Save the Tiger

Synopsis: The film depicts a day and a half in Harry Stoner's life. Harry is down on his luck, and trapped in his own indulgences. He daydreams about his youth, trying to escape from the fact that business is rotten and his company owes bundles of money. His day is filled with unusual episodes as he picks up a hitchhiker/prostitute, arranges for his company's warehouse to burn down so he can collect the insurance-money, he hires strippers for his buddies and gets engaged in an animal rights campaign, a fashion show and experiences a rather uncomfortable flashback to the war.
Genre: Drama
Director(s): John G. Avildsen
Production: Paramount Pictures
  Won 1 Oscar. Another 1 win & 5 nominations.
 
IMDB:
6.9
Rotten Tomatoes:
83%
R
Year:
1973
100 min
1,446 Views


... ten years of combat and more than

1,000 holes from enemy fire...

Patches, the ancient C-123...

used for spraying chemical defoliants

in Vietnam is being retired.

Patches will leave Saigon

and is destined for exhibition...

at the Air Force Museum at Wright-

Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.

The plane's last pilot,

Captain Orin Smith stated:

"We'll miss her. She was a tough old bird."

Preliminary reports on last night's tragedy...

at Glendale Boulevard indicate

a 16-foot section of the main gas line...

had been damaged in the recent tremor.

The structural weakening

in the three foot wide pipe...

had evidently escaped detection.

Eight bodies have been recovered

as of 2:
00 a.m. Fires continue.

On the local weather scene...

we can expect temperatures

in the low to mid 70s.

The Los Angeles County Air Pollution

District reports heavy smog...

in the Basin today

with light eye irritation predicted.

Carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide

will be.30 parts per million.

The APCD again cautions against

strenuous activity for school children.

Now, let me show you something

for man's best friend.

Any dog will lick his chops

for Granny's Grenadine Beef.

- Why, it'll make your dog sit up and...

- Sh*t.

- You don't want any toast?

- Nada, nothing.

When's the funeral?

Thursday.

Sorry about the airport thing.

Hard to believe Uncle Bernie's dead.

God, what a bastard.

Screwed everybody.

How long are you gonna be gone?

A week, 10 days.

Do we have to?

You screamed in your sleep.

That's the second time this week.

Yeah.

See Dr. Frankfurter.

He'd tell me it's repressed sex.

Maybe it is.

- It's Willie.

- Who?

Willie. The guy downtown

that parks my car is Willie.

- Kamu died.

- He died a long time ago.

No, not him. Kamu the whale.

Been swimming against the current

for three years.

- What current?

- And it damaged...

The current in the tank at Pacific World

and the friction damaged his dorsal fin.

It's a shame,

a beautiful animal like that dead.

I took Audrey to see him once

on her birthday, remember?

I don't know how old she was,

Harry, you insulted Dr. Sorrel last night.

Insulted? What insult?

Drinking my booze

and climbing all over my wife.

- It's insecurity. He's insecure.

- Insecure.

He's got everything up front

except trumpets.

He happens to be a very fine doctor.

A lot of people are using him.

A lot of people are using him.

I still like Doc Fisher.

Fisher still uses leeches. He's an old man.

Yeah, old and smart. He can diagnose

hemorrhoids through a suit of armor.

Those things look worse than ever.

Wouldn't hurt to have them checked again.

Yeah. That nine year old kid, Judy Miller...

they're gonna let her play baseball

with the boys. How'd you like that.

Father had to go to court but they're

gonna let her play, I think it's terrific.

Who the hell notices at that age?

If the kid's a good ball player,

what's the difference if she's a girl?

Father must be a hell of a guy,

he took it all the way to court, huh?

You used to love baseball. Why don't

you go to a game once in a while?

They play but they don't play

on dirt anymore, they play on plastic.

Ballplayers are a bunch of antiseptic kids.

They don't chew tobacco.

Don't use their spikes. In the old days

they'd slide in high, man...

those spikes'd take your face right off.

The pitchers don't wind up any more.

My God, they used to wind up.

Johnny Vander Meer, remember that

crazy mad Dutchman?

Oh, my God, was that pitching!

Course he was a southpaw. Casey!

Jesus, Hugh Casey. Lumbering out from

that bullpen, chewing on his tobacco.

Cool.

He'd get out there under pressure...

he'd throw a sinker

that would just fall right off a cliff.

