Days of Heaven

SETTING:

The story is set in Texas just before the First World War.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

BILL:
A young man from Chicago following the harvest.

ABBY:
The beautiful young woman he loves.

CHUCK:
The owner of a vast wheat ranch ("bonanza") in the

Texas Panhandle.

URSULA:
Abby's younger sister, a reckless child of14.

BENSON:
The bonanza foreman, an enemy of the newcomers.

MISS CARTER:
Chief domestic at the Belvedere, Chuck's home.

McLEAN:
Chuck's accountant.

GEORGE:
A young pilot who interests Ursula.

A PREACHER, A DOCTOR, AN ORGANIST, VARIOUS HARVEST HANDS,

LAWMEN, VAUDEVILLIANS, etc.

"Troops of nomads swept over the country at harvest time

like a visitation of locusts, reckless young fellows,

handsome, profane, licentious, given to drink, powerful but

inconstant workmen, quarrelsome and difficult to manage at

all times. They came in the season when work was plenty and

wages high. They dressed well, in their own peculiar

fashion, and made much of their freedom to come and go."

"They told of the city, and sinister and poisonous

jungles all cities seemed in their stories. They were

scarred with battles. They came from the far-away and

unknown, and passed on to the north, mysterious as the

flight of locusts, leaving the people of Sun Prairie quite

as ignorant of their real names and characters as upon the

first day of their coming."

Hamlin Garland, Boy Life on the Prairie (1899)

1INT. CHICAGO MILL - SERIES OF ANGLES

WORKERS in a dark Chicago mill pound molten iron

out in flaming sheets. The year is 1916.

2EXT. MILL

BILL, a handsome young man from the slums, and

his brother

STEVE sit outside on their lunch break talking with an

older man named BLACKIE. By the look of his flashy clothes

Blackie is not a worker.

BLACKIE:

Listen, if I ever seen a tit, this here's a tit.

You understand? Candy. My kid sister could do this one. Pure

f***ing candy'd melt in your hand. Don't take brains. Just a

set of rocks. I told you this already.

STEVE:

Blackie, you told me it was going to snow in the

winter, I'd go out and bet against it. You know?

(to Bill)

There is nothing, nothing in the world, dumber

than a dumb guinea.

BLACKIE:

Okay, all right, fine. Why should I be doing

favors for a guy that isn't doing me any favors? I must be

losing my grip.

(pause)

I got to give it to you, though. Couple of guys

look like you just rolled in on a wagonload of chickens. You

ever get laid?

STEVE:

Sure.

BLACKIE:

Without a lot of talk, I mean? 'Cause I'm

beginning to understand these guys, go down the hotel, pick

something up for a couple of bucks. It's clean, and you know

what you're in for.

3EXT. ALLEY

Sam the Collector's GANG swaggers around in the

alley behind a textile plant. ONE of them has filed his

teeth down to points and stuck diamonds in between them.

ANOTHER wears big suspenders.

Sam and Bill appear to know one another.

SAM:

Hey, Billy, you made a mistake. You made

somebody mad. Nothing personal, okay? It's just gotta be

done. You made a mistake. Happens in the best of families.

BILL:

I paid you everything I have. Search me. The

rest he gets next week.

SAM:

Listen, what happens if I don't do this?

I gotta leave town?

BILL:

I could do something, you know. You guys wanta

do something to me, I know who to tell about it. You guys

ought to think about that.

SAM:

You maybe already did something. Maybe that's

why you're here, on account of you already done something.

BILL:

I haven't done anything.

SAM:

Then you're all right, Billy.

RAZOR TEETH:

You got nothing to worry about.

SAM:

Cut it out, Billy, all right? You know what can

happen to a guy that doesn't wanta do what people tell him?

You know. So don't give us a lot of trouble. You're liable

to get everybody all pissed off.

Sam, a busy man, checks his watch.

4NEW ANGLE

Bill puts his hand on the ground. Sam drops a

keg of roofing nails on it and, his work done, leaves with

his gang. Bill sobs with pain.

5EXT. LOT BEYOND MILL

Bill and Steve drag a safe by a rope through a

vacant lot beyond the mill. Blackie walks behind.

BLACKIE:

You know what I'm doing with my end? Buy a boat.

Get that? I had a boat. I had a nice apartment, I had a

boat. Margie don't like that. We got to have a house. "I

can't afford no house," I said. She says, "Sell the boat." I

didn't want to sell my boat. I didn't want to buy the house.

I sell the boat, I buy the house. Nine years we had the

house, eight of them she's after me, we should get another

boat. I give up.

STEVE:

Same as always, I do all the work, you gripe

about it.

Suddenly FOUR POLICEMEN surprise them from ambush. Bill lets

go of the rope and starts to run. Steve does not give up

immediately, however, and they shoot him down. Bill picks up

Steve's gun and fires back. Three of the Policemen go

chasing after Blackie, whom they soon bring to heel. The

FOURTH stays behind taking potshots at Bill while he attends

to Steve.

6TIGHT ON STEVE

Steve, badly wounded, is about to die.

STEVE:

Run. Get out of here.

BILL:

(weeping)

I love you so much. Why didn't you run. Don't die.

Steve dies. Bullets kick up dust around him. He takes off

running. One of the bullets has caught him in the shoulder.

7INT. SEWER

ABBY, a beautiful woman in her late twenties,

attends to Bill's wounds in a big vaulted sewer. Her sister

URSULA, a reckless girl of 14, stands watch.

BILL:

(weeping)

They shot the sh*t out of him. My brother. I

couldn't believe what I was seeing.

ABBY:

Hold still, or I can't do anything.

BILL:

I love you, Abby. You're so good to me. Remember

how much fun we had, on the roof...

8EXT. ROOF - MATTE SHOT

Bill and Abby flirt on the root of a tenement,

happily in love. The city stretches out behind them.

9INT. BED - QUICK CUT

Abby lies shivering with fever. Bill spoons hot

soup into her mouth. Ursula rolls paper flowers for extra

change.

BILL (o.s.)

(continuing)

... even when you were sick and I was in the mill.

10INT. MILL - QUICK CUT (VARIOUS ANGLES OF OTHER WORKERS)

Bill works in the glow of a blast furnace. He

does not seem quite in place with the rest of the workers. A

pencil moustache lends a desired gentlemanliness to his

appearance. He looks fallen on hard times, without ever

having known any better--like Chaplin, an immigrant lost in

the heartless city, with dim hopes for a better way of life.

BILL (o.s.)

I won't let you go back in the mill. People die

in there. I'm a man, and I can look out for you.

11EXT. SIDING OUTSIDE MILL

Along a railroad spur outside the mill, Abby and

Ursula glean bits of coal that have fallen from the tenders.

BILL (o.s.)

We're going west. Things gotta be better out

there.

12EXT. TENEMENT

A POLICEMAN, looking for Bill, roughs Abby up

behind the tenement where they live. Suddenly Bill runs out

from a doorway and slams him over the head with a clay

pitcher full of water.

POLICEMAN:

What'd you do?

Bill shrugs, then hits him again, knocking him

unconscious, when he reaches for a gun. Abby calls Ursula

and they take off running, Bill stopping only to collect

some of their laundry off a clothesline.

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