Friday, January 11, 2008

Great Joke

Gittes comes bursting in, slapping a newspapers on his
thigh.

GITTES
Duffy, Walsh --

Walsh comes out of his office, Duffy out of the other
one.

GITTES
(continuing)
Sophie -- go to the little girl's
room for a minute.

SOPHIE
But, Mr. Gittes --


GITTES
(insisting)
Sophie.

SOPHIE
Yes, Mr. Gittes.

She gets up and leaves.

GITTES
-- so there's this fella who's
tired of screwing his wife --

DUFFY
Jake, listen -

GITTES
Shut up, Duffy, you're always in
a hurry - and his friend says why
not do what-the Chinese do? So he
says what do they do? His friend
says the Chinese they screw for a
while -- just listen a second,
Duffy --

A stunning YOUNG WOMAN appears behind Gittes in his
doorway. She's shortly joined by a small, GRAY-HAIRED
MAN. They listen, unseen by Gittes.

GITTES
(continuing)
-- and then they stop and they
read a little Confucius and they
screw some more and they stop and
they smoke some opium and then
they go back and screw some more
and they stop again and they
contemplate the moon or something
and it makes it more exciting.
So this other guy goes home to
screw his wife and after a while
he stops and gets up and goes into
the other room only he reads Life
Magazine and he goes back and he
screws some more and suddenly says
excuse me a second and he gets up
and smokes a cigarette and he goes
back and by this time his wife is
getting sore as hell. So he screws
some more and then he gets up to look
at the moon and his wife says, 'What
the hell do you think you're doing?
(Gittes breaks up)
... you're screwing like a Chinaman.'

1 comment:

Larry Bud said...

weird. just watched Chinatown last night.