The adventures of a professional screenwriter and sometimes film festival jurist, slogging through the trenches of Hollywood, writing movies that you have never heard of, and getting no respect. Voted #10 - Best Blogs For Screenwriters - Bachelor's Degree
Directed by: Elia Kazan
Written by: Richard Murphy (BOOMERANG, COMPULSION), Daniel Fuchs (CRISS CROSS), based on a story by Edward & Edna Anhalt (SATAN BUG).
Starring: Richard Widmark, Barbara Bel Geddes, Paul Douglas, and the great Jack Palance and great Zero Mostel.
After seeing DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES sunday night, with it's opening montage showing us news footage of the plague that wipes out almost all human life on Earth, I thought it would be fun to look at a film from the past with a different look at the plague. 1950's PANIC IN THE STREETS stars Richard Widmark as a CDC doctor... not a crazed killer or a snarky hit man! He's the good guy in this one. The film takes place in New Orleans, and was shot on location (unusual for this time period) but was directed by Elia Kazan, the dude who took advantage of the new method style of acting and married it to a documentary style of cinema with great results. Kazan's *next* film was A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE and a few films after that he directed ON THE WATERFRONT, and then EAST OF EDEN. Though most of his films dealt with a social issue, he was working in a time where the easiest way to do that was in crime films like this one.
Our story starts when a guy is murdered... but he would have died anyway because he had the plague. The plague! Now it's a race-against-time search for the killer (Jack Palance)... who also has the plague and is *spreading it* with every person he touches. Doctor Widmark and Detective Paul Douglas have 48 hours to find Palance before creates a city-wide epidemic. This is a great idea because "patient zero" is someone who does not want to be found (because he's a killer).
There are chase scenes and shoot outs and fight scenes and a plane chasing a plague ship and... well, it's danged exciting. It's a thriller. But it also really gets into police vs. doctors vs. city politics vs. freedom of the press vs. the public good. Because this crisis - the killer roaming the streets with the plague - requires all kinds of difficult decisions - and as they argue in a speeding car whether they should kill this guy (because he's a menace to society) or make sure they don't kill him (because they need to know everyone he came into contact with) we get to examine the way society works - and why our version may not work.
We get to look at what's right, what's wrong, what works and what doesn't work. Should they give the press the story to possibly save lives... even though that will force the killer underground and they won't capture him in time? Is freedom of the press more important than capturing a criminal? The film really digs into issues.
It also digs into character - Widmark is a low paid government doctor who hides in his work, causing problems with his wife Barbara Bel Geddes and their kid. There are some great family issues going on during the crisis, including Widmark's decision *not* to get his family out of town as they get closer and closer to the crisis point. (Some of the detectives gets their families out of the danger zone). The film works as a pursuit film, a gangster film, a cop film, a social issues film, and a drama... and *won* Best Screenplay that year. It manages to get everything right.
Plus there are a great pair of scenes between Widmark and Douglas, where Douglas completely takes responsibility for something Widmark did - to the point of endangering his future. Because it's what Widmark wanted, he doesn't notice the sacrifice. Later, when he realizes what Douglas has done, he kicks himself a bit... then later makes everything right by taking responsibility for something Douglas has done - that could really screw up Widmark's future.
The locations are amazing: coffee packing houses, ships, rooming houses, waterfront warehouses, and suburban homes. In a time where movies were shot in the back lot, this film explores New Orleans while avoiding anyplace you've ever seen in a tourist video. We get the places people live and work and avoid the tourist traps. It's a great, gritty look at the city. And there is an attention to detail that makes even the action set pieces very personal.
This is a really well written thriller, and when Widmark explains to the cops how Palance could hop a plane and spread the plague nation-wide within a day, it's really frightening. That's what could happen in the late-40s... imagine what could happen today?
Mike Leigh and Hitchcock may both be British directors, but after that they are polar opposites - Hitch being all about precision and technique, Leigh being more about realism and almost the lack of technique to tell the story. But both know what it;s like to be working class people (Hitch’s father worked in a produce stall - check out FRENZY and SABOTAGE) - so their interests intersect with one of my favorite films REAR WINDOW. In 1997 the BBC did a series of interviews with directors and actors in honor of Alfred Hitchcock, and many of the interviews seem to be in a vault somewhere at the BBC, but a few are hidden away on a couple of websites including Mike Leigh’s look at REAR WINDOW, his thoughts on all of the people across the courtyard on that hot day. Those characters could be in a Mike Leigh movie. In my HITCHCOCK: EXPERIMENTS IN TERROR book I look at the fixed view experiment in this film, but also at the stories across the courtyard - and in this clip Leigh talks about the Miss Lonelyhearts story... which is heartbreaking.
Of course, I have a couple of books about Hitchcock, REAR WINDOW is in the one that is on sale today...
HITCHCOCK: MASTERING SUSPENSE
LEARN SUSPENSE FROM THE MASTER!
Alfred Hitchcock, who directed 52 movies, was known as the “Master Of Suspense”; but what exactly is suspense and how can *we* master it? How does suspense work? How can *we* create “Hitchcockian” suspense scenes in our screenplays, novels, stories and films?
This book uses seventeen of Hitchcock’s films to show the difference between suspense and surprise, how to use “focus objects” to create suspense, the 20 iconic suspense scenes and situations, how plot twists work, using secrets for suspense, how to use Dread (the cousin of suspense) in horror stories, and dozens of other amazing storytelling lessons. From classics like “Strangers On A Train” and “The Birds” and “Vertigo” and “To Catch A Thief” to older films from the British period like “The 39 Steps” and “The Man Who Knew Too Much” to his hits from the silent era like “The Lodger” (about Jack The Ripper), we’ll look at all of the techniques to create suspense!
Films Included: NOTORIOUS, SABOTAGE, STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, THE 39 STEPS, REBECCA, TO CATCH A THIEF, FRENZY, FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT, THE LODGER, THE BIRDS, TORN CURTAIN, SABOTEUR, VERTIGO, THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1934), THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1955), SUSPICION, and NUMBER SEVENTEEN. 17 Great Films!
We all know that Alfred Hitchcock was the Master Of Suspense, but did you know he was the most *experimental* filmmaker in history?
Contained Thrillers like “Buried”? Serial Protagonists like “Place Beyond The Pines”? Multiple Connecting Stories like “Pulp Fiction”? Same Story Multiple Times like “Run, Lola, Run”? This book focuses on 18 of Hitchcock’s 53 films with wild cinema and story experiments which paved the way for modern films. Almost one hundred different experiments that you may think are recent cinema or story inventions... but some date back to Hitchcock’s *silent* films! We’ll examine these experiments and how they work. Great for film makers, screenwriters, film fans, producers and directors.
Films Examined: “Rear Window”, “Psycho”, “Family Plot”, “Topaz”, “Rope”, “The Wrong Man”, “Easy Virtue”, “Lifeboat”, “Bon Voyage”, “Aventure Malgache”, “Elstree Calling”, “Dial M for Murder”, “Stage Fright”, “Champagne”, “Spellbound”, “I Confess”, and “The Trouble with Harry”, with glances at “Vertigo” and several others.
