Rear Window Page #6

A look at his face shows he doesn't think much of it.

JEFF:

Readers' Digest, April, 1939.

STELLA:

Well, I only quote from the best.

She takes the thermometer out of its case, shakes it down.

Looks at it. Satisfied, she walks to Jeff.

She swings the wheelchair around abruptly to face her.

INT. JEFF'S APARTMENT - DAY - MEDIUM SHOT

Jeff starts to protest.

JEFF:

Now look, Stella --

She shoves the thermometer into his mouth.

STELLA:

See it you can break a hundred.

As she leaves him holding the thermometer THE CAMERA PULLS

BACK as she crosses to a divan. She takes a sheet from

underneath, and covers the divan with it. Talking, all the

time.

STELLA:

I shoulda been a Gypsy fortune teller,

instead of an insurance company nurse.

I got a nose for trouble -- can smell

it ten miles away.

(Stops, looks at him)

You heard of the stock market crash

in '29?

Jeff nods a bored "yes."

STELLA:

I predicted it.

JEFF:

(Around thermometer)

How?

INT. JEFF'S APARTMENT - DAY - SEMI-CLOSEUP

Stella stops for a moment, and looks at Jeff challengingly.

STELLA:

Simple. I was nursing a director of

General Motors. Kidney ailment they

said. Nerves, I said. Then I asked

myself -- what's General Motors got

to be nervous about?

(Snaps her fingers)

Overproduction. Collapse, I answered.

When General Motors has to go to the

bathroom ten times a day -- the whole

country's ready to let go.

INT. JEFF'S APARTMENT - DAY - CLOSEUP

A patient, suffering look comes over his face. He takes out

the thermometer.

JEFF:

Stella -- in economics, a kidney

ailment has no relationship to the

stock market. Absolutely none.

STELLA:

It crashed, didn't it?

Jeff has no answer. Defeated, he puts the thermometer back

into his mouth.

INT. JEFF'S APARTMENT - DAY - CLOSEUP

Stella goes on with her work.

STELLA:

I can smell trouble right in this

apartment. You broke your leg. You

look out the window. You see things

you shouldn't. Trouble. I can see

you now, in front of the judge,

flanked by lawyers in blue double-

breasted suits. You're pleading,

"Judge, it was only innocent fun. I

love my neighbors like a father." --

The Judge answers, "Congratulations.

You just gave birth to three years

in Dannemora."

THE CAMERA PANS HER over to him. She takes out the

thermometer, looks at it.

JEFF:

Right now I'd even welcome trouble.

STELLA:

(Flatly)

You've got a hormone deficiency.

JEFF:

How can you tell that from a

thermometer!

STELLA:

Those sultry sun-worshipers you watch

haven't raised your temperature one

degree in four weeks.

She gets down the thermometer. Sterilizes it with a piece of

alcohol-soaked cotton in her other hand.

She gets behind the wheelchair the CAMERA PULLS back as she

pushes it over to the divan. She puts the thermometer away

in its case. Then she helps him off with his pajama top. She

helps him stand on one foot.

He hops one step, then she lowers him, face down, on the

divan. She gets a bottle of rubbing oil.

INT. JEFF'S APARTMENT - DAY - CLOSE SHOT

The CAMERA is very low at one end of the divan. Jeff's head,

half-buried in the sheet, is large in the fore-ground.

Beyond him Stella looms large and powerful-looking.

JEFF:

I think you're right. There is going

to be some trouble around here.

Stella takes a handful of oil, slaps it on his back. He

winces.

STELLA:

I knew it!

JEFF:

Don't you ever heat that stuff up.

STELLA:

Gives your circulation something to

fight.

(Begins massaging his

back)

What kind of trouble?

JEFF:

Lisa Fremont.

STELLA:

You must be kidding. A beautiful

young woman, and you a reasonably

healthy specimen of manhood.

JEFF:

She expects me to marry her.

STELLA:

That's normal.

JEFF:

I don't want to.

STELLA:

(Slaps cold oils on

him)

That's abnormal.

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