Sunset Boulevard Page #7

NORMA:

The wind gets in that blasted

pipe organ. I ought to have

it taken out.

GILLIS:

Or teach it a better tune.

Norma has led him to the card tables which stand

side by side near a window. They are piled high

with papers scrawled in a large, uncertain hand.

NORMA:

How long is a movie script these

days? I mean, how many pages?

GILLIS:

Depends on what it is -- a Donald

Duck or Joan or Arc.

NORMA:

This is to be a very important

picture. I have written it

myself. Took me years.

GILLIS:

(Looking at the piles

of script)

Looks like enough for six impor-

tant pictures.

NORMA:

It's the story or Salome. I

think I'll have DeMille direct it.

GILLIS:

Uh-huh.

NORMA:

We've made a lot of pictures

together.

GILLIS:

And you'll play Salome?

NORMA:

Who else ?

GILLIS:

Only asking. I did't know

you were planning a comeback.

NORMA:

I hate that word. It is a return.

A return to the millions of people

who have never forgiven me for

deserting the screen.

GILLIS:

Fair enough.

NORMA:

Salome -- what a woman! What a

part! The Princess in love with

a Holy man. She dances the Dance

of the Seven Veils. He rejects

her, so she demands his head on a

golden tray, kissing his cold, dead

lips.

GILLIS:

They'll love it in Pomona.

NORMA:

(Taking it straight)

They will love it every place.

(She reaches for a

batch of pages from

the heap)

Read it. Read the scene just

before she has him killed!

GILLIS:

Right now? Never let another

writer read your stuff. He

may steal it.

NORMA:

I am not afraid. Read it!

NORMA (Cont'd)

(Calling)

Max! Max!

(To Gillis)

Sit down. Is there enough light?

GILLIS:

I've got twenty-twenty vision.

Max has entered.

NORMA:

Bring something to drink.

MAX:

Yes. Madame.

He leaves. Norma turns to Gillis again.

NORMA:

I said sit down.

There is compulsion in her voice.

Gillis looks at her GILLIS' VOICE

and starts slowly Well. I had no pressing

reading. engagement, and she'd men-

tioned something to drink..

Max comes in, wheeling Sometimes it's interesting

a wicker tea wagon on to see just how bad bad

which are two bottles o writing can be. This prom-

f champagne and two ised to go the limit. I

red Venetian glasses, wondered what a handwriting

a box of zwieback and expert would make of that

a jar of caviar. Norma childish scrawl of hers.

sits on her feet. deep Max wheeled in some champagne

in a chair, a gold ring and some caviar. Later, I

on her forefinger with found out that Max was the

a clip which holds a only other person in that

cigarette. She gets up grim Sunset castle, and I

and forces on Gillis found out a few other things

another batch of script, about him... As for her, she

goes back to her chair. sat coiled up like a watch

spring, her cigarette

clamped in a curious holder...

I could sense her eyes on me

from behind those dark

glasses, defying me not to

like what I read, or maybe

begging me in her own proud

way to like it. It meant

so much to her...

A-34 SHOT OF THE GILLIS' VOICE

CEILING It sure was a cozy set-up.

That bundle of raw nerves,and

PAN DOWN to the moan- Max, and a dead monkey upstair

ing organ. PAN OVER and the wind wheezing through

TO THE ENTRANCE DOOR. that organ once in a while.

Max opens it, and a Later on, just for comedy

solemn-faced man in relief, the real guy arrived

undertaker's clothes with a baby coffin. It was

brings in a small all done with great dignity.

white coffin. (Thru He must have been a very

these shots the room important chimp. The great

has been growing grandson of King Kong, maybe.

duskier.)

DISSOLVE TO:

A-35 GILLIS It got to be eleven. I was

feeling a little sick at my

reading. The lamp stomach, what with that sweet

beside him is now champagne and that tripe I'd

really paying its been reading -- that silly

way in the dark room. hodgepodge of melodramatic

A lot of the manu- plots. However, by then I'd

script pages are started concocting a little

piled on the floor plot of my own...

around his feet. A

half-empty champagne

glass stands on the

arm of his chair.

THE CAMERA SLOWLY DRAWS BACK to include Norma

Desmond sitting in the dusk, just as she was before.

Gillis puts down a batch of script. There is a

little pause.

Rate this script:5.0 / 3 votes