"HAIL, CAESAR!" (2016)

HAIL, CÆSAR!

Written by

Joel Coen & Ethan Coen

Copyright © 2014 WHITE SHOOTING: October 13th, 2014

BLUE REVISION: January 5th, 2015

FADE IN SOUND

DISTANT, BEAUTIFUL VOICES

Male voices. A Gregorian chant.

We fade in on a crucifix in the apse of the church: a suffering Christ.

We cut to a close shot of a small silver cross on a rosary. The rosary is held in a man's lap next to a mouse-grey fedora. The light is dim.

As we hear a panel sliding, more light wipes onto the rosary beads.

Wider on the man waiting in the confessional: middle-aged, tired.

VOICE Son, it is so late.

VOICE You work too hard.

VOICE Yes my son.

VOICE This is very serious.

VOICE Yes.

VOICE Yes, my son.

A clap of thunder.

HOUSE AT NIGHT

We are looking, through the rain-pelted windshield of a parked car, at a small, Spanish-style bungalow. The rattle of driving rain does not quite cover the sound of drunken female laughter. There are occasional flashes of lightning outside, and occasional flashes of strobe light in the windows of the house.

Inside our surveilling car a wrist rolls over to show a watch face, streaked with the shadows of dripping rain: 5:00 o’clock.

A voice-over begins, authoritatively omniscient——or maybe it only sounds so because it is British-accented:

Our car’s driver, Eddie Mannix——the man we saw confessing——looks up from his watch to the house.

Flash of lightning, crash of thunder, another bout of laughter from the house.

Eddie Mannix reaches for his door.

OUTSIDE

Eddie Mannix emerges from his car——a Packard marking the period as circa 1950. Eddie pulls down his hat brim, turns up his collar, and digs hands into coat pockets as he strides through the rain.

The strobe light flashes inside the house. The laughter grows louder as we approach.

Eddie Mannix hesitates only momentarily at the front door. He tests the knob: unlocked; turns it, enters.

On Eddie Mannix at the open door, rain dripping from his fedora, thunder crashing behind him. His eyes narrow in distaste.

In the living room a giggling blonde in a milkmaid’s dirndl with overloaded bodice bends over a butter-churn.

A man with his back to us is peering through a box camera.

The giggling girl sees Eddie Mannix and stops churning.

The photographer turns to face Eddie: a tall weedy-looking man with a thin mustache. A sheen of sweat on his brow and upper lip.

Eddie Mannix strides to the camera, pops its back, and pulls out a length of film.

We hear approaching sirens. Falco reacts, bolting for the back door.

She giggles.

Whap! He slaps her.

She looks at him, stunned, then starts weeping.

He slaps her again.

Outside the sirens wind down and we hear car doors open.

She blubbers:

The front door opens and two uniformed cops enter.

He looks around, sniffs.

... Possible French postcard situation.

He fishes a wad from his pocket and peels off some bills.

... She wants to contribute something to your pension fund. Sorry to drag you out in the rain.

Cop Two is looking hard at the girl.

Eddie hesitates, looking at one of the cops who is smoking. We hear, distantly but growing louder, a deep thumping sound.

The thumping sound has grown closer: the tramp of many marching feet. A fanfare on ancient horns as we cut to:

Down the road a Roman legion marches in brilliant Technicolor, the sound of its stamping feet bridging the cut. Cypress trees, regularly planted, stretch along either side of the road to the horizon. The title of the movie fades into superimposition:

HAIL, CÆSAR! A Tale Of The Christ

The same voice that started the movie now intones:

The regularly formed legions in the van now give way to the slaves being whipped along in the rear:

... master and slave, freeman and vassal, are united in one compulsory worship: the emperor, Cæsar, is Godhead——lord of every man’s body and spirit! For those who will not submit, the galleys, the arenas, even crucifixion await! But there is a new wind, blowing from the east, from the dusty streets of Bethlehem, that will soon challenge the vast house of Cæsar——that edifice wrought of brick and blood which now seems so secure!

A chariot rolls into the foreground. Its driver is a muscular campaign-hardened man with Roman bangs. Beneath his copper breastplate he glistens with manly sweat. He wears a helmet topped by a bright red mohawk bristle, something like an upside-down floorwaxer. He is Autolochus Antoninus. He gazes off and smiles.

Another man gallops up on horseback and reins in next to him. This is Gracchus Gregorius, and he too wears the floorwaxing headwear of the Roman tribune.

As he whips the chariot horses into motion we pan off to reveal the hilltop view of Rome before which the weary tribunes had halted.

A rutted rural road. A man in sandals and simple peasant garb and using a gnarled walking staff walks through rain, thunder and lightning.

We are panning off the image to reveal that we have been looking at a screen in a small screening room.

The continued pan brings us onto the screening room’s one occupant, Eddie Mannix. After a quick furtive look around——meaningless since he is alone——he takes a cigarette from the ashtray next to him and sneaks a puff.

Eddie Mannix strides across the great studio backlot where technicians mill and actors dressed in the wardrobe of different ages and genres lounge. His secretary Natalie follows at his elbow, struggling to keep up as she consults a notepad:

Eddie is on the phone.

VOICE Nick Schenk’s office.

VOICE Hi, Mr. Mannix, I’ll check.

Eddie raises his voice:

Hastily into the phone:

A BOULDER

It is a great big boulder.

A beard-stubbled cowboy rises from behind its cover to fire his six-shooter. He himself is immediately shot: he grimaces and releases his gun which swivels around his trigger-finger, as he staggers——and drops.

He who just shot him: Hobie Doyle, in white Western wear. Eyes narrowed, he gauges the effect of his shot, then reacts to the sound of retreating hoofbeats.

The other bad men are racing off, firing wildly back in his direction.

Hobie adroitly twirls and holsters his gun.

The white horse placidly cropping the grass several yards away flicks its ears and looks over. It nickers and shuffles to face away from Hobie as he runs to it. He vaults its rump and man and animal are off.

Hobie riding. A mounted bad man falls in behind him——a bushwack. This pursuer begins to fire.

Hobie rocks forward on Whitey, low to his neck. He reaches down to grab the saddle, one hand on either side. He pushes himself up into a handstand atop the racing horse.

An oncoming tree limb hooks his knees and he swings up and around as his horse races on unridered. When he loops back around the tree limb his six-shooter is at the ready and he fires on the swing at the oncoming horseman. The bad man clutches his chest and falls from his horse as Hobie swings up again.

Hobie uses his upward inertia to gracefully execute a trapeze- artist dismount from the branch. His drop toward the ground is neatly intercepted by the bad man’s galloping horse, Hobie plops into its saddle. He reins in the snorting beast and as it rears he fires his six-shooter into the air in an expression of pure brio. He then twirls and holsters his gun, calms the horse with a pat on the neck, and leaps aground. He claps dust from his yoked white shirt.

A man in sunglasses rises from a canvas chair next to a camera attended by men in creased hoist-up pants and white shirts and ties.

An assistant trots up to Hobie with a small tin. Hobie takes it and loads a chew into one cheek.

Hobie thinks.

ROMANS

They sit in the courtyard of a Roman villa——several togaed senators and their robed wives——on chairs carved of cedar and draped with fine silks.

Incongruous entrance: a man in sunglasses wearing a white open-necked shirt.

He looks here and there. He raises a megaphone.

1ST A.D. All right, kids, it’s Rome, you’re over at this guy’s house for a revel, and here comes Antoninus. Llllots of energy!

VOICE Roll ‘em.

