RKO 281 Page #4

Synopsis: Coming to Hollywood as a celebrated boy genius featuring a spectacular career arc in New York including his radio hoax War of the Worlds, Orson Welles is stymied on the subject for his first film. After a dinner party at Hearst Castle, during which he has a verbal altercation with William Randolph Hearst, Welles decides to do a movie about Hearst. It takes him some time to convince co-writer Herman J. Mankiewicz and the studio, but Welles eventually gets the script and the green light, keeping the subject very hush-hush with the press. The movie is about an aging newspaper publisher who controlled his enemies as ruthlessly as he controlled his friends; and whose mistress was destined for fame. When a rough cut is screened, Hearst gets wind of the movie's theme and begins a campaign to see that it is not only never publicly screened, but destroyed.
Genre: Biography, Drama
Director(s): Benjamin Ross
Production: HBO Video
  Won 1 Golden Globe. Another 13 wins & 27 nominations.
 
IMDB:
7.1
Rotten Tomatoes:
93%
R
Year:
1999
86 min
442 Views


Another shadowy figure, a Mayer FLUNKIE, can be just glimpsed sitting

elsewhere in the screening room.

Mayer glowers at the darkened screen for a moment.

A beat.

MAYER:

Who does that cocksucker think he is?

FLUNKIE:

They're laying bets over on the RKO

lot that this great deal will end up

with him never doing a picture. Back

to New York he goes.

MAYER:

Serves him right. I mean can you stomach the

arrogance?

FLUNKIE:

Inside skinny says the glory boy's finished,

can't come up with a movie. Wants to do a biography now.

MAYER:

After RKO boots him maybe we'll pick him up cheap.

Have him do that WAR OF THE WORLDS crap as a

feature.

Meantime, shelve the newsreel. No one cares

INT. SAN SIMEON. WELLES' SUITE_EVENING

Orson Welles, elegant and impressive, is flourishing a cigarette and a

coin in his magnificently expressive hands He is perfecting a magic

trick.

Welles is lounging on the bed of an enormous guest suite at San Simeon.

He is wearing a tuxedo.

In the bathroom beyond him we can see the writer HERMAN MANKIEWICZ

("MANK". )

Mank is a wonderful wreck of a human being. 43 years old, but looking

considerably older, he is short and squat and bitter. A compulsive

gambler and drinker, Mank still glimmers with wry humor that is equally

wicked and corrosive. He is incomplete without the stub of a cigar

clenched in his teeth.

Mank, also dressed in a tuxedo, is looking at himself in the bathroom

mirror as he struggles with his bow tie. He occasionally glances in the

mirror to Welles.

Title:
JANUARY 3, 1940

MANK:

I don't know what you expected with Joseph-

f***ing-Conrad for Chrissake. I mean this is

Hollywood, pal.

WELLES:

All right! Enough! I've heard this from Schaefer

and RKO. I've heard it from everyone--

MANK:

But you keep coming up with the same elitist crap -

- HEART OF DARKNESS with a million dollar budget?! -

- no one wants to see that.

WELLES:

Nonsense

Welles dramatically taps the cigarette on the coin, practicing his

trick as:

MANK:

What are movies about, Orson?

WELLES:

Forget it-

MANK:

What are movies about?

WELLES:

Telling stories.

MANK:

Nope.

WELLES:

Showing life

MANK:

Who the hell wants to see life?! People are sick to

death of life! They want make-believe, pal. Fantasy.

They want Tarzan and Jane, not Tristan and Isolde.

Welles quickly makes the cigarette seem to completely pass through the

coin. An astounding bit of slight of hand.

WELLES:

(happily)

Magic

MANK:

Butts on seats. That's what movies are about. You

got one job in Hollywood -- everyone has the same

job, in fact -- putting the butts on the seats. You

gotta sell 'em popcorn and Pepsi- cola. It's all

about popcorn and Pepsi-cola.

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John Logan

John David Logan (born September 24, 1961) is an American playwright, screenwriter, film producer, and television producer. more…

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Submitted by aviv on January 31, 2017

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