Die, Mommie, Die!

Edith Sussman:
I always knew Mother was nothing more than a cheap, hopped-up nymphomaniac.

Tony Parker:
Why do you hate your mother so?

Edith Sussman:
I hate her because she's a money-grubbing selfish b*tch who ruined my father's life, and a promiscuous slut who spends all my father's hard-earned money on trash like you!

Tony Parker:
That's not good enough.

Edith Sussman:
What kind of a crazy world is this? My father's dead and my mother's gigolo shows up ready for some hot action!

Angela Arden:
Darling daughter, you sound like a square from Squaresville.

Angela Arden:
I'm in no mood for your patented brand of bitchery, missy.

Lance Sussman:
Buster, if you want any singin' outta me, you better haul out that bratwurst and spread some mustard on it.

Angela Arden:
I hate this house! I hate these walls... I hate that sofa! The only part of this dump that doesn't make me puke is that door - because that's the way I'm gettin' out!

Lance Sussman:
[Lance, unexpectedly home from college, has hidden behind the stairs and jumps up and scares Angela] Arrrrh!

Angela Arden:
Lance! You scared the bejesus out of me!

Lance Sussman:
[Chuckling] Kiss me, you beautiful creature.

Lance Sussman:
[Upon kissing Lance on the lips] Do I smell pot?

Lance Sussman:
Gee, mom, you got me on that one.

Angela Arden:
Listen, baby, I'm not one of your friends' square old ladies. I toured with a band. I'm quite familiar with reefer, and fully acquainted with its dangers.

Lance Sussman:
You're the coolest mom ever!

Angela Arden:
What are you doing home from school?

Lance Sussman:
The anti-war demonstration... yeah! Students took over the president's office, they sent the rest of us kids home.

Angela Arden:
[Somewhat skeptical] Oh, really?

Lance Sussman:
My friend Ruth... gave the associate dean a saltwater enema.

Angela Arden:
I need a drink.

Angela Arden:
[Pouring drinks] Scotch for me, Pepsi for you.

Lance Sussman:
Mom!

Angela Arden:
Oh, I suppose a "splash" of bourbon won't kill ya'!

Sol Sussman:
[Sol is in his den, on the phone, pleading with a money lender of apparently dubious character. Bootsie, the maid, passes by in an adjoining hallway and begins to eavesdrop the conversation] There were extenuating circumstances... Well, you're not in the movie business so you wouldn't understand. These things were beyond my control... What?

Sol Sussman:
- [Bootsie, still eavesdropping, enters one of the nearby doors to get closer to Sol's den. Sol's agitated phone conversation continues] It's impossible... You gotta' give me... You gotta'... Please! Oh, God...

Sol Sussman:
[the sound of the phone receiver slamming down is heard] Oh my God!... Oh my God!... Oh my God!... Oh my God!...

Bootsie Carp:
[Alarmed at hearing Sol in obvious distress, Bootsie enters his den] Are you sick, Mr. S? Should I call Dr. Mendell?

Sol Sussman:
No, no... Nathan Mendell I don't need.

Bootsie Carp:
[Sitting down in front of his desk] Talk to Bootsie. Let her help.

Sol Sussman:
- [Confused and despondent] I... I... I'm out of date. I'm out of touch. My kind of movies' pleas for tolerance of the Jew or the Negro or the immigrant Italian are made a mockery of today. These kids in the beards, they seek to tear down the Establishment. When the f*** did I become the Establishment?

Sol Sussman:
[Sympathetically] You're a great man, Mr. S.

Sol Sussman:
[Agitated] I'm finished. I'm kaput! Bootsie, the only way I could finance this film was to borrow money from... "less than reputable" associates.

Bootsie Carp:
[Slightly shocked] The "Mob"?

Sol Sussman:
The gods have turned against me. The rotten weather, an actress dying and... now the film has fallen apart. They're threatening to give me a bath in cement if I don't pay up! Bootsie, you're lookin' at a corpse.

Bootsie Carp:
[Solemnly quoting Biblical scripture] "He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty." Proverbs, 16.

Sol Sussman:
It's Angela. She's a witch! She put a curse on me! Oh, God! Oh, God! God, God, God, God... [Sol breaks down, sobbing and wailing. Bootsie goes over to console him in her arms]

Sol Sussman:
[At the dinner table: Lance is toying with his soup, blowing on spoonfuls of it, but not actually eating it. Sol looks on, increasingly annoyed] Lance, just DRINK the goddamned soup!

Lance Sussman:
Sorry, daddy.

Angela Arden:
[Addressing Lance in a "secret language," apparently understood only by she and Lance. Subtitles provide the translation] I don't blame you. The soup stinks.

Lance Sussman:
[Replying in the same "secret language"] It smell like dirty socks.

Angela Arden:
[Again using the "secret language"] Bootsie cuts your dad's socks up and throws them in the soup.

Sol Sussman:
[Angela and Lance chuckle over their secret joking. Sol, enraged, gets up and lunges at Lance] God DAMMIT! You eat normal, or we're gonna' shut you away in an institution!

Lance Sussman:
No, daddy, don't...

