(GK: Garrison Keillor; SS: Sue Scott; TR: Tim Russell; FN: Fred Newman)
(THEME)
SS: A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets
but on the 12th floor of the Acme Building, one man is still trying to
find the answers to life's persistent questions--..Guy Noir, Private
Eye. (MUSIC UP AND OUT)
GK: It was June and it was cloudy in Los Angeles but then it's
not a city one looks to for clarity and I was roaming around Hollywood
looking for an address on Wistful Vista Boulevard there were all these
men wearing turquoise pants with drawstrings as if there were a drive-in
opening and they had hired circus clowns to entertain the passers-by.
Who were mostly street hookers, transients, Scientologists, old broken
down movie stars (FN OLD MAN: Remember me?). People who once were household
names and now they're a common nuisance. (FN: Try from this angle.) And
thousands of unproduced screenwriters.
TR: They just didn't get it. I don't think they even read it. They didn't understand the arc of the story, the quest, the need to prove his manhood, the hero's wound, the redemptive deed, it just went over their heads.
SS: All they want is crap. That's all.
GK: And then I found the address: it was an enormous Spanish-style
mansion in the Hollywood hills. The man who opened the gate was someone
I thought I recognized from the movies----
TR (IGOR): Come this way. The master is waiting in the library. (FOOTSTEPS, DRAGGING ONE FOOT)
GK: Haven't I seen you in a motion picture?
TR (IGOR): Oh I'm sure you have. Countless times. (FOOTSTEPS CONTINUE, DRAGGING FOOT)
GK: I suppose a lot of people ask you this, but, does your foot hurt?
(FOOTSTEPS STOP)
TR (IGOR): Not since I started doing Pilates.
GK: Oh. Good.
TR (IGOR): Come this way. (FOOTSTEPS, DRAGGING FOOT
GK: He led me through the gardens, which were overgrown with vines (BIRDS) with strange birds flitting about and a hippopotamus (SFX) in the swimming pool (SPLASHING) and peacocks (SFX)-----
TR (IGOR): Here's the library. (DOOR CREAKING)
GK: Mr. Woodhouse?
TR (SLOW TALKER): Come in, sir. Welcome to Willowood.
GK: He was a tall man in white trousers and a white short, a white Panama hat, holding a croquet mallet and a gin and tonic.
TR (SLOW): You must be Mr. Noir.
GK: Yes, sir.
TR (SLOW TALKER): Perhaps you can tell from the rather slow rate at which I speak that I hail originally from the great midsection of our country, the Midwest.
GK: Yes, I was thinking along those lines----
TR (SLOW TALKER): It seems to be a----
GK: Characteristic.
TR (SLOW TALKER): ---- result of growing up in ---
GK: The Midwest----
TR (SLOW): the center of the country, that we tend toward a deliberate ----
GK: Speech.
TR (SLOW): Manner of----
GK: Talking.
TR (SLOW): Communication.
GK: General ---- if you don't mind---- could you take this pill? Just toss it down. (TR GULP) Good. Thanks.
TR (SLOW): What is it?
GK: Speed. (STING)
TR: Am I talking normally now?
GK: Yes.
TR: Good. Let me begin at the beginning, Mr. Noir. (BRIDGE)
GK: He told me his story, which I already knew. How he invented a new gelatin process for enhancing color film ---- made it out of Jell-O, actually ---- and it made colors come alive and made him enormously wealthy and he bought the old Valentino mansion and settled down to enjoy his good fortune.
TR: And then my daughter arrived.
GK: I see.
TR: You have a daughter, Noir?
GK: I know people who do. I'm familiar with the story.
TR: Boys are simple creatures. You can herd them into pens, harness them to wagons, teach them to do tricks. But every girl is a princess. The only difference between royalty and a teenage girl is that she doesn't wave. And my daughter decided to get into the entertainment business.
GK: I see.
TR: She did the catering for "Apocalypse Now." Eighteen months in the Philippine jungle, making pasta primavera. What a nightmare. From there she went to "Tora, Tora, Tora." Two-hundred twenty-seven days. She did the editing on "At Heaven's Gate". And then went to work for Roseanne Barr.
GK: A rough career.
TR: And now she's being blackmailed. (STING) By a man named Venus. Eddie Venus.
GK: Blackmail is pretty much endemic in a business that's based on illusion, Mr. Woodhouse. But I'll do what I can. (BRIDGE) I tracked Eddie Venus to a storefront on Hollywood Boulevard, a shop called Vegan Desires. It was dark when I arrived. (CAR STOP. FOOTSTEPS) There was a homeless man sitting on the curb, holding up a sign:
TR: Unemployed agent, I will represent you for food.
