Saturday, June 10, 2006

SCRIPT PROPOSAL FOR A REMAKE OF "LOOK WHO'S COMING TO DINNER"

Final scene: Excerpts from the father's closing speech:

(played by Spencer Tracy in the original)

After some preliminary guessing games, at which I was never very good…

it was explained to me by my daughter…

that she intended to get married.

And that her intended, whom I had never met, was a young woman…

who happened a lesbian.

I think it’s fair to say that I responded to this news in the same manner any normal father would respond to it…

unless, of course, the father at the very same moment found out his daughter happened to be a lesbian too.

In a word, I was flabbergasted. And while I was still being flabbergasted…

I was informed by my daughter—a very determined young woman, much like her mother—that the marriage was on…

no matter what her mother and I might feel about it.

snip

And the mother of this young woman says that like her husband I'm a burned-out old shell of a man…

who cannot even remember what it's like to love a woman the way her daughter loves my daughter.

And strange as it seems, that's the first statement made to me all day with which I am prepared to take issue...

because I think you're wrong, you're as wrong as you can be.

I admit that I hadn't considered it, hadn't even thought about it, but I know exactly how she feels about her.

And there is nothing, absolutely nothing that your daughter feels for my daughter that I didn't feel for Christina.

Old—yes. Burned-out—certainly, but I can tell you the memories are still there—

clear, intact, indestructible, and they'll be there if I live to be 110.

Where Joanna made her mistake I think was in attaching so much importance to what her mother and I might think...

because in the final analysis it doesn't matter a damn what we think.

The only thing that matters is what they feel, and how much they feel, for each other.

And if it's half of what we felt—that's everything.

As for you two and the problems you're going to have, they seem almost unimaginable, but you'll have no problem with me, and I think when Christina and I and your mother have some time to work on him you'll have no problem with your father, Joanna.

But you do know, I'm sure you know, what you're up against. There'll be 150 million people right here in this country who will be shocked and offended and appalled and the two of you will just have to ride that out, maybe every day for the rest of your lives.

You could try to ignore those people, or you could feel sorry for them and for their prejudice and their bigotry and their blind hatred and stupid fears, but where necessary you'll just have to cling tight to each other and say "screw all those people"!

Anybody could make a case, a hell of a good case, against your getting married. The arguments are so obvious that nobody has to make them.

But you're two wonderful people who happened to fall in love and happened to be the same sex, and I think that now, no matter what kind of a case some bastard could make against your getting married, there would be only one thing worse:

And that would be if—knowing what you two are and knowing what you two have and knowing what you two feel—you didn't get married.

Now, when the hell are we gonna get some dinner?

2 Comments:

Blogger Dr. Omed said...

Spencer Tracy was dying when they made that film. When you see Katherine Hepburn's eyes well up with tears as Tracy speaks the lines, those are real tears; Tracy died 17 days later.

1:43 PM  
Blogger Karen M said...

Their movies are among some of my favorites, and I've read about when they made that movie. Heart wrenching.

My "most" favorite, though, is "Desk Set. I never tire of seeing that one.

8:24 PM  

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