Angela Arden:
How dare you speak to your son like that!

Sol Sussman:
I'm ashamed to have such a son.

Angela Arden:
[Contemptuously] The "great man"! The "conscience" of the Industry! How about a little sympathy and tolerance for your own family?

Sol Sussman:
I have NO sympathy for you, baby. And none for him, either. [Sol glares pointedly at Lance]

Sol Sussman:
My son, the Loser!

Lance Sussman:
YOU'RE the Loser! The FLOP!

Angela Arden:
[Enraged, Sol slaps Lance across the face and Lance gets up and runs out of the room. Angela gets up and looks after Lance in dismay] Lance...

Sol Sussman:
[All the commotion has upset the family's twin Pekinese dogs, whose noisy barking can be heard in the background. This enrages Sol even more] Monsters! They get put to sleep tomorrow! Sit down, Angela... SIT DOWN!

Angela Arden:
[In the car with Sol, coming back from the theater where they have just seen the Greek tragedy "The House of Atreus," in which Queen Clytemnestra stabs Agamemnon to death] Well, I thought the murder scene was beautifully staged. The character of Queen Clytemnestra was almost... sympathetic. Aren't you glad I made you renew our theater subscriptions?

Sol Sussman:
[Annoyed] Oh, Angela, shut up. The best performance tonight was you pretending to be a wife!

Edith Sussman:
You seem so sad and tired since you got back from Spain. What's wrong, daddy? You can tell me. We're soul mates.

Sol Sussman:
Well, then I'll confide in you. It's just this God-awful constipation. Before I go to sleep I'm supposed to take a suppository. Well, nobody ever said it was gonna' be easy being an old Jew.

Sol Sussman:
Never forget that you're half Sussman. And the other half, that strange, Canadian goyish of flotsam... that, you can dismiss.

Edith Sussman:
It's your blood that I'm proud of.

Sol Sussman:
You are my daughter, my immortality. What is our motto?

Edith Sussman:
Make it big... give it Class... and leave 'em with a message!

Sol Sussman:
Yeah!

Angela Arden:
You know, I Magnin is having a sale on go-go boots. We could make a day of it.

Edith Sussman:
Go-go boots? They're about as ancient as a hoop skirt.

Angela Arden:
Then I could use your able assistance as a fashion consultant.

Edith Sussman:
Well, my first bit of advice, mother, would be to cancel your next face lift, and start acting your age.

Angela Arden:
[Inserting, with apparent difficulty, a large suppository in Sol] You're very tight. You must do your utmost to relax.

Sol Sussman:
Relax? How can I relax with a nuclear warhead up my rectum?

Angela Arden:
[to Lance] Are you... a cocksucker?

Bootsie Carp:
[Gathered outside the house after Sol's death: police are talking to family members, and paramedics are preparing to take Sol's body away] Mrs. S, it's best that I go. You're much too fragile, and way too famous.

Policeman:
Mrs. Sussman, that'll be all for now. You've been very helpful.

Angela Arden:
And you're a delight. I can't get over... you're all so darned good looking. You could be actors!

Edith Sussman:
[Edith is sitting at the poolside, mourning the passing of her father. Tony Parker shows up] How dare you show your face in this house less than 24 hours after my father's death?

Tony Parker:
Sorry you feel that way, Edie. But perhaps... I can be of some comfort to your mother.

Edith Sussman:
Well I'm afraid you can't. Mother's out with my brother Lance. He's helping her adjust to her new widowhood. [Scene briefly changes to show Lance on his motorcycle, Angela on the back, whooping and laughing it up]

Edith Sussman:
- What kind of a crazy world is this? My father's dead, and my mother's gigolo shows up, ready for some hot action?

Tony Parker:
I suppose I deserved that. Would you believe, the last thing I wanted to do was betray your father?

Edith Sussman:
[Sarcastically] Oh... like REALLY!

Tony Parker:
I don't ask your forgiveness... it's almost as if I didn't have a choice. Your mother is a sorceress. She casts a hypnotic spell over a man. You possess that same magic, Edie.

Edith Sussman:
I do? [Tony looks at her and nods]

Edith Sussman:
No... you're not to be trusted!

Tony Parker:
[Tony and Edith are now in the pool. Tony hugs Edith tightly] Edie - lovely, smooth, sweet Edie. I want to know everything about you: your favorite color, your favorite movie star... do you think your mother killed your father?

Edith Sussman:
Canary yellow, Carole Lynley, and yes, I know she did it but I can't prove a thing... Oh! Tony, I think you just broke my hymen...

Tony Parker:
I heard your father died of a massive heart attack.

Edith Sussman:
So they said. But there's something not right about it.

Tony Parker:
Being a man of the world, I have friends in interesting places. Mind if I... do a little leg work?

Edith Sussman:
Yeah, sure... But I thought you were under mother's spell?

Tony Parker:
Haven't you heard? There's a new witch in town.

Angela Arden:
Where is Edith? We're going to be late for the funeral.

Bootsie Carp:
I do worry about that child. But as my wise uncle Enoch used to say, "As ketchup is to meatloaf, so sorrow is a condiment to joy."

