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Midnight Express Page #7
- R
- Year:
- 1978
- 121 min
- 1,869 Views
A narrow cobblestone STREET. TEX pulls the car to a halt.
CUT:
THE PUDDING SHOPPE TWILIGHT Internationally-known cafe,
adjacent BAZAAR. Crowded, noisy. WOMEN dressed in black
hold crying CHILDREN by the hands. FOREIGNERS, mostly
students and hippies, move about laughing, joking. Hawkers,
street peddlers, vendors cooking shishkebab. small GYPSY
BOY leads a huge MUZZLED BEAR on a leash.
BILLY sits at a small outdoor TABLE alone sipping tea and
eating baclava - nervous, very nervous, still trying to
sort it all out in his head. If he doesn't find the seller,
what will happen next?
MOVE across the TABLES, past a middle-aged AMERICAN COUPLE,
to TWO TURKISH PLAINCLOTHESMEN watching him closely. They
look evident. TWO HIPPIES make a wide berth around them.
HIPPIES (OFF)
(in passing, low)
Hey Janet, why don't you go sell
'em some dope.
MOVE ON to another TABLE where TWO MORE PLAINCLOTHESMEN
sit, equally evident, watching BILLY.
TEX sits in his car, in the distance, casually glancing at
a newspaper.
BILLY's eyes rove.
INTERIOR PUDDING SHOPPE Large. Many tables. Stairs. A back
exit.
ANOTHER GYPSY BOY leads a huge PINK PIG leashed with a
wooden sign around its neck proclaiming "Pig" in Turkish.
Various TURKS point the pig out, laughing at it, some
disgusted by it, making faces and gestures: "Go way, go
way! "Ayip!" The PIG moves past BILLY, who shifts his
gaze to:
POV - CABDRIVER #1 lingering at the curb. PAN to CABDRIVER
#2 PAN to CABDRIVER #3. PAN BACK to #1 and again to #2
indicating no real fix on identity.
BILLY tense now, knowing this is the chance he must take,
nods with his head, pointing at CABDRIVER #2, off.
THE PLAINCLOTHESMEN move out towards CABDRIVER #2.
BILLY tentatively rises, as if to join them, but moves
slyly towards the interior of the cafe.
PLAINCLOTHESMEN move in roughly on a surprised CABDRIVER
#2 who begins to protest LOUDLY (AD LIB).
BILLY moves through the INTERIOR of the PUDDING SHOPPE,
past the tables, past the stairs, towards the back of the
shop, at a normal.to attract attention.
A PLAINCLOTHESMAN looks around, sees he is gone. Tells the
others (AD LIB) They spread out looking, abandoning the
CABDRIVER #2 who spits and curses them (AD LIB).
BILLY, with one backward glance, now eases out the BACK
DOOR, into a bilious sunlight, onto a STREET. Pause.
A HAND with GUN moves into FRAME pointing a six-inch barrel
right at his temple. BILLY freezes, moving just his eyes
to:
TEX looking down at him calm, merciless.
TEX:
You seem like a nice enough kid to
me Billy, but try it and I'll blow
your f***ing brains out.
BILLY - the sense of betrayal in his eyes.
ESTABLISH PRISON - OVERHEAD ANGLE. A large and Byzantine
structure suggesting the 15th Century Sultan's Janissary
Barracks. Irregular crescent various wings; a MOSQUE inside
the prison. The possibly a shapes to the sense of an endless
a decorative an equally in a city, labyrinth built by some
mad Arab architect to suit purpose and now, in the 20th
Century, transformed by mad Turkish bureaucracy into a
prison. It should be preferably made to look like Istanbul.
Faint background atonal Turkish CHANTING. Evening Muslim
prayer."Allah wakbah, Allah wakbah..." on and on, suggesting
to us fear rather than praise.
BILLY VOICE:
Dear Mom and Dad. This is the
hardest letter I've ever had to
write. know the confusion and the
pain it will cause you. And the
disappointment...
BILLY - his scalp being shaved off by a prison BARBER in
an un-specified ANTI-CHAMBER, His eyes are staring dead
ahead.
BILLY VOICE:
(continuous)
I really thought knew what I was
doing with my life. I'd hoped
somehow to get out of this quickly
so that you'd never know about it.
But that just isn't possible now.
I don't know what's going to happen.
But what can I say to you? Will
'I'm sorry' make a difference?
Will it ease the pain, the shame
you must be feeling? Forgive
me...Please...
BILLY is now completely BALD, SOUND SHARP OVER:
CUT:
A CELL DOOR SLIDING OPEN. BILLY steps in, bewildered.
ZIAT VOICE (OFF)
Git!
The cell is dark, almost black, an overpowering stench; a
small grey metal bunk is bolted to the floor with a lumpy
mattress. BILLY turns, looking back at the man staring at
him from the door.
ZIAT is quickly summing up Billy's character. This is his
craft.He is a prisoner and trustee. sinister man whose one
motivation in life is the accumulation of money, in the
pursuit of which he has acquired an ugly purplish SCAR
running the width of his throat, various other facial SCARS;
and one blind milky white EYE. He's stocky and strong --
about five ten, with bushy eyebrows, brown cigarette teeth,
big dirty nails, repulsively in need of a bath. What's
surprising is that he is no more than thirty years old
looks and behaves like sixty. The personification of the
denaturalization of a man. Time, body, mind - all of them
warped.
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"Midnight Express" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Aug. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/midnight_express_1061>.
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