A short, togaed extra holding a lyre lurks by a tabletop on which sits platters of succulent feastings, and one goblet. A furtive look around.

The extra produces a cellophane packet from the folds of his toga. After another quick glance around he opens the packet’s flap and taps its powdery contents into the goblet.

He hastily crumples the packet and exchanges a significant look with:

Another extra, holding a turkey leg nearby. This man is bald with fringe hair upcombed to make corner hair-vees.

The first extra is startled by:

1ST A.D. What’re you doing at the table of viands?!

1ST A.D. You’re supposed to be reclining, with the lyre!

1ST A.D. Recline with the lyre!

VOICE We set there? Background set?

1ST A.D. Don’t sit on the pediment! Recline! Relaxed, festive!

1ST A.D. (projecting) Set! (narrows his eyes and points at the extra now reclining, hissing as he leaves) I got my eye on you.

VOICE Fountain!

Water starts to gurgle as the courtyard fountain comes to life.

VOICE (CONT’D) Background!

The extras talk among themselves in pantomime, displaying Roman gaiety and deep involvement in their silent conversations. Some sip at goblets, some nibble at rich comestibles. Occasionally, a guest tips his head back for a peal of silent laughter.

Our extra strums his lyre not in pantomime but sounding it, the same arpeggio, over and over again, separated by the same beat of silence.

Autolochus strides in. A senator rises to greet him.

We are close on the reclining extra with the lyre. Autolochus, standing before him, is only a pair of foreground feet in sandals with leather lace-ups twining the calves. The leather creaks as he talks:

The reclining extra looks steeply up at Autolochus. His point- of-view shows Autolochus mostly backlit; we see off the set and up into the greens.

Autolochus, with great aplomb, swipes the goblet from the table.

I see that you are the same worshipper of Bacchus. What gaiety! There is still truth in the adage, “What pleasures cannot be found in the villa of Sestimus Amydias, cannot be found in Rome!” (brings the goblet to his lips but stops with a thought) But seriously. There is talk that the Senate will send our legions out again——and this time not on a short march to Gaul. What truth to these mutterings, Sestimus?

The reclining extra and the extra with the turkey leg exchange a worried look.

Hearty male laughter. Autolochus ends his laugh and raises the goblet to his lips.

Just before drinking——he is taken by another gust of laughter.

The two extras exchange a look. The reclining extra hugs his lyre and worriedly arpeggiates.

When Autolochus’s second access of laughter peters out he raises the goblet again——and now takes a long draught.

Autolochus lowers the goblet, panting, and wipes meadfoam from his mouth with an armful of sleeve.

The extras too relax.

The director enters: Sam Stampfel, of manly middle-age.

The Script Supervisor points to a spot on the page as he hands it over.

The Script Supervisor shrugs a what-can-I-tell-you? Autolochus wanders off, muttering:

The extra with the lyre exchanges another look with the bald extra. He indicates with a jerk of the head that they should follow Autolochus who, as he examines his script, is crossing the long dark expanse of soundstage, toward a distant glowing exit sign.

Outside now, the short extra cautiously leans and cranes to peek around a soundstage corner. The bald extra is next to him.

His point-of-view: huge stucco soundstages range into the distance. The only person about is a small receding Autolochus Antoninus, his sandals scuffing the road and sword banging his thigh as he walks. He still looks at the script; we hear his distant muttering:

He stops momentarily, swaying. He extends a hand to steady himself against the exterior wall of a soundstage. After a moment, he moves on, somewhat uncertainly.

A STAR ON A DRESSING ROOM DOOR

A slow pull back reveals the name above the star: BAIRD WHITLOCK.

Muffled, from within, we hear Autolochus/Baird Whitlock:

The continuing pull back reveals the two extras standing either side of the door. The bald one nods at the short one.

At the nod, the short extra knocks.

The two men stand tensed.

After a short beat of clomping inside, the door swings slowly up. Baird stands, swaying, giving the two men a glassy stare.

He pitches forward into the ready arms of the togaed men.

Eddie Mannix strolls and speaks. His audience is a four- person convocation of clergy sporting different hats, caps, robes, beards.

A wry smile from Eddie Mannix.

Eddie points an aiming finger at the Minister, saluting his choice of words.

He permits himself a satisfied smile.

... Baird Whitlock.

Murmurs of appreciation from the assembled and one low “that’s-something” whistle.

A frozen beat as Eddie frames an answer.

Eddie nods.

... And no!

Eddie frowns.

The Patriarch gives a musing nod. Eddie turns to the minister.

... Reverend?

Eddie turns to the Rabbi.

The rabbi shrugs and affects mildness.

Eddie Mannix emerges, dabbing at sweat.

Baird Whitlock’s head lolls in the foreground, waggling with the motion of the vehicle. His body——he is still in wardrobe, leather skirt and a breastplate over his white tunic——stretches away into the background: he is laid out, unconscious, on a paddy-wagon style bench. At the end of the bench in the background we see, cropped and soft, a goon in a double-breasted suit, his forearms on his knees, smoking.

THE STREET

Hollywood Boulevard. The truck roars by. Its paneled side says “Al’s Linens.”

Hobie Doyle is pulling up in a chauffeured car. The guard looks in the back window and is surprised to see the Western star.

UNDER WATER

A bathing beauty in a sequined mermaid suit swims free-armed but wriggle-tailed, constrained by her fake nether-parts. From our underwater perspective we hear burbling music.

After a beat of her swimming solo many bodies shoot down into the water to join the mermaid, entering foreground and background in headfirst dives that leave bubble-trails. The beauties swim loops and then wave themselves back up toward the surface, smiling.

But the mermaid remains. She approaches a foreground sunken treasure chest. Atop its gold coins sits a silver crown which the mermaid seems to recognize as her own. She reaches for it, smiling-but as she does so a shadow travels over her, near-to-deep. And then great jaws hinge closed behind her, capturing her-and the lens-in the black belly of a whale.

We linger in black. Water surface slowly emerges from the black: we are high above the water now, looking straight down. With our change in perspective the music now blares undistorted.

In the tank below us the bathing beauties spin in a formation that goes through constant kaleidoscopic change. In the center of the circle formed by the beauties a dark shape begins to resolve itself: something is surfacing amid the girls.

It is the whale. As it breaches amid the swimmers its blowhole, directly beneath the lens, spouts. Jetting water rises toward us.

Something else is rising, borne up by the jetting water: a sundae-cup coach of sorts. In it rides the mermaid, triumphantly ascending.

Her ascent ends high, high, high above the tank. The spouting water recedes but her sundae cup remains magically suspended in air.

She opens the cup's gate-door and looks down at the water, far, far below. As a drum roll builds she prepares to dive.

And does dive.

She splashes into the water and is lost from view. A suspenseful hold, on nothing.

And now she emerges from the water, rising again, now on a pedestal and now wearing her silver crown, recovered in what offscreen neptunian rite who can say.

The mermaid is proud of herself, proud of her crown, proud of her bathing-beauty minions-but then pride evaporates.Some internal struggle. She seems to be getting angry.

She yanks off the crown and tosses it away, squalling:

The music slows to sludge and stops.

The mermaid flops into the water and splashes awkwardly toward the side of the tank, her fluke spanking the surface as cowed bathing beauties make way and an off-mike voice yells “Cut!”

CLOSE ON MERMAID

A minute later: she is leaned back on a canvas chair, her face set in a grimace, a gurgle of effort building in her throat. Two men behind hold her in place, each with an arm looped over her shoulder and under an armpit.