Sam Fishbein:
[At the funeral parlor: a producer friend passionately eulogizes Sol] Let us mourn the loss of a "warrior king," felled not in the field of battle, but by coronary thrombosis. As a producer myself, I would have preferred to see a man with Sol Sussman's stature lying in state: a draped catafalque, burning tapers... It distresses me that such a man should be hurriedly cremated like a mongrel DOG at the pound!

Bootsie Carp:
Amen! At last the truth is spoken.

Angela Arden:
[Back at the house after the funeral for Sol] Bootsie, remove some of these floral tributes. They're wilting and I can't bear to be surrounded by more death.

Bootsie Carp:
I think I'll put some of these petals in the pages of my bible.

Angela Arden:
As you wish.

Angela Arden:
[Back at the house: Angela has just kicked Tony Parker out. Lance and Edith sit nearby] And that goes for all of you. I'm clearin' out the dead wood.

Angela Arden:
[She pauses to pour herself a large tumbler of bourbon] This is as good a time as any to announce that I'm selling the house to the first bidder.

Edith Sussman:
You wouldn't!

Angela Arden:
Edith, I don't want to hear a word about it. I am sick and tired of living my life for others. This is a time for Angela Arden. This time it's for me, for Me, for ME!

Lance Sussman:
But mother...

Angela Arden:
[Ignoring Edith's and Lance's protests] I hate this house, I hate these walls, I hate that sofa... The only part of this dump that doesn't make me puke is that door, because that's the way I'm gettin' out.

Edith Sussman:
You can't sell this house.

Angela Arden:
I'm bringing down these walls around us. To quote the kids in the ghetto, "Burn, baby, burn!" [She tosses her tumbler of bourbon into the fire: a large plume of fire flashes up]

Lance Sussman:
[With Edith at a table in a diner] Edie, aren't you gonna' eat your cole slaw?

Edith Sussman:
It's time you faced the truth: our mother murdered our father.

Lance Sussman:
Hold the coleslaw...

Edith Sussman:
She poisoned him.

Lance Sussman:
He died of a heart attack.

Edith Sussman:
Oh, many rich old men that die of heart attacks are really the victims of arsenic poisoning. Tony told me so.

Lance Sussman:
When did he tell you that?

Edith Sussman:
It doesn't matter.

Lance Sussman:
Well, Bootsie told me she was with the coroner when he performed the autopsy. There was no trace of arsenic in his stomach.

Edith Sussman:
What if mother was clever and found another way to slip him the arsenic? A method devised to bypass the digestive track?

Lance Sussman:
I'm confused...

Edith Sussman:
The night daddy died he was complaining of constipation. The doctor prescribed a powerful suppository. Suppose mother found a way of tampering with the laxative?

Edith Sussman:
I don't believe it.

Edith Sussman:
You are Sol Sussman's only son. It's up to you to avenge his death!

Lance Sussman:
What do you want me to do?

Edith Sussman:
Kill mother!

Lance Sussman:
No! [Lance jumps up and runs out]

Edith Sussman:
[In a public bathroom: Lance has taken cover in one of the stalls, while Edith is in the outer part of the bathroom, trying to find him and talk to him] Lance, why can't you accept the fact that mother is a murderess and a whore?

Edith Sussman:
[Apparently Edith has been talking to the wrong stall: an unknown man comes out, causing Edith to walk further down the row, looking underneath each stall for a sign of Lance] Lance... it's no use hiding from me OR the truth. Lance!

Lance Sussman:
Leave me alone! I'm not listening to you.

Edith Sussman:
You will listen!

Lance Sussman:
Leave me alone. My head... it's pounding, pounding.

Edith Sussman:
Yes, it's pounding. Sometimes it feels like there's an atom bomb inside your head that's waitin' to go "pow!"

Lance Sussman:
Get OUT of here!

Edith Sussman:
It's time you heard the truth. Daddy said it was the drugs. The pill-popping that mother did during the pregnancy that made you the way you are.

Lance Sussman:
Leave me alone.

Edith Sussman:
[Lance and Edith are now over at the sink area, where Lance splashes his face with water] There was something wrong with your brain. Made you a little "slow." Made it hard for you to understand things.

Lance Sussman:
[Confused] What?

Edith Sussman:
Don't you see? It's not your fault, it's HERS... because mom was so selfish and evil that she wouldn't give up her precious sleeping pills.

Edith Sussman:
[Unknown man approaches sink area; Edith snarls at him] F*** off!

Edith Sussman:
Lance, she destroyed you. She turned your brains into mush. Into creamed spinach.

Lance Sussman:
She didn't... It's not true! YOU'RE the b*tch! YOU'RE the one I'd like to kill! [Lance runs from the restroom]

Angela Arden:
Sweetie? Sweetie, these angels need to be walked.

Edith Sussman:
Translation: Get the hell out of here so I could be shrew to your father in private.

Bootsie Carp:
You've never fooled me! You're nothing but trash washed over the Canadian border!

Bootsie Carp:
Men are like Halloween pumpkins. They may look different but inside they're all the same mush.

Tony Parker:
You can't discard me like one of your false eyelashes!