borloo fMisod
Fdgeworks.2
borfao ellisoo'S noouie
an original screenplay
I I
Friend, amanuensis, agent.
to the memory of
Bob.
ROBERT P. MILLS Absent. But not forgotten.
i i i
I V
Interim Memo
The introductory remarks that precede the screenplay tell everything that needs to be told. Save for the facts that the film never got made; that 20th Century-Fox (in the person of an unnamed executive) actually threw the script across an office, at Marvin Schwartz's head, attempting to convey displeasure at the content of said screenplay; that every one of the many studios and production companies that saw the script flew into a choleric rage; and that dear Marvin Schwartz, who was a very good guy indeed, and a terrific producer indeed, left the film business within five years of my writing Harlan Ellison's Movie, never made another movie, and was last heard of (so help me) living in the North Woods. He dropped out totally, and never came back. Sometimes I think I was responsible. Sometimes I think, with this great power, that I could have saved Eleanor Roosevelt.
INSTALLMENTS I 1 1 JANUARY THROUGH 11 through 20                   15 MARCH 1973
HARLAN ELLISON'S MOVIE
This week, we begin a mad adventure. How many weeks it will take to run its course I don't know. Past experience with The Glass Teat advises me you'll enjoy the trip, but a few words of explanation can't hurt.
Twice during the two and a half year run of The Glass Teat I used scripts I had written for television as segments of the column. The first was a treat­ment—a synopsis—of a proposed script for The Name of the Game. It was never put into script, but it turned out to be a good piece of craft information not only for those who had aspirations as tv writers, but for those who had very little understanding of the steps through which a scenarist goes in preparing a typical tv segment.
The second such offering was a complete publication of the original teleplay of my segment of The Young Lawyers. I ran it as a sort of protection of my reputation. I knew it would get butchered in the studio hopper, and I wanted those who knew and enjoyed my work to see what it looked like before the assassins got at it. It ran in five or six installments, an act at a time, and it was followed by an installment of the column discussing how it looked when it was aired. Readers advised me they'd saved the installments and had compared them with the show as they watched it over ABC. There was a universal moan of horror from them pursuant to what they'd read as opposed to what they'd seen.
But again, it was enlightening for those who wanted to write tv scripts and apparently fascinating to those who had no idea a writer puts all those clever words in the actors' mouths, not to mention many of those clever angles put into the director's camera.
This time, I offer a full motion-picture script. It will take more than six installments to run it, because it's a long movie; but I think you will find it socially redeeming and intellectually challenging. Also maybe funny. And look on the bright side: I won't miss any deadlines!
The history of the film is simple: I was approached by Marvin Schwartz (the producer of The War Wagon, 100 Rifles, Hard Contract, the sensational
3
television movie Tribes, and two forthcoming films, Welcome Home, Soldier Boys and Kid Blue), who proposed that I write a film I'd always wanted to write. Marvin suggested a basic theme, a dropout who inherits his father's bank, and then he turned me loose. I wrote the film at 20th Century-Fox, though it was a personal project of Marvin's, and I must state categorically that it was the happiest liaison with a producer I've ever had. Marvin was quick and intuitive and had a sure story-sense that never failed. He was hip enough to leave me to my own devices most of the time and the one time he offered a suggestion for a possible story-line it was to ask me if there had ever been a scene I'd wanted to write into a film, a scene that no one had ever let me use. I began grinning and said yes, there had been one scene I'd written into three different films that had been excised early on because the producers had deemed it too berserk for human consumption. Marvin urged me to use it in our movie. And I did. After the final installment of the script runs in these pages, I'll answer any questions you readers may have, and I'll tell you which of the many scenes in the film is the one Marvin insisted I write. You may make wild guesses if you choose.
One further word. This film has not been produced. At the time it was written, three years ago, it was fresh and of-the-times. Then the studios, who had ripped off the subculture shamelessly in their attempts to commercialize the Easy Rider ambience, who had lost their shirts on such horrors as The Strawberry Statement, R.P.M., The Revolutionary and other dumb, arterioscle­rotic hypes, decided "relevance" wasn't relevant any longer, and they aban­doned the culture of the streets, to the mutual relief of the street people and the banks that financed the films. There are sections of this film, therefore, that may seem dated. They would have to be redone if the film were to be produced today. But in the main, I would alter this script very little. Even the mad thought that it would take something like eight million dollars to produce it doesn't scare me. New film and videotape techniques make this movie produceable at a reasonable budget.