After a long straining moment:

With her cry there is a rubbery thwop-sound of suction giving way, and we cut to the reverse:

A stagehand staggers back, holding the now freed bottom half of her scaly mermaid outfit. He tips it backfin-upward and a little water dribbles out.

The mermaid is now wearing scaly top-half of her outfit only. Coming from beneath it, below her waist, is a conventional Catalina swimsuit. She feels tenderly at her stomach as an assistant director enters.

Eddie has been nodding and making to withdraw. The last sentence gives him pause but DeeAnna, ready to get back to work, projects:

... Okay Maxie, bring me my ass back!

The “Al’s Linen’s” truck rattles by. We hear the crash of surf.

Up ahead, on the right side of the road is a weathered sign for “Rudy’s Fish Shack——500 yards.” Just before the sign is a turn-off to the left, onto an unpaved and rutted road. The truck makes the left turn.

People in formal-wear lounge, chatting.

Hobie Doyle enters stiffly in a tuxedo. He tugs at his collar.

A distinguished-looking man, middle-aged, well dressed but not in wardrobe, hastens to greet Hobie. He is the director, Laurence Laurentz.

Hobie is concerned.

THROUGH FILM

A clapper-boy ID’s and whacks a slate on “Merrily We Dance.”

Laurence Laurentz’s voice calls “Action!”

Those assembled in the parlor come to life in a pantomime of civilized conviviality, chatting and laughing.

Hobie enters, an uneasy backward glance referring perhaps to the unseen grip.

Briefest who-me confusion from Hobie. With a quick recovery he manages a fairly casual saunter to the couch where he plants himself——not close to Dierdre. She slides over to close the gap between them, and she is now all warmth and sympathy. Her voice is musical and upper-crust:

Gazing at the floor, Hobie gives a short loud laugh that sounds like a Heimlich-expulsion. A flinch from the actress. Hobie’s grin abruptly drops, and, still gazing at the floor:

A beat, the actress looking at him, Hobie looking at the floor.

The beat grows longer... longer...

Voice of Laurence Laurentz: “Cut!”

We cut to Laurence Laurentz sitting in his director’s chair, mouth slightly open, staring without expression as he tries to frame his notes.

He abruptly rises and walks into the set to join Hobie.

Hobie nods agreement.

THROUGH FILM

A clapper-boy ID’s and whacks a slate on “Merrily We Dance” identifying the scene number and Take 2.

Laurence Laurentz’s voice calls “Action!”

Those assembled in the parlor come to life in a pantomime of civilized conviviality, chatting and laughing.

Hobie enters.

Smoothly this time, Hobie joins her on the sofa. When he sits he is still not close; she slides to him. The same music in her intonation:

Hobie looks at her, somewhat shifty-eyed, not comfortable with the eye contact.

Voice of Laurence Laurentz: “Cut!”

Hobie looks hopefully to the approaching Laurence Laurentz. The director, feeling his look, puts on a smile.

He balls a fist and brings it to his mouth and stares at the floor, thinking.

Hobie waits, gazing up at him.

At length:

Beat to focus attention, and then:

Laurence Laurentz stares at him.

FROM A HIGH BLUFF

We are looking down into a hidden box cove of the Pacific Ocean, rugged and secluded. Surf pounds into the teeth of jagged rocks just offshore. Nestled in the canyon just above the cove’s tiny beach is a modernist octahedral beach house.

The “Al’s Linen’s” truck is parked where the beach road ends just in front of the house. The goon from inside the truck now has Baird Whitlock in a fireman’s carry, taking him to the house’s front door.

We jump down close——the surf louder here——as the goon knocks. The knock brings furious dog-yapping from inside the house.

We are close on Baird’s head upside-down against the big man’s back. Just past the two men the door swings open, and as the big man steps in he turns to negotiate Baird’s body through the doorway, Baird’s sandaled legs sweeping toward us.

There are two men waiting inside. The one at the door is middle-aged, with sad eyes: He is John Howard Herman.

The deeper man is the room is heavy-set, and in a cheap suit not freshly pressed. Near him, a springer spaniel frantically spins in place yapping, excited to have visitors.

When the goon has passed with his Roman cargo the sad-eyed John Howard Herman swings the door toward us, filling the lens.

On the other side of Eddie’s desk is producer Walt Dubrow.

Eddie grimaces.

A wave of Eddie’s hand communicates the ineffable:

NATALIE’S VOICE It’s Mr. Laurentz, Mr. Mannix! I can’t stop him!

The door bursts open and Laurence Laurentz storms in. Natalie has trailed him to the door, where she hovers.

Natalie has been hesitant to butt in:

The pounding of surf fades up, the sound close but somewhat muffled by interior perspective.

We are fading up wide on Baird Whitlock, lying on his back, still unconscious. He lies on a patio chaise lounge made of thin plastic tubing stretched across an aluminum frame. We are in a storeroom, the chaise being the room’s only piece of furniture.

A muffled ding-dongfrom the front of the house. We hear the springer spaniel, stirred by the bell to yapping.

With much plastic-squeaking Baird rolls onto his side and nestles his head into the chaise’s tubing-upholstery. In his sleep he murmurs:

He subsides to snoring.

MAIN ROOM

The sad-eyed man, John Howard Herman is opening the front door to several visitors. The first visitor enters: murmured greetings, solemn handshake. Another man, another sober handshake.

Then an elderly man in tweeds clutching his pipe, the greeting for him especially deferential. Then a man with a briefcase; he sets it down so that he may greet by means of a hug. He picks up the briefcase, makes way for the next man.

A counter separates the entryway from a small kitchen. In it, the man we saw shushing the dog when Baird was brought in is carefully cutting the crusts off of finger sandwiches and stacking them on a platter.

As the dog yaps in a frenzy of delight at all the visitors, the man reacts without looking up:

A gong stings the cut to the interior of this Chinese restaurant.

Arthur Fung, a grave-looking man in a dark suit and conservative tie, greets Eddie Mannix.

They splash through a curtain of beads to approach a booth at which another man sits, a drink with an umbrella before him, an ashtray and an Imperial Gardens matchbook next to it, a cigarette in his hand. He rises to shake.

The men seat themselves facing each other.

Cuddahy has noted Eddie eyeing his cigarettes. He picks up the pack and offers with a hitch of the wrist that sends four cigarettes nosing out of the top of the foil.

He cuts himself off. A splash of the bead curtain.

The waitress, in a red embroidered sheath dress, is entering with a telephone. She plugs it in. As she leans to set it on the table Cuddahy swipes the picture from Eddie’s hand where it was exposed to view.

There is a dull clunkand we are close on Baird Whitlock, who opens his eyes.

Wider: Baird in his centurion’s wardrobe reclining on the beach chaise. The sound of ocean outside.

The clunk has punctuated an ongoing machine-hum which continues, cycling louder and softer, its loudest approach always punctuated by aclunk.

The lawn chair makes tacky noises as Baird disengages from it. He stiffly sits up. He gazes stupidly about, looking into the depth of the room: where am I?

He twists to look behind himself, lawn chair crackling, and does a modest take: out the window is the Pacific Ocean.

Another clunk and receding machine hum. Baird registers the noise, gets to his feet and walks to the door. It is closed. He reaches for the knob. He tries the knob. It turns. He goes through the door.

LIVING ROOM

The main room, in which we saw Baird being brought in and the mysterious visitors entering. It is now empty except for a middle-aged woman with a bandana tied Aunt-Jemima style on her head. She vacuums. Each forward pass of the machine ends with its clunk against the wall.

