Read Inglourious Basterds Online
Authors: Quentin Tarantino
My name is Shosanna Dreyfus, and this is the face of Jewish vengeance! Marcel, BURN IT DOWN!
BEHIND THE SCREEN
Marcel takes his cigarette and FLICKS IT into the pile of nitrate film.
ONSCREEN SHOSANNA’S GIANT FACE LAUGHS MANIACALLY at the scrambling little Nazis, running in a panic, as FLAMES LIKE OUT OF
A GIANT BLAST FURNACE BURST THROUGH SHOSANNA’S FACE and CLIMB UP THE WALLS of the cinema.
The AUDIENCE
STAMPEDES toward the exits…
HIRSCHBERG
with bomb set on ankle, is caught in a massive “Day of the Locust” SWARM OF BODIES…
People frantically pound on locked doors, trapping them to their grizzly fate.
The FLAMES and FIRE spread through the auditorium…
Hirschberg, caught in the people crunch, knows this is it.
HIS ANKLE BOMB GOES OFF
right underneath everybody in the room.
The effect this has on the people in the room is very similar to that of the effect an M-80 blowing up in an ant hill would
have on the ants. The auditorium is a literal red rain of legs, arms, heads, torsos, and asses.
THEN… ,
DONOWITZ’S TOILET BOMB
BLOWS UP UNDERNEATH the auditorium.
COLLAPSING THE CINEMA AND BLOWING OUT THE FRONT OF THE THEATER.
As MADAME MIMEUX’S CINEMA BURNS…
These SUBTITLES APPEAR ONSCREEN as if on a military teletype:
FADE OUT
FADE UP
“HITLER DEAD. GOEBBELS DEAD. BORMANN DEAD. GOERING DEAD. ZOLLER DEAD. MOST OF HIGH COMMAND DEAD.”
FADE OUT
FADE IN
“FOUR DAYS LATER, GERMANY SURRENDERS.”
FADE OUT
FADE IN
“ONCE UPON A TIME IN NAZI…
OCCUPIED FRANCE.”
CUT TO
EXT—WOODS—MORNING
It’s a misty early morning in a woodsy area. The German truck, with Aldo and Utivich in the back, and Landa and Herrman in
the front, comes to a stop.
LANDA and HERRMAN IN THE TRUCK CAB
Herrman, behind the wheel, tells Landa in German:
These are the American lines, sir.
In the back of the truck sit the two last remaining members of the Basterds, Lt. Aldo Raine and Pfc. Smithson Utivich, both
with their hands cuffed behind their backs.
Landa and Herrman appear at the truck rear. Landa says in ENGLISH:
Okay, gentlemen, you can climb down.
Aldo and Utivich climb down from the truck.
Col. Landa indicates for Herrman to remove the handcuffs from the two prisoners.
He does.
Herrman, hand them your weapon.
He does.
Col. Landa hands over his LUGER and his very-cool-looking S.S. DAGGER.
I am officially surrendering myself over to you, Lieutenant Raine. We are your prisoners.
Thank you very much, Colonel. Utivich, cuff the colonel’s hands behind his back.
Is that really necessary?
As Utivich cuffs the Colonel’s hands behind his back, Aldo says:
I’m a slave to appearances.
Then Aldo takes the Luger and SHOOTS HERRMAN DEAD.
The bound Col. Landa is appalled.
Are you mad? What have you done? I made a deal with your general for that man’s life!
Yeah, they made that deal, but they don’t give a fuck about him, they need you.
You’ll be shot for this.
Naw, I don’t think so, more like I’ll be chewed out. I’ve been chewed out before. You know, Utivich and myself heard that
deal you made with the brass. End the war tonight? I’d make that deal. How ’bout you, Utivich, you make that deal?
I’d make that deal.
I don’t blame ya. Damn good deal. And that pretty little nest ya feathered for yourself. Well, if you’re willing to barbecue
the whole high command, I suppose that’s worth certain considerations. Now I don’t care about you gettin’ pensions, merit
badges, ticker-tape parades, who gives a damn, let’s all go home. But I do have one question.
When you go to your little place on Nantucket island, I imagine you gonna take off that handsome-looking S.S. uniform of yours,
ain’t ya?
For the first time in the movie, Col. Landa doesn’t respond.
That’s what I thought. Now that…… I can’t abide. How bout you, Utivich, can you abide it?
Not one damn bit, sir.
I mean if I had my way, you’d wear that goddamn uniform for the rest of our pecker-suckin’ life. But I’m aware that ain’t
practical. I mean at some point ya gotta hafta take it off.
He opens Landa’s S.S. DAGGER and holds the blade in front of Hans’s face.
So I’m gonna give you a little somethin you can’t take off.
CU COL. LANDA
The dagger has just completed carving a swastika deep into his forehead.
COL. LANDA’S POV
On the ground, looking up at Aldo, bloody knife in hand, who straddles him. And Utivich, who’s next to him. The two Basterds
admire Aldo’s handiwork.
Aldo turns to Uitivich and says:
You know somethin’, Utivich? I think this just might be my masterpiece.
They ghoulishly giggle.
CUT TO
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED
BY
QUENTIN TARANTINO