Sunset Boulevard Page #3

The door opens and Betty Schaefer enters -- a clean-

cut, nice looking girl of 21, with a bright, alert

manner. Dressed in tweed skirt, Brooks sweater and

pearls, and carrying a folder of papers. She puts

them on Sheldrake's desk, not noticing Gillis, who

stands near the door.

BETTY:

Hello, Mr. Sheldrake. On that Bases

Loaded. I covered it with a 2-page

synopsis.

(She holds it out)

But I wouldn't bother.

SHELDRAKE:

What's wrong with it?

BETTY:

It's from hunger.

SHELDRAKE:

Nothing for Ladd?

BETTY:

Just a rehash of something that

wasn't very good to begin with.

SHELDRAKE:

I'm sure you'll be glad to meet

Mr. Gillis. He wrote it.

Betty turns towards Gillis, embarrassed.

SHELDRAKE:

This is Miss Kramer.

BETTY:

Schaefer. Betty Schaefer. And

right now I wish I could crawl

into a hole and pull it in after

me.

GILLIS:

If I could be of any help...

BETTY:

I'm sorry, Mr. Gillis, but I

just don't think it's any good.

I found it flat and banal.

GILLIS:

Exactly what kind of material do

you recommend? James Joyce?

Dostoosvsky?

SHELDRAKE:

Name dropper.

BETTY:

I just think pictures should say

a little something.

GILLIS:

Oh, you're one of the message

kids. Just a story won't do.

You'd have turned down Gone With the

Wind.

SHELDRAKE:

No, that was me. I said, Who

wants to see a Civil War picture?

BETTY:

Perhaps the reason I hated Bases

Loaded is that I knew your name.

I'd always heard you had some

talent.

GILLIS:

That was last year. This year

I'm trying to earn a living.

BETTY:

So you take Plot 27-A, make it

glossy, make it slick --

SHELDRAKE:

Carefull Those are dirty words!

You sound like a bunch of New

York critics. Thank you, Miss

Schaefer.

BETTY:

Goodbye, Mr. Gillis.

GILLIS:

Goodbye. Next time I'll write

The Naked and the Dead.

Betty leaves.

SHELDRAKE:

Well, seems like Zanuck's got

himself a baseball picture.

GILLIS:

Mr. Sheldrake, I don't want you

to think I thought this was going

to win any Academy Award.

SHELDRAKE:

(His mind free-wheeling)

Of course, we're always looking

for a Betty Hutton. Do you see

it as a Betty Hutton?

GILLIS:

Frankly, no.

SHELDRAKE:

(Amusing himself)

Now wait a minute. If we made

it a girls' softball team, put

in a few numbers. Might make a

cute musical:
It Happened in

the Bull Pen -- the story of a

Woman.

GILLIS:

You trying to be funny? -- because

I'm all out of laughs. I'm over a

barrel and I need a job.

SHELDRAKE:

Sure, Gillis. If something should

come along -

GILLIS:

Along is no good. I need it now.

SHELDRAKE:

Haven't got a thing.

GILLIS:

Any kind of assignment. Additional

Dialogue.

SHELDRAKE:

There's nothing, Gillis. Not

even if you were a relative.

GILLIS:

(Hating it)

Look, Mr. Sheldrake, could you

let me have three hundred bucks

yourself, as a personal loan?

SHELDRAKE:

Could I? Gillis, last year some-

body talked me into buying a ranch

in the valley. So I borrowed money

from the bank so I could pay for

the ranch. This year I had to

mortgage the ranch so I could keep

up my life insurance so I could

borrow on the insurance so I could

pay my income tax. Now if Dewey

had been elected -

GILLIS:

Goodbye, Mr. Sheldrake.

DISSOLVE TO:

A-12 EXT. SCHWAB'S DRUG STORE

(EARLY AFTERNOON ACTIVITY) GILLIS' VOICE

After that I drove down

MOVE IN toward drug store to headquarters. That's

and the way a lot of us think

about Schwab's Drug Store.

DISSOLVE TO:
Actors and stock girls and

waiters. Kind of a

combination office,Kaffee-

A-13 INT. SCHWAB'S DRUG STORE Klatsch and waiting room.

Waiting, waiting for the

The usual Schwabadero gravy train.

crowd sits at the fount-

ain, gossips at the

cigar-stand, loiters by

the magazine display.

MOVE IN towards the TWO

TELEPHONE BOOTHS. In I got myself ten nickels

one of them sits Gillis, and started sending out

a stack of nickels in a general S.O.S. Couldn't

front of him. He's get hold of my agent,

doing a lot of talking naturally. So then I

into the telephone, called a pal of mine,name

hanging up, dropping of Artie Green -- an awful

another nickel, dialing, nice guy, an assistant

talking again. director. He cquld let me

have twenty, but twenty

wouldn't do.

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