The Anatomy of Story (64 page)

4. The consequence of this kind of business, says Potter, is a discontented lazy rabble instead of a thrifty working class. I lore is the sinister implication of Potter's system of values: America is a class society in which Potter feels justified ruling those in the lower class. At this point, the dialogue may go too far: Potter is not only the classic patriarch but also the evil capitalist.

5. Potter ends by attacking the very thing that George represents: the starry-eyed dreamer and the sort of personal, communal contact that makes a town a worthwhile place in which to live.

George's argument and values

KEY POINT:
The
writers
set up George's argument by having his father

make the same case to him a few scenes before, at which time George gave

the opposing view. This makes George's eloquence both more believable

and more poignant.

1. George makes a brilliant opening move by conceding a point to Potter: his father was no businessman, and he himself has no taste for the penny-ante Building and Loan.

2. He then shifts the argument so that it is primarily about his father. His father was selfless, although that selflessness resulted in neither George nor Harry being able to go to college.

3. He attacks Potter on Porter's ground, which is business. He says that his father helped others get out of Potter's slums, and that made them better citizens and better customers, able to increase the wealth and welfare of the entire community.

4. He kicks the argument up a level by making the case for the heroism of the little man. The people that Potter called "lazy rabble" are the ones who do most of the working and paying and living and dying in the community. They are, in short, the strength of the community, its heart and soul. And if the community is to be a place where all people can have fulfilling lives, then no one can be treated as a member of a lower class.

5. George concludes with the most essential argument of all, that of the inalienable rights of a human being. His father treated people as human beings, as ends in themselves, whereas Potter treats people as cattle, as mindless animals to be herded wherever he chooses. In other words, Potter treats them as means to his own end, the end of making money.

KEY POINT:
At the same time the writers make their most encompassing argument—the rights of the common man—they are also focusing on the most personal level, with the key line and key word coming last.

Potter is doing all of this, says George, because he is "a warped, frustrated old man." This line is crucially important in the film, not simply because it describes Potter but even more because frustration is George's most obvious characteristic.

Now comes the final line, the endpoint of the scene: "Well, in my book [my father] died a much richer man than you'll ever be!" One word, "richer," has two different values. The more obvious one—how much money a person makes—defines Potter. But the deeper one, meaning a personal contribution to others and from others in return, defines George.

■ KeyWord
Richer.

INT. BAILEY BUILDING AND LOAN OFFICE—DAY

POTTER

Peter Bailey was not a business man. That's what killed him. He was a man of high ideals, so called, but ideals without common sense can ruin this town.

(picking up papers from table)
Now you take this loan here to Ernie Bishop . . . You know, that fellow that sits around all day on his brains in his taxi. You know ... I happen to know the bank turned down this loan, but he comes here and we're building him a house worth five thousand dollars. Why?

George is at the door of the office, holding his coat and papers, ready to leave.

GEORGE

Well, I handled that, Mr. Potter. You have all the papers there. His salary, insurance. I can personally vouch for his character.

POTTER

(sarcastically)
A friend of yours?

GEORGE

Yes, sir.

POTTER

You see, if you shoot pool with some employee here, you can come and borrow money. What does that get us? A discontented, lazy rabble instead of a thrifty working class. And all because a few starry-eyed dreamers like Peter Bailey stir them up and fill their heads with a lot of impossible ideas. Now I say . . .

George puts down his coat and comes around to the table, incensed by what Potter is saying about his father.

GEORGE

Just a minute—just a minute. Now, hold on, Mr. Potter. You're
right

when you say thai my father was no
business
man. I know that. Why he ever started this cheap, penny-ante Building and Loan, I'll
never
know. But neither you nor anyone else can say anything against his character, because his whole life was . . . Why, in the twenty-five years since he and Uncle Billy started this thing, he never once thought of himself. Isn't that right, Uncle Billy? He didn't save enough money to send
Harry
to school, let alone me. But he
did
help a few people get out of your slums, Mr. Potter. And what's wrong with that . . . Here, you're all businessmen here. Doesn't it make them better citizens? Doesn't it make them better customers? You . . . you said . . . What'd you just say a minute ago? . . . They had to wait and save their money before they even ought to think of a decent home? Wait! Wait for what? Until their children grow up and leave them? Until they're so old and broken down that they . . . Do you know how long it takes a working man to save five thousand dollars? Just remember this, Mr. Potter, that this rabble you're talking about. . . they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community. Well, is it too much to have them work and pay and live and die in a couple of decent rooms and a bath? Anyway, my
father
didn't think so. People were human beings to him, but to you, a warped, frustrated old man, they're cattle. Well, in my book he died a much richer man than you'll ever be!

Shadow of a Doubt

(story by Gordon McDonell, screenplay by Thornton Wilder, Sally Benson,

and Alma Reville)

Shadow of a Doubt
is probably the best thriller script ever written. It is the story of dapper Uncle Charlie who comes to stay with his sister's family in a small American town. His niece, Young Charlie, worships him but comes to believe that he may be the serial killer known as the Merry Widow Murderer.