Professional screenwriter William C. Martell takes you into the world of The Master Of Suspense and shows you the daring experiments that changed cinema. Over 77,000 words.
The spider web fills the screen, it's Boris Karloff's THRILLER!
Season: 1, Episode: 31. Airdate: May 2, 1961
Director: John Brahm Writer: Robert Bloch adapts Robert Bloch Cast: Edward Andrews, Patricia Barry, Ed Nelson, Britt Lomond. Music: great whimsical score by Morton Stevens Cinematography: Benjamin Kline Producer: William Frye
Boris Karloff’s Introduction: “Crime and Punishment. That in a nutshell is our story for tonight. Except instead of a neurotic student and his nemesis, our play is about a beautiful wife with an intemperate taste in men... and her discerning husband whose reservations will stop at nothing, not even murder. This good man however is not an ordinary killer. He has flair, imagination, a good imagination. That’s the name of our play. And our players are: Patricia Barry, Ed Nelson, and Edward Andrews as the injured bookworm. Join us now as we watch this bookworm turn... to murder.”
Synopsis: Handsome Randy Hagen (William Allyn) sleeps in his luxurious bachelor apartment... and is awakened by a noise. A door slamming? He walks into his living room, which has been ransacked. What? “Louise?” Meek Frank Logan (Edward Andrews) pops up from behind a table, “Louise isn’t here, I’m her husband.” Randy wants to know what’s going on, Logan says it’s obviously a case of burglary. “You tried to steal my wife. How do you think I got in here? With that key that you gave her.” He holds up the key in a gloved hand and says he knew about them all along. Randy asks what he wants, Logan replies that he must not have a very good imagination. “It will appear as if burglars broke into your apartment and you were killed trying to defend yourself.” Randy says “Don’t shoot me!” and Logan replies that he doesn’t have a gun, carefully puts his glasses in his pocket and grabs a medieval mace off a display on the wall, chases Randy into the bedroom and beats him to death. Comes out, puts his glasses back on, picks up a fallen copy of “Crime And Punishment” and sets it on the table before he leaves.
Louise Logan (Patricia Barry) comes home from Randy’s funeral and finds Logan in the living room reading a book. He says he came home early from the book convention, it was dead. Logan does a great job of needling her, asking how well she knew him. Why she felt the need to go to his funeral. How he died. “He was the type you’d expect to be shot by a jealous husband,” Logan says... and his wife turns white. Then Logan hands her the key to Randy’s apartment, says he found it on her dresser but it doesn’t fit any of the doors in the house. Louise grabs the key and leaves...
Louise tells her lawyer brother Arnold (Britt Lomond) that she suspects Logan may have murdered Randy. Arnold doesn’t believe someone like Logan is capable of murder... he’s a bookworm! Arnold agrees to hire Private Eye Joe Thorp (Ken Lynch) to look into Randy’s murder off the record.
Thorp comes into Logan’s bookstore pretending to be a customer, but Logan outsmarts him and gets him to admit he’s a Private Eye. That’s when Thorp turns the tables and says maybe they can make a deal... Thorp knows Logan took a flight out here from the book convention on the night Randy was murdered... and took a flight back to the convention a few hours later. He demands $10k for his silence. Thorp will meet Logan at 8pm at brother in law Arnold’s fishing cabin... Arnold will be there at 9pm and Thorp will tell him everything if Logan doesn’t show up with the money.
9pm, Arnold shows up at the cabin... and finds Logan sitting inside. Logan pours Arnold a drink and explains that Thorp demanded $10k to keep his mouth shut, and Logan gave him the money. Arnold is shocked, “He just took the money and ran?” No, he’s out back in a boat waiting for you. Arnold downs the drink, and Logan takes him out back to the dock where Thorp sits in a boat... dressed in fishing clothes. Arnold accuses Logan of killing him, and Logan explains that he’s just unconscious from the drugs I put in his drink, and yours. Carefully takes off his glasses and puts them in his pocket, then puts semi conscious Arnold in the boat with Thorp, rows the boat to the middle of the lake and capsizes it... swimming back to shore.
After Arnold’s funeral, Logan buys a house in the country so that Louise can escape the memories of her brother’s death in that fishing accident. No one around for miles. Logan will be working in the city, but come to the country house for the weekends. She’s stuck there alone... no man for miles.
Knock on the door... it’s local hunky handyman George Parker (Ed Nelson) wondering if Louise needs any work done? One thing leads to another and...
Logan comes home unexpected. George pretends to be inspecting the fireplace for repairs and leaves... but Logan suspects.
At the end of the summer, Logan decides to sell the country house... and George and Louise hatch a plan to steal the money from the house sale and run away together.
Logan asks George to help him brick up a section of the basement where rats might congregate before they hand over the house to the new owners. George asks where Louise is, Logan says she went into town to get the money for the house sale. When George has finished bricking the section of the basement, Logan hands him a beer. George asks if Logan is going to have one, and he says he never drinks around firearms. Logan has a gun, plays with it, puts it in his pocket. Gives George another beer and they examine the wall. The mortar has set, Logan asks if George can hear that noise behind the wall. Like a mouse. Then Logan tells George that he and Louise have separated...
Logan tells George that Louise was alive when he put her in the section, but George killed her when he walled her up in the section. Hasn’t George read Poe’s “Cask Of Amontillado”? Oh, that’s right... George doesn’t read. But George *does* freak out and runs away, as Logan laughs!
That night Logan is reading in the living room... when Louise comes home. Twist! She says a state trooper stopped her on the road to check her I.D. but wouldn’t tell her why. Logan says he knows why and it has to do with George. He was supposed to come and wall up that section of the basement... but never showed. Logan had to do it himself... would she like to see?
On the way down to the basement, Logan says that he got a call from the police that George had burst into the police station and accused Logan of murdering Louise and walling her up in the basement. Logan told them his wife was in town, which is why the state trooper stopped her on the road. Obviously George has gone crazy. When Louise breaks down, Logan takes her to the wall... which now has the bricks removed. She thought he had bricked the wall himself. Logan carefully takes off his glasses, puts them in his pocket, and says he will... “My alibi will be set, and so will the cement.” He finished walling her in the basement when...
The police chief shows up... with George! They thought if George could see Mrs. Logan again, he’d snap out of this strange delusion he has that she’s bricked up in the basement. Can Logan bring his wife to the door???
Review: One of the great things that both THRILLER and HITCHCOCK did was often tell stories from the *villain’s* point of view. We get to be mean and nasty and evil for a half hour or an hour and then go back to being nice people afterwards. All of use have dark fantasies, and these shows allowed us to safely explore them (without actually bricking our spouse inside a wall). Villains always seem to have more fun than heroes, so it’s fun to pretend to be one for an hour.
