Isle of the Dead Page #3

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EXT. THE STAIRWAY AND TUNNEL MOUTH - NIGHT

MED. SHOT - To the right, a stairway cut into the rock winds

upward from the sandy floor of the beach. The CAMERA PANS

SLOWLY UP the rock to the head of the stairway, a narrow

shelf or landing above the sea. A square opening is cut into

the cliff-face, black and impenetrable from this angle. As

the CAMERA RESTS ON the tunnel opening, the minor melody of-

the singing rises to an impassioned lament, wild and

melancholy.

REVERSE ANGLE. From the shelf, CAMERA SHOOTS DOWN onto the

stairway. The two men are starting up the steps, the General

in the lead. They move upward slowly, hesitantly. The singing

continues, clear and alluring.

MED. SHOT. Oliver and the General come up onto the shelf of

rock. Before then is the tunnel opening, an ominous door of

darkness in the moonlit stone. (See page 113 "HELLAS".) As

the two men face it, the singing comes to a climax on a high,

almost triumphant note. There is a moment's after-silence and

then the earlier motif of the song begins again, subdued,

softer, as if the singer were moving away.

CLOSE SHOT. The General stares off, rapt, his entire being

focused on the unseen singer. CAMERA DRAWS BACK to include

Oliver, who stands a little to one side, watching the

General. The General moves forward andOliver accompanies

him. CAMERA TRUCKS WITH them, until they are framed in the

opening of the tunnel. They stand there for a second, than

move forward again. Their figures grow dimmer as the CAMERA

TRUCKS WITH then into the blackness of the tunnel. The

singing continues, faint and slightly distorted. Over it

sound the slow, hesitant footsteps of the two men.

REVERSE SHOT - Beyond then, the darkness of the tunnel is

broken by a light that moves wraithlike across one of the

atone walls. Moonlight is pouring down from a long slit in

the rock, where the wall curves up into the tunnel ceiling.

MED. CLOSE SHOT. Oliver and the General step into the little

pool of moonlight and look up at the aperture above them. The

two men turn away and continue into the darkness of the

tunnel. The singing continues over all this, growing a little

stronger again.

EXT. THE OTHER END OF THE TUNNEL - NIGHT

The two men emerge from the tunnel. To the right arehigh

limestone cliffs, before them darkness. To the left is part

of a house wall, with a door -- a dark and forbidding door of

oak and iron. Now the woman's singing is loud and near. The

General stares at the house, looks at the surrounding

darkness and then back to the house again.

GENERAL:

(bewilderedly)

There was no house here.

Oliver and the General cross to the house. At the door, the

General listens a moment, then lifts his hand and thunders on

the panels with his knuckles. The sound of the singing breaks

off instantly and they stand waiting in the moonlit silence.

Suddenly the door opens before them and lamplight makes a

frame about them. A man's voice, cheery and welcoming, comes

from the doorway.

ALBRECHT'S VOICE

Come in, come in!

They step through the doorway and the door closes behind

them.

INT. ALBRECHT'S LIVING ROOM - NIGHT

It is a lovely room of simple austere proportion, warm with

lamplight, comfortable with chairs and sofas and heated by a

brazier full of coals. Various antiquities, heads, bits of

sculpture, torsos, limbs, bowls, vases amphoras and cylixes

decorate the room. At one end is a long table on which

various shards, artifacts, have been arranged for labor and

sorting. On this table are also books and measuring

instruments.

The various people in the room turn curiously upon the

entrance of the soldier and the correspondent. It is Albrecht

who is welcoming, them. He is a Swiss of middle age, a

scholarly, gentle man with a humorous smile.

Before the brazier, warming his behind under his coattails

just as he would have done in Devonshire, is a ruddy-faced

Englishman, also of middle age. He is formally dressed and

has a stiff, official air. This is Mr. Thomas St. Aubyn,

British Consul at Adrianople.

Seated some little distance from him in a stiff-backed chair

is a woman in her early thirties, still possessed of a

haggard beauty. There is a curious, restrained stillness

about the woman and when she moves it is with a certain

careful deliberation. She is working on a hand embroidery

frame. After one glance at the newcomers, she pays no further

attention to them. This is Mary Wollsten, secretary to the

Consul. She is dressed primly In dark clothing. - -

At a small table by himself with a tankard of wine before him

and an empty wine bottle on the table, is a commercial

traveller, Henry Jacks, a Cockney, dressed in a loud, fuzzy

plaid suit, and seeming at this moment to be somewhat the

worse for wear and liquor.

The General and Oliver look around the room in astonishment.

Albrecht himself shows some surprise now that he sees the

General in the fully lighted room.

ALBRECHT:

(surprised)

I took it for granted you gentlemen

were refugees as are my other

guests.

OLIVER:

This is General Nikolas Pherides,

Commander of the Third Army. I'm

Oliver Davis.

(he hesitates)

To be perfectly frank with you, we

didn't expect to find anyone living

here.

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