Daily Dialogue — March 24, 2015
INT. MODEL — DAY
Betelgeuse has run a beat-up old pickup into a fire hydrant. He stands nearby, hopping mad; shakes his fist at Adam.
BETELGEUSE: You pansy-assed cretins! How dare you do that to me. I coulda finished the job!
IN THE ATTIC
Barbara and Adam, obviously disturbed, look at one another with concern.
BETELGEUSE (V.O.): (thin and piping voice) Why did you stop me?
BARBARA: I don’t like Charles Deetz particularly, but you could have killed him.
BETELGEUSE: Hey, I’ve been bottled up for six hundred years. Every dog has his day. This is my town. I need a night to howl.
ADAM: This is my town.
BETELGEUSE: You wish! I nearly scored with that little blonde. I need me a short little queen.
Angry, Barbara reaches down into the model and plucks Betelgeuse up. Barbara lifts him up toward her, squeezing him slightly.
BARBARA: You leave her alone, you horrid little prick!
CLOSEUP — BETELGEUSE IN BARBARA’S HAND
Betelgeuse grins. Suddenly large spikes shoot out all over his body, piercing the skin of Barbara’s palm and fingers. Barbara’s blood is a rich pink. She squeals and releases the evil spirit and he plummets.
EXT. MODEL — DAY
Betelgeuse lands on the town common. Betelgeuse is defiant.
BETELGEUSE: Go ahead. Make my millennium!
We hear the tinny strains of “Honky Tonk Angel” as if from down the street. He turns around to follow it.
BETELGEUSE: This burg got a cathouse? I’m getting anxious if you know what I mean. Six hundred years and all.
He turns the corner to a whorehouse, with women — women with demon horns — hanging out of the window, beckoning. Betelgeuse rubs his hands together and swaggers inside.
INT. ATTIC — DAY
Barbara aghast, watching this from above.
BARBARA: Adam! Why did you build a whore house? Have you ever been to…?
ADAM: I didn’t —
He doesn’t finish — a strong WIND blows through the attic, nearly knocking Barbara and Adam over. They close their eyes against the gale. When they open their eyes again, they’re no longer in the attic. They’re in —
INT. JUNO’S OUTER OFFICE — DAY
A cubicle in a much larger office. Miss Argentina swishes by.
RECEPTIONIST: God, you have got her steaming now.
She exits. There are other special workers. The place is really, really busy. Adam and Barbara sit down to wait. Juno storms through with a sheaf of papers. She sees them. She is steaming mad.
JUNO: The whorehouse was my idea. I want Betelgeuse out of the picture! We’ve got some serious talking to do.
BARBARA: About what?
JUNO: You people have really screwed up! I received word that you allowed yourselves to be photographed. And you let Betelgeuse out and didn’t put him back, and you let Otho get ahold
of the handbook.
ADAM: Handbook? When…?
JUNO: (continuing tirade) Never trust the living! We cannot have a routine haunting like yours
provide incontrovertible visual proof of existence beyond death.
ADAM: Well, we didn’t know —
A BUNCH OF FOOTBALL PLAYERS
follow Juno like hungry dogs.
DUMB #1: Hey, Coach, where’s the men’s room?
JUNO: (frustrated) I’m not your coach. He survived.
DUMB #2: You don’t need a men’s room. You’re not no man no more. But Coach, let me get this — What’s our curfew over here?
They start squabbling. Juno has to wrangle them into another room.
JUNO: (frustrated) I’ll be right back.
— Beetlejuice (1988), screenplay by Michael McDowell and Warren Skaaren, story by Michael McDowell & Larry Wilson
The Daily Dialogue theme for next week: Ghost. Today’s suggestion by Lois Bernard.
Trivia: The original script was a horror film, and featured Beetlejuice as a winged, reptilian demon who transformed into a small Middle Eastern man to interact with the Maitlands and the Deetzes. Lydia was a minor character, with her six year old sister Cathy being the Deetz child able to see the Maitlands. Beetlejuice’s goal was to kill the Deetzs, rather than frighten them away, and included sequences where he mauled Cathy in the form of a rabid squirrel and tried to rape Lydia. Subsequent script rewrites turned the film into a comedy and toned down Beetlejuice’s character into the ghost of an wise cracking con-artist rather than a demon.
Dialogue On Dialogue: Oftentimes the living are the Protagonists of ghost stories, but with
Beetlejuice the narrative point of view is that of the young ghost couple, Adam and Barbara. Meanwhile Betelgeuse, played wonderfully by Michael Keaton, is the story’s Trickster.
If you have a suggestion for this week’s theme, please post in comments.