The woman looks up, and shows no particular interest in Baird despite his breastplate and leather skirt. She turns off the vacuum.

Baird stares at her, considering all the possible answers. Finally:

A jerk of her head indicates a hallway. She fires up the machine again.

Baird looks down the hallway. From one of its rooms, muffled male laughter.

He goes cautiously down the hall, the vacuum sound fading away, male voices fading up. One door is ajar. Baird cautiously bumps it open further.

Another round of laughter is interrupted as all turn to look at the Roman-attired man in the doorway. Most of the interrupted party are seated; there are a couple of overflow standees; several men smoke cigarettes, one smokes a cigar; the tweedy elderly man is sunk back in an easy chair smoking a pipe.

The springer spaniel leaps and twists and yaps, excited by the new arrival.

Again, this does nothing to quiet the dog. Baird looks from man to man. John Howard Herman, the man who greeted the other arrivals at the door, the apparent host, waves Baird in.

Baird cautiously enters. One man vacates a seat for him.

Baird cautiously sits. His scabbard catches on the chair arm, prompting chuckles from some of the men.

A nearby man leans over to help him adjust it. Baird sits back.

The men look to him, waiting for him to bring out his thought. Herman helps:

The dog has subsided and comes over to sniff at Baird’s sword.

All are looking at Baird.

PLATTER OF FINGER SANDWICHES

Someone reaches in to take a sandwich off the offered platter.

Wider: Baird sits back with the finger sandwich. It is minutes later and the respectful quiet has now given way to the relaxed clatter of people eating, laughing, having side- conversations.

Baird looks from man to man, as at a tennis match.

He controls the means of——

A throat clearing.

Everyone instantly quiets. All look to the old man in tweeds who is just lowering his pipe. Having claimed the floor he now speaks with non-argumentative authority.

Click! A sallow thin young man with heavy beard shadow has just snapped a picture of Baird. A sickly smile at Baird and then he turns to face someone else in the room and——click!——takes a picture.

Hearty guffaws.

Click! The photographer is edging around the group, continuing his picture-taking.

The sallow picture-snapper smiles again at Baird.

The clatter subsides to quiet. Cautious looks are exchanged among the men.

Herman, gazing at Baird and nodding, thinking, finally frames his opening:

As we cut wide on the room, the same voice that narrated the sandal epic “Hail, Cæsar!” at the beginning of our movie returns, distinguished, British-accented, authoritative yet plummily comforting:

Herman starts to silently explain things to Baird. The scene of cozy bonhomie is framed by the elemental vastness of the ocean outside.

A montage of Eddie, a tiny, solitary figure, striding through the canyons between enormous sand-colored soundstages.

Closer on Eddie as he enters the small door of a soundstage. The light above the door is flashing red.

INSIDE

High-ceilinged darkness and quiet. A man posted at the door hisses at Eddie, entering:

We have been hearing the distant, echoing voices of two actors, a hoarse-voiced man and a silken-voiced woman.

Their voices bump up full as we cut to the periphery of the scene being shot around a great flickering brasier. An actor in centurion’s wardrobe identical to Baird’s has one hand half-covering his face as the other arm stretches out as if to repel the gaze of a revealingly clad slavegirl.

In the foreground Eddie leans in to Walt Dubrow, watching the scene, and whispers:

He fishes a twice-folded paper from his pocket.

Eddie holds it up so that he may read by the flickering gag- light that simulates brasier flames. Typewritten:

We have your movie star. Gather $100,000 and await instructions. Who are We? The Future.

Eddie gives a low whistle at the contents of the note.

VOICE Cut!

OUTSIDE

Eddie and Walt emerge from the soundstage onto an exterior set with thick temple columns.

Eddie gazes, unseeing, down the row of columns as two workmen tip the farthest one, striking it.

Eddie nods, thinking.

Walt answers with a beats-me shrug and headshake. Eddie gazes back down at the note and moseys off——but turns back with a bright finger-cock at Walt:

... Chunk sounded good in there!

Eddie bangs through a door that says:

INNER OFFICE

Eddie strides in as the phone on his desk buzzes:

NATALIE’S VOICE Stu Schwartz on two.

With the handset shoulder-clamped to his ear he stoops and pulls on attaché case from the legwell of his desk and places it on the desktop and pops the clasps and starts emptying it.

... Yeah, well it’s a long story and I’ll tell it to ya sometime. You have that much in the office?... How much space’ll that take up?... Okay, this might do it. I’ll be over in a minute.

As soon as he disconnects, Natalie edges into the office.

Eddie winces.

As Eddie marches past the executive offices with his emptied attaché case, a tall red-haired woman arcs in to march alongside him. He winces.

This stops Eddie in his tracks. He stares at Thora, wide-eyed and shaken.

Finally:

She gives him a knowing look and a confirming nod.

A chirping hoot from Thora.

Eddie grimaces and lowers his voice confidentially:

Thora, wait one day and I’ll give you a true story for tomorrow's column. A little something——about Hobie Doyle.

Thora eyes him suspiciously.

Eddie treats the deal as done in hopes that that will help make it so. He smiles at her.

As he starts to trot off, his gesture takes in the entire studio:

DESK

Attaché case on top of the desk, bank-wrapped bills stacked inside.

The top of the case is swung down. The two halves of the case do not quite meet: too much money inside.

Straining pressure.

Stu Schwartz arches an eye behind horn-rimmed glasses.

Eddie strains downward as he presses the two clasps, inward, until——snap! snap!——they catch.

Eddie Mannix walks through the campus opposite-ways from last time, the attaché case bulging under one arm.

A woman arcs in to walk with him——a tall, red-haired woman, Thora Thacker it seems, except that her dress is different. Eddie, as when ambushed earlier, fights to conceal surprise and dismay.

YOUNG MAN’S VOICE Mr. Mannix!

A freckled youth in a cardigan sweater is bicycling up the walkway. As he furiously pedals, a Capitol Pictures pennant snaps and flutters from a high antenna off the back fender. He skids to a halt, close.

Eddie Mannix is already hastening off.

On his hasty retreat:

He jogs off with the bulging attaché case clamped to his side, led by Peanut on his bicycle with its fluttering pennant.

Eddie strides through the outer office.

INNER OFFICE

Hobie, in dinner jacket, rises from the chair facing the desk.

As he rushes around the desk to the phone and puts down attaché case:

He looks at the handset he has picked up, shakes his head, cradles it. He hits a button on the phone.

... Hung up, Natalie. Tell me the second they call back.

Eddie looks darkly down at the attaché case.

Eddie is still looking down at the bulging attaché case. He pushes experimentally down on the middle of its buldge. He pops the clasps. He redistributes the currency inside——blocked from Hobie’s view by the case itself——as Hobie talks.

Eddie has closed the case again and does the clasps. He assesses its shape as he talks to Hobie:

The phone buzzes.

NATALIE’S VOICE Sorry, sir——no, do you want Mrs. Mannix on one?

He deflates; picks up the phone.

He has reopened the case and is rearranging the money.

... Well that’s true——Of course, you’re right. Okay, okay, I’ll call the coach... Sure. Love you too.

He hangs up.

Eddie looks up at Hobie and focuses on him for the first time. A long, appraising look.

Hobie returns the look, not sure what it means.

Finally:

Hobie stares, shocked. Eddie Mannix nods a grim confirmation.

Finally:

Eddie’s mouth forms a moue of agreement.

Eddie gives a wagging headshake.

Eddie stares at Hobie, contemplating.