And this is an *understandable* villain. We can relate to him. He’s clever and witty and well read (this began as a short story by Robert Bloch, so readers were the primary audience for the story), and always several steps ahead of everyone else. If we aren’t that person, we’d all like to be that person. And whether you are quoting Bugs Bunny or Vizzini from THE PRINCESS BRIDE most people are morons. Here we have a cheating gold digger wife who seems to never learn her lesson. One lover dies under mysterious circumstances and she just keeps bleeding her husband dry as she searches for another. The people Logan kills aren’t innocent by a long shot... and also aren’t very bright. What’s fun about this story is that Logan *warns* his future victims ahead of time using book references, but they aren’t readers so they fall into his traps. Had they been more clever and better read, they would probably have survived!
The script is filled with the clever wordplay that Bloch is famous for, as I mentioned in an earlier entry his short stories and novels are filled with lines like “He cut off her scream... and her head.” He dances with language, finding dark puns and finding words that connect two different thoughts. The dialogue in this episode is fun!
One of the great elements of this episode is the perfect crime at the end, which is like an intricate chess game and requires George to go to the police and accuse Logan of murder while Louise is still alive (and the police can find her). There’s a stageplay by Lucille Fletcher (SORRY, WRONG NUMBER) called NIGHTWATCH (first staged in 1972) which does something similar, turning the only person who might be suspicious of the missing victim into a crazy lunatic by having them witness a false murder and make accusations... which are easily proven false because the victim is still alive at that point. This is also used to some extent in Hitchcock’s VERTIGO and DePalma’s BODY DOUBLE where a witness tells the police about a *false murder*. This is a great device, and in this case not only helps Logan get away with the murder but also gets revenge on George by making him look crazy.
This is a fun, dark episode with some great suspense and a twist ending. Next week we have a charming story about a little girl and her best friend... who happens to be dead.
Part of writing is understanding characters - understanding human nature - and I am stumped.
I am confused by people who don’t get it. One of the Starbucks I regularly write is kind of shaped like a T - with the seating area on the top of the T and the register at the bottom of the T. The bathrooms and some other things are actually at the bottom of the T - so the area between the counter and the back wall is *also* a passage to get to the bathrooms, and for Starbucks employees to get to the counter entrance, and for customers to look at the pastries... also, of course, for customers who have just ordered their coffees at the counter to get to the seating area at the top of the T. So, it’s *obvious* that the line can not block the passage. The first time I walked into this Starbucks, I could figure that out. In fact, *most* people can figure it out.
But obviously some people can’t figure it out. Today I am standing at the “next” position in a short line at this Starbucks with a gap in front of me so that people can pass... and this guy walks in, ignores the line, ignores me standing there with money in my hand, and blocks the passage by standing behind the customer at the register. Someone else in line said, “Excuse me, buddy, there’s a line” (I wanted to - but I’m usually the person who just grumbles to myself and lets the guy take cutsies) and the guy looks at the line, shakes his head, and *doesn’t move*... but when the customer in front of me is finished ordering - he *must* move so that they customer can get to the drink pick up place and the tables... and that’s when I step up to the register and kind of force the guy to stand in line. He’s pissed off...
But it’s not just the line at this Starbucks - there are all kinds of situations where some people don’t seem to get what everybody else figures out instantly. Why is that?
Another Starbucks has doors with handles on both the inside and outside - and it clearly says “Push” on the inside next to the handle. Yet, when I sit in that Starbucks writing, there’s always one or two people who pull on the handles. And when one door doesn’t open by pulling, they try the other door - pulling on that one. And they keep pulling despite the sign that says “push” and never even *try* to push the door open. When I pull on a door and it doesn’t open, I try pushing. In fact, most of the people who go through those doors and may not have noticed the (obvious) sign will push if pulling doesn’t work. But there is this percentage that will not push no matter what. It takes them forever to figure it out. It’s like - if they keep pulling on the door, maybe it will open.
What confuses me about this is that just by watching people open the door or standing in line or whatver - you can figure it out. Most people are paying attention and *do* figure it out, but that percentage that doesn't? How do they survive? Why don't they learn to observe all of the other people who manage to get the doors open? I can't imagine going through life struggling every time there's a door. And doors usually pull to open from poutside and push from inside - for emergency evacuations (fires, earthquakes, etc). So if you have spent your morning pushing on the PULL door, why don't you figure out the pattern? When you watch someone who refuses to even try pulling on the door with the big PULL TO OPEN sign confuses me. It's not like this is the one store in the world where the doors work differently - they all PULL TO OPEN. You would think after opening doors all morning they would have figured out by the afternoon... but Nope!
Everyone else figures out how the line works - they can see that there is a line (que) and people are standing in it, and stand behind the last person in line.
This isn't rocket science.
It's obvious to everyone else.
I have no idea how this applies to screenwriting (or characters) but I can’t figure out why these people can’t figure out those things that nobody else even has to think about. I don’t think they are stupid - the guy who took cuts in line was wearing a suit and a Rolex and looked like a successful business guy - probably not “mentally challenged”. I don't think he was being rude, he just didn't seem to be able to figure out simple things. Is there some form of intelligence that governs things like this? Can you be a brilliant businessman and not understand how a line works? Do some people lack the ability to process information?
- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Plot Twists Are The Answer - and STAY vs. GET OUT! Yesterday’s Dinner: One of those Starbucks Thanksgiving sandwiches - it was free.
MOVIES: ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD. Did Michelle Williams practice Katharine Hepburn's accent? Did Christopher Plummer study John Houston in CHINATOWN? Was that Kevin Spacey getting off the train in an early scene? The interesting thing about this film is that it's based on a true story about the richest guy in the world who refused to pay the ransom for his kidnapped grandson... and that's the premise. After that it's kind of a dry, just the facts story. The trailer makes it look like a suspense film, maybe with Michelle Williams kicking ass along with Marky Mark in order to get her son back. But much of it takes place in boardrooms where lawyers look over offers. One of the interesting things in adapting a true story is *how* you adapt it, what you decide is the important part of the story and what you leave out - and maybe what you create (was Marky Mark's character truth or fiction or composite?). I've done Script Tips on "casting a story" in a genre to take what might be a little dry and making it exciting... and here they didn't do that. This *could* have been a race against time thriller, with the decision by Getty not to pay the ransom as a big twist, and the machinations to get the grandson back as conflicts and twists with time running out. But they didn't take that path, here. They even downplay the emotions when it comes to the boy's mother - played by Williams. There is a scene near the middle of the film that could have been a big emotional twist - and seems to have maybe been written that way - but ends up filmed so "matter of fact" that it's just a scene.
