Daily Dialogue — August 20, 2012

Screaming Driver: Holy shit! That guy’s on the wrong side. He’s going to kill somebody!
Screaming Driver’s Wife: Oh, my God!
Screaming Driver: Hey! Hey!
Neal: Hey, what’s going on?
Del: Some joker wants to race.
Screaming Driver: Turn around!
Neal: Don’t race. It’s ridiculous.
Del: All right, come on. Let’s go. Let’s go.
Screaming Driver: Put your window down!
Neal: He wants something.
Del: He’s probably drunk.
Screaming Driver: You’re going the wrong way!
Neal: What?
Screaming Driver/Wife: You’re going the wrong way!
Neal: He says we’re going the wrong way.
Del: Oh, he’s drunk. How would he know where we’re going?
Neal: Yeah, how would he know? Thank you. Thanks a lot. Terrific.
Del: Thank you. What a moron.

— Del (John Candy), Neal (Steve Martin), Screaming Driver (John Moio), Screaming Driver’s Wife (Victoria Vanderkloot), Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987), written by John Hughes

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is comic set piece, suggested by Shaula Evans. Today’s suggestion by Teddy Pasternak.

Trivia: John Hughes wrote the first-draft of the screenplay in 3 days. His average writing time for a screenplay in those days was about 3–5 days with 20-some rewrites.

Dialogue On Dialogue: This is a nice reversal… on two fronts. First the car is going the wrong way. Second Neal and Del think Screaming Driver and Screaming Diver’s Wife are the ones who are messed up. And by the way, this is a perfect 80s movie and John Hughes is the patron saint of that decade.