The silence is broken by the buzz of his phone. Natalie’s voice comes through the unit:

NATALIE’S VOICE He’s back——line one.

He hangs up, looks at the case, looks at Hobie.

Can I use your belt?

We are coming off the lettering on the side of a boat which identifies it as “The Swingin’ Dinghy.”

Our move reveals that behind the boat which is suspended by two chains like a lifeboatis a backbar in the middle of which is a clock, just now striking twelve. We move down off the clock to find a bartender looking up at it. A dishrag is draped over his shoulder, a well-chewed cigar stub is planted in his mouth.

He moves to get a broom. On his move we widen out to show the bar’s clientele: about a dozen sailors and their dates, five or six young women. The boat of which this establishment is namesake is a quarter-size model hanging over the bar.

The girls are mounting the stairs to leave the cellar bar. One turns back with a farewell:

The morose sailors all gaze up at the departing girls. The bartender asks one sailor:

He is addressing a sailor whose glum look stays on the exiting girls. The look lingers on the door after it closes behind them. The sailor sighs.

Another sailor, seated on the stool of a piano near the stairs, is also looking glum.

The lead sailor, equally downcast, is played by Burt Gurney.

Visible through a high window-well which gives onto the sidewalk are the gams of a girl who has stopped to adjust the seam of one stocking.

Burt, gazing yearningly up at the legs, starts to sing:

The production number “No Dames!” begins.

The song has developed and the dance begun, but here, off the set, the blaring playback is echoing and not as loud. Eddie Mannix enters the stage. He is dimly lit only by spill from the bar set, house lights turned off for shooting.

Eddie gives cautious looks around as he hoists the attaché case, now secured around its middle by a shiny black belt. He gingerly stows the attaché case behind an electrical box bearing the warning, DANGER! HIGH VOLTAGE.

BACK TO THE SET

The song finishes with Burt being ass-bounced and the bartender bellowing:

The general pandemonium of the dancing sailors is arrested by a voice through a megaphone:

VOICE And... cut! Yah, okay. Okay.

We cut behind the director seated on a canvas chair onto the back of which his name is stitched: “Ärne Seslum.”

VOICE (CONT’D) Come here, Burt Gurney. We go again.

Burt Gurney walks up, boyishly cheerful, and is joined by the Bartender.

ÄRNE Yah yah yah, no no no, mostly pretty good. But this time, don’t put dishrag on bartender’s head. You’re the star of the picture, Burt Gurney. Who cares about the bartender, you are the star.

The Bartender grumbles, walking away:

ÄRNE It is decided!

Eddie Mannix walks up.

Brightly, before heading back to the set:

ÄRNE Yah yah we associated.

ÄRNE But no more. No more. Don’t you worry, Eddie Mannix.

ÄRNE This must not be in movie magazines, that we associated.

ÄRNE My wife cannot read this.

Ärne fishes out a wallet.

ÄRNE Ilsa Pflug.

Ärne shows him a picture of himself and a plump woman with braids.

ÄRNE Ilsa Pflug-Seslum. In Malmo.

Ärne flips through, showing more pictures: himself skiing; the family posed together in cable sweaters.

ÄRNE Yah, yah, two children.

ÄRNE Do you have physical culture, Eddie Mannix? Do you ski?

ÄRNE Yah, fresh air. (thumps himself on chest) Air in—— (he sucks in) Out—— (he blows out) Lungs. Breathe. (takes back the wallet) I no more associate with DeeAnna Moran——it is decided!

Something on the set, past Eddie’s shoulder, draws Ärne’s furious look.

ÄRNE NO, no, no, don’t swing your arms like hairy ape! This is not fat stupid people, this is Ärne Seslum production!

Raucous male laughter hits the cut. The men are emerging from the hall into the main room, Baird and Herman in the lead, Baird’s arm draped companionably over Herman’s shoulder.

Roaring laughter from the Communists.

The men make themselves comfortable in the living room with its view of the crashing surf. It is now late day; a red sun hangs beyond the jagged rocks at the mouth of the cove.

Baird is lost in misty reminiscence:

Again, agreeable laughter from the Communists. Herman smiles as well.

Herman indicates the speaker.

A low whistle from Baird. Herman nods.

Dutch gives a short barking laugh.

Faintly gesturing with his pipe:

Chuckles all around. Herman gives a weak smile.

The smiling faces around him harden.

Baird, committed, plows on:

The alienation is palpable. Herman alone seems unruffled:

Baird instantly sobers.

He looks up at the men around him, their faces set. He looks at Herman, the one person still smiling.

Eddie Mannix arrives to lean against his door jamb. The legal bullpen, rows of decks, is at his back.

Sid looks up from his paperwork.

A whistle from Sid.

He waves airily. Sid nods understanding.

Sid gazes at Eddie. His look drifts off.

Natalie, with clipboard, approaches from the background.

It is a very late day. Eddie Mannix strides through the campus with Natalie trailing.

They are mounting a set of steps leading to a long walkway with many doors spaced at short and regular intervals.

He bangs through a door:

INSIDE

A stout middle-aged woman is at work at a clattering upright moviola. A cigarette plumes in one hand. The room is layered with stale smoke.

The woman spins around in her castored chair and the chair creaks as she tips her body back so as to aim her face at Eddie. Her thinkc glasses make her eyes float hugely before her face.

The eyes blink.

Her voice is emphysemic:

C.C. Hello, Eddie.

C.C. Just working on it now. I’ll slap on a little music.

C.C. brakes the picture, rolls to a trim bin, pulls track from a pin, flanges it on the side of the moviola and then lays it under a sound head. She snaps down the head and rolls the movie forward.

Eddie leans in to look at the picture cube. Glow from the moviola screen underlights Eddie’s face.

A fanfare. On the screen, a card:

LAURENCE LAURENTZ PRESENTS

Grease-marks on the print form a V that indicates a fade down.

As waltz music comes up, an inverted V grease-mark indicates a fade up on a shot of the dancing feet of many people, gowns swirling, tuxedoed legs debonairly stepping.

Supered on the shot:

MERRILY WE DANCE!

Another fade-down mark.

Lateral track on the feet of a man and a woman, crossing a city sidewalk. The man's feet hurry out of frame as we hear him call “Taxi!”

The woman's feet continue on to bring into frame, when she reaches the curb, the bottom of a cab door being opened for her by the man.

As she climbs into the cab we match cut into:

The back of the cab. The pretty young woman slides over so that a caddish looking young man can sit in as well.The cab starts into motion.

The man laughs.

SWELL APARTMENT INTERIOR

Lateral track on a pair of feet: a man walking down a hallway. As he enters a foyer he comes up short, feet turned halfway toward a valise that has been left under a table. After a considering beat he proceeds on, and we pan his feet to a door which he opens.

A match cut around the other side of the door onto the person entering, who is now revealed to be——Hobie Doyle. We are now in the scene we saw being shot.

As Dierdre beckons Monty her motion slows, and her slowing speech becomes basso before lapsing to quiet and the ratcheting noise of the machine also falls quiet and we are looking at a frozen frame that slowly discolors at the center.

The discoloration starts to spread outward as the frame burns.

Eddie looks quizzically at the stalled picture.

A rasping voice:

C.C. Reversh.

Eddie looks and reacts with a modest but definite take at:

C.C. bent double in her chair, the side of her face pressed snugly to the moviola near the gearing for the sound roll. The side of her face is squashed flat against the machine and something cinches the folds of fat at her neck. She is being strangled.

