Friday, January 22, 2021

"Crime Isn't Pretty" script, Scene B

It's the girls' apartment, at night:

FRANK IS SETTING UP A CONTRAPTION MADE OF ROPES, NETS, AND WOOD.  CARMINE ENTERS WITH A BUNCH OF TIN CANS TIED TOGETHER WITH STRING.  THE FRONT DOOR IS PARTIALLY OPEN.

FRANK
Where you been.  You're late.

CARMINE
I've been tying together this burglar alarm.  You wanna help me string it outside?

FRANK
Burglar alarm?  What do you do?  Tie it to his leg and write "Just Married" on his forehead?



I'm sorry, but this is much funnier than seeing Carmine finish off a tomato juice can and then have Frank enter and get tangled in Carmine's trap.  We also lost this after Carmine says he had a good plan:

FRANK
So did General Custer.

CARMINE
If he had tin cans he'd be alive today.

FRANK
All we gotta do is make this place look like easy pickin's. 

FRANK TAKES SEVERAL ROLLED UP NEWSPAPERS AND DROPS THEM OUTSIDE THE FRONT DOOR.

FRANK (CONT'D)
I already stuffed the mailbox full of letters.

CARMINE
How about putting a note on the door "Gone On Vacation, burglars please wipe your feet."  Just kidding, Mr. DeFazio.

And when Frank is explaining the "Anzio Man Trap," Carmine was supposed to ask, "You learned that as an Army cook?  Is that how you trap the guys into eating your food?"  Then Frank would say, "Remind me to yell at you later."

Frank and Carmine actually attaching the trap to the ceiling was not in the script, but maybe that's what Frank's opening bit in the script was for.  Instead, we get about a minute added to the end of the scene, with some physical comedy, but I'd much rather have had the deleted lines.  Still, it is interesting that the scene, either way, has a lot of Frank and Carmine bickering, in what I think was then a rare scene of them on their own.

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