If anyone cares, I think it's one of the three best things I ever wrote for the visual media. So personal a script is it, that I titled it accordingly; and though Marvin—flabbergasted at my arrogance—at first balked at my title, when the chips were down he threw up his hands and agreed that what I had produced from my rancid cesspool of a mind was so ellisonian in nature, there could logically be no other title for the film than
5
HARLAN ELLISON'S MOVIE
FADE IN:
LIMBO SHOT - DIMINISHING PERSPECTIVE
Darkness all the way to infinity, save that the floor of limbo is a carpet in the design of the American flag. It is made of grass. It stretches, starred and striped, to the farthest point we can see. CAMERA HIGH on the grass carpet, but as it begins to DESCEND we begin to HEAR the SOUND of very upbeat mojo ROCK MUSIC in the b.g., at first FAINTLY, but as CAMERA COMES DOWN TO FLOOR LEVEL we realize something is running toward us on the dichondra-height grass flag, and as CAMERA LEVELS OFF a few inches above the floor and HOLDS, the rock music builds and builds and builds as whatever-it-is running toward us becomes larger and larger and larger.
CAMERA HOLDS as the thing running toward us becomes a MOUSE, plunging hell-for-leather TOWARD CAMERA. HOLD the mouse as he rushes into the CAMERA and BLACK TO
WHIP-PAN:
HARLAN ELLISON'S MOVIE
2     REVERSE ANGLE - FOLLOWING MOUSE
as we see him heading toward an enormous COMPUTER that stretches from one side of the frame to the other in diminishing perspective, from one end of infinity to the other.
CAMERA hangs in there, ZOOMING IN with the mouse as he scampers across the flag carpet, right up to the big brain, and vanishes into a conduit aperture. ZOOMING IN CLOSE on hole--
We HEAR the ghastly sound of machinery chewing on itself. Fingernails down blackboards. Hacking coughs in lanai apartments. Animals being slaughtered. Cars piling up on freeways. Bells ringing. Horns. The variegated sounds of bedlam. CAMERA ZOOMS OUT to FULL SHOT of computer.
3     NEON SCREEN ON COMPUTER
One of those blinking-bulb jobbies like the one on Times Square that advertises (yecchhh!) Life magazine. And we start to see coocoo things appearing there. A black-power fist, a DAR symbol, a hammer-&-sickle, a nude girl, Che Guevara, a flower, two fingers in peace, the zigzag man from the pot posters, a peace symbol, a skull and crossbones, Mickey Mouse. Then the NOISE of the COMPUTER going bananas rises sharply and we do:
4     4 0 FRAMES A SECOND - THE COMPUTER
as it destroys itself. Cogs, wheels, tubes, plastic cases, Memorex tape, rivets, conduits, printed circuits, shards of glass and plastic and metal go cascading up and out in a wild shower as the ROCK MUSIC SWELLS OVER.
5     CLOSE ON COMPUTER
as the mouse emerges from a rubber nipple opening, with a satisfying pop! CAMERA ZOOMS OUT (CONT'D.)
(CONTINUED:)
7
5     CONTINUED:
(CONT'D.) as mouse runs away from computer, toward CAMERA. Computer in b.g. now a flaming ruin, with the neon screen alternating between obscene remarks and right-wing jingoism.
6     REVERSE ANGLE - PERSPECTIVE
as mouse rushes back the way he came. CAMERA FOLLOWS the mouse till he vanishes into the darkness and we
HOLD BLACK FRAME FOR:
MAIN TITLES OVER
FADE OUT.
FADE IN:
7     BLACK FRAME
Through blackness we see some square white objects ranked at the top and the bottom of the frame. As CAMERA MOVES IN SMOOTHLY on these white squares (they look like Chiclets placed side by side) we begin to HEAR the SOUNDS of a BANK O.S.
SOUNDS of adding machine, teller counting out cash in a monotone, people walking across tiled floors--that very special sound you get only in a bank or library.
CAMERA KEEPS MOVING till we realize we are INSIDE A MOUTH and those white squares are TEETH. And the white squares part and we see out through the mouth to a fat little female DEPOSITOR in an antimacassar hat and bifocals and ruffled dress, making her deposit in pennies. Counting them out one after another, slowly and methodically, as CAMERA COMES OUT OF MOUTH.