GK: Sorry, mister. (FOOTSTEPS) The door was locked. (KNOCKS) No sign of life inside. (SHAKES DOOR, LOCKED) So I let myself in (GLASS BREAKAGE, UNLOCK, DOOR OPEN)---- (FOOTSTEPS) Hello? Anybody here? (SWITCH) I turned on the light and ---- (STING) There were suggestive photographs of vegetables. Melons and onions grown into obscene shapes. Tomatoes in beds with other tomatoes. Obscene jalopenas. Intertwined carrots. Corn porn. And then I looked in the next room. (STING) There was a woman in a silk robe standing in the doorway in front of a beaded curtain. A ceiling fan. (SFX)
SS: Hi, sailor. Looking for something? (BRIDGE)
GK: She had a pair of legs that would've stopped traffic on the
Hollywood Freeway if it hadn't stopped already.
SS: Carmen's the name. Carmen Woodhouse. You're not from here,
are you----
GK: St. Paul, Minnesota, ma'am.
SS: Minnesota, huh? I grew up there.
GK: Lady, you look about as Midwestern as a tarantula on a cactus.
SS: What are you referring to? (BRIDGE)
GK: Thanks to surgery, her breasts were like artillery shells and yet her buttocks were the size of a baby chimpanzee's. There'd been way too much aerobisizing and botoxing. And the collagen lips. They were as big as her thighs. ----- Trying to become a sex symbol, huh, kid?
SS: I'm making a movie called "The Naked Avocado".
GK: Interesting title.
SS: Glad you like it. It's erotic but it's wholesome.
GK: ---- Hey, don't rub up against me like that, okay.
SS: What's the matter? I like older men----
GK: I'm not that old. So tell me about this blackmail attempt----
TR (TONY): How about I tell you, Mr. Noir? (STING)
GK: A man came through the beaded curtain with a pistol in his hand the size of a hairdryer. He was big, in a big double-breasted blue pinstripe, and he looked like a headache with hair.
TR (EDDIE): I'm Eddie Venus. I've been waiting for years to meet you, Mr. Noir.
GK: Well, I hope the pleasure is mutual.
TR: I got a script I'd be grateful if you'd take a look at it, Mr. Noir. It's a gangster picture. I think you might like it.
GK: Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn't, Mr. Venus, but that's not what I came to see you about. Came to see you about blackmail. (STING)
TR: That's the title of my screenplay.
GK: Blackmail.
TR: Right.
GK: Why would I want to read your screenplay? I don't know anything about screenplays.
TR: Wouldn't hurt you to have a look.
GK: Come to the point, Mister.
TR: I love your work. I want to work with you.
GK: What work?
TR: Film Noir. You worked with Bogart, some of the greats----
GK: Listen. I'm here for Mr. Woodhouse.
TR: You read his screenplay?
GK: Not here to talk about screenplays, mister.
TR: I've seen his screenplays and let me tell you something, the guy can't write dialogue.
GK: Woodhouse?
SS: My father?
TR: Can't write dialogue.
SS: Says who?
TR: Me.
GK: What's wrong with it?
TR: Wrong with what?
GK: His dialogue.
TR: Woodhouse's?
GK: Who else are we talking about?
TR: His dialogue doesn't go anywhere.
SS: Where is it supposed to go?
TR: Somewhere. Anywhere. But it just sits there. One guy says something and then the other. No action. Just talk.
GK: Maybe that's what he's aiming for. Maybe when you got that much money, you don't need great dialogue.
TR: It's dumb, if you ask me.
GK: I didn't. But sometimes dumb works. But what do I know?
TR: You know a lot, Mr. Noir. I know. I've admired your stuff for years.
GK: Look, Venus. You got me wrong.
TR: Maybe I do, maybe I don't.
GK: I don't have time for games.
TR: Good. The screenplay is right here. Take a look.
GK: I'd feel better about reading it if you put down that gun.
TR: Oh. Forgot I was holding it.
GK: You don't mind if she holds the gun, do you?
TR: Carmen? Okay.
SS: Thanks. How do I work this thing?
GK: You don't. What are you looking for, Venus? Spill it.
TR: What's anybody looking for, Noir?
GK: If you're looking for a movie producer, I'm not him.
TR: What's your game, mister?
GK: There is no game. I'm trying to give it to you straight.
TR: Read the first page then.
GK: What's that going to get me?
