RKO 281 Page #4
- 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, 1940MANK:
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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