Blood Simple Page #27

Synopsis: "Blood Simple" was the first feature film from Joel and Ethan Coen. This is the newly restored and re-edited director's cut of the film, introduced by Mortimer Young. The stylish crime thriller premiered at film festivals in 1984. "Blood Simple" begins deep in the heart of Texas, where a jealous saloon owner hires a cheap divorce detective to kill the saloon owner's younger wife and her bartender lover. But the detective gets a better idea: he follows the two lovers, and...
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Production: USA Films
  5 wins & 5 nominations.
 
IMDB:
7.7
Metacritic:
81
Rotten Tomatoes:
94%
R
Year:
1984
99 min
614 Views


BACK TO ABBY:

Staring at the door. We hear the laughter subside, to leave

the sound of labored breathing. Finally:

VISSER (O.S.)

...Well ma'am...

BATHROOM:

Visser lies on his back, his head underneath the bathroom

sink.

His good hand is pressed against his belly, which rises and

falls with his heavy breathing. Blood seeps out between his

fingers.

He is smiling.

VISSER:

...If I see him, I'll sure give him

the message.

HIS POV:

The underside of the sink, its convoluted chrome works beading

moisture.

VISSER:

Looking, with mild interest.

HIS POV:

A condensed droplet trickles down the chrome.

Directly overhead, it hangs for a moment from the lowest

joint of the pipe.

It fattens, wavers, wavers--and falls, spelling...

FINIS.

[DELETED SCENE FROM 1st. DRAFT]

"...In an early draft of the script, Ray, the befuddled

bartender who for want of a more compelling character served

as our story's hero, fled the scene of the tale's protracted

central murder and checked into a motel outside of San

Antonio:
"

MOTEL LOBBY DAY:

DUSTY RHODES, a lean man with a weathered face and large

Adam's apple, stands behind the Formica check-in counter.

KYLE, a heavyset man of thirty wearing a feed cap, sits in

the lobby's one piece of furniture, a beat-up leatherette

sofa. He sips from a can of soda.

Ray, begrimed and haggard, enters out of the glare of the

noonday sun.

RHODES:

Hey there, stranger! What can I do

you for?

RAY:

I need a room.

Calling out from the divan:

KYLE:

He needs a room, Dusty.

RHODES:

I reckon I can hear him...

(to Ray)

...Room rate's eight sixty-six a day

plus sales tax, plus extra for the

TV option.

RAY:

How much extra?

KYLE:

(calling out)

He wants the TV option, Dusty.

RHODES:

I reckon I can hear him. TV option,

that's a dollar twenty, makes nine

eighty-six plus tax.

KYLE:

(calling out)

Tell him the channels, Dusty.

RHODES:

Channels, we got two and six. Two

don't come in so hot.

RAY:

Just a room then.

KYLE:

(calling out)

He don't want the option, Dusty.

RHODES:

I reckon I heard the man.

RAY:

(after shooting Kyle

an irritated glance)

Does he work here?

KYLE:

(calling out)

Sure don't.

RHODES:

See, Wednesday's the special on RC

Cola. I don't know if I explained

about the TV option. If there's a TV

in the room, you got to pay the

option.

KYLE:

(calling out)

And how many room got TV, Dusty?

RHODES:

Ever durned one.

RAY:

(gamely)

Okay, I'll take the TV option.

RHODES:

Well see the thing about that is,

we're booked.

"Looking at this scene now, years later, it strikes us that

revising it out of existence, as we did, constituted too

much rewriting. Indeed, the more prosaic scene we replaced

it with, involving Ray stopped at a traffic light, can be

found in the finished script but not in the finished movie.

It was shot but then deleted in order to more quickly get to

the carnage, which was the picture's raison d'^etre..."

JOEL & ETHAN COEN

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Joel Cohen and Ethan Jesse Coen

Joel David Coen (born November 29, 1954) and Ethan Jesse Coen[ (born September 21, 1957), collectively referred to as the Coen brothers, are American filmmakers. Their films span many genres and styles, which they frequently subvert or parody. Their best-reviewed works include Fargo (1996), The Big Lebowski (1998), No Country for Old Men (2007), A Serious Man (2009), True Grit (2010), and Inside Llewyn Davis (2013). more…

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