The Oscar

Hymie Kelly:
[narrating] Man, he wanted to swallow Hollywood like a cat with a canary. And he did it! The parts got bigger, and Frankie was hooked! Like a junkie shooting pure quicksilver into his veins, Frankie got turned on by the wildest narcotic known to man: success! The parts got bigger and bigger... Frankie got hungrier and hungrier.

Frankie:
I never said anything about creaming Barney Yale.

Hymie Kelly:
Birdseed!

Kay Bergdahl:
Frankie, you are *rude* and *nasty*, and *impossible*. Absolutely *impossible*.

Frankie Fane:
Will you stop beating on my ears, I'm up to here with all this bring-down!

Frankie Fane:
You a tourist or a native?

Kay Bergdahl:
Take one from column A and two from column B, you get an egg roll either way.

Frankie Fane:
[laughing] I have a feeling I'm not gonna get anywhere with you.

Kay Bergdahl:
All depends, where you'd like to get.

Frankie Fane:
Mostly I'd like to get alone with you somewhere.

Hymie Kelly:
[thinking] You finally made it, Frankie! Oscar night! And here you sit, on top of a glass mountain called "success." You're one of the chosen five, and the whole town's holding its breath to see who won it. It's been quite a climb, hasn't it, Frankie? Down at the bottom, scuffling for dimes in those smokers, all the way to the top. Magic Hollywood! Ever think about it? I do, friend Frankie, I do...

Kay:
Sometimes I get the feeling, Frankie, you ought to be chained up with a ring in your nose.

Frankie Fane:
So just go sliding back in there and tell 'em game called on account of Oscar. That's right. *Oscar*.

Bob Hope:
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the annual Academy Award show. This is Hollywood's big night, so naturally we're holding it in Santa Monica.

[audience laughs]

Bob Hope:
I'm emceeing the awards because they wanted someone who could lose and keep smiling...

[audience laughs]

Bob Hope:
- and I've had the most practice.

[audience laughs]

Bob Hope:
This night means a lot to everyone in the movie industry. This is the night war and politics are forgotten, and we find out who we *really* hate.

[audience laughs and applauds]

Sheriff:
Hymie Kelly. Where'd ya get the name Kelly, *Hymie*?

Hymie Kelly:
From my father, Michael Kelly! And he got it from his father, Timothy Kelly! And my mother's name was Sadie Rabinowitz, any more questions?

Grobard:
You got a pretty feisty mouth!

Frankie Fane:
And you got a glass head, I can see right through it! It's how I know you're stupid!

Laurel Scott:
[sighs] Things haven't been going so good for us the past couple of months, have they?

Frankie Fane:
What you mean is, I'm not workin', so I'm a creep!

Laurel Scott:
You could get a job, Frankie. It wouldn't kill you.

Frankie Fane:
[grabs Laurel] Tell me all about it. You twitch your hips and you think that's ten years on the road guy. Well, nobody ever gave me a dime that I didn't have to sweat for! So knock off with this lazy slob routine!

Laurel Scott:
You hurt me, Frankie!

Frankie Fane:
Send me a bill.

Laurel Scott:
I've gotta go to work. But when I come back you and me are gonna have a talk!

Frankie Fane:
Sure. You'll like talking to yourself!

Kay Bergdahl:
You're wasting your time. I'm not the kind of woman who uses sex as a release or, or even as a weapon.

Frankie Fane:
You always talk like that?

Kay Bergdahl:
I try.

Frankie Fane:
Then do me a favor, will ya, try droppin' it with me, I'm not that smart. You free thinkers confuse me.

Kay Bergdahl:
Let me put it this way. I think I have more to offer than just my body.

Frankie Fane:
[mocking] Now I understand.

Kay Bergdahl:
I am the end result of everything I've ever learned, all I ever hope to be, and all the experiences I've ever had.

Frankie Fane:
How many experiences have you had?

Kay Bergdahl:
None. But when the right time comes I'll be special for some man. So it's worth waiting for.

Kay Bergdahl:
If a woman doesn't treasure herself, how can a man treasure her?

Frankie Fane:
You make my head hurt with all that poetry.

Kay Bergdahl:
[laughs] I think you try awfully hard not to understand people.

Laurel Scott:
Ever since we hit this town you've been living off me. If you think I'm gonna work my tail off so you can run around with the Village chicks... oh, stop spreading the pollen around, Frankie, or else!

Frankie Fane:
Or else what? You'll chop my allowance? You'll turn me out of your warm bed? You're *nothin'*, that's what! So can that "or else" crap!

Kay Bergdahl:
Don't you understand *how* you embarrassed me in there? Who do you think you are, Frankie, just who do you think you are?

Frankie Fane:
I'm *me*. And that's plenty good enough.

Frankie Fane:
Wha... Why do I... Why do I always try to destroy the people I love?

Sophie Cantaro:
I want him to be *my* discovery, it's very important to me.