Ran out of his stuff, he'd throw

his balls up to the plate.

God damn, they were something!

They were really something.

Harry?

What?

See Dr. Frankfurter.

Frankfurter couldn't throw a strike

from two feet.

- Hypnosis, hypnosis is the thing.

- Bullshit.

They can tell a lot from dreams.

- You're worried.

- Cuban Pete never worries.

- You're worried.

- I don't know why.

It only costs me $200

a day to get out of bed.

- $200 a day?

- That's what the accountant tells me...

with everything, $200 a day.

There's the taxes, insurance...

automobiles and a gardener

and a pool man...

and a tree surgeon, for Christ's sake.

And Carmela, and house payments

and a Swiss school...

$200 a day.

And downtown, that's another story.

Got to finance the new line

and money's tight.

Textile mills to pay, payroll to meet.

And we may be audited.

- Audited for what?

- Last year, we...

did a little ballet with the books.

- What does Phil say?

- He's worried.

He's always worried.

Listen, when you get back from New York...

why don't we fly over to Geneva

and see the kid?

Harry, she's better off over there.

Europe is civilized.

Things are too crazy in this country.

A man came out of Mario's Restaurant...

someone walked up and shot him to death.

They didn't even know each other.

That's just a few blocks away.

Maybe we could get a brigade of

Cambodians to patrol Beverly Hills.

Mexican maids could cook their rice.

- She's better off in Switzerland.

- I miss her, I miss the kid.

Keep hearing that song from Babar...

The Elephant's Song.

Harry, they are shooting horse

in the toilets at the high school!

Cuban Pete's daughter doesn't shoot horse.

Rate this script:5.0 / 1 vote

Steve Shagan

Stephen H. "Steve" Shagan (October 25, 1927 – November 30, 2015) was an American novelist, screenwriter, and television and film producer. Shagan was born in Brooklyn, New York to Rachel (née Rosenzweig) and Barnard H. "Barney" Shagan. Barney ran a pharmacy, Shagan's Pharmacy, at 49 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, New York, with his brother, Samuel. After Barney's death the pharmacy went bankrupt and Samuel liquidated the assets at public auction in 1949. Steve dropped out of high school and joined the United States Coast Guard when World War II broke out. While in the Coast Guard he started writing to pass the time.Shagan came to Hollywood in 1958 with his wife, Elizabeth Florance "Betty" Ricker, whom he married on November 18, 1956 in New York City. At first he did odd jobs, like as a stagehand at a little theater and pulling cables at MGM Studios in the middle of the night. Eventually he started working on scripts and then produced the Tarzan television show on location in Mexico. Betty talked him into quitting and just concentrate on writing. Betty, a former fashion model, was the daughter of Philomena (née Pisano) and Al Ricker. Her mother, a dancer, later remarried, to Mayo J. Duca, a Boston jazz trumpet player. Philomena Pisano was the daughter of Katherine "Kitty" Bingham and Fred Anthony Pisano, of the musical-comedy vaudeville team of Pisano and Bingham.Shagan wrote the screenplay for and co-produced the 1973 film Save the Tiger, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and won a Writers Guild of America Award. His novelization of Save the Tiger, which was his first novel, was actually published a year prior to the film's release. He had written the script first, and while he was shopping it around Hollywood, he wrote the novel to help him deal with the stress of trying to sell the script, which took two years to get produced. As he was finishing the book his typewriter broke and author Harold Robbins loaned him his.Shagan went on to write the novel City of Angels and its film adaptation, Hustle, both released in 1975. He then wrote the screenplay for and co-produced Voyage of the Damned, for which he received another Academy Award nomination, this time for Best Adapted Screenplay. This was followed by Nightwing, which he adapted from the novel of same name by Martin Cruz Smith. He then adapted his 1979 novel The Formula into a 1980 film of the same name, which he also co-produced and which reunited him with Save the Tiger director John G. Avildsen. Of the performances by Brando and Scott in The Formula, Steve Shagan reportedly stated: "I sensed a loss of purpose, a feeling that they didn't want to work any more and had come to think of acting as playing with choo-choo trains."Subsequent films written by Shagan include The Sicilian, which he adapted from the novel by Mario Puzo, and Primal Fear, based on the novel by William Diehl. Shagan also wrote the teleplay for the made-for-television movie Gotti, for which he was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries or a Special. Shagan died at his home in Los Angeles, California, on November 30, 2015. more…

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