| EXT.
TESTACY CITY - NIGHT
A neon sign burns through the rainy desert night: PENNY’S LANES
BOWLING ALLEY. The hiss of the rain on the hot glass tubes is all that’s
heard. The entrance: locked. The parking lot: empty. The back of the
building: dark, except for the sliver of light from a slightly open
BACK DOOR.
INT. BACK OF PENNY’S LANES BOWLING ALLEY - MOMENTS LATER
Darkness. Down a couple steps, row upon row of identical steel maws,
each numbered by lane, make up the guts of the bowling alley. A narrow
CATWALK built atop the machines and an equally NARROW WALKWAY between
the back wall and the machines lie ahead. Someone is bowling.
The back of LANE 13. The bowler’s silhouette is barely visible
through the pins and machinery.
He rolls a strike. The pins fall. We look down the barren lane at the
solitary figure that is GENTLEMAN JOE BIGGS. He looks bigger than life.
He moves toward the ball return to dry his hands.
MEDIUM CLOSE UP
GENTLEMAN JOE’S beefy hand displays a huge ring as he dries his
hand and waits for the ball. It returns; he picks it up. With the ball
hiding his face, his breathing is all that’s heard. He releases
another rocket. We follow the ball as it crashes into a strike. Another
strike, another, another. Joe bends to pick up the ball again.
WIDE OVERHEAD SHOT
We see JOE from high overhead. The NUMBER 13 is largely stencilled on
the floor behind him. He hears something. He turns his head and strains
to listen.
GENTLEMAN JOE
Jerry, I already told you...
No one. He looks around once more, turns back to the lane and continues.
A final ball crashes against the pins. He turns and walks back to the
ball return. He looks up.
GENTLEMAN JOE (CONT'D)
Hey, who are you?
CLOSE UP ON PINS
Sounds of struggle. One pin is left standing.
|
By
the Balls
Jim Pascoe
& Tom Fassbender
feature screenplay, based on their novel
Commissioned and
bought by an independent producer and director (Steven Hann and Joe
Toppe), this version of By the Balls allowed Tom and I to take a fresh
look at our first big story.
Steven and Joe felt
that the movie should start with the murder, even though the book starts
the day after the killing.
Here's the new scene.
|