C.C. (CONT’D) Reversh.

Eddie looks helplessly at the machine.

C.C. (CONT’D) Reversh.

Eddie casts frantically about, locates the forward/reverse switch, flips it.

The soundtrack grinds into motion, in reverse. The picture plays likewise.

As the sound relays feed out her scarf, C.C. has increasing play such that she may slowly draw her head away from the machine.

When she is completely free she hits the handbrake, stopping the film.

C.C. (CONT’D) Shouldn’t wear scarves.

She sucks greedily at a cigarette. She flips the reverse switch and the film rolls forward again.

Hobie once again enters, looking very dashing in his tux.

The discolored frame flashes by and Monty sits into a brooding close shot on the divan.

A hold on Hobie as he frames a haunted answer.

Finally:

A gong stings the cut to pushing in to Arthur Fung as he gives a short bow.

SPLASH! A push through the curtain of beads to see Mr. Cuddahy, looking up from his booth, a drink with an umbrella in front of him.

Eddie gives a low whistle. Cuddahy nods.

Yeah. You get it, right? That means your stock options are guaranteed to vest. You’d never have to work again if you chose to retire after your term. Think about it: lifetime employment; you wouldn’t be a glorified working stiff like you are now. And you'll be running a business, not a circus. Drink? (notices Eddie’s look) Cigarette?

Cuddahy proffers the pack which Eddie has been eyeing. Eddie hesitates, shakes his head.

Glowing in the early evening.

Reverse on its drive. Hobie Doyle leans against a parked limo with his arms folded, waiting, gazing at the mansion. A long, still beat, and then he abruptly sflffs a bunch of sunflower shells out of his mouth.

He gazes idly around.

He has a thought.

He opens the back door of the limo and takes out a length of rope.

He starts twirling, creating a nice big loop. He expertly tips his wrist to make the loop spin level with the ground at a height of half a foot. He hops in and out of the loop.

VOICE Hello Hobie.

Startled, he muffs a hop-out and the rope dies against his shins.

He coils the rope.

She plants her purse on her head as she demonstrates a rhumba move:

She finishes with a kick and a head-tip that launches the purse backwards off her head to be grabbed by one hand behind her back.

We hear a door opening and hallway light fans onto an adorable little girl asleep in bed.

Eddie looks down at her, smiles, stoops to adjust the doll she holds against her face. He rises to gaze down for another beat, then moves.

The opposite bed: an adorable little boy. Eddie eases the askew coonskin cap off of the boy, stands looking down.

Top of the boy’s wardrobe. Baseball pennants are on the wall behind it. Eddie’s hands enter to place a soaring airplane on a peg on a pedestal.

Top of the girl’s wardrobe. Dolls are seated on it leaning against the wall. Eddie’s hands enter to place a folded maroon uniform, and, on top of the uniform, a maroon cap with “Stewardess” stiched in gold.

Eddie is at a plateful of dinner. His wife bustles as he eats.

Eddie is ruminative:

Nodding, chewing, thinking:

Eddie is startled out of his ruminations:

EDDIE IN HIS PACKARD

He drives, squinting against oncoming headlights.

The plummy-voiced narrator:

Familiar shot from high on the bluff down on the octahedral house, now glowing with internal light. The ocean is no more than glittering highlights caught from the moon.

INSIDE

We are in the living room which, it being night, offers no more view. The writers sit playing at cards, smoking, seeking to make time pass.

A man circles the table dropping a pair of gloves next to each card player——fingerless gloves with leather grips, as for golfing. The card players little notice the deposit of gloves at their places.

Baird is indeed sitting with Professor Marcuse, who is just finishing talking as their conversation mixes up, with Baird nodding vigorous concurrence.

Professor Marcuse’s brow furrows as he tries to follow Baird’s point.

... So there we are, me and Danny, and I’m wondering what the hell I’m doing with this razor and he says it’s for a part in a Norman Taurog picture but Judy Canova is there and she knows Norman and she says Danny’s not doing a Norman Taurog picture——he just wants you to shave his back! And that’s who benefits!

A LOBBY CARD

It is for “Lazy Ol’ Moon,” starring Hobie Doyle. When it is wiped by a foreground cross we cut wider:

The near-empty lobby of a grand theater. A latecoming gentleman and his wife are opening the auditorium door to enter, the movie’s soundtrack fanning up as they do so.

INSIDE

Hobie and Carlotta are watching the movie.

Hobie leans in to Carlotta.

ONSCREEN

It is evening. A pretty young woman converses through a cookhouse window with a grizzled old man in the yard. The man——Curly——wears the union suit and the bent-back hatbrim of a Western sidekick.

Someone offscreen is lazily chording a guitar.

Laughter from the audience as Curly stomps over to the man playing guitar: Hobie, relaxing on a tipped-back chair on the bunkhouse porch.

The guitar intro has ended and Hobie launches into the first verse of “Lazy Ol' Moon.” He looks up at the moon, occasionally looks back to the pretty woman in the window who listens, smiling.

As the verse ends we cut to Curly elsewhere in the yard, looking angrily down at something off:

We cut over his shoulder: he is addressing a reflection of the moon in a watering trough. He now dives in with hands outstretched as if to throttle the reflection.

Hobie sings on. Curly sits up in the trough sputtering and looks around, stymied and irate.

Roaring laughter from the audience.

Eddie Mannix pulls up in his Packard. It is late night; the street is deserted except for one swank parked car, a cream- colored luxury sedan, that stands out on this less-than-swank street. The car’s uniformed driver leans against the hood smoking.

A wooden stairway. On the risers are painted the names of the building’s business tenants. Eddie Mannix trudges up the stairs in fedora and trenchcoat with collar turned up.

It is lined by doors with transom windows. Lettering on the pebbled glass of each office door identifies its occupant.

One office only shows light from inside:

Eddie taps at the door.

It is opened by Sid Sieglestein, the studio lawyer. An inner- office door, standing open, shows Joe Silverman sitting at his desk; mid-thirties and, like his office, low-rent but neat and utterly without character.

DeeAnna Moran sits across from him in a cream-colored dress that matches her car outside, and a black hat and veil. She has a cigarette in one hand and with the other signs a document in multiple places as Joe, leaning across the desk, turns pages and points.

They are joining the two in the inner office, Sid now addressing DeeAnna.

... So Joseph has done——well, just a whole lot of good work for us in the past. Whenever we’ve needed a witness or a third party for, I don’t know——a petition of grievance or alienation of affection.

DeeAnna sneaks looks at Joe as she signs pages.

The man shows no resentment of the question and indeed no affect at all:

Joe takes the document and slides its last page into an embosser and squeezes.

DeeAnna examines Joe who is tensed, squeezing with both hands.

Scotty the guard leans out, tipping his cap, as the Packard pulls up.

Eddie Mannix sits slumped, hand cupped to forehead, light flickering onto him from the screen. Natalie sits on his far side with her clipboard, waiting for his attention.

Onscreen: we pull Baird Whitlock, in his Roman tribune's wardrobe, as he marches angrily up a line of parched and dusty slaves clamoring for water. Baird curses and exclaims “Romans before slaves!” as he bats aside those waiting.

As he reaches the front of the line our pull back has brought into frame the man giving out water with a dipper. This man, whom we see only from behind, wears a simple robe and has perfectly arranged shoulder-length blond hair, slightly wavy.

Baird/Autolochus——once more exclaiming “Roman's before slaves!”——intercepts the dipper which the blond man is handing to a slave. Autolochus is about to drink himself when he takes in the countenance of the blond water-giver. Something in the man's face and manner strikes Autolochus mightily. He takes a staggering step backward, in awe.