The best scenes of the movie are when Williams and Plummer are on screen together, basically playing a high stakes chess game against each other with the boy's life in the balance. But that's just business. Which is maybe the issue here - there's a line Getty has about how emotions and even caring about *anything* is how you lose a business deal. You need to be cold. You need to be able to walk away. But the problem is - that ends up what the story is about. William's character doesn't get what is necessary to get her son back by *caring*, but by being cold and besting Getty at his own game. She becomes just as cold and calculating... and that may be intellectually interesting it's not very emotional. There *are* some exciting and emotional scenes - it's hard not to feel for the kid when the kidnappers, um, remove a body part as "proof of life", and the end sequence in the village which reminded me of that early scene in GODFATHER PART 2 builds some suspense (though not through techniques, more just because a kid is being hunted by killers) but the film often feels dry. A scene where Williams' character comes face to face with her ex-husband might have been about two strangers. In addition to the good scenes with Williams and Plummer, the scenes between the kid and the lead kidnapper character (who steals the show) work well. Plummer does a great job considering he's a last minute replacement in a pivotal role. It's a well made movie with good performances, but it's like reading a non fiction book that sticks to the facts... or one of Getty's pieces of "investment art".
Directed by: James Cromwell. Written by: Oliver Garrett and Steve Fisher, and three more screenwriters including the producer. Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Lizaberth Scott, Morris Carnovsky, Marvin Miller. Produced by: Sidney Biddle . Music by: Marlin Skiles.
Columbia Pictures noir films were an odd mixed bag. Where Warner Bros was gritty and real, Columbia was often glossy and trying their damnedest to look like MGM, just without the money or stars that MGM had. This could be a good thing when you had a noir film like GILDA which is about exotic night club singers and has a Gay subtext - the glossy look fit that story. It could also work when you had some crazy maverick like Orson Welles making a wacked out noir film like LADY FROM SHANGHAI. But to keep the lights on, Columbia often imitated RKO - making cheap genre films like the WHISTLER series (which I plan on looking at in the near future). So you never knew what you were going to get with this studio and the style didn’t always match the subject matter.
At times DEAD RECKONING seems like a soap opera with some shoot outs. Where a Bogart film like DARK PASSAGE from Warner Bros was gritty and real, DEAD RECKONING is glossy and seems to have way too much kissing. Also, at times it seemed to be made of leftover parts of much better movies. There's a scene from THE MALTESE FALCON, and a scene from OUT OF THE PAST and a scene from...
DEAD RECKONING was directed by the great James Cromwell (PRISONER OF ZENDA, SINCE YOU WENT AWAY) and is glossy and pretty to look at. Script by Oliver Garrett (DUEL IN THE SUN) and the great Steve Fisher (I WAKE UP SCREAMING and LADY IN THE LAKE) and some other guys. The script is kind of a mess - all over the place and making no sense at times. You get the feeling that it began as one story and was rewritten into another. I don’t know whether it began as a cheap genre film and then was turned into a soapy love story or vice versa. It does have some great snappy dialogue. It’s one of those Bogart films that you remember the good parts of and forget the strange parts of... until you see it on the big screen again. I don’t own this on DVD, and hadn’t seen it in decades before the screening.
Story starts with a beaten up Bogart confessing to a Priest - and flashback to the story with Bogart doing VO (the reason for the confession to the priest)... but we come out of flashback at end Act 2... and Bogart goes to kick ass in present time. Except - not as much ass-kicking as I wanted. Lots of kissing though - as if someone thought people went to Bogart movies to watch him kiss Liz Scott. That’s why I wonder what sort of rewrite process this went through - it’s got that DUEL IN THE SUN soap opera feel... and then some wild ass action that is pure Steve Fisher. And that VO is snappy and fun - which is probably also due to Fisher. He does great tough guy dialogue and monologues... and that might be a good reason to watch this film.
Bogart plays paratrooper Rip Murdock on his way by train with best bud "Professor" Johnny Drake (William Prince) to pick up Congressional Medals of Honor in Washington DC. Drake seems reticent to get a medal pinned on him by the President, which is odd. When he drops a gold Senior college pin on the train and Murdock picks it up to hand it back to Drake, he notices that the pin is from Yale... and has another man’s name on it. John Joseph Preston. Did Drake steal it from this Preston guy? Before they arrive in DC, Drake jumps off the train in Philly and disappears. Why? Murdock’s commanding officer orders him to find Drake and get him to the ceremony on time, and Murdock must turn detective to find his friend.
Murdock remembers the pin, calls Yale and gets the last known address for the name that was on the pin... a corrupt resort city on the Gulf of Mexico. By the way, this movie may also hold the record for phone booth scenes.
When he arrives at the local hotel, there is a reservation for him... and a note from Drake that says to wait for him. But Drake is a no show, and Murdock pokes around - discovering that an unidentified man was burned to a crisp in a suspicious single car accident. Drake? Murdock decides to investigate and get revenge for Drake’s murder...
Murdock goes to the morgue to look at the body - which has a melted gold blob like Drake’s Senior Pin from Yale - and bumps into local cop Kincaid (Charles Cane) who asks Murdock all kinds of questions, which he evades. But Murdock believes the body might be Drake’s and heads to the newspaper to look through back issues... and discovers that Drake was really John Joseph Preston... and was wanted for murder! He changed his name and enlisted in military to hide from the police!
“Dusty” Chandler (Liz Scott) - whose real name is "Coral" but Murdock will end up calling her "Mike" - was the woman whose husband Drake may have killed to hook up with... but there are also these mobsters who seemed to wander in from THE BIG SLEEP and some MALTESE FALCON femme-fatale scenes and other scenes from other movies and a story that goes all over the place... To be fair, Steve Fisher often has wacky plotting in his screenplays. HELL'S HALF ACRE and THE CITY THAT NEVER SLEEPS from 2019's Noir City Fest often seemed like he was making them up as he went along.
Murdock heads to the nightclub where she sings, to interview a bartender who was a witness to the Chandler murder (?) named Louis Ord (George Chandler - how confusing was this set when they were shooting?). Ord says that Drake gave him a letter for Murdock before he was killed in the car accident... and that's when crazy psycho club bouncer Krause (Marvin Miller) who is Moose Malloy on steroids, approaches. Ord says that he'll give Murdock the letter later. Somewhere in here are a couple of poorly dubbed songs from Dusty and Murdock stops his investigation to listen.... and later dances with Dusty. There's a freakin' brutal scene here where, after Dusty talks about how much she loved Johnny Drake, he tells her that he just saw Drake. Where? On a slap in the morgue. She misses a dance step or two. He tells her he had to break the news to her that way, so that he could gauge her reaction - he now knows that she didn't kill him. Then we get the scene from THE BIG SLEEP where Dusty and Murdock gamble together and after Dusty loses, Murdock wins big and have to go to the club’s owner to get the okay to get paid...
The club is owned by mobster Martinelli (Morris Carnovsky) who is a bad carbon copy of Eddie Mars in THE BIG SLEEP - a criminal who seems more like a business owner. Instead of a pair of comic relief henchmen like Mars had, Martinelli has a Krause. Martinelli gives Murdock and Dusty drugged drinks. Ord is the waiter who brings them, and tries to tell Murdock about the drinks in front of Martinelli and Krause - but Murdock realizes if he *doesn't* drink, Ord will be busted and he will never get the letter from Dead Drake. So he downs the drugged drink... and one of those pools of darkness from MURDER MY SWEET opens up and swallows him. Actually, the pools of darkness in this film have parachutes at night. Oh, and I forgot to mention that Murdock's catch-phrase is "Geramino!".