HARLAN ELLISON'S MOVIE
8              INT. BANK - DAY
CAMERA BEGINS TO MOVE SLOWLY IN CIRCLE from the mouth, showing us the Depositor--a typical little old lady in tennis shoes--and her maddening method of depositing ten dollars, the next wicket in the line with something equally as boring going on, the guard half dozing against a pillar in the lobby, quiet mumble of voices; in all, a very great drag. CAMERA COMES AROUND to show us whose POV we have been experiencing, out of whose mouth we have emerged.
9     CHRIS STOPA
He is young, with clean-cut features, wide innocent eyes, wearing a dark suit and white shirt and tie. Very straight, very square. He's watching the little old lady counting her pennies.
DEPOSITOR Three hundred seventy-four...three hundred seventy-five...three hundred seventy-six...
CAMERA COMES IN CLOSE ON CHRIS'S EYES
as ominous, very theatrical music strikes warning notes and we PULL BACK from his eyes to see we have
CUT TO:
10    EXT. WESTERN STREET - DAY
Blood-lust-crazed townsfolk line both sides of the street as Chris and another COWBOY in authentic 1888 gear walk toward each other for a shoot-out. They walk slowly, and Chris watches the other Cowboy with narrowed eyes from under the brim of his Stetson.
11    INTERCUT - THE CROWD
A lot of little old lady depositors and their male counterparts. All of them salivating for blood, waiting for the two cowboys to shoot each other.
9
12    ANGLE
As Chris and the other Cowboy near each other, they look at the crowd, and suddenly draw. Except, at the last instant they each turn toward opposite sides of the street and begin SHOOTING THE CROWD. As the little old ladies and men fall, each one produces the SOUND of a cash register ringing, and OVER the cash register and shots we HEAR:
13    INT. BANK - PAST DEPOSITOR TO CHRIS
DEPOSITOR
Three hundred and seventy-seven...three
hundred and seventy-eight...
As he reaches the point of lunacy. He grabs up huge fistfuls of money and flings them into the air, all over the place, shouting incoherently at the top of his lungs.
Then he leaps up onto the counter, begins making ape sounds, pounds his chest like Tarzan and we
14    INTERCUT
a scene from Alexander Korda's 193 9 color film "The Thief of Bagdad," in which a giant black spider descends on Sabu, who is hanging onto the web with his sword.
15    BACK TO SCENE
as Chris tears off his tie and jacket, throws them onto the floor, bounds down, and rushes out of the bank as CAMERA FOLLOWS HIM.
When he is gone, and after the bedlam has settled down, CAMERA PANS SLOWLY BACK to his wicket as we HEAR OVER:
DEPOSITOR Four hundred and forty...four hundred and forty-one...
(CONTINUED: )
HARLAN ELLISON'S MOVIE
15    CONTINUED:
And CAMERA COMES IN past the little old lady Depositor, to EXTREME CLOSEUP on her flowered dress, till the flowers blur and we
BLUR MATCH-CUT TO:
16    EXT. FLOWER-FIELD & LAKE - DAY
AS CAMERA UNBLURS we are in a real field of flowers, preferably daisies. CAMERA ANGLE TILTS UP and RISES OUT OF FLOWERS to show us the field rushing down to the shore of a beautiful lake in the b.g. Moored to the shore is a large and lovely HOUSEBOAT painted with a million flowers as pretty in their day-glo colors as the daisy field is in its own reality. CAMERA ZOOMS IN SLOWLY on the houseboat as we HEAR IN VOICE OVER:
ACHMED Captain Marvel was, in reality, Billy Batson, boy newscaster of radio station W-H-I-Z...and to change into Captain Marvel he had to say the magic word Shazam which stood for the following: S was for Solomon--wisdom; H was for Hercules--strength; A, Atlas, stamina; Z, Zeus, power; A, Achilles, courage; and M, Mercury, speed...
