HUDSON HAWK

     Hawk and Alex slide across the wall to a closed room
     marked POWER, which is right next to the open Guards'
     Station.  The viewer's viewpoint moves past Hawk and
     Alex lock-picking into the Power room to...

     INT. THE GUARDS' STATION

     Two Security Guards sit before a console of seven
     security screens still chuckling over an unheard joke.
     Wires coming out of the security console run across the
     floor and through the wall into...

     INT. THE POWER ROOM

     The wires go up to a row of seven humming, RECORD button
     flashing V.C.R.s.  Hawk and Alex stand before them,
     sharing a cig.

                             ALEX
               They record everything their
               video surveillance takes in...

                             HAWK
               Yes, master-thief, I can see that.
               You said something about a plan...

     Alex presses the REWIND buttons on the V.C.R.'s.

                             ALEX
               Am I boring you, smartass?  Watch.
               A little rewind and re-wire action
               and the Guards are going to be
               watching a rerun and miss out on
               our exciting episode.

     Alex pulls from a nearby shelf six tapes marked MONDAY.

     INT. SEVENTH FLOOR AUCTION AUDITORIUM--NIGHT

     Moving beneath a video camera and a dazzling Set of
     Hanging Horse Mobiles, a Heavyset guard, BIG STAN, moseys
     through the dimly lit main auction house auditorium.  The
     auditorium chairs are strewn out in the middle beside a
     turbo Floor Washer.

     Next to a painting of Happy Children Riding Horses at the
     back of the auditorium stage, Big Stan hefts himself upon
     a comparatively TINY BLUE CHAIR and begins to tip back
     and snooze.

     INT. GUARDS' STATION

     The Security Guards look to the seventh floor screen to
     see an unfolding shot of Big Stan mid-snooze.

                             SECURITY GUARD ONE
               Check out Big Stan...
                       (walkie-talkie)
               Big Stan!

     THE AUCTION AUDITORIUM

     Startled by his walkie-talkie, Big Stan falls back on the
     little chair, crunching it to the ground.

     THE FIRST FLOOR

     The laughing security guards see the crunch.

     INT. THE POWER ROOM

     Alex puts the last of the Monday tapes into a V.C.R.

                             ALEX
               You got about five minutes and
               change.

                             HAWK
               5:32.  "Swinging on a Star."

                             ALEX
               You know they invented something
               while you were inside.  Called a
               watch.

     A freight elevator pings.  Hawk opens it up as the music
     of "Swinging on the Star" kicks in on the soundtrack.

                             HAWK
               "A mule is an animal with long
               funny ears."

                             ALEX
               "He kicks up at anything he
               hears.

     Hawk crams himself into the freight elevator with his
     Glad bag.  Strenuously upbeat Ray Conniffesque singers
     continue to sing the song, orchestrally accompanied, when
     Hawk isn't.

     INT. THE FREIGHT ELEVATOR

     Hawk takes over the song, sardined in the elevator.

                             HAWK
               "Or would you rather swing on a
               star, carry moonbeams home in a
               jar."

     POWER ROOM

     Alex goes up to a Circuit Box and pulls down two large
     Switches.  The soundtrack singers continue to warble.

     THE GUARDS' STATION

     The lights of the floor wobble and die.  The console
     screens blink off.  The Security Guards stop laughing.

                             SECURITY GUARD TWO
               Hell-o.  Check the Power room,
               bud...

     Security Guard One harrumphs into a standing position...

     POWER ROOM

     Alex speedily hooks and rehooks the backs of the V.C.R.S.
     They now all have their PLAY buttons lit up.

                             ALEX
               swing on a star, carry moonbeams...

     OUTSIDE THE POWER ROOM

     Security Guard One fishes for keys to open the power
     room.  The soundtrack singers whisper as not to give away
     Alex.

     INSIDE THE POWER ROOM

     Alex briskly slams back up the switches.

     OUTSIDE THE POWER ROOM

     The singers go louder as the lights come back on.
     Security Guard One harrumphs and heads back to the
     Guards' Station.

     THE AUCTION AUDITORIUM

     Hawk scrambles out of the freight elevator in the left
     wall of the Auditorium, glancing to the clock.

                             HAWK
               "Or would you rather be a fish?"

     He pulls out the black canvas bag from his Glad bag and
     takes out the blueprints.  Hawk follows them toward the
     painting on-stage.

     THE GUARDS' STATION

     Big Stan comes up from behind his fellow guards, dumping
     the remains of the chair on the floor.

                             BIG STAN
                       (moving back off)
               Very funny.

     The Seventh Floor Screen shows a peaceful auction
     auditorium.  And the Blue Chair.

     THE AUCTION AUDITORIUM--CAMERA P.O.V.

     From the exact angle, the viewer sees the current state
     of the room with Hawk flinging off the painting of the
     horseback children, revealing a safe.  But no Blue chair.

     HAWK

     spits on the rubber cup of an electronic sensor, plugged
     into a Walkman, and affixes it to the safe above the
     dial.

                             HAWK
                       (lyric trouble)
               "A fish is annuh nan na nan na
               brook.

     THE FREIGHT ELEVATOR

     Alex is now packed into the freight elevator.

                             ALEX
               "He can't write his name or read
               a book.  To fool people is his
               only thought."

     THE AUCTION AUDITORIUM

                             HAWK
                       (remembering)
               "And though he's slippery, he
               still gets caught."

     Wearing headphones, Hawk cranks up the Walkman and spins
     the dial.  The CLICKS from the dial are so loud he winces
     and turns down the volume.  Then there's a CLUNK.