The next morning, Murdock wakes up in his hotel room with the corpse of Ord and Detective Kincaid knocking at his door. He manages to hide the body in a hotel laundry cart. The cops were tipped off that Murdock may have killed someone... and search his room finding nothing. But Kincaid stakes out the hotel lobby... and we get another phone booth scene as Murdock has Kincaid paged claiming to be a call from headquarters... so that Murdock can snag Dusty out of the lobby and go down to the hotel parking garage... where he puts Ord's body in the trunk of her car.
Murdock and Dusty have teamed up - which requires him to kiss Dusty a lot. Take the number of kissing scenes you would expect in a revenge movie and multiply by ten. Okay, now add two more.
Okay, that's an exaggeration. Here’s the thing about all of these kissing scenes - there may actually have been just as many kissing scenes in DARK PASSAGE (though I doubt it) but *those* kissing scenes were part of the story, part of what the characters would naturally do. In RECKONING they seem to just kiss whenever they are in the same room with each other. It’s like they were trying to make this into a love story by adding more kissing instead of actually having a love story subplot. They only kiss a handful of time, but they just kiss for no real reason and kind of unexpectedly and without motivation... and the camera lingers on the kisses. And this is his dead best friend's girlfriend who was married, so any kissing just seems wrong. Though I haven't counted the kisses in THE BIG SLEEP I only remember one at the end - maybe there was one at the gas station house, too... but that's only two. Here, they kiss for no apparent reason in the car, then there's a freakin' huge kiss a few minutes later, then a few more kissing scenes.
There's also a bit of dialogue that hasn't aged well, where Murdock thinks women should be miniaturized so that men can carry them around in their pockets and only make them full sized when men want them. "You know, the trouble with women is they ask too many questions. They should spend all their time just being beautiful."
There's a nice suspense scene here where (after kissing) they get pulled over by a cop for speeding... with dead Ord in the trunk. They have to talk their way out of a ticket - by saying they are newlyweds - which leads to a public display of affection (kissing) in front of the cop.
Murdock believes that Martinelli's goon Krause killed Ord and stole the letter and now that letter is in Martinelli's safe - it's actually more complicated than that, but we don't have 90 minutes. Murdock gets the name of a retired safe cracker through his connections and they visit him. The safe cracker's son just returned from the war, with a bunch of mementos like Japanese swords and German incendiary grenades. He teaches Murdock how to crack Martinelli's safe and gives him some incendiary grenades... and then Murdock and Dusty kiss some more.
After the kissing, Murdock breaks into Martinelli’s office to crack the safe and get the letter - which is purely a plot device. The safe is already busted open and the letter is gone and he smells Dusty’s perfume moments before *someone* knocks him out. When he wakes up, Martinelli and Krause are knocking him around to find out where the letter is. Where is Bette Davis when you need her? Murdock escapes... goes to the church where he confesses... and we are out of Act Two and into Act Three and some wild-ass action scenes including the use of napalm indoors (the grenades) - not recommended, by the way. "Scratch one hoodlum!"
The ending is so insanely convoluted that everyone was married to everyone else and everyone secretly killed everyone else and everyone was blackmailing everyone else. Seriously. Just pair up any two characters in this story and they were once married. Pair up any two characters and one of them killed the other. And everyone was blackmailing everyone else. If you though the plot of THE BIG SLEEP was confusing, this movie will make your head explode. Anyway, Dusty and Martinelli were married and she was also married to Chandler and was having an affair with Drake but now claims to be in love with Murdock... but before you can say THE MALTESE FALCON Dusty tries to kill Murdock and there’s a car crash and Dusty is fatally injured and Murdock gets to have a scene where he loves her but she dies in some weird soap opera scene.
One of the problems with DEAD RECKONING is the dialogue - something might be set up in one scene, and then the dialogue doesn't pay it back - when it seems obvious that's what was supposed to happen in this scene. I suspect the five screenwriters may have been working at cross-purposes - maybe one writing a crime film and the other writing a big soapy romance and the other three doing some version of either of those. It has big time tone problems - with some soap opera stuff and then some violent action scene. And the cute nicknames aren't that cute in this film, and many of the gags fall flat - with lots of glossy photography of kissing.
Now, when I was a little kid, I thought that kissing girls was for sissys. But the problem with the kissing in DEAD RECKONING is that it all seems so forced. Oh, and Scott's singing is so poorly dubbed you don't believe it for a second - unlike the Andy Williams (minus the bear) singing for Bacall in BIG SLEEP. Originally Rita Hayworth was to play the female lead in this flick, but she split to play the femme fatale in her husband’s movie LADY FROM SHANGHAI and they got stuck with Lizabeth Scott who looks *older* than Bogart and has no lip syncing abilities.
The weird thing about Lizabeth Scott is that I love her in other films - she’s the lead in one of my favorite films PITFALL and doesn’t seem like an older woman to Dick Powell. But here, for reasons I can’t figure out, she seems old - might be the wardrobe or the dialogue or maybe the problem is that Bogart’s character was *written* to be younger - a guy returning from WW2 is likely to be in his 20s so maybe the character was written young and Scott was supposed to be an older woman and the characterization and dialogue makes you think that she’s old. This movie - and Scott - get a shout out in Woody Allen’s PLAY IT AGAIN SAM, so maybe it’s just me and this odd hybrid of glossy soap opera and violent revenge flick works for everyone else. (Note: In reading reviews, a lot of negative reviews mention how stiff and "mannered" Scott is, so it's not just me.)
Just for fun, here’s some info on the co-screenwriter of DEAD RECKONING, Steve Fisher. I’m sure they brought in Fisher for the noir stuff, since he was one of those great noir writers you’ve probably never heard of. Like David Goodis he was a novelist who worked on and off as a screenwriter on B movies. His novel I WAKE UP SCREAMING was made into a great noir film with Victor Mature, and that probably put Fisher on the map. SCREAMING is about a hot starlet whose best friend is murdered by a maniac, and she thinks the maniac is now stalking her. She goes to the cops, and the detective in charge of the case is... the man stalking her! And he’s trying to frame Mature for the murder... and now Mature and the hot starlet have to get the proof that the detective is the killer. Um, no one wants to believe them about that. Great concept - what if you went to the police, but a policeman was the killer? Fisher’s crime novels ended up getting him back into screenwriting, where he wrote a bunch of crime films like the all POV film LADY IN THE LAKE and one of the THIN MAN series. Many of his novels have been reprinted recently by Hard Case Press. There was this period in time when Pulp Novels and Pulp Movies intersected and the guy who wrote some throw away crime novel might also write some throw away crime movie.
Anyway, DEAD RECKONING seems like a mis-fire - a movie trying to be Noir but also trying to be some glossy soap opera thing at the sale time. Not an unwatchable movie - but not the classic Noir that you might expect from the film’s reputation.. Fine for a Saturday afternoon on TCM, not as good on Saturday night on the big screen with your legs scrunched up under your neck because there is no legroom in the Billy Wilder Theater. I think the gloss worked against it - makes it seem like a big budget A movie with a sleazy B movie revenge action plot... and an interesting indoor use of napalm*.