Close on Baird, his face displaying progressive waves of awe, puzzlement, hope, and ineffable wonder.

A flash frame and a slate for “Hail, Cæsar, Twenty-Seven Baker Two.”

Baird steps back into close shot with the dipper again, now displaying waves of puzzlement, ineffable wonder, some awe, then back to ineffable wonder.

We hear an offscreen “Cut!” but before the flash frame Baird relaxes, his eyeline shifting as he calls out:

VOICE Yeah, good, maybe a little more wonderment.

“Hail Cæsar, Twenty-Seven Baker Three.”

Baird steps back into frame in awe.

He steps forward then immediately steps back into frame in awe. A squinting bit of wonder.

VOICE Cut!

VOICE Yeah, no, it was——

“Hail Cæsar, Twenty-Seven Baker Four.”

Baird steps back into frame his face oddly blank.

His eyes leave the eyeline. He looks down, arranges his features in an expression of unutterable awe, and then jerks his look back up to the eyeline, expression locked in place.

A long hold, expression steady: unutterable awe.

Finally, hissing out of his locked jaw as he maintains the look:

VOICE Yeah, okay, cut.

Eddie, watching. His eyes stay on the screen throughout:

From screen: “Hail Cæsar, Twenty-Seven Baker Five.”

From screen: “Hail Cæsar, Twenty-Seven Baker Six.”

Eddie nods, still looking at the screen.

From screen: “Hail Cæsar, Twenty-Seven Baker Seven.”

An orchestra plays “Every Now and Then.”

Carlotta laughs, across a table from:

Hobie, hunched forward, very intent on what he is doing, his body jiggling.

Wider: he has a strand of spaghetti and is doing rope tricks with it.

He ropes a salt cellar.

His other hand, on the tablecloth, is starting to walk away on two fingers, affecting nonchalance.

Thinking itself safely out of range, the walking hand starts to walk faster.

He ropes the walking fingers, tripping his hand.

Carlotta, unable to talk from laughter, points at Hobie. Hobie ropes the pointing finger, draws her hand toward him. She slaps at his hand with her free hand. He drops the spaghetti to slap her hand in return then plucks the whipping spaghetti-end out of the air in rhythm.

He has lowered his head to his hand and he fiddles briefly at his mouth. He raises his head again, beaming at Carlotta.

He has no teeth. His gums, upper and lower, are hideously bare.

Carlotta is aghast——and then amused, more than ever. Hobie chuckles as she laughs:

He hastily tucks his teeth back in and croons along with the orchestra which is just now arriving at the chorus:

Every now and then...

Carlotta comes in on top:

The two sing together but Hobie suddenly freezes, seeing something.

Long-lens point of view: a bulging attaché case bound around the middle by a shiny black belt. It rests beside a semi- circular booth, half the throw of the restaurant away. Whoever has the case is hidden by his high-backed booth. His back is to us: the side of one leg juts out as does one elbow, active as he eats.

VOICE Well now, this is interesting.

Hobie’s look turns up: Thessaly Thacker stands at his booth.

Hobie is distracted, his look shifting between her and the hidden man.

Finger-quotes and an exaggerated impression of Hobie’s accent set off the reference. Hobie, unoffended, nods.

As she moves off Hobie and Carlotta exchange a look: how did we do? But Hobie’s look keeps returning to the mystery diner.

His long-lens point of view: Thessaly Thacker has stopped to talk to the hidden man with the attaché case. Brief conversation. Thessaly tips her head back laughing at some pleasantry. Her cackle carries across the room.

VOICE Well now, this is interesting.

Hobie’s look turns up: it is——impossibly——Thessaly Thacker again. Or, no it isn’t, it’s Thora.

She is looking off at her cackling sister.

Thora’s baleful look swings onto her. It holds for a long moment. Then a squint:

His eyes widen: the mystery man is getting up. The man stands briefly outside the booth but is turned mostly away from us, patting at his mouth with a napkin. He angles more toward us.

It is Burt Gurney.

He finishes patting his mouth, tosses the napkin onto the table. His face, so boyish when performing, is now a hard mask.

He stoops to pick up the attaché case. A brief look around the restaurant, and he heads off.

Hobie hastily shuffles himself out of his booth:

Hobie exits the club just in time to see the passing-by vehicle of Burt Gurney.

Hobie hurries to his car and driver waiting curbside.

Wide on Eddie behind his desk, half-in, half-out of a pool of desktop lamplight. He sits hunched, forearms on knees.

An insert: on the desk is a letter, its copy too small to read. But we see its letterhead: Lockheed.

Back to Eddie, but our angle now swung around so that the desk does not hide his lower body.

The hands draped across his knees hold a rosary.

BLEARY MONTAGE

Lots of neon: “The Garden of Allah,” restaurants, clubs, chase lights around movie-theater marquees. Dissolving in and out under the Hollywood Boulevard imagery is the same set-up of Hobie driving, squinting, eyes fixed on tail lights in front of him.

Also dissolving in and out:

EDDIE MANNIX WALKING

Not his purposeful daytime stride but a contemplative stroll, his hands clasped Churchillianly behind his back. He passes through the half-struck columns of the temple of the money- lenders; through the courtyard of Sestimus Amydias, its fountain now giving only spare, echoing drips; and finally through a set we have not yet seen: the road to Calvary, its long line of crucifixes looming empty.

The montage which connects the two men ends with a dissolve full up on Hobie, still driving, but no more city lights reflected in his windshield. We are out, remote.

His point-of-view: tail lights of the car well ahead——the only car in sight. Its headlights briefly show us the “Rudy’s Fish Shack” sign on the right. The car turns left.

Hobie slows as he approaches the turn.

HIGH FROM BLUFF

The octahedral house glows below. Burt’s car is parked. Hobie’s car eases up.

INSIDE - NIGHT

For the first time the house has no interior noise, no yapping dog. We hear only the muffled pounding of surf.

The front door clicks, and creaks open.

Hobie enters cautiously, looking around at the quiet as he walks toward the lens to stop in close shot, gaping now, surprised at what he sees.

Reverse on the living room. Baird Whitlock is alone, a small figure in the big room, still in Roman wardrobe, a copy of Soviet Life open on his lap, martini glass in hand. He gapes at Hobie in mirroring surprise.

Finally:

Hobie looks around, looks back at Baird.

A beat.

Hobie is not really interested. He looks around a bit more, trying to make sense of it all.

The Communist writers man both sides of a longboat, gloves on, pulling hard at the oars.

Burt Gurney stands in the prow gazing forward, rather like George Washington crossing the Delaware but with a yapping dog in the crook of one arm.

Now his look turns to one side.

His point-of-view: his beach house is coming into view from behind one of a pair of jagged rocks between us and shore.

The writers row more slowly as the house centers up between the rocks.

The writers back-paddle to stop the boat. It settles so as to show the house perfectly centered between the two snaggle- rocks.

Satisfied with the boat’s position, Burt Gurney looks about: the vast and empty sea.

He looks at his watch: midnight.

A writer occasionally dips an oar for a short front- or back- stroke, keeping the boat in position. The boat dips and bobs, water slapping on wood. An occasional yap from the dog.

Long beat.

A huge roar. Seething water. Ocean surface just by the longboat roils mightily——and is breached.

A huge black column rises, rises, rises from the sea.

The writers give voice to an awed “Oh...”

The column stops rising.