TR: Read it and see.
GK: Just answer the question.
TR: What is the question?
GK: You know, just from spending a few minutes with you, I don't think that you have a great knack for dialogue either, Mr. Venus.
TR: You saying I can't write dialogue?
GK: Saying you can't talk dialogue----
TR: Oh yeah?
GK: Yeah. This may be a problem with movies. The people who make em have been working too hard and they never go anywhere and never see or hear anything except their own employees.
TR: So who do you think writes good dialogue?
GK: Shakespeare.
TR: Who else?
GK: Raymond Chandler.
TR: Raymond Chandler!!
GK: Yeah.
TR: Raymond Chandler belonged in detective fiction like a Bermuda onion belongs in a root beer float.
GK: You don't know what you're talking about.
TR: If Raymond Chandler is your idea of good, then I've said about as much as I care to say, Mr. Noir. Don't read the script then. It's your loss.
GK: I'm going to do more than not read it, I'm going to make it unnecessary for anybody else to ever read it either. Give me the gun, Carmen. (GUNSHOTS)
TR: You can't shoot my script-----
GK: I just did shoot your script. You were wondering if it would get shot and the answer is, yes. (HE SHOOTS SOME MORE) (THEY FIGHT, TAKING TURNS HITTING EACH OTHER, THEN HITTING WITH WOOD, THEN GLASS BREAKAGE, UNTIL FINALLY----)
GK: You had enough? Huh? You had enough?
TR: You know something. I'm sorry I ever met you.
GK: What kind of a lame line is that? "I'm sorry I ever met you." I never heard such a stupid line as that. Who is writing your stuff, a thirteen-year-old girl? "I'm sorry I ever met you." What way is that for a grown person to express himself?
TR: Well, what should I have said? Huh? "I regret the day I laid eyes upon you."? You're so smart, give me a better line. Who died and made you a playwright, huh? (GUNSHOT) You shot me.
GK: Somebody should've done it a long time ago.
TR: You shot me in the heart and I'm dying.
GK: Consider it an opportunity.
TR: It is a better place I go to now than I have ever gone before.
GK: Don't be too sure.
TR: Let me try that again: It is a better place Eddie goes now than I have seen up to this point in time. At any previous time in my life. No, give me a third take.
GK: Time's running out, mister. You're bleeding pretty bad.
TR: It is a better place Eddie goes to now than I have ever been before.
GK: Try it a little slower. And look up.
TR: It is a better place Eddie's going to now than I've been to before, that's for sure. --- No, no, I messed it up. One more and I got it. (HE'S DYING) One more take.
GK: How about you trim it a little bit------ just say, "I'm going to a good place, huh?"
TR: I'm going to a good place, huh?
GK: No, leave off the huh. Just one more and you got it-----
TR: Is there enough light to shoot? The light's getting dim----- (HE DIES)
GK: One more and he would've had it. Oh well. Life's like that sometimes.
SS: That's why I decided to become a sex goddess. I thought it was my last chance.
GK: Good luck.
SS: You need a drink, Mr. Noir?
GK: No. I need a ride to the airport, Miss Woodhouse. I need a
new pair of shoes and a second chance at life. I need a week in Paris.
I don't think
a drink is going to get me there.
SS: I thought you'd have a drink with me.
GK: I don't have time.
SS: What time is it, Mr. Noir?
GK: Time isn't the only thing, Carmen. On the one hand, I have a watch, and on the other hand I don't. Bye. (BRIDGE) I picked up the script and headed for the airport. There was a desert wind blowing across the city that made my skin feel dry and jumpy. I belong in L.A. like rhubarb in a tossed salad. So it was a relief when (JET TAKEOFF) the big plane finally got off the ground and we headed northeast toward the Midwest----
SS: Don't mean to bother you, mister, but I couldn't help but notice the screenplay----
GK: Yeah?
SS: You wouldn't happen to be----
GK: ---- in the film business? yes.----
SS: You sort of looked like you were but I hesitated to ask----
GK: That's all right.
SS: What sort of film you working on?
GK: Action drama.
SS: What's the title?
GK: Debbie Does Kohlrabi.
SS: I like it. ----
GK: Erotic but wholesome.
SS: Are you looking for someone to------
GK: Play Debbie? Could be.
SS: I love kohlrabi. When do you shoot?
GK: We have to work out some things. I'll call you. (THEME)
TR: A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets but on the 12th floor of the Acme Building, one man is still trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions--..Guy Noir, Private Eye. (THEME OUT)
© Garrison Keillor 2003