Hail, Caesar!
FADE IN SOUND:
INT. CONFESSIONAL - NIGHT
DISTANT, BEAUTIFUL VOICES
Male voices. A Gregorian chant.
We fade in on a crucifix in the apse of the church: a
suffering Christ.
We cut to a close shot of a small silver cross on a rosary.
The rosary is held in a man's lap next to a mouse-grey
fedora. The light is dim.
As we hear a panel sliding, more light wipes onto the rosary
beads.
Wider on the man waiting in the confessional: middle-aged,
tired.
VOICE:
Son, it is so late.
MAN:
Yeah, Father, work has just been...
VOICE:
You work too hard.
MAN:
Nah, I’m just... keepin the place
goin’. Anyhow, bless me, Father,
for I have sinned. It’s been uh,
twenty-four hours since my last
confession. I, uh...
VOICE:
Yes my son.
MAN:
I lied to Connie. Uh, to my wife.
VOICE:
This is very serious.
MAN:
I know! I promised her I'd quit
smoking. She thinks it's bad for
me. And I'm trying, but... well, I
snuck a couple of cigarettes...
Maybe three.
2.
VOICE:
Yes.
MAN:
It’s hard.
VOICE:
Yes, my son.
MAN:
——But I’m trying.
A clap of thunder.
HOUSE AT NIGHT:
We are looking, through the rain-pelted windshield of a
parked car, at a small, Spanish-style bungalow. The rattle of
driving rain does not quite cover the sound of drunken female
laughter. There are occasional flashes of lightning outside,
and occasional flashes of strobe light in the windows of the
house.
Inside our surveilling car a wrist rolls over to show a watch
face, streaked with the shadows of dripping rain: 5:00
o’clock.
A voice-over begins, authoritatively omniscient——or maybe it
only sounds so because it is British-accented:
VOICE-OVER
It is 5:
00 A.M. The sun is soon torise. But for Eddie Mannix the day
has already begun.
Our car’s driver, Eddie Mannix——the man we saw
confessing——looks up from his watch to the house.
VOICE-OVER (CONT’D)
The movie studio for which he works
manufactures stories——each its own
daylit drama, or moonlit dream.
Flash of lightning, crash of thunder, another bout of
laughter from the house.
Eddie Mannix reaches for his door.
3.
OUTSIDE:
Eddie Mannix emerges from his car——a Packard marking the
period as circa 1950. Eddie pulls down his hat brim, turns up
his collar, and digs hands into coat pockets as he strides
through the rain.
The strobe light flashes inside the house. The laughter grows
louder as we approach.
Eddie Mannix hesitates only momentarily at the front door. He
tests the knob:
unlocked; turns it, enters.VOICE-OVER (CONT’D)
But the work of Eddie Mannix cares
not for day or night... and cares
little for his rest.
On Eddie Mannix at the open door, rain dripping from his
fedora, thunder crashing behind him. His eyes narrow in
distaste.
In the living room a giggling blonde in a milkmaid’s dirndl
with overloaded bodice bends over a butter-churn.
A man with his back to us is peering through a box camera.
MAN:
That’s right, darlin’, a little
lower...
The giggling girl sees Eddie Mannix and stops churning.
GLORIA:
Oh, fer——ecce homo! You, here?!
The photographer turns to face Eddie: a tall weedy-looking
man with a thin mustache. A sheen of sweat on his brow and
upper lip.
EDDIE:
The studio has a right to Gloria’s
likeness, Falco. Gimme the
negatives and things’ll go easier.
FALCO:
You got it all wrong, Eddie! This
is f’private use!
Eddie Mannix strides to the camera, pops its back, and pulls
out a length of film.
4.
FALCO (CONT’D)
Hey!
We hear approaching sirens. Falco reacts, bolting for the
back door.
GLORIA:
Can’t a girl take a few pitchas,
have a few laughs? Cheez, Eddie,
what a old stick-in-the-mud!
She giggles.
Whap! He slaps her.
She looks at him, stunned, then starts weeping.
He slaps her again.
Outside the sirens wind down and we hear car doors open.
EDDIE:
Now you listen to me. You were at a
party, you had too much to drink,
somebody brought you here, you
don’t remember who. You’re going
home now and your name is Mary Jo
Scheinbrotte.
She blubbers:
GLORIA:
Okay, Eddie.
The front door opens and two uniformed cops enter.
COP ONE:
Hello, Mannix, saw your heap
outside.
COP TWO:
Got a call. Loud, disorderly...
He looks around, sniffs.
situation.
EDDIE:
Someone was pulling your leg. Mary
Jo here was just at a costume
party. It’s not really her dirndl.
5.
He fishes a wad from his pocket and peels off some bills.
... She wants to contribute
something to your pension fund.
Sorry to drag you out in the rain.
COP ONE:
Well, say, no trouble at all.
Cop Two is looking hard at the girl.
COP TWO:
Aren’t you Gloria DeLamour?
GLORIA:
No no, I'm Mary Jo... somethin'.
EDDIE:
Scheinbrotte. Look, Brian...
Eddie hesitates, looking at one of the cops who is smoking.
We hear, distantly but growing louder, a deep thumping sound.
EDDIE (CONT’D)
Can I, uh... bum a cigarette?
The thumping sound has grown closer: the tramp of many
marching feet. A fanfare on ancient horns as we cut to:
Down the road a Roman legion marches in brilliant
Technicolor, the sound of its stamping feet bridging the cut.
Cypress trees, regularly planted, stretch along either side
of the road to the horizon. The title of the movie fades into
superimposition:
HAIL, C.SAR!
A Tale Of The Christ
The same voice that started the movie now intones:
VOICE-OVER
Ancient Rome! Twelve years into the
rule of Tiberius, Rome’s legions
are masters of the world, the stomp
Iberian peninsula in the west
through the halls of the great
library of Alexandria in the east!
(MORE)
6.
VOICE-OVER (CONT'D)
As oppressed people everywhere
writhe under the Roman lash...
The regularly formed legions in the van now give way to the
slaves being whipped along in the rear:
... master and slave, freeman and
vassal, are united in one
compulsory worship: the emperor,
C.sar, is Godhead——lord of every
man’s body and spirit! For those
who will not submit, the galleys,
the arenas, even crucifixion await!
But there is a new wind, blowing
from the east, from the dusty
streets of Bethlehem, that will
soon challenge the vast house of
C.sar——that edifice wrought of
brick and blood which now seems so
secure!
A chariot rolls into the foreground. Its driver is a muscular
campaign-hardened man with Roman bangs. Beneath his copper
breastplate he glistens with manly sweat. He wears a helmet
topped by a bright red mohawk bristle, something like an
upside-down floorwaxer. He is Autolochus Antoninus. He gazes
off and smiles.
Another man gallops up on horseback and reins in next to him.
This is Gracchus Gregorius, and he too wears the floorwaxing
headwear of the Roman tribune.
AUTOLOCHUS:
There she is, Gracchus. And ah,
what a beauty!
GRACCHUS:
Aye, Autolochus! Rome! Suckled by a
she-wolf and nurturing us her sons
in turn.
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"Hail, Caesar!" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 13 Nov. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/hail,_caesar!_1302>.
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