-Bill
*Actually incendiary grenades - but crazy Krause is burned alive while staggering around a room.
This interview on CBC’s Studio Q with Guillermo Del Toro on Hitchcock and his influence on his work is great stuff, because Del Toro is as articulate about his work as Hitch was. Though the interviewer’s questions could have been much better, Del Toro wrestles the conversation away to some of the most important elements.
1) The emotional effect on the audience, and this connects to us as writers because our job is to create those emotions of the page so that the director can put them on screen. If we are not writing to create emotions in the reader, the reader will not care and not buy our screenplays in the first place. There’s a great deal of talk about Hitchcock’s control in the interview, from controlling the image to controlling the actors, and when Guillermo talks about the audience all laughing or gasping or screaming at the same time - the control of the viewer/reader. And that’s what wee need to think about as writers. It’s not just telling the story - that’s step one - it’s how we tell the story and how we use storytelling techniques to control the audience’s emotions. We are playing the audience (and the reader) like an orchestra - we know exactly where they are going to gasp, and it’s *how we write the scene* that makes them gasp. The techniques. So the most important thing that we can do as a writer or a director is to use those techniques to create emotions in the audience. What do you want them to feel in this scene? How is *your writing* or *your angle, composition, camera movement, lighting, and editing* creating those emotions. YOU need to be in control of your work.
2) Which gets us to the precision and intricate work of Hitchcock. Though he talks about Renoir (the painter) painting the same tree for his entire life later, the skill of a painter is knowing exactly what color, what texture, what brush stroke and all of the other talents and skills of a painter will create the image that you have in your mind and are trying to put on that canvas. You may work instinctively or technically, but the result is what matters - and you need to know what result you are aiming for... and you need to know the techniques that will bring about that result. I think the problem with that label of being a popular filmmaker that Hitchcock was stuck with detracts from his precision. It’s funny that Kubrick is seen as a genius due to his precision, yet Hitch didn’t need all of those takes to have possible more precision - Kubrick was a chilly filmmaker. One of the things that we need to remember as “artists” is that art is not sloppy. Whether you are Renoir with a brush or Kubrick or Hitchcock with a camera, you are doing something very specific for a very specific reason. Whether your story is summed up by an image, or a story told in a series of images. WHY are you setting this scene at this location? HOW do the specifics of this scene connect to the specifics of the other scenes in the story? One of the interesting things about film stories is that you have a limited time to tell them, so everything need to be the very best way to get this information to the audience.
3) I love the choice of these four Hitchcock films for his lecture: NOTORIOUS, FRENZY, SHADOW OF A DOUBT, and NORTH BY NORTHWEST... and how he chose them because they are all very much Hitchcock films... and completely dissimilar. He talks about MR. & MRS. SMITH - which is also completely a Hitchcock film (I look at all of the Hitchcock storytelling techniques in my old blog entry on that film) and yet a romantic comedy that would be right next to the others from the 1940s. Hitchcock could have kept going with the romantic comedies and had an entirely different (very successful) career. In my EXPERIMENTS IN TERROR book I look at what an experimental director he was - doing all kinds of crazy things that even now we think of as unusual - nobody has beat his ROPE when it comes to single shot films. But part of that experimentation was in stories - and I note that he directed a dialogue driven comedy stageplay... as a silent film. Del Toro talks about that moment at the end of the silent era where we got a ton of filmed stage plays... well, Hitchcock managed to make a *silent* filmed stage play that delivers visual laughs. He was definitely not a “one trick pony”!
4) Del Toro also talks about the primal elements of cinema - and how a director like Hitchcock can connect with the secret desires and fears of the audience in a way that many others could not. I have always said that films are dream fulfillment for the audience. The audience has a secret dream or nightmare, and our job as screenwriters is to give them that dream or nightmare for two hours. We are in the dark, and the images play on the screen - just like a dream. In a dream you can be in one place and then by magic instantly be in another place - just like editing in a film. In a dream things are often fantastic and larger than like and filled with emotions... just like in a film.
We are creating dreams and nightmares for the audience.
PS: Guillermo del Toro did write one of the important books on Hitchcock, and one of the things that ties in to Hitchcock being able to articulate his techniques and methods is that del Toro is also someone who can do that.
- Bill
Of course, I have my own books on Hitchcock...
HITCHCOCK: MASTERING SUSPENSE
LEARN SUSPENSE FROM THE MASTER!
Alfred Hitchcock, who directed 52 movies, was known as the “Master Of Suspense”; but what exactly is suspense and how can *we* master it? How does suspense work? How can *we* create “Hitchcockian” suspense scenes in our screenplays, novels, stories and films?
This book uses seventeen of Hitchcock’s films to show the difference between suspense and surprise, how to use “focus objects” to create suspense, the 20 iconic suspense scenes and situations, how plot twists work, using secrets for suspense, how to use Dread (the cousin of suspense) in horror stories, and dozens of other amazing storytelling lessons. From classics like “Strangers On A Train” and “The Birds” and “Vertigo” and “To Catch A Thief” to older films from the British period like “The 39 Steps” and “The Man Who Knew Too Much” to his hits from the silent era like “The Lodger” (about Jack The Ripper), we’ll look at all of the techniques to create suspense!
Films Included: NOTORIOUS, SABOTAGE, STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, THE 39 STEPS, REBECCA, TO CATCH A THIEF, FRENZY, FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT, THE LODGER, THE BIRDS, TORN CURTAIN, SABOTEUR, VERTIGO, THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1934), THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1955), SUSPICION, and NUMBER SEVENTEEN. 17 Great Films!
We all know that Alfred Hitchcock was the Master Of Suspense, but did you know he was the most *experimental* filmmaker in history?
Contained Thrillers like “Buried”? Serial Protagonists like “Place Beyond The Pines”? Multiple Connecting Stories like “Pulp Fiction”? Same Story Multiple Times like “Run, Lola, Run”? This book focuses on 18 of Hitchcock’s 52 films with wild cinema and story experiments which paved the way for modern films. Almost one hundred different experiments that you may think are recent cinema or story inventions... but some date back to Hitchcock’s *silent* films! We’ll examine these experiments and how they work. Great for film makers, screenwriters, film fans, producers and directors.
Films Examined: “Rear Window”, “Psycho”, “Family Plot”, “Topaz”, “Rope”, “The Wrong Man”, “Easy Virtue”, “Lifeboat”, “Bon Voyage”, “Aventure Malgache”, “Elstree Calling”, “Dial M for Murder”, “Stage Fright”, “Champagne”, “Spellbound”, “I Confess”, and “The Trouble with Harry”, with glances at “Vertigo” and several others.
Professional screenwriter William C. Martell takes you into the world of The Master Of Suspense and shows you the daring experiments that changed cinema. Over 77,000 words.