While this DIALOGUE CONTINUES OVER, in a very gentle, matter-of-fact manner, we
SLOWLY LAP-DISSOLVE THRU TO:
17    SERIES OF FREEZE-FRAMES thru
18    all of the same scene: the flower-painted houseboat, sitting at the edge of daisies and blue water and sunshine. Each SHOT that DISSOLVES THRU is a TIGHTER CLOSEUP till we
DISSOLVE THRU TO:
1 1
19 INT. MAIN SALON OF HOUSEBOAT - DAY
CLOSE ON BARE BACKSIDE of a young boy, perhaps four years old. CAMERA PULLS BACK to show us he is one of a group of ten little kids, both girls and boys, all naked, in a group. They are being "schooled" by ACHMED, a barrel-chested, bearded, wild-haired black man of early thirties, very kind and obviously holding the kids enchanted. ANGLE WIDENS to show us the kids are being used as models for a wood sculpture.
CAMERA MOVES AROUND kids and Achmed and HOLDS the enormous wood sculpture of the naked children--very Henry Moore--as the sculptor carves out the features of the backside on which this shot opened. CAMERA COMES IN on the sculptor and we SEE it is Chris Stopa, now wearing a mustache, a sawdust-coated Mexican wedding shirt, thong sandals and Levi cutaways. He is intently chiseling out the child's figure on the great wood sculpture block.
CAMERA CONTINUES MOVING around the houseboat, showing us the specifics of a very nice commune. Quiet, clean people, involved in doing what needs to be done, and deriving enormous pleasure from it. Three girls cooking in giant pots, another woman with a loom, a man writing in a book at a small nightstand, and so on. CAMERA COMES BACK to Chris, who is smiling as he carves.
2 0 ANGLE PAST CHRIS
through the open doors of the main salon; these are folding doors opened to make one entire side of the houseboat wide to the day. Outside, we can see a man coming across the field of daisies. He is only a dark speck at first, but he grows larger as we HOLD ON CHRIS (out-of-focus) and watch him come toward the houseboat. Through all of this, Achmed continues telling the kids about Capt. Marvel. Finally, the man comes up the gangway--as seen through the open doors past Chris--and steps in.
harlan Ellison's movie
21    PAST NAKED CHILD TO MAN
As the little boy turns his head to stare at the man, the CAMERA FOLLOWS HIS POV. The man is slim, tall, dressed in a dark pin-striped business suit, double-breasted, wearing a homburg and carrying an attache case which is obviously filled with something, for it hangs heavily at the end of his arm. The man stands there, squinting for a moment.
MR. KARPIS Mr. Christopher Stopa?
22    WIDER ANGLE
Everyone turns to stare at the man. He looks uncomfortable. But everyone stops doing what he is doing, and stares. That is, everyone but Chris, who continues carving carefully.
The man looks around, then removes his homburg.
MR. KARPIS Mr. Stopa.
He is looking directly at Chris now.
2 3 CLOSE ON CHRIS
as he accepts the fact that he can't dodge this man, whoever he may be. He wipes wood-chips from his face with his sleeve, then slowly turns as CAMERA RE-FOCUSES TO SHOW THE MAN PAST CHRIS.
MR. KARPIS My name is Karpis, Mr. Stopa. I've been sent to inform you your father died of a coronary thrombosis ten days ago. I'm very sorry.
Chris stiffens, then slowly turns back to the sculpture. His eyes are moist, but he's toughened against crying over it. He starts to lift the wood chisel again.
(CONTINUED:)
1 3
23    CONTINUED:
MR. KARPIS (CONT'D.) I've also been sent to inform you he left sole and complete control of the bank to you, without stipulation.
Now Chris begins to cry, as we:
CUT TO:
24    INT. MAIN SALON OF HOUSEBOAT - NIGHT
CLOSE ON SHADOW SHOW of duck flapping wings. CAMERA PULLS BACK to show eight or ten adults sitting around a fire in a central fireplace with a Swedish firestack that goes up through the roof of the boat. They are all just smoking pot and cooling it. One of the girls is making pleasant runs and sounds on a kalimba (finger-piano). One of the guys is making the shadow pictures on a wall of the houseboat with his fingers. There are little warm nests of children in pillows and sleeping bags, zonked out here and there. Everything is peaceful. CAMERA PANS SLOWLY ACROSS FACES, HOLDS, MOVES ON.
DONNIE You going to do it, Chris?
Chris is slumped down, on one elbow, watching the flames that light his face. The joint is passed to him and he takes a toke, passes it on.
CHRIS (absently) Maybe I was fated to be a banker.
LAURIE You're a Capricorn, man.
CHRIS (still stares at flames, smiles) So're Nixon, Goldwater and Howard Hughes. You'd think I'd've built up enough good karma to beat the rap.
