GANGSTER
Who'd you hear from?
ECHO
I don't remember.
Indicates CLIMBER.
GANGSTER
Who's he?
ECHO
My bodyguard.
Indicates PHOEBE.
GANGSTER
Who's she?
ECHO
My kid.
GANGSTER
You bring your kid?
ECHO
I couldn't get a babysitter.
(pulls out an enormous roll of cash.)
Ten grand. I'm hot to trot and I love to lose.
The Gangster doesn't buy any of it, but he likes the cash. Jerks his head at the others to unhand them.
GANGSTER
Let her play.
They approach a Japanese game of chance. It is incomprehensible. Everything's in Japanese. There's a bunch of small stones, bottle caps, and ball bearings. Echo says: "I'd like to bet $10,000 on ... something. Can you help me here?" The Croupier (for lack of a better term) offers: "Choose a box." She chooses a box and loses the ten grand. She looks pleased and exclaims: "What a rush! Okay, let's go home." Climber mutters: "I'm hot to trot and I love to lose." They exit by the door this time and head down ten flights of fire stairs illuminated by only windows glowing with streetlight. Two men attack them and try to kill Climber. A bullet takes Climber down after he has subdued one of the two Attackers. The second Attacker is about to shoot the fallen hero when Echo finds and breaks a wine bottle over his head, Maces him, and pushes him out the window. Climber is alright, a light head wound. They make their way down the last three flights, and look for the fallen man. But there's no body. Climber complains: "Now who were THEY?"
11. Echo, Climber, and Phoebe go back to her house. She is patching Climber's head. As she does so, she asks Phoebe to repeat the conversation the kidnappers allowed their son. Is there a clue in there? She figures out the hint. The boy is on the premises. Climber asks about outbuildings and personnel. She mentions that the gardeners are really a world unto themselves. And as she says it, they all reach the same conclusion.
12. They find the boy tied and gagged in the shed with mowers, tractors, and Gardeners. Climber confronts the Gardeners with a gun. Echo and Phoebe untie the boy. At this moment, the Two Attackers from the previous scene get the drop on Climber. The one Echo pushed out the window is all bandaged up and in a very bad mood. The other one is trying to think in an organized way about what to do with these people. They argue. A roar interrupts them. It's the kids in a tractor. They hurtle at the Attackers and go right through the wall of the shed. During the confusion, Climber gets a gun and gets a fresh drop on the bad guys.
13. Cut to the police cuffing various wrongdoers. The case is wrapped up. Or is it? The kids ask the question: On the staircase, when they were attacked, the Attackers only wanted to kill Climber. No one else? Who wants Climber out of the way? Trip. Echo says that's ridiculous. Asks the Butler where Trip is. About an hour ago, he borrowed the keys to your father's plane. He said you knew. Climber says, Where's the airfield? Echo's father has just walked in: But the plane is in for repairs. It can't be flown. Climber asks, Does Trip know that? I don't see why he would, says Father.
14. Cut to a private airfield at night. Trip is arguing with a pilot as they board a small plane. "I'll pay for the refueling. Let's just take off!" The pilot agrees as Trip hears: Where you headed? He sees Climber, pulls a gun, says to the pilot: Give me the keys. Knocks the guy on the head, takes his flight plan. He shoots Climber. Takes off. But Climber is only down a second. He jumps on the plane as it begins to taxi. Shoots out the windshield. The plane crashes. He is apprehended.
15. It turns out Trip was behind it all. His personal fortune was a sham. He hired private detectives to discredit Climber so the coast would be clear for the kidnapping.
16. Climber tells his son, because of the nifty tractor save, he has earned the right to be called Flash.
17. The resolution is the same.
Some of the aforesaid is underdeveloped and some is too specific, but you get the idea. I would prefer, rather than the private plane bit, to come up with a way for Climber to use his climbing skills to catch Trip. But I find that that kind of thinking is inspired by large amounts of money. What I have outlined replaces or reinforces the script as it is. If I made no attempt to alter a scene or character, it probably means I like it as it is.
Best of Everything, Love,
--John
* * *
Well, now. What did we learn in school today? I think this much is clear and obvious: when they love what I've written, they are brilliant; when they dare to find fault, just a bunch of idiots and assholes.
That said, there really is a lot to digest. They all hate what I did (or didn't do, rather) with Echo, and of course they're dead on. As a matter of fact, it surprises me she is such a nothing, since I love Audrey Hepburn so, and wanted to write a star part for her. But as I said, the kids exploded and she got left in the wake.
My big problem is that even if I load her into Act III, even if I give her the best stuff I can come up with, can I ever get her back on an equal footing with Climber, which is what I wanted when I began? If I can, then the movie stays with my original intention. If I can't, well, when we write, guess what?--it isn't mathematics. But I need the audience to be rooting for the family when all four take off on the biggest Adventure of all. Even if she's not fifty-fifty, I've got to make you glad she's along.
Face it--this movie should end up being Climber and the kids. Maybe it will. Nothing wrong with that, but it's not what I wanted.
