Jesus, don’t remind me. No, I was thinking that I balled a guy once on horseback.
201. PLUTO POV SOPHIE.
(Interested.) Oh?
202. SOPHIE POV PLUTO.
In the winter...
203. PLUTO POV SOPHIE.
(Shivering.) Oh.
204. SOPHIE POV PLUTO.
...in Florida...
205. PLUTO POV SOPHIE, still eating, happier.
Oh.
He was a jockey at Hialeah. He had crabs.
Oh.
He also had penicillin.
(Brightening.) Oh.
Which has no effect on crabs.
(Unbrightening.) Oh, right. No help there.
206. SOPHIE POV PLUTO. She is smoking a cigarette now.
None whatsoever. So I went home and passed them on to my third husband. That’s how he died.
207. PLUTO POV SOPHIE.
Crabs’ll get you every time.
208. Two-shot.
Eat you alive. DISSOLVE:
209. Same place, but we DISSOLVE to a shot of an over-stuffed ashtray. SOPHIE’S hand appears and stubs out a cigarette. Pullback and we see that PLUTO still has about half his ice cream. We are in a two-shot.
...before the Nazis, see. The Weimar Republic. Cabaret... Lotte Lenya... Kurt Weill... Liza Minelli... decadence...
And at the center of it—
At the center of everything, you.
What the hell, I’m game. I haven’t been back to show business since the number with the pony, but I’m still a trouper at heart. Let’s go. (PLUTO eats ice cream.)
What are we waiting for, Pluto?
Just a few more bites—
What is it with you and ice cream, anyway?
Well, it’s hard to get back home. You know, doesn’t keep well. One of the benefits of business travel is—
(Cutting in, impatient.) Pluto— (He manages one massive spoonful, snaps fingers, etc.)
210. Interior of a nightclub. The place is loaded with smoke. There is a bar at the rear and tables toward the front where there is a stage. The whole place has a bluish cast to it. Subdued lighting throughout. Each table has a red candle burning on it. There are lights in different colors on the walls. General hubbub, occasional almost recognizable words, etc. The first shot is on the bar where we see a beer mug get filled with draft and then get its head knocked off. The camera follows it down the length of the bar where it is finally grabbed and a woman takes a drink of it. There is a comedian on the stage, stand-up monologue type. The audience is the most blasé in the universe. He (the comedian) gets no applause, no laughter, only hostile stares from those who even bother to acknowledge his existence. This is a montage sequence.
(Mit German accent.) Funny thing happened to me in the theater last night. The guy next to me was masturbating. “Ignore him,” my friend says to me. So I said to him, “I can’t, he’s using my hand.” (Waits in vain for a laugh.) But seriously, folks, it’s really a pleasure for me to be here tonight. There’s no audience like a Berlin audience. Always laughing and happy. I mean, who ever saw a sour Kraut? (Waits in vain for a laugh.) Moving right along, this guy came up to me tonight and said to me, “Hey, mister, you want to get screwed?” So I said, “Yeah.” So he said, “Here, cash my check.” (Waits in vain for a laugh.) But really, folks, when I left here last night there’s this drunk outside the club. He hails a cab and leans over to the driver and asks him. These are all real conversations I’m reporting to you, folks. So this guy leans over to the driver and asks him, he asks him, “Hey, you got room in that cab for three kegs of beer?” So the driver says, “Sure.” So the guy leans in back and goes (Imitates guy throwing up disgustingly.) See what he did, he leaned into the cab and... (Trails off, still waiting for a laugh.) Well, I want to thank you all, folks, for being such a wonderful audience. You know, like Lady Godiva said when she got off her horse, “I come to my clothes.” You know, Lady Godiva was — Ha ha ha, okay, goodnight everybody, and God bless. (Throughout this dreck we have a montage of the totally bored audience. If one waiter happens to look like Hitler, that would be a nice touch. Now the EMCEE comes out, very bouncy.)
Isn’t he something, ladies and gentlemen? That was Crazy Otto, ladies and gentlemen, and let’s give him another great big hand. (Waits in vain for applause.) So it goes. And now, ladies and gentlemen, let’s have a special Berlin welcome for the little girl you’ve all been waiting for, the star of our show, fresh from her engagement at the Scheisskopf Room of the exclusive Club Gotterdammerung, and now appearing live on our stage, that little bundle of dynamite, that vun-derbar Wehrmacht— (Fanfare.) Sophie!!! (A warm follow spot picks up.)
Leg at the split of the curtain. She comes on stage dressed right out of Cabaret, decadent make-up, etc. We see her, but what we hear is the audience suddenly beginning to pay attention. We have a shot of everybody staring at her, and then we close on her as she belts her big number. SONG: HE NEVER TOUCHED MY HEART
My first man was a doctor
His bedside manner was keen
His diagnosis cured my thrombosis
And straightened out my spleen
The way he wielded his scalpel
Just tore my tissues apart
But all his pretty pills failed to cure my ills.
He never touched my heart
CHORUS
He was a good man, he was a true man.
A master of the lover’s art
He touched all the right buttons
But he never touched my heart
My second man was a lawyer—
His piercing skill was just grand
Like Perry Mason he won each case in the
Highest court in the land
He cross-examined me closely
God, the fellow was smart
But all his winning wit didn’t help a bit—
He never touched my heart
CHORUS
(Repeat first CHORUS lines.)
My third man was a policeman
The protector of Central Park
He walked the border of law and order
And kept me safe after dark.
The way he handled his nightstick
Filled me with awe from the start
But badge and gun and stick couldn’t turn
the trick. He never touched my heart
CHORUS
(Repeat first CHORUS lines.)