     THE GUARDS' STATION

     With the soundtrack singers taking over, Guard Two sips
     a cup of coffee.  He doesn't swallow.

     His sights zero in on the Blue Chair on the seventh
     screen.  He looks to the chair remains, then back again.

                             SECURITY GUARD TWO
               Uh, Jerry.  I'm looking at the
               seventh floor and I don't know
               how to say this, I see the Blue
               Chair.

                             SECURITY GUARD ONE
               What the... You think that's weird,
               check out screen two.....

     Screen Two shows THE TWO SECURITY GUARDS THEMSELVES
     hatching open some on-duty beers, going down a hall.
     Guard Two looks to the empties atop the console....

                             SECURITY GUARD TWO
               Somebody rewired the recorders!

     AUCTION AUDITORIUM

     Hawk ditches his accessories and swings the safe door
     open.

     Inside the safe, along with the "holy" Da Vinci music
     cue, is the clay equestrian model from Leonardo's
     worktable.

     Hawk belts out as he put it in the black canvas bag.

                             HAWK
               "And all the monkeys aren't in
               the zoo."

                             ALEX (V.O.)
               "Every day you meet quite a few."

     Alex gives Hawk a congratulatory pat.

                             HAWK AND ALEX
               "So you see it's all up to you.
               You can be better than you are.
               You could be swinging on a star."

     THE AUCTION ROOM

     BIG STAN reconnects the wires of the seventh V.C.R.

     THE GUARDS' STATION

     Suddenly, on the seventh screen, the image and voices
     of Hawk and Alex in-process comes on.

                             SECURITY GUARD ONE
               Shit, let's roll!

     THE AUCTION AUDITORIUM

     Hawk puts the painting back up, but stops to stare at the
     playful children.

                             ALEX
               The song's over!  Come on!
               "You could be swinging on a star."

                             HAWK
               What am I doing here?  There are
               so many things I wanna do that
               aren't this.  Paint a lighthouse.
               Kiss a woman in Italy.

                             ALEX
                       (more frantically)
               "You could be swinging on a star."

                             HAWK
               Paint a woman in a lighthou--I
               don't want to steal a horse.
               Life is...

     Hawk's soliloquy is cut short as Security Guards One and
     Two crash into the auction auditorium.

                             ALEX
                       (DEADPAN)
               "You could be swinging on a star."
               You couldn't have waited to see
               a psychiatrist.  No, you had...

     Alex whips his chair at the floor washer, tipping it
     forward and causing its electrical cord to pull up and
     trip the Guards into a bellyflop.

     Hawk bolts right at the bustling up guards and locks them
     into Alex's thumbcuffs.  He then limbos under their
     connected arms and springs over the outstretched washer
     cord.  The Security Guards clumsily turn and re-trip
     themselves.

                             HAWK
               Let's go down the freight elevator.

     Big Stan suddenly unhatches from the freight elevator.

                             ALEX
               Keep those ideas coming.

     Hawk and Alex run toward an office located at the right
     wall.  They both do a Gene-Kellyesque-chair-tip-over
     before simultaneously bashing through the office door.

     INT. DARKENED AUCTION AUDITORIUM OFFICE

     Hawk and Alex stop in the office to painfully laugh and
     rub their funny bones.  Alex stops laughing.

                             ALEX
               I'm not as unpleasantly plump as
               that Guard am I.

     Big Stan fires off a warning shot.  Hawk and Alex quickly
     tear up a window.

     Moving out on to a ledge, Hawk and Alex look down to the
     huge auction house awning and trade gulps.

     Big Stan wobbles into the mouth of the office door.

                             HAWK AND ALEX
               I got a bad feeling....

                             HAWK
               I can't even swim.

                             ALEX
               Hell, the fall'll probably kill
               ya...

     Big Stan raises his gun.

     Hawk and Alex jump and AAAGH down the face of the
     building....

     Closer and closer to the awning....

     The viewer focuses upon Hawk as he free-falls......

                                                CUT TO:

     RIGHT INTO A LAZ-Y-BOY CHAIR

     Hawk continues his "fall" into a ridiculously huge
     reclining chair.  The foot stand swooshes out with a
     thump.  A HAND pulls away the canvas bag with a cackle.

     INT. GATES APARTMENT--LATE NIGHT

     Hawk's weirdly reclining viewpoint makes Gates and his
     pad more grotesque than they are (No small feat.)
     A sub-Radio Shack stereo coughs next to a scary punch
     bowl of red, margarita-like substance, beneath the
     instantly recognizable framed picture of Those Dogs
     Playing Poker, all atop a Jungle Shag.

     Gates, in shorts and a Hawaiian shirt-over-a-KEEP ON
     TRUCKIN'-T-shirt, raises a loud tumbler with one hand,
     the black canvas bag in the other.

                             GATES
               Hudson Hawkins gets the chair of
               honor.  How about a Gates-arita?
                       (toward bowl)
               I used real hot dogs.

                             HAWK
               Weren't you the bartender at
               Jonestown?

     Suddenly a light is turned on in the corner, revealing a
     seated Cesar and Antony Mario, the latter taking a painful
     Gatesirita sip.

                             CESAR
               Good job, not pretty, but good.

                             HAWK
               Ah, the mafia, the cops; do I know
               how to party or what?

     Gates pulls out the horse and looks at it.

                             GATES
               All this trouble for a horsey.
               I may not know art, but I know
               what I like.

                             HAWK
                       (to Dog picture)
               You certainly do.

                             GATES
               So when's that Sebastian-Cabot-
               Buckingham-Palace-looking-
               Butlerhead getting here?

                             ALFRED
               Any minute now, dear Mr. Gates.