Inventing the Abbotts

FADE IN:

1EXT. ABBOTT HOME - STREET (HALEY, ILLINOIS) - DAY(LATE SPRING, 1957)

OPENING CREDITS ROLL over a TENT MONTAGE -- ASSORTED

ANGLES of a group of men hard at work erecting a largestriped "big-top" style canvas tent, INCLUDING: The longsteel stakes being sledge-hammered into the lawn,

practiced hands rapidly rigging the lines, the tallcenter poles being leveraged upright, the heavy rolled-upsections of canvas being maneuvered into position, andENDING WITH the canvas being hoisted up the poles as thetent assumes its full and finished form.

1

NEW ANGLE - TENT

-- on the front yard of the Abbott mansion. The

residence is on Main Street, four blocks from where the

commercial district begins. The mature, over-archingtrees makes this street of prosperous houses a grandpromenade.

2EXT. ABBOTT HOME - STREET - DAY 2

JACEY HOLT and DOUG HOLT walk along the sidewalk on theirway to school. Jacey is seventeen; he's as handsome andseemingly self-confident as his younger brother isrumpled and impulsive. Doug is fifteen, a popularculture chameleon who takes on the colors and

affectations of whomever his "hero" is at the moment

(which presently happens to be Elvis Presley).

Jacey stops and stares with open-faced misery at the tenton the Abbott's front yard (the installation of the tentindicates that the Abbott's are having yet another of themany parties they throw every year).

DOUG:

Didn't get invited, huh?

JACEY:

Go to hell.

DOUG:

Who cares? I'm not going and Igot invited.

JACEY:

Who invited you?

(CONTINUED)

INVENTING THE ABBOTTS - Rev. 2/16/96 2.

2CONTINUED:

DOUG:

Pam, I guess. I don't know.

Didn't open the envelope. I mean,

come on, every time an Abbott girl

gets her period they have some

party.

JACEY:

Oh, shut up.

DOUG:

Kotex parties, Kotex party hats,

pin the Kotex on the...

JACEY:

Shut up!

Jacey swats Doug's school books out from under his arm -Doug

charges his brother to retaliate but they are rudelyinterrupted by a CAR HORN. They scurry out of the way asLLOYD ABBOTT pulls his 1957 Cadillac out of the drivewayand cruises down the street. Lloyd is a well-dressedand-

fed man in his mid-forties. A Midwestern burgher, heexudes the status he enjoys as one of the preeminentpillars of this community. Doug is embarrassed byLloyd's passing, but Jacey evidently experiences a deeperhumiliation -- he gives Doug a glance of betrayal, turnsand walks down the block.

3 OMITTED 3

4INT. HIGH SCHOOL - CORRIDOR - DAY (SHORT TIME LATER) 4

ELEANOR ABBOTT gathers some books from her locker.

Eleanor is sixteen, outgoing, sarcastic, and verypopular. She is the middle of the three Abbott

daughters. Eleanor closes her locker, turns and

discovers Jacey standing behind her. He follows her down

the busy hall.

JACEY:

I tried to call you last night but

the line was busy.

ELEANOR:

No it wasn't.

(CONTINUED)

INVENTING THE ABBOTTS - Rev. 3/20/96 3.

4CONTINUED:

JACEY:

It was busy all night.

ELEANOR:

Maybe you had the wrong number?

JACEY:

Are you mad at me?

ELEANOR:

No. Are you mad at me?

JACEY:

No. Who said I was?

ELEANOR:

I did.

JACEY:

I just wanted to talk to you last

night.

ELEANOR:

We can talk tonight at the party.

JACEY:

I wasn't invited.

ELEANOR:

Yes, you were.

JACEY:

No, I wasn't.

ELEANOR:

Well, now you are. But if you're

mad at me you don't have to come.

She gives him a sultry smile, turns and glides into aclassroom as the BELL RINGS. The corridor is quicklyvacated by all but Jacey -- he savors the aftertaste ofEleanor's smile.

5 EXT. HOLT HOME - EVENING (MAGIC HOUR) 5

ESTABLISHING ANGLE of the modest two-story clapboardhouse in a working class neighborhood. A home-made pingpong

table takes up so much room in the detached garagethat it forced the eviction of the family car, a 1950Plymouth coupe, which is parked nearby on the driveway.

The garage doors are open and the garage light is on.

We hear (V.O.) DOUG SINGING bits and pieces of"Heartbreak Hotel" in his best Elvis fashion.