The spider web fills the screen, it's Boris Karloff's THRILLER!
Season: 1, Episode: 9. Airdate: 11/15/1960
Director: Mitchell Leisen. Writer: Charles Beaumont based on a novel by Charlotte Armstrong. Cast: Faye Bainter, Paul Hartman, Myrna Fahey, Victor Buono, Cloris Leachman. Music: Pete Rugolo Cinematography: Lionel Lindon
Boris Karloff’s Introduction: “An attache case. A classic ingredient in tales of cloak and dagger. Was the young lady correct? Was it switched on purpose? As sure as my name is Boris Karloff, the contents of that case will soon trap these two young people in a web of terror. Alice, the bewildered bride, doesn’t yet know that her husband’s life will depend upon her silence. She’ll become a girl with a secret. That’s the name of our story. Our principle players are Miss Faye Bainter, Mr. Paul Hartman, Miss Myrna Fahey, Mr. Rhodes Reason, Miss Cloris Leachman, and Mr. Harry Ellerbe. I assure you my friends, this is a thriller.”
Synopsis: After a couple of great episodes in a row, we go back to...
At an airport, newlyweds Anthony (Rhodes Reason) and Alice (Myrna Fahey from Corman’s HOUSE OF USHER) wait for their baggage and she talks about the pressure of meeting her (wealthy) inlaws for the first time. When Anthony sets down his attache case for a moment to grab his suitcase, a Stranger sets down his *identical* attache case to do the same and grabs Anthony’s attache case by accident when he leaves. Or was it an accident? Alice seems to think the Stranger did it on purpose. She points out the Stranger to Anthony and says to stop him before he drives away... but Anthony tells her it’s no big deal, he’ll just open the Stranger’s attache case, find his ID, and call him and swap cases later. They’ve had a long flight and Anthony just wants to get home to Pasadena and relax.
When they leave the airport, an evil looking Henchman (Rex Holman) is following them...
On a narrow, twisting road in the hills (probably where the 134 Freeway would end up) the Henchman tries to pass them on a particularly dangerous curve and “accidentally” hits their car, almost forcing them over a cliff! Alice is scared and confused, did that guy *try* to kill them or was it an accident? Seems like weird stuff is happening around her new husband! Why?
The family estate in Pasadena looks oddly like the Munster’s house from the outside (same backlot house), but the inside is a luxurious mansion where the entire family seems to hang out night and day, with Cousin Beatrice (Cloris Leachman) playing the piano for the entertainment of her boyfriend Walter (Harry Ellerbe) plus Uncle Gregory (Paul Hartman) and Aunt Hortense (Anne Seymour) and matriarch Geraldine (Faye Bainter) who is Anthony’s grandmother. The whole family meets the new daughter in law, and give her the normal third degree you would give a new wife... which kind of adds to Alice’s paranoia. Anthony excuses himself for a moment to get the luggage out of the car... but instead goes to the car to open the Stranger’s attache case... which is empty except for a cryptic note... which Anthony decodes!
He starts up the car and goes to the Stranger in a public library... where we discover that Anthony is some sort of spy and the Stranger is a fellow spy, who warns him that the bad guys are onto him. Anthony tells the Stranger that he knows: an attempt was made on his life earlier.
Cut to our evil badguy played by Victor Buono (King Tut from BATMAN), as the Henchman enters his evil lair to report that his attempt on Anthony’s life *failed*. Buono needs to know how much Anthony knows about his evil operation, and keep him from stopping whatever the heck that evil operation is. It’s kinda vague.
Anthony gets back to the Munster House, and nobody seems to notice he was missing. He and Alice are unpacking in their room... when she discovers an airplane ticket in his coat pocket. To Mexico City. She confronts her new husband... is he cheating on her? Anthony quiets her, opens the bedroom door... and there’s the Maid (Esther Dale) listening in on the conversation. He tells the Maid to please keep this little domestic dispute to herself, then closes the door and whispers to Alice... that he’s a spy! He has a secret mission to Mexico City to do things that will help foil Victor Buono’s evil operation... and while he’s gone she must keep his secret. No one can know that he has gone to Mexico City, *no one*. Not even family members. Alice will keep the secret while Anthony is away.
Anthony tells his family that he’s been called back to New York on business for a while, and to please take care of his new wife. Cousin Beatrice is already planning ways to mess with Alice in order to make matriarch Geraldine hate the new bride. And that, folks, is the set up!
And the halfway point.
After Anthony leaves on his secret mission, Alice is “alone” in the house with all of these strangers... and the Maid, who asks for some hush money or she’ll tell everyone that Anthony has gone to Mexico City. Alice gives her ear rings (which are expensive as heck) to the Maid to keep her quiet... but when Cousin Beatrice notices the Maid wearing Alice’s ear rings she accuses the Maid of stealing them, and this brings in matriarch Geraldine who insists the Maid return the ear rings... and creates a larger problem as the Maid now wants $300 to keep her mouth shut.
Alice brings the money to the Maid... and there is a knock at the Maid’s door! The evil Henchman! Alice hides in the murphy bed folded up against the wall and listens as the Henchman questions the Maid, doesn’t get any answers... so he kills her and then searches the room for some clue as to where Anthony may have flown to... almost finding Alice hiding in the folded up bed! The Henchman leaves, heading back to...
Victor Buono’s evil lair, where Buono is talking to... Walter! Cousin Beatrice’s boyfriend! They have blackmailed Walter into being part of the evil operation and spying on Anthony. It was Walter who gave the information that sent the Henchman to the Maid’s apartment. Twist!
Back at the Munster House, Alice returns and is freaked out... afraid she’ll be accused of the Maid’s murder and won’t be able to tell anyone that it’s all because her husband is really a spy. Walter hammers away at Alice about the murder of the Maid... did she do it? Why did she give the Maid those ear rings? Alice walks out... leaving the rest of the family to scheme. Walter and Uncle Gregory think Alice needs to get some rest and suggest giving her some tranquilizers... Walter wants to give her a whole bunch! Then take her to a friend of his who will give her some sodium penathol so she will tell the truth about the Maid’s murder and the family will know how to handle it. They don’t want to be harboring a murderer, do they? Think of the scandal!
A few weeks later Anthony gets back from Mexico City with all of the info to stop Victor Buono’s evil operation... and asks Grandmother Geraldine where Alice is. Geraldine says...
Alice never gave up your secret. They were going to drug her and make her talk, but Geraldine smuggled her out of the house and to a friend’s place in Los Angeles. She’s safe... and Geraldine thinks she’s a danged good wife.
Anthony gets to the address where Alice is hiding out... and it’s a drug store where she is working behind the counter. Just as they embrace, turncoat Walter and the evil Henchman come in with guns... but the Drug Store Owner shoots them both in the most boring action scene ever on television. Meanwhile Victor Buono is being arrested. Anthony and Alice live happily ever after.