The roaring of great engines, and the angry hiss of water streaming from the column, subsides to... near-silence. Just the gentle chug of idling engines and the faint bleep. bleep. bleep. of sonar.

Waves slosh feebly against the imposing black column: the conning tower of a submarine.

The metallic screek-screek-screek of a hatch being opened. The sound moves the dog to more yapping.

Burt Gurney hands the dog to one of the forward writers.

He leaps from the longboat to the sub, grabbing brackets set in a vertical line up its side: a ladder. Before he can climb, though, writers’ voices exclaim “Tell him!” “Give it to him!” “Give the speech!”

HERMAN’S VOICE Comrade!

Burt turns, twisting from the ladder to look back a the longboat.

Herman rises in front. A ripple of motion goes through the writers behind him: something is being passed forward.

Looks around, uncertain, and gets encouraging nods from the other writers.

A chorus of ‘hear, hear’s from the writers as he gropes for a finish.

The passed-forward object arrives at the man immediately behind Herman who now gives Herman a nudge. He turns to take the object, and turns back holding it out toward Burt.

It is the attaché case cinched by black belt.

He tosses it, and Burt, with one hand anchoring him to the ladder, one-handedly catches. He looks at the case, nodding deep appreciation for what it represents.

He looks up.

The dog, whining and writhing in discontent in the arms of the writer in charge of him, finally breaks free and leaps yapping toward his master.

Burt reflexively drops the case to grab the arriving dog.

The case hits the water and dipsy-doodles down, down, down into murkiness.

The writers give a unison dismayed “Oh...”

Burt Gurney, angled out from the ladder, gazes down at the spot where the case is disappearing. A long looking beat.

Finally, a small arch of his eyebrow——his only comment on life’s unpredictability. He swings his body back in against the sub and climbs one-handed, holding the dog.

A man wearing a sable cap waits at the top. When Burt arrives the waiting man hands him a sable cap. Burt puts it on and gazes down at the longboat.

Marcuse, near the back of the boat, gestures faintly with his pipe.

Burt nods concession. The man behind Burt stoops to open the hatch and both men climb in.

On the writers, watching.

The roar of engines, the seething hiss of water. The sub descends.

The writers fight their oars to keep the longboat steady in the bucking sea.

The sub disappears. The sloshes diminish. The black sea rolls on in peace restored.

After a quiet beat:

HOBIE AND BAIRD

In Hobie’s car they make the right turn from the beach access road to head south on the coast highway. Hobie hums “Lazy Ol’ Moon” as he drives; Baird gazes placidly out.

Baird is struck by a thought. He looks at his watch, winces.

Hobie glances at him as Baird thinks.

Both men look, attention drawn by sirens: an oncoming line of police vehicles, their rooflights spinning.

The cars whoosh past.

Baird turns to track them and Hobie looks in his rear-view.

The vehicles skid into a left turn at the “Fish Shack” sign.

Baird faces forward again.

A beat.

FADE IN SOUND: Morning birds, intermittent car-bys.

FADE IN PICTURE: Studio gate.

We are looking across the street at the main gate. There is little traffic at this early hour. A cab pulls up and stops curbside. Its passenger gets out.

The cab pulls away and we see the discharged passenger: Baird Whitlock. Still in breastplate and leather skirt, he saunters toward the walk-through by the guard shack, whistling.

We track laterally with an Assistant Director who, intent on a clipboard, slowly walks past a foreground crucifix, the occupant of which, facing away from us, is in frame only to the extent of his two crossed feet. The A.D., still studying his clipboard, slows to a halt just as we bring another crucifix into the foreground. Its occupant too we see only from the ankles down.

The A.D. now looks up from the list on his clipboard to the unseen man on the foreground crucifix.

VOICE Todd.

The A.D. looks down his list. He shakes his head, still unclear; he looks back up.

VOICE I don’t know.

The A.D. rolls his eyes.

Beat. Then:

VOICE I think I’m a principal.

Baird, in wardrobe, is in the chair in front of Eddie’s desk with his legs crossed, hands clasped behind his head, the picture of cheerfulness.

Eddie glares.

Baird, oblivious, thinks he has an audience.

Eddie rises from behind his desk and advances on Baird, who prattles on.

Eddie has grabbed Baird by the breastplate and hauled him to his feet. He now slaps him, forehand and backhand:Slap! Slap!

Eddie pulls him chest-to-chest and holds him there so that he may stare straight into his eyes as the words pour out:

Slap! Slap!

Slap! Slap!

The manhandling and Eddie’s harsh tone have brought Baird to tears. Eddie releases his fistful of Romanwear with a shove that sends Baird staggering backward.

Baird nods, whimpering, as he retreats to the door.

Eddie reseats himself behind his desk. Baird is reaching for the doorknob but Eddie stops him with a sharp:

Baird turns, sniveling, his hand on the knob.

Eddie smiles, points at him, and gives a tight nod:

It heartens Baird. He wipes his eyes with some tunic-sleeve and even manages a tremulous smile back at Eddie and a return nod.

EDDIE WALKING

He walks purposefully across the lot. Natalie is deep behind trotting to catch up, arms full of a flower arrangement.

He turns, waits.

He turns from her to proceed but immediately stops with a surprised “Gah!”

Thora smiles thinly.

Thora and Eddie seat themselves at a curved stone bench beneath a stone table upon which Eddie puts the flowers.

Behind them is a building that says WARDROBE. A Roman centurion sits against its exterior wall lacing up his sandals’ calf straps. Others emerge from the building one at a time, each cinching up the chin strap on his bristle-topped helmet or giving the bottom of his breastplate a tug or in some other way making ready.

A hoot from Thora.

She wears a smug smile, awaiting protestation.

Eddie only nods, equably.

Her smile starts to fade.

Thora’s look curdles.

A beat.

Light wipes onto Eddie, rosary in hand.

VOICE How long since your last confession, my son?

VOICE It’s too often, my son. You’re really not that bad.

Eddie grimly shakes his head.

A sigh from the unseen priest.

VOICE All right. Five Hail Marys.

Eddie is struggling.

VOICE Yes my son?

VOICE Easy?

Silence.

Then:

VOICE God wants us to do what’s right.

VOICE The inner voice that tells you it’s right——it comes from God, my son.

Eddie glances at his watch again.

VOICE It’s His way of saying that——

Autolochus is gazing up and off-camera as we pull him through a crowd of Israelites, his face transfigured in wonderment. As he reaches the front of the crowd he sinks to his knees. The camera pulls up and away to frame him before three crucifixes on the mount.

Gracchus, familiar from our epic’s first scene, approaches.

Baird rises, turning his attention to his friend and placing a comradely hand on his shoulder.

Gracchus doesn’t understand:

Autolochus gravely shakes his head.

Gracchus, is willing to believe, but is confused.

Gracchus’s chin crimps as he juts his jaw, absorbing this message.

A truth we can see if we have but...

Autolochus is staring at Gracchus. His eyes slowly narrow to a squint. His jaw drops open as he stares. After a beat of fixed staring:

EDDIE MANNIX AND NATALIE

They stride across the lot, Natalie following Eddie with her notepad as at the beginning of the movie.

He momentarily casts about.

She hands a sheet forward. He studies it, hands it back.

Eddie pushes back a sleeve to look at his watch.

As they head up the walk to the administration building we boom up to bring into view the skyline of the lot beyond. In the middle distance is the Capitol Pictures water tower, one word painted on its face: BEHOLD.

A slanting sun, hidden by clouds, sends down golden beams.