INVENTING THE ABBOTTS - Rev. 3/20/96 3A/4.

6 INT. HOLT HOME - BATHROOM - EVENING (MAGIC HOUR) 6

Doug stands in front of the bathroom mirror (wearing acoat and tie) still singing "Heartbreak Hotel" while hecarefully draws sideburns on his face with a wide-nib penand a bottle of India ink. Jacey's reflection appears inthe mirror behind Doug -- he's wearing a coat and tie too.

Jacey does a pained take on Doug's handiwork:

JACEY:

Oh, Christ!

7 INT. DINING ROOM - EVENING (MAGIC HOURMINUTES LATER) 7

HELEN HOLT is seated at the dining table. She was

grading a stack of spelling tests with a red pencil whenJacey and Doug came in to ask her to adjudicate thematter at hand. She is an attractive but unostentatious

woman without interest in appearing to be anything otherthan what she is: a forty-one-year-old widow raising twoteenage sons on a school teacher's salary. (She teachessecond grade at Haley Elementary School.)

JACEY:

He has to wash it off, Mother.

You cannot let him go to the party

unless he washes it off.

DOUG:

It'll look worse if I wash it.

It's India ink, it'll turn gray,

it'll look like dirt.

JACEY:

He looks like such a clown and he

doesn't even know it! He doesn't

get how things work in this town.

I thought you weren't even going

to the party?

DOUG:

Changed my mind.

HELEN:

Doug, you do understand that you

may be the only person at this

party with artificial sideburns?

DOUG:

Yeah.

HELEN:

You do understand that your

sideburns don't look real?

Doug was hoping they didn't look that phony, but he

conceals his disappointment and nods:

(CONTINUED)

INVENTING THE ABBOTTS - Rev. 2/16/96

7CONTINUED:

5.

7

Yeah.

DOUG:

HELEN:

That they look, really, as thoughyou'd drawn them on?

DOUG:

(swallows, thenshrugs)

Yeah.

She looks hard at Doug for a beat, then turns to Jacey.

HELEN:

Well, darling, it seems he doesunderstand. Why don't you just goon to the party and ignore Doug.

Just have a good time and pretendyou don't even...

Jacey curses under his breath and storms out the frontdoor before his mother can finish her sermon.

8EXT. ABBOTT HOME/TENT - STREET - LATER THAT NIGHT

The curb is lined with parked cars. We hear a dance band

playing "QUE SERA" and the sounds of the party as Douglopes up the sidewalk sporting his India ink sideburnsand smoking a cigarette. He flicks the cigarette intothe street with well-rehearsed ease as he turns and walks

up the long driveway towards the glowing "big-top" tent.

Doug trails his hand over Lloyd Abbott's Cadillac,

caressing it from hood-to-trunk as he ambles by.

8

9INT. ABBOTT HOME/TENT - NIGHT

Doug enters the tent and surveys the gathering -- atuxedoed ten-piece band plays on the bandstand.

Despite his mother's advice, a nauseated grimace fallsover Jacey's face when he sees that his younger brotherhas arrived. He is dancing with Eleanor.

(CONTINUED)

9

6.

9CONTINUED:
9

They dance past a group of young men on the sidelines(Jacey's senior classmates), they are all edgy with envy,

waiting like predators for their chance to dance withEleanor.

ELEANOR:

I'm going out to the lake

tomorrow. Sandy wants to show-offher dad's new boat. Why don't youcome?

JACEY:

I have to work.

ELEANOR:

Well, I guess you'll just have towrite me a letter.

JACEY:

What do you mean?

ELEANOR:

You said you wanted to talk to mein private.

JACEY:

I meant... just... we never get achance to be together, alone, youknow?

STEVE (one of the envious classmates) makes his move andcuts in on Jacey and dances away with Eleanor. Jaceyhandles it with aplomb but his true irritation at beingseparated from the object of his desire reveals itself ashe observes Eleanor flirting with her new dance partner.

10 INT. ABBOTT HOME/TENT - BUFFET TABLE - DOUG 10

-- sampling the hors d'oeuvres. He places the ones hedoesn't like back onto the platter. PAMELA ABBOTT stepsover to Doug. She is his age (fifteen), the youngest ofthe Abbott girls, and the least stuck-up.

Hi.

PAMELA:

u

Hi.

DOUG:

She points at Doug's chest.

PAMELA:

Like your tie.

(CONTINUED)

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