(CONTINUED:)
harlan Ellison's movie
24 CONTINUED:
NORMAN (musingly) I don't know. Owning a bank can be a very heavy trip. Think of all the good things you could do.
CAMERA MOVES IN on Chris. He doesn't answer. He just thinks and the flames dance as we
CUT TO:
2 5 EXT. BULLDOZED AREA - DAY
CHRIS is standing with a HOUSING CONTRACTOR talking. The area is a heavily bulldozed section, set amid among watershed land. It's as if a lunatic had taken a giant hand and scarred the earth, tearing out trees and entire hillsides, leaving only angry loam.
CONTRACTOR We plan to level and terrace this entire section, and then take over all this watershed. Put up 13,000 middle-income houses.
CHRIS Ticky-tacky.
CONTRACTOR I beg your pardon?
CHRIS Little boxes.
CONTRACTOR (nervous) All we need is for you and the bank to okay the loan.
CHRIS What happens to the raccoons?
(CONTINUED:)
1 5
25 CONTINUED:
CONTRACTOR The what...?
CHRIS You're a creep, man. A spoiler. A goddam spoiler. Kill off the land, drive out the animals, let the hillside wash into the valley in the rainy season.
CONTRACTOR But...
CHRIS Forget the loan.
(beat) Go try Nabisco. They like putting money in cracker boxes.
CUT TO:
2 6 CHRIS SEATED ON THE PODIUM
at a mayoralty rally. Also on the podium is a lectern and chairs occupied by crooked-looking politicos. Big posters say RE-ELECT JOE CARPY YOUR MAYOR. CARPY is behind the lectern.
CARPY And now.„a word from one of my staunchest supporters...Mr. Christopher Stopa of the Stopa Bank.
Chris rises and goes to lectern amid applause. TV cameras are on him.
CHRIS I'm here tonight to say--
(beat) I'm withdrawing all support from Joe Carpy, the most inept and corrupt public official this city has ever seen. I advise everyone to vote for...
(CONTINUED:)
harlan Ellison's movie
2 6 CONTINUED:
Carpy and his bunch jump Chris as the scene goes dark.
CUT BACK TO:
INT. HOUSEBOAT
As the scene lights up again, Chris is back with the people around the fire.
2 7 ACROSS FIRE TO CHRIS
The others are watching him now.
DONNIE I think it's a very nice wood sculpture, Chris.
SANDY Chris...don't go back.
STUART They'll break your head, man.
CHRIS (resigned) Somebody's gotta pay the dues.
CUT TO:
28 EXT. STREET OUTSIDE BANK - DAY
at ANKLE LEVEL. A car pulls up to the curb. A door opens and a pair of booted feet emerge. All we can see are the Italian boots and bell-bottom trousers. The feet walk across the sidewalk and we get an UP-ANGLE SHOT of the bronze plate on the wall that says THE STOPA BANK AND TRUST. The feet pause at the front glass doors, and then they are opened. We HEAR VOICES O.S.
(CONTINUED:)
1 7
28 CONTINUED:
BANK DICK Good morning, Mr. Stopa.
CHRIS Good morning, Bernie.
2 9 INT. BANK - DAY - WITH FEET
as they cross the lobby. VOICES OVER AD-LIB; "Morning, Mr. Stopa." "Good morning." "Good morning, sir."
The feet pass down past a bench, and we see perhaps a dozen pairs of feet of people sitting on the bench: bare feet, sandaled feet, booted feet, wingtip-cordovan feet, more bare feet.
The booted feet of Chris Stopa climb the carpeted stairs, walk down an aisle past many pairs of secretary legs, all crossed and proffered suggestively. The feet reach a door, open it, and as they disappear inside, and the door is slammed, CAMERA RISES to show the glass panel that reads:
CHRIS STOPA Pres .
CUT TO:
3 0 INT. CHRIS'S OFFICE
as he flops into his chair, behind his desk. He is dressed in the height of current fashion, but not bizarre. His clothes are extremely cut, but obviously expensive. He looks like just what he is: a bank president who, if he so chooses, can wear whatever he wants. His secretary, NAN SUTHERLAND, brings in a sheaf of letters to be signed. She is young, rather attractive, but there is the look of the victim about her. She slaps the papers down and he starts signing.
