Hail, Caesar! Page #5

HOBIE:

But she’s Carlotta Valdez. Hit

don’t make sense. She warn’t in the

pitcher.

ASSISTANT:

Who was in the picture?

Hobie thinks.

HOBIE:

Whitey.

12.

ASSISTANT:

Well Eddie Mannix says you're

escorting Carlotta Valdez. Guess

they’re changing your image.

INT. COURTYARD OF SESTIMUS AMYDIAS - DAY

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.

A.C. VOICE

Camera speed.

BOOM VOICE:

Sound speed.

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?!

13.

EXTRA:

... Huh?

1ST A.D.

You’re supposed to be reclining,

with the lyre!

EXTRA:

Yeah, sorry, I uh——

1ST A.D.

Recline with the lyre!

EXTRA:

Yes, sir.

VOICE:

We set there? Background set?

1ST A.D.

Don’t sit on the pediment! Recline!

Relaxed, festive!

EXTRA:

Yes sir.

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.

14.

DIRECTOR:

And action!

Autolochus strides in. A senator rises to greet him.

SENATOR:

Autolochus! I had heard rumors of

your return to Rome!

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:

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