Review: Actually, the problem here is the difference between what works as a thriller on that page versus what works on the screen. I can easily imagine this as a nail biter on the page, but it’s all internal... most of the suspense concerns what the character is *feeling*, and we can’t see that. In a way we have a story like REBECCA, about a shy new bride dealing with her new husband’s secret... and you’d think the hubby being a spy instead of a dreamy rich dude with a dead first wife would, but it doesn’t. Hubby is off screen doing spy stuff in Mexico City... and the only thing close to Mrs. Danvers is Leachman’s character, who is just a stuck up rich girl (instead of a foreboding frozen faced Maid who has the real power in the house). The Maid in this story is old and frail... not much of a physical threat. Also not much of any kind of threat because she knows the secret but really can’t do anything with it. And for a story that’s mostly confined to the family house, there isn’t even the sort of suspense and intrigue from REBECCA or NOTORIOUS. The family is mostly just sitting around doing nothing. None are really threats, no real suspense... Alice is just an outsider when it comes to the family rather than a target.
I suspect the story also loses something from whatever scope the novel may have had versus the confines of a TV budget and shooting schedule. This gets into my Dog Juice Theory: when the story gets smaller you need to increase the “juice” to keep it exciting, and in this case the juice would be suspense. Add to this the stiff acting and massive overacting of the villains (they’re on screen for so little time they only have time to be evil without any time for actual characterization).
So the whole episode comes off as kind of bland and boring, and that car chase scene can’t really make up for it. The suspense set piece with Alice hiding in the Murphy bed is also kinda dull... though there is a moment where she is almost discovered. And the reveal that Walter is working with the badguys is nonexistent! He’s just in a scene with Buono. No *twist* to it. Part of this is the writing isn’t finding ways to amp up the suspense and part is the director, Mitchell Leisen (who’s contract requires his *signature* as his credit), who was a famous director of big glossy studio films in the 1930s to1950s and doesn’t seem to be at home in the thriller genre... even though he directed Cornell Woolrich’s NO MAN OF HER OWN in 1950 (which ended up more soap opera than thriller). Leisen directed episode 3 and this one... and then was off to some other TV show and get that nifty signature title card.
After two good episodes in a row we go off track again with this one... but next week? Karloff takes a role in a weird tales type story!
Back in 2008 I wanted to know what sort of questions about screenwriting people who read my blog might have... and answered them.
Here are more answers to those questions....
Question: How to make a character fully dimensional? How to avoid the characters sounding the same?
Answer: Movie dialogue is better than real dialogue - it's that clever come back you came up with two days after the argument.
You don't want all characters to sound the same - each should have their own *distinctive* voice, vocabulary, pet words and phrases, and sentence structure - they should all be distinctive and unique... not boring and normal.
First - each of your characters needs to be different, see the world differently, react to the world differently, and have a secret agenda that drives them... and they need to have different attitudes, likes and dislikes, different pet words and phrases.
If all of your characters sound alike, it's because you don't know them. My characters talk *through* me - and I can hear their voices in my head (which makes me crazy).
I write in various coffee shops, and in one there is a girl behind the counter who could find the silver lining in the end of the world. She is *relentlessly* positive. That's her character, and it comes out in almost everything she says. After a while, I just want to slap her... but she'd find something good to say about that.
Another coffee shop has a guy that is all about himself - no matter what he says, it's about him. If the world were going to end in 5 minutes, he's find the way to make that all about him... as if nobody else mattered.
I have a friend who takes everything personally - another form of selfishness - if you say hello to someone else first, he thinks that's a snub.
I know another guy who is ultra negative - he'll find the cloud for every silver lining. You win the lottery, he'll tell you how lottery winners end up broke and miserable. Even when he pays you a compliment, it's got a negative spin on it.
All of these things are *character* - if you really know your characters, they will speak differently because they are different people. Know what is below the surface, what secretly drives them, how the see the world around them.
Next - on a purely cosmetic level - look at pet words and phrases. Make sure no two characters use the same common words: yes, no, true, false, hello, goodbye, etc. Make sure they don't have the same favorite curse word. And take a look at sentence structure - you may have a character that says almost everything in the form of a question. Or someone who talks in long run-on sentences. Or no more than three words in a sentence. Or talks backwards like Yoda. These are the voices I hear in my head when I write.
Knowing your characters is the key to every character sounding different.
Actor Proofing Your Dialogue - Timing is everything in comedy... and one thing we can't really write. That is brought in through performance.
Things we do control are situation and the actual words within the material. So that's where I concentrate. I don't write comedy... I write movies that often end up starring non-actors who are pro athletes. So I can not depend on the acting (delivery) of any line. I have to create an "actor proof" script. A script where *I* do the acting through my writing. That means I have to create a strong emotional situation that Wilson the volleyball could win an Oscar for. Then find lines of dialogue that have double meanings or are packed with emotion - again, something that will work if the actor reads it off a cue card in a monotone. Basically, my script is carrying the actor.
And that is not easy, but I thing some of those things translate to comedy writing. The material has to be funny just sitting there on the page, not dependent on an actor to add that zing that makes it funny. That zing is the bonus.
If we want to hear real conversation, we can just walk down a street. When we pay $11.50 (what it costs to see a movie in LA) we want to see something special. We want interesting dialogue, distinctive dialogue.
Here are some interesting bits of dialogue from the same movie...
"A pocket fulla firecrackers - looking for a match!"
"Way up high, Sam, where it's always balmy. Where no one snaps his fingers and says, "Hey, Shrimp, rack the balls!" Or, "Hey, mouse, mouse, go out and buy me a pack of butts." I don't want tips from the kitty. I'm in the big game with the big players... In brief, from now on, the best of everything is good enough for me."
"The next time you want information, don't scratch for it like a dog, ask for it like a man!"
"Who could love a man who makes you jump through burning hoops like a trained poodle?"
"You're dead, son. Get yourself buried."
"It's a dirty job, but I pay clean money for it."
"What am I, a bowl of fruit? A tangerine that peels in a minute?"
"You've got more twists than a barrel of pretzels!"
"I don't relish shooting a mosquito with an elephant gun, so why don't you just shuffle along?"
"Maybe I left my sense of humor in my other suit."
"I'd hate to take a bite outta you. You're a cookie full of arsenic."
"Don't remove the gangplank, you may wanna get back onboard."
"Don't do anything I wouldn't do! That gives you a lot of leeway..."
"Crow like a hen. You have just laid an egg."
"Tell me sir, when he dies, do you think he'll go to the dog and cat heaven?"
"Start thinking with your head instead of your hips."
"This syrup you're giving out with... you pour over waffles, not over me."
Different characters in the same movie released the year I was born. Movie dialogue has always been clever, witty, interesting - that's why we quote it, instead of quoting what the clerk at Safeway said about paper or plastic.
In fact, even in "realistic" movies, nobody talks like the characters talk. Watch any Scorsese movie - that's excellent, well crafted dialogue. Realistic dialogue isn't real - it's crafted to sound real, but more clever, witty, and concise.
You want the best possible dialogue in your screenplay - dialogue that shows us the character, and is memorable enough that the reader will be talking about it for years to come... after they’ve made the movie.