Alfred 'Kappy' Kapstetter:
Is it... is it possible he's *too* important?

Hymie Kelly:
[narrating] He was living in a posh place just off the Strip. It was a far cry from the motels we used to crawl into. It had hot and cold running everything!

Frankie Fane:
Speaking of broads, whatever happened to Laurel?

Hymie Kelly:
I married her.

Frankie Fane:
Oh yeah? How is she?

Hymie Kelly:
She died.

Frankie Fane:
What'd you say?

Hymie Kelly:
I said she died.

Sam:
He's in a funky mood today.

Hymie Kelly:
Well, you know that pattern, every time he starts a new picture, snarly Fane, the boy-faced dog.

Sam:
Miss Cheryl Barker. Butter would melt in her mouth.

Hymie Kelly:
[laughs] Why not? She's got a hot mouth.

Kay Bergdahl:
You represent everything I *loathe*, Frankie!

Frankie Fane:
You mean everything you *love*!

Sophie Cantaro:
I don't know why I keep expecting you to act like other men when you're not... you're another kind of machine entirely. You bleed, you cry...

Frankie Fane:
No, Sophie. I don't care about anything that much.

Frankie Fane:
You know, I think you go a little soft in the gourd early in the morning.

Sophie Cantaro:
[angrily] Look at me when you talk to me! I'm not some sort of garbage pail you can slap a lid on and walk away!

Hymie Kelly:
[narrating] Frankie found himself married, but, uh, he still couldn't change his feelings about women. So his only avenue was escape. He employed the slimy services of the Hymie Kelly broad-procuring agency. I was running out of numbers! He used 'em like Kleenex! Once, and threw 'em away!

Kay Bergdahl:
Hymie, deep thinker, explain to me the ethical structure of the universe.

Kay Bergdahl:
Do you know what I do, Hymie? I count nights. I found a Freudian substitute for counting sheep. I count empty nights.

Kenneth Regan:
These are exhibitors' reports, they speak very clearly and very loudly. They say do not send any more Frank Fane product. Send *botulism* or *typhus*, don't send Fain.

Alfred 'Kappy' Kapstetter:
So. We take off the clown's happy face and see tears underneath.

Sophie Cantaro:
Don't, Kappy.

Alfred 'Kappy' Kapstetter:
You leave a man's career like a bag of broken glass, and you say, "Don't, Kappy"?

Alfred 'Kappy' Kapstetter:
Look, I'm - I'm not trying to hurt you, I'm just trying to clear away the fog between you and reality.

Hymie Kelly:
[narrating] But Frankie couldn't face reality because he'd lost touch with it.

Frankie Fane:
When you tell it straight you don't do any polka, do you.

Frankie Fane:
Don't lecture me, you've got to save me, Kappy.

Alfred 'Kappy' Kapstetter:
What am I, the second coming of the messiah? I'm an *agent*. There's just so much I can do.

Hymie Kelly:
Where've you been? They told me you left the network three hours ago!

Frankie Fane:
I took a drive.

Hymie Kelly:
The phones haven't stopped! While you were out playing the part of the Wandering Gentile everyone who wouldn't look our way last week is calling to proclaim buddyhood.

Barney Yale:
Hey, uh, Mr. Fane, you're a pretty chilly item. I can't figure you out.

Frankie:
Yeah. How 'bout that.

Frankie:
What's the talk around town?

Hymie Kelly:
That you're an ex-pimp and I'm a child molester! I've heard of dirty politics, but this is the lowest!

Hymie Kelly:
You must be suffering from oxygen starvation!

Hymie Kelly:
Take it easy. It's not gonna help if you get a thrombo!

Alfred 'Kappy' Kapstetter:
Have you ever seen a moth smashed against a window? Leaves the dust of its wing. You're like that, Frankie. You leave a powder of dirt everywhere you touch.

Trina Yale:
Figured we'd get hammered together and wrestle around on the couch for a while?

Frankie Fane:
How 'bout that.

Trina Yale:
Sure, Barney never reveals his clients. If he did he'd be killing the goose that lays his golden rotten eggs.

Hymie Kelly:
She died on the table, ya bastard! She died under the knife! She miscarried!

Frankie Fane:
What's that got to do with me?

Hymie Kelly:
It was your baby!

[last lines]

Merle Oberon:
And the winner is... Frank - *Sinatra*!

[the audience applauds; Frankie Fane, already standing, is crushed; Sinatra jogs up to the podium]

Frank Sinatra:
Thank you. Thank you very much.

Kay:
Bye, Frankie! And I hope the Oscar keeps you warm on cold nights!

Frankie:
Yeah, go on and run! You're too stupid to understand!

Frankie:
[referring to Steve Marks] What happened to him? He was a good actor. He made more pictures than I have.

Alfred 'Kappy' Kapstetter:
This is a chancy business, Frankie. You never know you're on the way out 'til you suddenly realize it would take a ticket to get back in.