The kidnapping. Not a lot of agreement on who done it. Trip(p) or the Gardeners or the Judge--any of those will play. Depending on what story you want to tell. There was good agreement on Climber and the kids being detectives. Personally, I like that a lot. As we all know by now, I had a distant father and the idea of having a father like Climber, who openly loves me, who takes me with him, who includes me in his life, well, I am a sucker for that.
I think the scene with Climber and Phoebe when he makes her memory work is as good as I can do. I want more of that somehow. And I want a great thing for Shirley, a surprising act of bravery. Shit, we all want to be called Flash--but it's no good unless we earn it.
One final note of thanks to The Doctors. Other than the Farrellys', I heard all of their comments together for the first time, one after the other; they were read out loud to me so I could try and concentrate.
Blew my mind.
* * *
Writing Time
The one thing I think all writers like to talk about is their work habits. When do you write? For how long? Where? Endless questions. So I want to spend a minute now on the basic problem facing us all: doing it.
When I began, at twenty-four, the work always came out in a burst. The Temple of Gold took less than three weeks. A year later, Your Turn to Curtsy, My Turn to Bow, less than two. And in between, nothing much happened that bettered the human condition, just going to the movies, a double feature a day, sometimes two, everything on 42nd Street or the Thalia on West 95th. Two years basically wasted until the next book, which was Soldier in the Rain.
I was having a career, God yes. Three novels published by age twenty-eight, two of them million-copy sellers in paperback, the third made into a movie.
What I wasn't having was a life.
I never had a real job so whenever I wanted to write, I could. Morning, night, all night if I wanted--and I suspect if I had continued that way, I was heading for disaster.
There is no wrong when it comes to work habits. It doesn't matter if you use a Mac or a quill pen. There is no best way to go about storytelling. Bergman writes from ten to three and in ten weeks, he's got a screenplay. Graham Greene, another hero, counted words. Yes, you read that right, he counted each and every word until he reached his magic number--three hundred. And when he got there, guess what, he quit for the day, in the middle of a sentence or no
t.
They had the one thing writers need most: discipline.
My great editor, Hiram Haydn, was a very busy man. He started or ran publishing houses, had a wife and a bunch of kids, was editor of The American Scholar.
And wrote novels.
He was my editor from Soldier in the Rain through The Princess Bride, was a wondrous father figure for me. Once we were talking about a novel of his, The Hands of Esau, that he was close to finishing, and I asked him how long since he began it and he said probably eight years.
How do you stay the same person for that long, I wondered?
You just do the best you can, he replied. You hope.
When do you write?
Sunday morning, he said. Every Sunday morning.
That was the only time available to him. The rest of his life was kids and work and family and commuting and meetings and dealing with crazy writers; Sunday morning was all he could carve out, so he played it as it laid.
You have to protect your writing time, he said then.
That's the best basic advice I can give to any writer. You have to protect your writing time. You have to protect it to the death.
I think it should always be the same time. Each day, each night, each whatever. Can be half an hour, more when you're on a roll, probably shouldn't be less. I know a brilliant young writer who has zero problem writing. Her problem is sitting. Her computer is surrounded by a mine field and she will come up with the most amazing reasons not to try to cross it. And no, she is neither crazy nor alone in her problem--
because the easiest thing to do on earth is not write.
The need for a schedule is simple: You'll have hours, days, when you just sit there, but eventually, you come to know that your writing time is now and things begin to happen as you sit there.
And if you manage to suck it up, if you decide you must get your stories down, then there is one other thing that's crucial: don't talk about it. Tell no one.
Once others know, they will look at you strangely, they will question you, they will ask you terrible questions--
--how's it coming?
--is it fun?
--when is it going to be finished?
--I bet it's fun
--when can I see it?
You don't need those words buzzing around your ears. So keep the start of your career secret. Keep the time sacred.
Remember: nobody made you be a writer.
* * *
This is as far as I go.
All I have left to tell you is that after writing movies for thirty-five years I am more convinced than ever it's only about story.
And what's that? What is story? I'll go with Kubrick's words--he denied them, so who knows, but somebody wise said it, maybe it was me.
A good story is something with an interesting premise that builds logically to a satisfying and surprising conclusion.
We get fed them in the cradle and forever on. Want to read a good story? Pick up The Little Engine That Could. Soppy and primitive, sure, but today just by chance I read it again and let me tell you, you are rooting with all your heart for that crummy two-bit nothing of a train to get those toys over the mountain.
That's all it is, this business of writing. Just get the fucking toys over the mountain.
Today there was this article in the paper--about a man found dead in the subway. He had been riding for hours and not only was there no identification, there was no way of knowing why he died. No violence, not drug overdose--there was just this dead guy riding around on the subway with no past and, obviously, no future.
Was he dead for days? Was he dead from some terrible new disease just in from Africa, or was he from someplace not here? Was he a king in a world as yet undiscovered? Or was he really not dead--maybe where he came from they slept that way, no heartbeat, and when they did the autopsy--and found nothing--well, maybe when they did that they really did kill him and where he came from he was doomed to walk the earth seeking revenge or doing good or both alternately or, or--
There's a story in there somewhere, with no beginning yet and no ending yet, just this wonderful incident, a man from nowhere dies and rides around New York.
