Klondike Page #9
- Year:
- 2014
- 274 min
- 593 Views
EPSTEIN (CONT’D)
I’ll be in the saloon.
He exits. Bill looks back to the Clerk. No love lost there.
His eyes say:
Jew-lover. But his hand begrudgingly slips Billa set of keys.
INT. DAWSON CITY HOTEL ROOM - LATER
ON BILL--standing unmoving in his room. Simultaneously miffed
by the Clerk and in a state of disbelief over the amenities
he stands amidst.
A TLINGIT WOMAN, slave-like, finishes filling the bath with
buckets of heated water. Departs.
Bill slowly unpeels the wet clothes he’s worn for 6 straight
days. Slips into the water. To say it’s exquisite is an
understatement. It’s tremulous, skin-prickling as his flesh
hits the water...
40.
EXT. DAWSON CITY STREETS - DAY
Epstein moves through the streets. Still fuming. He considers
his wallet. In his anger, he’s probably plopped down a little
more money than he should have. His wallet’s looking very
light...
Across the street: a loan shop. Off Epstein--CUT TO-INT.
Epstein enters.
EPSTEIN:
What’s it take for a loan?
The PROPRIETOR eyes him. Coolly, simply:
PROPRIETOR:
Collateral.
Off Epstein--CUT TO-EXT.
DAWSON CITY STREETS - MOMENTS LATER
--Bill, emerging out in the streets, cleaned up, rejuvenated.
EPSTEIN (O.S.)
Hey. Hey!
He turns to see Epstein motioning him excitedly from the
saloon. Get your ass in here!
A veritable zoo in here. Gambling. Drinking. Whores.
Burlesque show. Epstein pulls Bill through the crowd.
EPSTEIN:
I have never been to Paris, but
this has gotta out-Paris Paris...
BILL:
Hey, about that guy back there-EPSTEIN
What? You think I’m gonna let some
anti-Semite piss on this parade--?
He stops, finding the guy he was looking for--an excitable,
impressionable 19-year-old--JACK LONDON-EPSTEIN
(CONT’D)
Hey Bill, I want you to meet my new
buddy-(
forgetting)
W...what was your name again?
JACK LONDON:
Jack London.
41.
Bill & Epstein share a look. Kid’s apparently dead serious
about ‘branding’ himself.
EPSTEIN:
By the looks of you, I wouldn’t peg
you as the formal type. How ‘bout
tossing in your middle name while
you’re at it?
JACK LONDON:
Jack, you won’t remember. London,
on the other hand, that’s
indelible.
(drinks)
Fair number of men’ll come out of
here rich, but only a handful will
be remembered.
A good-natured chuckle from Epstein.
EPSTEIN:
Right on, you nut.
JACK LONDON:
Give it a chuckle if you want, but
you are looking at a walking,
talking novel here.
(re environs)
A shelf full of novels. Penwright
there:
dumber’n a crate of turnips.Goes on a drunken bender upriver at
40 Mile, sobers up a week later and
he’s stakeholder to the hottest
claim on El Dorado Creek. No clue
how he got it. But he’s sitting on
a half million in nuggets and it
hasn’t even been a month yet.
BILL:
El Dorado Creek. That’s the place
then.
JACK LONDON:
Sure. Only if you don’t wanna get
rich. El Dorado’s already panned
out.
BILL:
Already panned out-
JACK LONDON:
Staked anyhow. So unless you’re
gonna jump someone, I wouldn’t put
any mud on your boots heading up
that way.
London:
fully immersed in all that he says. He’s a junkie forthe hardscrabble Yukon life. A prodigious drinker, too,
though at 19, it’s yet to show a downside. Instead only fuels
his excitement. Epstein, meanwhile, can only be interested so
long, and gets distracted by a courtesan across the way.
42.
EPSTEIN (RE COURTESAN)
She’s giving me the love-eye. I’m
telling you. That right there is
the love-eye.