Thornton Wilder's script is a model for combining drama techniques with the thriller genre to transcend the form. This approach can be seen in the famous scene in which Uncle Charlie hints at his moral justification for the murders. A lesser writer would have made the killer opaque, an evil

monster who needs no justification because he is inherently monstrous. But that would reduce the story to the chronicle of a killing machine.

Instead, Wilder gives the killer a detailed and
understandable
moral argument, which makes this man far more terrifying. Uncle Charlie attacks the dark underbelly of American life—the grasping for money and the vast majority who never realize the American dream—which the rest of us try to sweep under the rug.

■ Position on the Character Arc The opponent does not have a character arc of his own in the story. But this scene occurs at a crucial point in the hero's development. Young Charlie is already deeply suspicious of the uncle she once worshiped. But she is at this moment teetering between her old attraction and her new revulsion. And she is desperate to understand how and why this could happen.

■ Problem How do you have the opponent suggest his motive for killing without coming right out and admitting it?

■ Strategy Put the entire family around the dinner table so that the justification will be within the family and part of everyday, normal American life. Have Uncle Charlie's sister, Mrs. Newton, tell him he will be giving a talk to her women's club so that Uncle Charlie can have a natural reason to muse about older women. Then have the horrifying come out of the mundane.

■ Desire Uncle Charlie wants to justify his loathing for women, especially older women, to his niece and scare her off as well.

■ Endpoint He finds he has gone too far.

■ Opponent His niece, Young Charlie.

■ Plan Uncle Charlie uses an indirect plan of philosophizing about city women in general, which both preserves his cover and also makes the point to the one person at the table he knows will understand.

■ Conflict Even though Young Charlie counterattacks only once, the conflict builds steadily through Uncle Charlie's increasingly hateful view of women.

■ Twist or Reveal The dapper Uncle Charlie thinks most older women are no better than animals that should be put to death.

■ Moral Argument and Values
Uncle Charlie's moral argument is terrifyingly precise. He begins by calling older women useless. Then he reduces them to sensual beasts devouring money. He ends with the argument that it is actually morally right to put such fat old animals out of their misery. The values in opposition are usefulness and human versus money, sensuality, uselessness, and animals.
■ Key Words
Money, wives, useless, greedy, animals.

This dialogue is chilling because it is simultaneously mundane and murderous. It begins with everyday husbands and wives but moves toward the point of view of women as animals. Notice that the key last line is in the form of a question. Uncle Charlie doesn't come right out and say that these women should be slaughtered. He asks his niece what should be done, and the force of his terrible logic can allow her no other conclusion.

The brilliance of the scene construction and dialogue can be found even in the comical bit that Wilder tags onto the end. Uncle Charlie's older sister, Mrs. Newton, is blissfully unaware of what her younger brother is really saying. So she brings the scene back to its origin, Uncle Charlie's talk to her women's club, which the audience knows is like letting the wolf guard the henhouse. And Uncle Charlie's mothering older sister has a nice widow already picked out for him.

INT. DINING ROOM-NIGHT

Uncle Charlie is now pouring out the wine. He does this meticulously, talking casually:

UNCLE CHARLIE What kind of audience will it be?

MRS. NEWTON Oh, women like myself. Pretty busy with our homes, most of us.

MR. NEWTON

Women's clubs!

ROGER

For a while it was astrology.

ANN

When I get up my next club, I'm going to have it a reading club. I'm going to be the treasurer and buy all the books.

Uncle Charlie passes the glasses around.

CLOSE UP-YOUNG CHARLIE

Receives her glass of wine. She abruptly drains half of it. Her eyes return

to Uncle Charlie.

Uncle Charlie seems to be in a brooding mood for a moment; then says

from some deep, inner resentment:

UNCLE CHARLIE Women keep busy in towns like this. In the cities it's different. The cities are full of women . . . middle aged . . . widows . . . their husbands are dead . . . the husbands who've spent their lives making thousands . . . working . . . working . . . working . . . and then they die and leave their money to their wives . . . their silly wives. And what do the wives do? These useless women? You see them in . . . hotels, the best hotels, every day by the thousands . . . eating the money, drinking the money, losing the money at bridge . . . playing all afternoon and all night. . . smelling of money . . . proud of their jewelry . . . proud of nothing else . . . horrible, faded, fat and greedy women . . .

Suddenly Young Charlie's voice cuts in from the f.g. [foreground]

YOUNG CHARLIE'S VOICE
(a cry wrung from her)
But they're alive! They're human beings!

He looks up across at her, as though awakened.

UNCLE CHARLIE Are they? Are they, Charlie? Are they human or are they fat, wheezing animals? And what happens to animals when they get too fat and too old?

(he suddenly calms down)

(laughing)
I seem to be making a speech here.

YOUNG CHARLIE

Hastily picks up her fork. Her eyes lowered. We hear Mrs. Newton say.

MRS. NEWTON Well, for heaven's sake, Charles, don't talk about women like that in front of my club. You'll be tarred and feathered! The idea!
(teasing him)

And that nice Mrs. Potter is going to be there, too. She was asking about you.

Monologue

Monologue is an especially valuable technique in the storyteller's craft. Dialogue lets the writer get at truth and emotion through the crucible of conflict between two or more characters. Monologue gets at truth and emotion through the crucible of conflict a person has with himself.