The Barefoot Contessa Page #8

I've warned you about

getting too drunk

For four years

- and now it's over -

for four years I've

invited the guests

and provided the entertainment

and cleaned up the dirt and paid

off the waiters and paid off the cops

and paid off the papers

and paid off the guests

And now it's good

night. The party's over

I've had a lovely evening,

but I must be going

You're fired, as of right now

Don't call me, I'll call you

Bravo, Mr Muldoon

Mr Muldoon, it would

delight me almost as much

if you were to come with me

this minute, out of this house

Seor, I think you've

got yourself a deal

- She'll never make another picture

- How are you going to stop her?

Withdraw your financing and release?

It's late, but I'm sure MGM,

Fox, Paramount and the rest

will be happy to have me

wake them up with the news

I'll fight it for years...

to the Supreme Court

I'll keep her off

the screen, I'll destroy her

Nah, she's too big now

Oscar. I'll destroy Oscar

He knows too much

and where to tell it

Why not destroy Seor Bravano?

All those hundreds of millions of

dollars, crashing against each other

like a couple of big elks

with your horns locked

battling till you both

starve to death in the snow

You

Not even me. Not any more

Myrna

I'll drive you home

Don't I remember you from somewhere?

Maybe we'll fly to Las Vegas

I'll get my coat.

I'll meet you in the car

Harry, remember how you used

to say life wrote lousy scripts?

Even in one of yours I would

have thrown this glass at him

I'm going home with him instead

You want to know the (what

do you call it) motivation?

Easy

I'm a frightened tramp

- Where's your coat?

- In the car

- Where'd you park it?

- Driveway. We'll go around the back

Harry, look

They're Maria's

She was wearing them tonight

Cinderella's slippers

Who lives in the little

house? The prince?

- Cinderella's cousin

- I don't understand that

I'll tell you about it in the car

I didn't tell her, of

course. Not even Jerry

Some things you just

don't tell anybody

If it would have helped, I'd

have yelled it in the streets

But nothing could have helped

The moving finger had

already writ and moved on

And nothing I could do would

have cancelled half a line

Nor would my tears

wash out a word of it

If this paisan asks me again

am I sure the cameraman got his

picture coming to this funeral...

It's the only reason he's here

Ah, well. It's my own fault

I talked him into coming.

It's basic public relations

If people see the

biggest rat in the world

walk with his hat

off behind a casket

he becomes a lovable codger

Bravano practically

climbed into the coffin

to be sure they took his picture

At that, I assure you he got as close

to Maria dead as he did to her alive

He and Kirk, they both got nowhere

Only difference was

Kirk wouldn't quit till he

tried everything in the book

On the other hand,

Bravano quit like a dog

practically the first

time Maria said no

It seems to me he

was secretly relieved

The important thing to Bravano

was for people to

think Maria was his girl

as long as he got credit for it

If Bravano had to choose between

really having Maria, in secret

and not having her, but with

the whole world thinking he did

he'd want it just he way it was

This I cannot figure

This doesn't mean it can't be figured

You could fill a big, fat book

with what I haven't been

able to figure since I was 12

Maria, for instance, I could

never figure. But then, who could?

There she was, the world's

number one symbol of desirability

on display all over the

world's number one showroom

with the world's number

one customers wanting to buy

and nobody wrapped her

up and took her home

Nobody

I'll swear that into my own grave

Nobody

And while I'm on the broad

subject of what I can't figure

I give you that phenomenon

of this day and age called

"the international set"

Once a year, on the French Riviera

one of the most beautiful

seashores on God's earth

the international set gathers

the way an annual fungus

gathers on a beautiful tree

It's quite a set

It's as if ordinary human

beings, living ordinary lives

had suddenly vanished from the earth

and the world was suddenly full

of butterflies shaped like people

They are all happy, all the time

Some of them are happy

because they are beautiful

And some of them have to be happy

because they are nothing but rich

Some of the international set

are happy because they are dogs

Don't laugh. There's a

beauty parlour in Cannes...

just for dogs

But the happiest of the

international butterflies

are those who live as if

they never left the cocoon

They form in little groups

usually around some

piece of ex-royalty

Bravano, of course, had the

best cocoon that money could buy

To begin with, he had as his

guest for the entire season

the pretender to the throne

The name of the

throne doesn't matter

But, in the world of pretence

a pretender is the

best thing you can be

So, to the international

set, he was a king

His wife was English.

She was a commoner

And they don't come any commoner

But together they ruled the Riviera

by permission of the

copyright holder, Lulu McGee

Lulu McGee runs the

international set

She never asks for

money but, somehow

she always happens to

help grateful rich people

Hector Eubanks was the

fireball of our little cocoon

Oil hit Hector one fine day, and

he just never came out from under it

There was also Mrs Hector Eubanks

She was a joint income-tax return

And in the middle of all this

fantastic unreality was Maria...

more unreal, in a

way, than any of it

She moved among all

these crazy people

through the casinos and beaches

and brawls, from Marseille to Monaco

as if she were loaded with Novocaine

She showed no pain, no

pleasure, no interest, no nothing

You figure it. I can't

Any more than I could on that

night I saw Maria for the last time

It was at one of the

casinos, kind of late

We'd finished dinner hours ago

Bravano and Hector Eubanks

were inside, gambling

I assumed Maria was with Bravano

The rest of us had

run out of conversation

The rest of us had

run out of conversation

After all, we hadn't sen

each other since cocktails

and we hadn't eaten

together since lunch

Lulu was trying to work

up interest in a word game

It's not easy with people

who know just enough words

to tell room service what they want

It's really very

simple, Your Highness

You write the long

word on top of the page

and under it, you write

all of the short words

you can make out of the long one

Oh

For the long word,

let's use "vicissitudes"

Is that actually a word?

V- i-c-i-s-s-i-t-u-d-e-s

It's changes, fluctuations,

like the vicissitudes of life

How clever of you, my dear

J'ai besoin de champagne

Did you say

something, Your Majesty?

- I shall require more champagne

- "Mais certainement. " Oscar

- More of the same for the king

- Yes, sir

What news from the gaming table?

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