she can never win Mrs. Danvers’ approval - everything she does will always be wrong. Minor issues of etiquette result in major disdain and disappointment from Mrs. Danvers.

The biggest minefield is Maxim - he has some dark past, some secret, and our leading lady has no idea what it is. Everyone seems to know the backstory of Rebecca’s life and death except her. A dinner conversation mention of *swimming* brings up Max’s memories of Rebecca *drowning*. Everything for conversations about sailing to the boat house to what she wears to a costume party might be the thing that sets Maxim off - flooding him with painful memories of Rebecca’s death. These things make Maxim angry and sullen and he pulls farther and farther away from our leading lady. Isolating her in the huge house with Rebecca’s ghost. By having her *not* know the Rebecca backstory, almost anything she says or does might trigger Max. A scene where he is joyously showing her home movies from their honeymoon *instantly* goes south when she says the wrong thing. Completely innocent, nothing you would ever think would trigger the tirade from Maxim that follows. Suspense is built around our leading lady saying the wrong thing at the wrong time or wearing the wrong clothes... and Maxim exploding. And scenes are created where she must tip-toe through the minefield, knowing that one false step...

Three’s A Crowd: I believe that good drama requires three characters. Two characters is an argument where either may be right, and it just goes back and forth. Add a third character and you have someone who can be convinced that one or the other is right - or maybe that both are wrong and they are right. You have a character who can go back and forth between the two possibilities. When you have a third wheel, that person can end up “stakes” (whether they side with a character or not) or “conflict” (if they come between two characters). The great thing about three characters is the character who is an obstacle to one character can be the stakes to another... and all the way around the circle! Three is one of those magic numbers... and in REBECCA almost every scene and plot element are about groups of three characters.

We start out with our leading lady, her bitchy boss Mrs. Van Hopper and Maxim - one of those three gets in the way of the other two.

At Manderlay we get our leading lady, Maxim, and Mrs. Danvers - one of those three gets in the way of the other two.

We also have our leading lady, Rebecca’s ghost, and Maxim - one of those three gets in the way of the other two.

We find out that Rebecca had an affair: Maxim, Rebecca, her “cousin” Jack Favell (George Sanders) - with Favell getting in the way of Maxim’s marriage to Rebecca.

Again and again in the film we are given a situation with three characters, one who gets in the way of the other two - one who is the antagonist in this scene or situation. Look at your scenes - if you have two characters who are together, who or what keeps them apart? Though this may be more important in a romance or rom-com, in any situation where two characters are in agreement (lack of conflict) who is the character that forces them apart and creates conflict? If you have two people who agree on a solution to a problem, who disagrees to create conflict and drama? And which of the two characters in agreement begins to be swayed to the other side? (which is kind of a betrayal.) Look for the magic number three - it can be the key to drama and conflict!

Secrets & Reveals: The most important thing in a gothic romance is that character with a dark past that hangs over them like a cloud and must be brought into the light in order to be resolved. The minefield that is Maxim DeWinter is all about that dark secret surrounding Rebecca’s death, and even though every time our leading lady stumbles into some aspect of that dark secret it creates conflict with Maxim, the man she loves, the only way to resolve the conflict is to get Maxim to reveal that secret. There is a built in dilemma there, and that’s what makes the story work. The thing that will cause our leading lady the most pain is the thing that is required in order for her to find eventual happiness. Rebecca’s ghost must be laid to rest - and the only way to do that is for Maxim to reveal what really happened that night.

The key to a great reveal is that the *audience* wants to know the information. Needs to know the information. Are *hungry* for the information. Reveals that don’t work are just information dumps with shocking information - but as soon as that shock is over, we don’t really care. The information may not alter the story in any discernable way or may not satisfy any need in the audience. This was one of the problems with UNDER CAPRICORN - the reveals were a soap opera shock, but nothing much else. To make the reveal a *real* moment, you need to tease us - to make the audience ask “What is the secret behind Rebecca’s death?” The more you tease the audience and make us wonder what the big secret is, the more they want to know the secret, and the more impact that secret will have when it is revealed (provided it is not what we expected).