He's there waiting for you.
Gloria Steinem once said this to me: "Storytellers have been getting us through the night for centuries. Hollywood is the current campfire."
Keep the fires burning ...
INDEX
* * *
Abbott, George, 8.1, 8.2
Absolute Power (film)
casting of
endings for, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3
first draft of
and Gilroy, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3
great line in
Luther-Kate scene for
script meetings for
second draft of
sensational sequences for
shooting of
source material for
star part sought in, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3
third draft of
working with Eastwood on
accumulation
acromegaly
action movies, 7.1, 11.1, 15.1
action scenes, length of
actors:
as Byronic heroes
distractions for
heights of
and movie quality, 13.1, 16.1
movies written for, 8.1, 9.1, 14.1
with nothing to prove
talent clusters of
see also stars
adaptations, 5.1, 11.1
building up confidence for
classic
finding the spine in
process of
questions to ask before writing
research in, 11.1, 11.2
rules of
and source material, 4.1, 6.1, 7.1, 11.1
Addams Family (film)
ad-libs
adventure films, and Oscars
Adventures in the Screen Trade (Goldman), 1.1, 1.2, 7.1, 7.2, 10.1, 11.1, 18.1
Adventures of Robin Hood, The (film)
Aeschylus
Affleck, Ben
Africa:
Ghost and the Darkness in, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3
Masai Mara Plains in, 7.1, 7.2
Mount Kenya Safari Club in
age:
makeup and
riff about
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
All in the Family (TV series), 3.1, 12.1
"All That Jazz" (Kander)
All the President's Men (film)
and author's hot streak
ending of
screenplay of, 10.1, 11.1
and Watergate story, 8.1, 10.1, 13.1, 13.2, 18.1
All the President's Men (Woodward and Bernstein), 8.1, 10.1, 11.1, 13.1, 13.2, 18.1
American Graffiti (film)
American in Paris, An (film)
American President, An (film)
American Scholar, The (Haydn, ed)
anaconda, attack by
Andre the Giant (Roussimoff), 3.1, 3.2
obituary for
in Princess Bride, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3
anger, writers motivated by, 9.1, 14.1
Animal House (film)
Ankle-Breaking Scene, Misery, 4.1, 11.1, 11.2, 17.1
Arlen, Alice
Army, U.S., Goldman's stint with
Arnhem, Battle of
"art" films
Astaire, Fred, 11.1, 14.1
Attenborough, Richard: and Bridge Too Far, 1.1
and Chaplin, 18.1, 18.2
audiences: dumbing down of
and how-to films
knowledge of
size of
test, 5.1, 5.2
Australia Scene, Butch Cassidy, 14.1
Awful Truth, The (film), 4.1
Back to School (film)
Back to the Future (film)
Balanchine, George
Baldacci, David, Executive Power by, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 8.4, 8.5, 8.6
Balsam, Martin
Balzac, Honore de
&n
bsp; Barfing in the Snow Scene, Fargo, 13.1
Basic Instinct (film)
Bates, Kathy: and Misery, 4.1, 11.1
Oscar for
Batman (comic book)
Batman (film), 7.1, 18.1
Batman Forever (film)
Battleship Potemkin, The (film)
Beatty, Warren: and Dick Tracy, 4.1
and Misery, 4.1, 4.2
and Superman, 11.1
talent and smarts of
Beggars in the House of Plenty (film)
Bellamy, Ralph
Belsen, Jerry
Benton, Robert
Bergman, Ingmar: author's fantasy of meeting with, 12.1, 12.2
beginning scene by
critic slugged by
and Seventh Seal, 12.1
and Shame, 14.1
as top director, 4.1, 4.2, 5.1
Bergman, Ingrid, in Casablanca, 7.1
Bernstein, Carl, and All the President's Men, 8.1, 10.1, 11.1, 13.1, 13.2, 18.1
Big A, The (Goldman)
Act I of, 18.1, 18.2
Act II of, 18.1, 18.2
Act III of, 18.1, 18.2, 18.3
babies scenes in
beach scene in
beginning scene of, 18.1, 18.2, 18.3, 18.4
bodega scene in, 18.1, 18.2
casting of
changes in screenplay of
character and, 18.1, 18.2, 18.3
child custody scene in
clues explained in
coffeehouse scene in
connective for
drowning scene in, 18.1, 18.2, 18.3
ending ideas for
Farrelly brothers on
fastballs for, 18.1, 18.2, 18.3
first notes for
first visit scene in
For Our Eyes Only Draft of
Frank on
Gilroy on
injuries scenes in
Japanese gambling parlor scene in
Khouri on
kidnapping scene of, 18.1, 18.2, 18.3, 18.4
kids greeting father scene in
kosher deli scene in
letter regarding
night scene in
payment scene in
rich kids scene in
screenwriters on list for