:17:04
That's where the popcorn business
comes in.
:17:06
You buy yourself a bag
and plug up your ears.
:17:08
Look at them in the front offices,
the masterminds!
:17:12
They took the idols
and smashed them.
:17:14
The Fairbankses, the Gilberts,
the Valentinos!
:17:17
And who have we got now?
Some nobodies!
:17:20
Don't blame me.
I'm not an executive, just a writer.
:17:24
You are. Writing words,
words, more words!
:17:27
Well, you've made a rope of words
and strangled this business!
:17:30
But there's a microphone right there
to catch the last gurgles...
:17:33
and Technicolor to photograph
the red, swollen tongue!
:17:36
Shh. You'll wake up the monkey.
:17:38
Get out! Max!
:17:41
Next time I'll bring
my autograph album along.
:17:44
Or maybe a hunk of cement,
and ask for your footprint.
:17:52
- It's okay. Okay, I'm going.
-Just a minute, you.
:17:56
- You're a writer, you said.
- Why?
:17:58
Are you or aren't you?
:18:01
That's what it says
on my Guild card.
:18:02
And you have written pictures,
haven't you?
:18:06
Sure have.
Want a list of my credits?
:18:09
I want to ask you something.
Come in here.
:18:12
Last one I wrote was about Okies
in the Dust Bowl.
:18:15
You'd never know it, because
when it reached the screen...
:18:17
the whole thing
played on a torpedo boat.
:18:29
Intimate, isn't it?
:18:34
The wind gets in that blasted pipe
organ. I ought to have it taken out.
:18:37
Or teach it a better tune.
:18:40
Young man, tell me something.
:18:42
How long is a movie script
these days? I mean how many pages?
:18:46
Depends on what it is,
a Donald Duck or a Joan of Arc.
:18:48
This is to be
a very important picture.
:18:50
I've written it myself.
Took me years.
:18:54
Looks like enough
for six important pictures.
:18:56
It's a story of Salome.
I think I'll have DeMille direct it.
:18:59
DeMille? Uh-huh.