by Ben Brady
JOHNNY
We’re a law-abidin’ union. Understand?
As he puts the guns in the safe and slams the safe door.
JOHNNY (CONT’D)
A law-abidin’ union!
EXT. UNION LOCAL OFFICE ON WHARF DAY
Terry walks compulsively down the ramp to the office.
TERRY
(shouts)
Hey, Friendly! Johnny Friendly, come out here!
Johnny comes out of his office followed by his goons.
JOHNNY
(shouts)
You want to know the trouble with you? You think it makes you a big man if you can give the answers.
TERRY
Listen, Johnny—
JOHNNY
Go on—beat it. Don’t push your luck.
TERRY
You want to know somethin’—?
JOHNNY
I said beat it! At the right time I’ll catch up with you. Be thinkin’ about it.
As he starts back into his office, Terry advances, steaming himself up.
TERRY
(louder)
You want to know something? Take the heater away and you’re nothin’—take the good goods away, and the kickback and the shakedown cabbage away and the pistoleros—
(indicating the others)
and you’re a big hunk of nothing—
(takes a big breath if relieved)
Your guts is all in your wallet and your trigger finger!
JOHNNY
(with fury)
Go on talkin’. You’re talkin’ yourself right into the river. Go on, go on . . .
TERRY
(voice rising defiantly)
I’m glad what I done today, see? You give it to Joey, you give it to Nolan, you give it to Charley who was one of your own. You thought you was God Almighty instead of a cheap—conniving
(MORE)
TERRY (CONT’D)
—good-for-nothing bum! So I’m glad what I done—you hear me?—glad what I done!
JOHNNY
(coldly)
You ratted on us, Terry.
Aware of fellow longshoremen anxiously watching the duel:
TERRY
From where you stand, maybe. But I’m standing over here now. I was rattin’ on myself all them years and didn’t know it, helpin’ punks like you against people like Pop and Nolan an’—
Beckoning Terry with his hands, in a passion of hate:
JOHNNY
Come on. I want you. You’re mine! Come on!
FIGHT ON UNION OFFICE DECK SERIES OF SHOTS
As Johnny takes an aggressive step forward, Terry runs down the ramp and hurls himself at him. They fight furiously on the deck of the houseboat. A fight to the death. A violent brawl with no holds barred. First one, then the other has the advantage. In B.G., longshoremen we know creep forward and watch in amazement.
LONGSHOREMEN WATCHING
LUKE
That kid fights like he useta!
Others nod but show no inclination to join in and face the goons.
BACK TO FIGHT
Which mounts in intensity as CAMERA FOLLOWS it around the narrow deck bordering the union office. Johnny knees Terry but Terry retaliates with desperate combinations that begin to beat Johnny to the deck. Both of their faces are bloody and hideously swollen.
ANOTHER ANGLE: GOONS
At this point Sonny, Truck and the other goons jump in to save their leader. Terry fights them off like a mad man, under vicious attack from all angles.
LONGSHOREMEN WATCHING
They’ll kill ’im! It’s a massacre! etc.
But they still hang back, intimidated by Johnny Friendly and his muscle.
TERRY FIGHTING
His face a bloody mask, being punched and kicked until he finally goes down. Goons are ready to finish the job when a battered Johnny Friendly mutters:
JOHNNY
That’s enough. Let ’im lay there.
Terry is crumpled on the deck, senseless, in a pool of blood.
REVERSE: ON EDIE & FATHER BARRY
pushing their way through the crowd of longshoremen.
FATHER BARRY
(tight-lipped)
What happened? What happened?
EDIE
(to a young longshoreman)
Tommy, what happened?
POP
Where you goin’?
EDIE
(fiercely)
Let me by.
BACK TO TERRY
Blood seeping from many wounds as Father Barry and Edie run in and kneel at his side, Johnny Friendly near by.
JOHNNY
You want ’im?
(as he goes)
(MORE)
JOHNNY (CONT’D)
You can have ’im. The little rat’s yours.
