[Quick Summary: When a wanderer returns home to help his mother run a pawn shop, they both secretly turn to crime to make ends meet.]
I should've known that Clifford Odets* would deliver another complex stunner.
His script here is extremely well-written. It reads fast, very free and natural.
When I looked closer, though, I was amazed how difficult it is on a craft level (ensemble, deep themes, 2-3 story lines, etc.)
Today I will focus on his use of a setup for a later betrayal (I never saw it coming!)
In the story:
- Ernie has been wandering all over the UK.
- He runs out of money and returns home to Ma, a tough, honest pawn shop owner.
- Ma is brusque but kind to Ernie: You can either stay for good or go.
- Ma tells Ike, a long time friend and fellow pawn shop owner, about the cancer, but not Ernie. Ike gives Ernie a job fixing a clock to give him some funds.
In the scene below:
- Notice how kind Ike is to everyone - Ernie, Lesser, a random old lady.
- Notice also we're focused on Ike's discomfort at relaying bad news AND he's doing Ernie a favor. How will Ernie take it?
- Notice that this DOES NOT look like a setup for a later payoff, i.e., There is plenty of drama to occupy our attention for now...only much later will we recall this scene and grasp it was a setup when Ernie betrays Ike later.
Ike's assistant, little Mr. Lesser, comes in from the shop, a ring in his hand.
LESSER: She wants a quid on this - an old lady.
IKE (looking at the ring): Give it to her - an old lady, Mr. Lesser. (Sighing) Everything with a kiss.
LESSER (shaking his head as he walks out): Clocks, clocks...tick tock.
ERNIE: Best I could do with that old main spring.
IKE (as he picks up the clock, looks it over, and puts it down): Tick tock, tick tock... (Then) Did you ever realize your mother was once upon a time maybe the most beautiful woman in the East End of London? (Ernie looks up, surprised at this irrelevancy. Ike continues soberly and shrewdly.) In the old days, I mean.
ERNIE (puzzled): What about it?
IKE: Excuse me if I put a flea in your ear. Your mother is a very sick woman...
Ernie slowly stands up. He looks tightly at the old man.
ERNIE: You owe me two pounds, Mr. Weber. Pay it an' I'll be on my way.
Silently Ike takes some bills from his pocket and gives them to Ernie. Ernie puts on his cap and starts out through the front of the shop, the dog after him. He passes the counter where Lesser is polishing some rings. About to leave the shop, Ernie stops with his hand on the doorknob. Then he slowly turns, calling back sarcastically, hand still on the knob.
ERNIE: What's it she's got? A pain for her no-good son?
WHAT I'VE LEARNED: This is a very sophisticated setup because it doesn't look, smell, or sound like a setup.
In the age where audiences are always looking for something new, a twist, something NEW, this kind of craft can really set one apart as a writer.
None But the Lonely Heart (1945)
by Clifford Odets
Adapted from the novel by Richard Llwellyn
*He was a well-known playwright and writer of the famous film Sweet Smell of Success (1957) (my blog on it here).
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