RKO 281 Page #2

Images of Welles posing and shaking hands with GEORGE

SCHAEFER:

Schaefer is an intense, compact man in his early 50's. His nickname in

Hollywood is "The Tiger" -- both for his admired tenacity and his

feared temper. He is a moral and ethical man; John Adams in a Brooks

Brothers suit.

As we hear

NEWSREEL VOICE:

The winner in the Welles derby was George Schaefer,

the head of RKO Pictures. With a contract

unimaginable before The Days Of Orson, Mr. Schaefer

captured the whirlwind snared the beast, roped the

tyrant!

Images of Welles and Schaefer: Welles signing his contract; smiling to

Schaefer; Schaefer making a speech; Welles joking with reporters. As we

hear:

NEWSREEL VOICE:

Eyebrows raised and jaws dropped all over

Hollywoodland when the terms of the deal that lured

The Great Orson came forth: the Boy Wonder could

produce, write, direct and star in his own projects

with budgets up to $500,000 a picture! He would have

total control over the shooting of the picture and

the finished product. The studio, well, they just

paid the bills. Meanwhile, the insiders of filmland

were skeptical.

An interview with a Hollywood Insider, who looks like a bookie:

HOLLYWOOD INSIDER

John Ford doesn't have a deal like that. Cecil B.

DeMille doesn't have a deal like that. No one has a

deal like that! If ya ask me, George Schaefer is

just plain nuts

Images of Welles arriving in Hollywood and touring the town: Welles

climbing down from a plane; posing with Schaefer before of the RKO

gates; touring the studio; leaning over an editing machine; laughing

with female extras in the commissary; posing in front of his Brentwood

home. As we hear:

NEWSREEL VOICE:

So Cometh Orson! He toured the RKO studio and met

with the biggest of the big! He charmed his way

through the town from the Brown Derby to the

Copacabana, from the Pacific Palisades to the

Hollywood Hills!

More images of Welles in Hollywood: Welles touring the town; visiting

all the nightclubs and dancing with beautiful women; he is seen

everywhere about the town. As we hear:

NEWSREEL VOICE:

Yes, the Boy Wonder had arrived! He even charmed

those rival maidens of Hollywood gossip, those well-

coiffured chroniclers of the dream factory: Hedda

Hopper and Louella Parsons.

Shots of Welles with LOUELLA PARSONS and HEDDA HOPPER

Louella is a much-feared gossip columnist. She is a gorgon in her 60's;

Margaret Dumont possessed by the devil and tanked up on gin. Her

capricious cruelty is only matched by her fervent loyalty to all things

Hearstian.

Hedda is a gossip columnist in her 50's. She is given to elaborate hats

and villainous intrigue. Louella's younger, smarter rival, Hedda

probably spends her spare time eating children.

Then a snippet of an interview with Louella:

LOUELLA:

Orson is the sweetest boy. We're both from the

midwest, you know. He's just a local fella making

good, ya follow?

More shots of Welles just after his arrival in Hollywood, blissfully

touring the RKO facilities as:

NEWSREEL VOICE:

So today, almost a year after his arrival in

Hollywood, we leave the Boy Wonder still hard at

work developing his much-anticipated first feature,

preparing to dazzle us all again. We're waiting,

Orson!

Welles after his RKO tour, smiling mischievously, stands before a

microphone:

WELLES:

I'll tell you what, this is the best electric train

set a boy ever had!

"The End" and newsreel credits

The newsreel sputters to a stop in a screening room. A shaft of light

shines on a large MGM logo on one wall. Another shaft of light

illuminates the sitting figure of LOUIS B. MAYER.

Mayer is a short, crafty, bespectacled man in his 50's. His cloying,

avuncular exterior only fleetingly disguises the film titan's

outrageous barbarism.

Another shadowy figure, a Mayer FLUNKIE, can be just glimpsed sitting

elsewhere in the screening room.

Mayer glowers at the darkened screen for a moment.

A beat.

MAYER:

Who does that cocksucker think he is?

FLUNKIE:

They're laying bets over on the RKO

lot that this great deal will end up

with him never doing a picture. Back

to New York he goes.

MAYER:

Serves him right. I mean can you stomach the

arrogance?

FLUNKIE:

Inside skinny says the glory boy's finished,

can't come up with a movie. Wants to do a biography now.

MAYER:

After RKO boots him maybe we'll pick him up cheap.

Have him do that WAR OF THE WORLDS crap as a

feature.

Meantime, shelve the newsreel. No one cares

INT. SAN SIMEON. WELLES' SUITE_EVENING

Orson Welles, elegant and impressive, is flourishing a cigarette and a

coin in his magnificently expressive hands He is perfecting a magic

trick.

Welles is lounging on the bed of an enormous guest suite at San Simeon.

He is wearing a tuxedo.

In the bathroom beyond him we can see the writer HERMAN MANKIEWICZ

("MANK". )

Mank is a wonderful wreck of a human being. 43 years old, but looking

considerably older, he is short and squat and bitter. A compulsive

gambler and drinker, Mank still glimmers with wry humor that is equally

wicked and corrosive. He is incomplete without the stub of a cigar

clenched in his teeth.

Mank, also dressed in a tuxedo, is looking at himself in the bathroom

mirror as he struggles with his bow tie. He occasionally glances in the

mirror to Welles.

Title:
JANUARY 3, 1940

MANK:

I don't know what you expected with Joseph-

f***ing-Conrad for Chrissake. I mean this is

Hollywood, pal.

WELLES:

All right! Enough! I've heard this from Schaefer

and RKO. I've heard it from everyone--

MANK:

But you keep coming up with the same elitist crap -

- HEART OF DARKNESS with a million dollar budget?! -

- no one wants to see that.

WELLES:

Nonsense

Welles dramatically taps the cigarette on the coin, practicing his

trick as:

MANK:

What are movies about, Orson?

WELLES:

Forget it-

MANK:

What are movies about?

WELLES:

Telling stories.

MANK:

Nope.

WELLES:

Showing life

MANK:

Who the hell wants to see life?! People are sick to

death of life! They want make-believe, pal. Fantasy.

They want Tarzan and Jane, not Tristan and Isolde.

Welles quickly makes the cigarette seem to completely pass through the

coin. An astounding bit of slight of hand.

WELLES:

(happily)

Magic

MANK:

Butts on seats. That's what movies are about. You

got one job in Hollywood -- everyone has the same

job, in fact -- putting the butts on the seats. You

gotta sell 'em popcorn and Pepsi- cola. It's all

about popcorn and Pepsi-cola.

WELLES:

Not for me.

MANK:

Then you better get ready to be the youngest never-

was in Hollywood history.

WELLES:

That's better than being the oldest has-been in

Hollywood history.

MANK:

You're a laugh-riot, kid.

Welles laughs and goes to Mank in the bathroom.

WELLES:

Here, turn around.

Welles ties Mank's bow tie for him as:

WELLES:

So, we've got to come up with our movie. Our

biography.

MANK:

Right-

WELLES:

We find the man and then we dissect him-

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