FATHER BARRY
(to longshoremen)
Get some fresh water.
EDIE
Terry . . . ?
FATHER BARRY
Terry . . . Terry . . .
ENTRANCE TO PIER ON BOSS STEVEDORE
In felt hat and business suit, symbols of executive authority.
BOSS STEVEDORE
Who’s in charge here? We gotta get this ship going. It’s costing us money.
The longshoremen hang back, glancing off towards the fallen Terry.
BOSS STEVEDORE
(waving them towards him)
Come on! Let’s get goin’!
The men don’t move.
BOSS STEVEDORE
I said—c’mon!
TOMMY
How about Terry? If he don’t work, we don’t work.
Others around him murmur agreement.
JOHNNY
(from background)
Work! He can’t even walk!
JOHNNY ON RAMP
Surrounded by longshoremen ignoring Stevedore’s commands tries to drive them on.
JOHNNY
Come on! Get in there!
(grabbing Pop and throwing him forward)
Come on, you!
From force of habit, Pop begins to comply. Then he catches himself and turns on Johnny. Sounding more sad than angry:
POP
All my life you pushed me around.
Suddenly he shoves Johnny off the ramp into the water scummy with oil slick and riverbank debris.
JOHNNY IN WATER
Cursing.
POP & LONGSHOREMEN
Cheering Johnny Friendly’s humiliation.
JOHNNY
(from water)
Come on, get me outa here!
BACK TO STEVEDORE
BOSS STEVEDORE
Let’s go! Time is money!
MOOSE
You hoid ’im. Terry walk in, we walk in with ’im.
Others facing Stevedore mutter agreement.
TERRY, FATHER BARRY, & EDIE
Terry’s eyes flutter as they bathe his wounds.
EDIE
(to Father Barry)
They’re waiting for him to walk in.
FATHER BARRY
You hear that, Terry?
(as Terry fails to respond)
(MORE)
FATHER BARRY (CONT’D)
Terry, did you hear that?
(trying to penetrate Terry’s battered mind)
You lost the battle but you have a chance to win the war. All you gotta do is walk.
TERRY
(slowly coming to)
. . . Walk?
FATHER BARRY
Johnny Friendly is layin’ odds that you won’t get up.
JOHNNY, OS
Come on, you guys!
TERRY
(dazed)
Get me on my feet.
They make an effort to pick him up. He can barely stand. He looks around unseeingly.
TERRY
Am I on my feet . . . ?
EDIE
Terry . . . ?
FATHER BARRY
You’re on your feet. You can finish what you starte
d.
Blood oozing from his wounds, Terry sways, uncomprehendingly.
FATHER BARRY (CONT’D)
You can!
TERRY
(mutters through bloody lips)
I can? Okay. Okay . . .
EDIE
(screams at Father Barry)
What are you trying to do?
ANGLE ON RAMP
As the groggy Terry starts up the ramp, Edie reaches out to him. Father Barry holds her back.
FATHER BARRY
Leave him alone. Take your hands off him—leave him alone.
Staggering, moving painfully forward, Terry starts up the ramp. Edie’s instinct is to help him but Father Barry, knowing the stakes of this symbolic act, holds her back. Terry stumbles, but steadies himself and moves forward as if driven on by Father Barry’s will.
TERRY APPROACHING PIER ENTRANCE
As he staggers forward as if blinded, the longshoremen form a line on either side of him, awed by his courage, waiting to see if he’ll make it. Terry keeps going.
REVERSE ANGLE: BOSS STEVEDORE TERRY’S POV
Waiting at the pier entrance as Terry approaches. Shot OUT OF FOCUS as Terry would see him through a bloody haze.
TERRY
As the men who have formed a path for him watch intently, Terry staggers up until he is face to face with the Stevedore. He gathers himself as if to say, “I’m ready. Let’s go!”
BOSS STEVEDORE
(calls officially)
All right—let’s go to work!
As Terry goes past him into the pier, the men with a sense of inevitability fall in behind him.
