Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House Page #2

EXT. A LARGE NEW YORK APARTMENT BUILDING - DAY

As CAMERA MOVES UP it and TOWARD a window:

BILL'S VOICE

For fourteen years Jim and Muriel

had been living in their apartment

over on East Seventy-fourth Street.

It was just another of those wonderful

crisp September mornings and the

Blandings were still asleep. Just

like millions of other people in

good old Manhattan -- New York City --

U.S.A.

The CAMERA GOES THROUGH the window and INTO:

INT. THE BLANDINGS' BEDROOM - DAY

Jim (Cary Grant) and Muriel (Myrna Loy) Blandings are asleep

in twin beds.

The room, not large to begin with, gives us the impression

of being cluttered up and overcrowded because the beds,

oversized chest of drawers, dressing table and chaise lounge

take up an inordinate amount of space.

SOUND of an alarm clock going off. Jim awakens, yawns himself

into hazy consciousness, gropes about on the night table for

the clock; it isn't there. He slips out of bed, and rubbing

his eyes, blindly moves toward the dresser. The circuitous

path, which he accomplishes with sleepy dexterity, entails

going around the chaise lounge, just missing the ominously

pointed edge of Muriel's dressing table, deftly stepping

over the low dressing table chair and finally reaching the

chest of drawers upon which is the clock. He turns off the

alarm and yawningly starts back over the same path. We get

the feeling that Jim makes this sleepy excursion every waking

morning of his life.

Back at his bed, Jim sits down, and, yawning loudly, gropes

with his feet for his slippers. Before he can find them,

however, he begins to doze off and slowly tilts back toward

the pillow, pulling the covers over him. In a moment he is

sound asleep. Muriel's arm automatically stretches out and

shakes Jim into consciousness. As he painfully reawakens and

starts to rise, Muriel's arm disappears.

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