TODAY'S NUGGET: Parallax View (1974) - The Difference the Protagonist's Career Can Make

[Quick Summary: In this draft, a police officer tracks down the shadow entity that wants to kill him, and uncovers a government wide conspiracy.]

OK, OK, I know it was 1974...

...and investigative reporters were hot in films...

...but I still wish they'd stuck to this script and kept the protagonist as a cop.*

Both Fradys (as an investigative reporter, as a cop) witness an assassination and then are targeted because they witnessed it. Both go on the run.

However, I find that idea of Frady the cop more appealing.

First, it would be more threatening. If no one believes Frady the cop, will anyone?!

Second, it would be a more layered, morally complex character.**  Frady the reporter could disregard questions that would require a few extra steps for Frady the cop.

Read the scene below with: a) Frady as reporter, and b) Frady as cop.

Do you, like me, have different experience/expectations with reporter vs. cop?

ex. "INT. FRADY'S OFFICE - DAY

Frady enters and stops short, like seeing a ghost.

ANOTHER ANGLE

A GIRL is standing by the window. Her name is HILDY. She's in her early 30s and quite attractive enough to explain Cpl. Harmon's whistle, and her attempt to hide her obvious uncertainty isn't very good.

HILDY: Hello, Frady. Surprise.

CU - FRADY

He just looks at her. His eyes are strangely cold. Then his eyes go off her as ANGLE LOOSENS.  Making a point of not looking at her, he hangs his jacket on a hook but leaves on his shoulder holster as he goes to desk and yanks open a bottom drawer.

FRADY: How you get in here?
HILDY: Said I was engaged to you.

No look, no comment. Frady takes a bottle from the drawer. Antique label says "Sloane's Horse Liniment," but it's probably not that because he uncaps it and drinks a slug.

HILDY: I had a heck of a time finding you. I never dreamed you'd be a policeman.
FRADY: Me neither.
HILDY: I'm terribly glad you are.
FRADY: I'm glad you're glad. Why?
HILDY: It's the damnest thing. It's -- Look at me, won't you?

He won't. He sticks bottle away, wipes his mouth with back of hand, starts shuffling papers on his desk.

FRADY: Talk of damnedest things. Your first name's Hildy, but in -- let's see - ummmn - - in nine years, I've forgot your last.
HILDY: Miller. Look at me.
FRADY: Hildy Miller -- don't you know why seeing you makes me so sad?
HILDY: Of course. I don't like to be reminded either.
FRADY: Then what's the score?
HILDY: Someone wants to kill us, Frady.

CU - FRADY

He turns his head at last. He looks at her.

FRADY: Us."

WHAT I'VE LEARNED: I was surprised at how much the story changed for me depending on the career.

As a reporter, the story seemed more plot driven; as a cop, more character driven.

Parallax View (1974)
by Lorenzo Semple, Jr.
Based on the novel by Loren Singer

*Even Roger Ebert noticed:  "A couple of years earlier, the hero of "The Parallax View" would probably have been a cop or a private eye. But what with Woodward and Bernstein and all, Warren Beatty plays a newspaper reporter instead."

**Ebert comments: "Beatty, in the central role, does a fine, taut job, but the movie is so straightforward that it doesn't ever require the superior acting he's capable of; plot seems so much more important than character here that it doesn't matter that this is Warren Beatty. And that's a waste, because he doesn't need one-dimensional roles." (my emphasis)