Most movies have a big question at their core, and the screenwriter’s job is to know what that question is and keep the viewer asking it. In a romantic comedy the question may be - will the couple get past all of the obstacles and hook up at the end? In RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and other quest movies the question is - will Indiana Jones get the ark and keep it away from the Nazis? In a romantic thriller movie like SEA OF LOVE the question is - is the woman the cop loves a serial killer? There is usually some question at the heart of every story, and in REBECCA that question is - how did she die and did Maxim kill her? The movie keeps teasing us with this question again and again - it is what drives the story. For our Cinderella to live happily ever after, Maxim must no longer be obsessing about Rebecca... and she must know the location of all of those hidden mines so that she doesn’t step on one... and maybe even have Maxim *defuse* those mines. To do that, we need to know what happened that night, the night Rebecca was killed. So the whole story *needs* to be building to the moment of the reveal, we need to know that there is a big secret, and wonder exactly what that secret is. Did Maxim kill her? Is Cinderella married to a murderer? By keeping this question alive throughout the film, so that the audience *needs* to know the answer, when it is revealed it has impact. It is a *resolution* not just a shock. A good reveal *answers* questions, instead of creating more questions.

That means whatever is reveals *can not* be what we expect... making a reveal like a plot twist. It needs to be something that is logical and motivated and *present* in the story so far (not something you pull out of your ass at the end), but at the same time not what that audience thought it was going to be. So we need to create a “red herring” reveal that we hint at, that the audience believes will be the big reveal... so that they can be surprised by the actual reveal. In REBECCA we are lead to believe that Maxim was madly in love with Rebecca, and when he discovered that she was cheating on him with Favell, he murdered her. But that is *not* what happened at all! When the truth is revealed, it makes perfect sense - but Maxim is not the killer at all. So the reveal can be a surprise even after 2 hours of teasing the audience with the secret.

What that secret is I have already revealed in one of the opening paragraphs... but maybe you have forgotten it by now? If so, you may still be surprised at that moment of the film when you watch it. REBECCA is a great lush romance that still works well 60 years later.

- Bill

The other Fridays With Hitchcock.

BUY THE DVD AT AMAZON:

Still #3!

2011-10-13T15:56:00.000-07:00

Sorry, folks, I have a terrible head cold so the LADY VANISHES entry isn't going to pop tomorrow, and the half finished links entry never got up for today. My good news is that my laptop is back from the shop, so I'm working on the SECRETS OF ACTION rewrite between nose-blows.

The miracle of the two Blue Books on Kindle continues, here's today's ranking on Amazon:

NEW!
*** YOUR IDEA MACHINE *** - For Kindle!
*** YOUR IDEA MACHINE *** - For Nook!
Expanded version with more ways to find great ideas! Print version is 48 pages, Kindle version is around 155 pages!
Only $2.99 - and no postage!

NEW!
*** CREATING STRONG PROTAGONISTS *** - For Kindle!
*** CREATING STRONG PROTAGONISTS *** - For Nook!
Expanded version with more ways to create interesting protagonists! Print version is 48 pages, Kindle version is once again around 155 pages!
Only $2.99 - and no postage!

Next up will be Dialogue (#10) - which is mostly rewritten and waiting for the three new articles... which I have to write between nose-blows.

Hope to have e-book version of SECRETS OF ACTION ready around the start of November. There will be an excerpt in the November issue of Script Magazine. The excerpt is 2,500 words (10 pages of typing) and was a *single sentence* in the original version! That's the problem with this danged rewrite - every chapter has more information and is twice as long!

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Do You Have The Wrong Idea - Making sure you have the best version of the story before you write it.
Dinner: Chicken breast, salad, mashed potatoes... at home while blowing my nose. Yech. Couldn't taste any of it.
Pages: Got my laptop back from repairs... but now *I* need repairs. Mon & Tue wrote a new article for Script. Also did a quick pass on a script requested by a manager.