JOHNNY FRIENDLY
Hurrying forward in a last desperate effort to stop the men from following Terry in.
JOHNNY
(screams)
Where you guys goin’? Wait a minute!
(as they stream past him)
I’ll be back! I’ll be back! And I’ll remember every last one of ya!
He points at them accusingly. But they keep following Terry into the pier.
WIDER ANGLE: PIER ENTRANCE
As Father Barry and Edie look on, Stevedore blows his whistle for work to begin. Longshoremen by the hundreds march into the pier behind Terry like a conquering army. In the B.G. a frenzied Johnny Friendly is still screaming, “I’ll be back! I’ll be back!”
The threat, real as it is, is lost in the forward progress of Terry and the ragtail army of dock workers he now leads.
FADE OUT3
Let’s bring together the various analytic tools we have acquired. Take a piece of paper and jot down the BEGINNING, MIDDLE, and END of this scene, starting with Terry on the pier. What is Terry’s immediate problem, and when is it established? Who or what opposes him? What is the nature of the conflict? Where does the crisis in the scene fall? Its climax? What are the reverses by which the scene is built? Are there any complications? What is immediately at stake? What, ultimately?
Then jot down how Terry’s objective has grown or changed from seeking revenge against Johnny Friendly for Charley’s death. How is the past involved in the immediate action? How would you judge the emotional realism of the scene? Does the motivation connect with the past? What is revealed? What is made clear, finally, in terms of past and present about Terry and his objective? Compare your breakdown to ours.
Problem? He isn’t allowed to work.
Complications? The initial complication is Terry’s inability to get work as the result of his testifying against Johnny Friendly (another complication), which in turn resulted from the complication of Charley’s death.
Antagonist? Big Mac, then Johnny Friendly.
Type of conflict? Man versus man.
Immediately at stake? Can Terry win the right to work?
Ultimately at stake? Can Terry survive to live a life of his choice as a fully free and responsible man, not a bum ground down by criminals?
BEGINNING. The opening section ends at the point Terry moves to take action, joining the type of conflict with his immediate problem by turning from Big Mac and walking to Johnny Friendly’s office.
Reverses:
1. Terry appears for work and is not chosen.
2. Terry demands work from Big Mac, and Big Mac sends Sonny to find anyone else.
3. Sonny returns with the apologetic Mutt, and Terry heads toward Friendly’s office.
MIDDLE. Terry confronts Johnny Friendly and they fight. Crisis: Terry loses the fight.
4. Unknown to Terry, Johnny Friendly’s goons pull their guns, and Johnny takes them away.
5. Terry’s initial challenge to Johnny only draws a rebuke from Johnny, who then heads back into his office.
6. Terry heightens the challenge, and Johnny challenges him to fight.
7. Terry is winning until the goons enter the fight and beat him senseless.
END. This third section spans the moment of defeat to Terry’s final triumph as he leads the longshoremen to work at the climax.
8. As Johnny abandons Terry to Edie and Father Barry, the Boss Stevedore demands that the men go to work. They refuse, waiting on Terry. This includes Pop’s pushing Johnny Friendly into the water.
9. Edie and Father Barry try to get Terry up: finally, he stands, but is too dazed to know it.
10. Edie tries to help Terry and is stopped.
11. Terry staggers to the Boss Stevedore who gives the order for them to go to work.
How does the past appear in the scene? Terry’s appearance on the docks sets the stage for the struggle over the past by raising the question of his motivation (Why does he go to the docks?) and, inextricably bound up with that, his nature (Is he a bum or not?). The previous scene helps deepen the confrontation scene by showing Terry has considered and rejected alternatives. The action that follows addresses these questions.
Note how the argument over the nature of the past is provoked by immediate conflict:
1. Terry’s recent behavior creates the problem he faces when he confronts Big Mac. He can’t get work because he testified against Johnny Friendly: he “ratted.”
2. Thus when Terry confronts Johnny Friendly and raises the issue of historical truth, it is from the perspective of asking who betrayed whom all those years: when did the real act of ratting take place? Who really is a bum, a “hunk of nothing”? What, in short, are the true natures of Terry, Johnny Friendly, and the past?