(CONTINUED:)
CHRIS You're a creep, man. A spoiler. A goddam spoiler. Kill off the land, drive out the animals, let the hillside wash into the valley in the rainy season.
HARLAN ELLISON'S MOVIECHRIS You're a creep, man. A spoiler. A goddam spoiler. Kill off the land, drive out the animals, let the hillside wash into the valley in the rainy season.
CHRIS You're a creep, man. A spoiler. A goddam spoiler. Kill off the land, drive out the animals, let the hillside wash into the valley in the rainy season.
3 0          CONTINUED:
CHRIS (without looking up) Turn on the stereo, will you, Nan.
Nan goes over to the wall, pulls down a covering panel and turns on the pre-amp and turntable. She starts the machine and rock music swells--but softly--in the office.
CHRIS (CONT'D.) What've we got on this morning?
NAN Brillo and Jerry from the Ark. Kid named Frog with a dub of some group he's fronting. Penny and her old man from the Leather World.. Farmer named Tobul and his wife. And a coupla dozen other numbers.
As he signs the last letter, and flips it onto the completed stack:
CHRIS Okay, start running 'em in.
NAN Brillo and Jerry first?
CHRIS Right.
Nan exits and Chris starts pulling papers out of the desk drawers. The desktop is soon littered. The door opens and in come BRILLO and JERRY, the former black and tall, wearing wasted clothing and an Amerindian headband around his natural; the latter white and short and gay, but not offensively so.
(CONTINUED:)
1 9
3 0 CONTINUED: --2
CHRIS (CONT'D.) Hey, c'mon in. I'm trying to find that damned statement you sent me last week.
(beat) Damn!
(yells) Hev, Nan! Nan! Yo!
The door pops open and Nan sticks her face in.
CHRIS (CONT'D.) Hey, baby, where'd I put--
NAN Behind you, third drawer of the file rack. Yellow sheets on top.
She vanishes, and the door closes. Brillo and Jerry are amused. Chris turns around, fishes in the file, comes up with what he'd been after.
31 ON CHRIS
as he stares at a financial statement. He indicates chairs to Brillo and Jerry. They sit.
CHRIS You two are beautiful. Another three months you'll have the loan paid out.
BRILLO You the beautiful one, baby. Hadn't of been for you, we'd still be scufflin' sellin' posters an' alia that shit on Sunset.
Chris dismisses it with a wave of the hand.
CHRIS Stop hyping me. You two want (CONT'D.)
(CONTINUED:)
HARLAN ELLISON'S MOVIE
31    CONTINUED:
CHRIS (CONT'D.) something. What is it this time? Want to bust out a wall and buy another shop on the block?
BRILLO Better'n that. We wanna take over the world.
CHRIS Right on.
JERRY What we want to do, Chris, is build a flea market and lease out space to different shops.
Chris sits forward.
32    ON JERRY
as he reaches down beside his chair and brings up a loose-leaf notebook.
JERRY Look, we worked it all out with our guy, y'know, Teddy, the CPA? He says we can do it for--
As he speaks, his VOICE GOES TO ECHO CHAMBER and what he says REVERBERATES HEAVILY in the room:
JERRY (CONT'D.) --EIGHT HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS OF GLASS BEADS, CHEAP TRINKETS AND WAMPUM.
CHRIS (no echo chamber) Let me see what you've worked out.
(CONTINUED:)
2 1
32    CONTINUED:
He reaches out to take the notebook as Jerry leans in to hand it to him, and CAMERA COMES IN CLOSE ON NOTEBOOK as we
MATCH-CUT TO:
33    EXT. - DAY - (PROCESS)
Chris's hand pulls back with notebook as CAMERA PULLS BACK and we see all three of them sitting on the grass in Central Park, with Manhattan behind them. Chris is dressed like Peter Cooper, Brillo and Jerry are dressed like Indians. Chris examines the notebook.
CHRIS Now what the hell can I do with an island this size?
BRILLO Y'can always plant it in spinach greens, baby.
JERRY It's a fine opportunity, Chris. This could all be a bomb crater some day.
BRILLO Pour concrete all over it, turn it into a big parking lot.
CHRIS Who'd want to live in a place like this?
JERRY Millions of people!
CHRIS No, it's a bummer. All that crap in the air, dead fish in the harbor, my white shirt's dirty already. You'd (CONT'D.)
(CONTINUED:)
harlan Ellison's movie