London nods in another direction--to an elegant-looking 40year-
old GERMAN man with a retinue around him.
JACK LONDON:
Take the Count over there: German
nobility. Got all the equipment,
the men...and they’ve been pulling
nothing but mud for almost 6
months. Not a spot of color. Just
goes to show...Yukon’s the only
place in the world where a dumbshit
can be a king and a king can be a
dumbshit.
He decides he likes that last line. Scribble it on the back
of a scrip of paper.
BILL:
So if it’s not El Dorado Creek,
where is it?
JACK LONDON:
Bonanza.
BILL:
Where’s that?
JACK LONDON:
Oh, Bonanza’s easy: just go looking
for the cloud of smoke...
He pauses as a FRIEND comes over, whispers something to him.
JACK LONDON (CONT’D)
No...
Friend gives him an enthusiastic, silent nod. Yes...
London stands. To Bill & Epstein-
JACK LONDON (CONT’D)
C’mon.
(off their looks)
Swiftwater Bill is here.
EPSTEIN:
Swiftwater who?
JACK LONDON:
Swiftwater Bill. Richest prospector
in all of north America. Maybe the
world. Spends it faster than he
makes it. And they’re telling me
he’s got a girl upstairs.
EPSTEIN:
There’s girls down here.
43.
London swallows the rest of his drink. Grin.
JACK LONDON:
Not in a tub of champagne there’s
not.
INT. SALOON / UPSTAIRS - MOMENTS LATER
FOLLOWING LONDON, BILL, EPSTEIN as they crest the steps-
EPSTEIN:
And what do you mean a ‘girl’, by
the way?
JACK LONDON:
A courtesan. A whore. A hooker. One
that hooks-
Ahead:
men clamor, trying to get into a room, get a view ofthe spectacle.
London pushes past with Bill & Epstein in tow.
Buoyant music cranks from a phonograph. People are dancing,
drinking, laughing. Very much the penthouse crowd, Dawson-
style. SWIFTWATER BILL, 50s, holds court. He’s a rugged, low
IQ, high-enthusiasm, high-net worth Zorba of the North. He’s
passing around champagne:
SWIFTWATER BILL:
bubbles escape!
He pours for everyone--even Bill, who accepts it with ready
enthusiasm-
Bill pauses, seeing Swiftwater’s next stop. The girl in the
bathtub who becomes visible as the crowd shifts.
Swiftwater Bill pours her a drink. Bill beholds, for a moment
caught up in the strange burlesque elegance of it.
Seen from behind, she’s a dorsalist’s dream, the way the
champagne and water hang on her bare back. A courtesan
evidently, she seems perfectly comfortable nude amidst the
drunken masculinity around her. Her carriage: confident...
Then she turns. And meets eyes with Bill.
Bill dies a bit.
It’s Sabine.
INT. SALOON - NIGHT
Bill, crestfallen, descends the stairs with Epstein in tow.
Epstein, though, doesn’t have intentions of hanging around.
His eyes fall across his earlier COURTESAN. She of the love-
eye. He claps Bill on the shoulder.
44.
EPSTEIN:
Think I’m gonna go do some
prospecting.
He peels off. Bill returns to the bar. Orders a drink from
the bartender (later, JOE MEEKOR). Beside him:
BELINDA MULRONEY (O.S.)
Dawson City. Where naivete comes to
die.
Bill looks up to see Belinda there. Imposing despite her
stature. It’s the confidence. The gun strapped to her leg.
She swallows a mouthful of booze, eyes the place.
BELINDA MULRONEY (CONT’D)
Everybody comes a saint, and leaves
as something less than that.
(off Bill’s silence)
Give him another, Joe. Man’s
tongue’s still too tight.
Meekor serves up Bill a drink. Bill nods politely.
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"Klondike" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2025. Web. 14 Jan. 2025. <https://www.scripts.com/script/klondike_21>.
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