3. The fight between Terry and Johnny shows Terry can fight “like he useta!” Terry is so deeply motivated he is able to reach into himself and find what he had in the past before he took the first dive in the boxing match for Johnny Friendly.
The emotional realism of the scene is graphic. Each moment rings true because everything Terry or the others do and say is in fitting response to some urgent, immediate need. To succeed, Terry must get work, challenge Johnny Friendly in order to get work, and stagger to his feet in order to overturn Johnny Friendly and win his original objective in the scene. Johnny Friendly’s reactions ring true in the same immediate way when Terry goads him into a rage. Edie naturally wants to help Terry. Father Barry restrains her so that Terry can fail or succeed on his own.
How has Terry’s objective changed? In the scene between him and Charley, we saw that Terry wanted two things: advice and the right to make up his own mind. The issue of his nature as a person is raised by Terry’s outburst about the past, but what that means and how either his nature or the past is related to a challenge to Johnny Friendly have only begun to be clear. Johnny kills Charley and Terry testifies, now motivated by vengeance. That doesn’t prove decisive: Terry discovers he must either leave, or he, not the legal system, must overcome Johnny Friendly. Now we wonder: Is Terry man enough to do that? What is he capable of, really? The questions raised about Terry, the past, and what to do fuse at this point. We have to find out new things about Terry through the action to answer these questions. At this point his objective has gone beyond Terry’s ability to state it. It is a self-transformation that can only be sho
wn and confirmed by his taking very specific steps that lead to his overcoming “the bad guy.” This makes the transformation credible and gives the story a personal weight that makes it more than merely a dockside exposé. That is the source of the story’s durability.
The revelation about Terry proceeds reverse by reverse as Terry shows that it is Johnny Friendly, not Terry, who is the ratter and the bum. Terry is obviously acting in a new way, a way no one on the docks, including Johnny Friendly, has seen before. Yet it all finally hinges on a single moment when Terry seems beaten: very simply, all depends on whether he can stand up and walk. The action carries the meaning at the critical moment. And at that moment the past makes a crucial appearance: Father Barry tells Terry that Johnny Friendly is laying odds he won’t get up—just as years ago he laid odds knowing Terry would go down. In these scenes as in all drama the truth of the past and of the protagonist are made clear simultaneously in the climax in a new way as the protagonist discovers he can or cannot carry out the necessary action to gain his objective.
USING DRAMATIC ELEMENTS TO ACHIEVE CRISIS AND CLIMAX
We need to look at several elements crucial to effective dramatic writing before we bring our examination of crisis and climax to a head with a scene from the Tennessee Williams stage, film, and television classic A Streetcar Named Desire. These are the use of silences, moments of action without dialogue, spectacle, symbol, and suspense.
Silences and Moments of Action without Dialogue
Sometimes the use of silence can make us feel the impact of a moment or anticipate an obvious piece of information more effectively than dialogue or action. Look again at the scene between Ted and Shaunessy from Kramer vs. Kramer. When Ted asks Shaunessy, “Well?” demanding the outcome of the custody battle, Shaunessy says nothing. Shaunessy’s silence is protracted enough for Ted to realize he has lost: “Oh, Christ!” Not having Shaunessy speak makes Ted guess, and through him, we guess: we have time to feel more by anticipating the worst. That involves us more deeply.
Look at two other moments of silence from this scene. First, Shaunessy pauses after Ted promises to get the money for an appeal. That moment of silence provokes in us and Ted the feeling that money isn’t enough: there must be some other obstacle than the one we would expect. That silence lets us feel and anticipate that obstacle before it takes on concrete terms with Shaunessy’s statement that Billy would have to take the stand in an appeal. Second, Ted pauses after that discovery. He needs time to take in what Billy’s being put on the stand might mean. We need the time to feel his dilemma and wonder what we would do, what Ted will do. Then, stumblingly, Ted reveals he couldn’t do that to Billy.