THE WILLIAM MUNNY KILLINGS

THE WILLIAM MUNNY KILLINGS    

Original Screenplay by David Webb Peoples

PRODUCTION DRAFT

April 23, 1984
 

INT. ALICE'S ROOM - NIGHT

NIGHT IN ALICE'S ROOM. A little bit of moonlight coming in
through the tiny window might make a highlight here and
there but that's about all. Words begin to crawl across the
screen:

WRITTEN WORDS (crawl)
Of good family, albeit one of
modest means, she was a comely
young woman and not without
prospects. Therefore it was at
once heartbreaking and astonishing
to her mother that she would enter
into marriage with William Munny, a
known thief and murderer, a man of
notoriously vicious and intemperate
disposition.

We can HEAR STRAWBERRY ALICE and DAVEY BUNTING breathing
heavily and the bed creaking.

WRITTEN WORDS (crawl)
They were married in St. Louis in
1870 and they traveled North to
Kansas where he engaged in farming
and swine husbandry.

Davey and Alice are picking up speed now, breathing faster
and even snorting a little, and it's cold as Jesus in
Nebraska in the winter so when the blanket slips, Alice
snarls and gasps.

ALICE
The blanket, for chrissake,
cowboy, the blanket.

There are six of these little rooms... one for each whore...
behind Greely's Beer Garden and Billiards and the walls are
just boards so you can hear what's happening in the other
rooms and right now, from DELILAH'S room, you can hear a
high-pitched, merry little giggle and that's important.

WRITTEN WORDS (crawl contd.)
She bore him two children in the
eight years of their marriage and
when she died, it was not at his
hands as her mother might have
expected, but of smallpox. That
was in 1878.

DELILAH'S VOICE o.s.
No, please.... No, no goddamn you.

Alice and Davey have stopped fucking and started listening
but they don't move.

WRITTEN WORDS
(Crawl cont'd)
It wasn't until 1881... three
yeats later... that a cowboy named
Mike cut up a whore in Big
Whiskey, Nebraska in the Niobrara
River country.
(end crawl)

MIKE'S VOICE o.s.
Davey, come a runnin' lad an'
hold the thieving cunt...

A blur of action as Davey leaps from the bed and dashes out
of the room naked...

MIKE'S VOICE o.s.
...brand you like a damn steer,
bitch...

and Alice is right behind him, wrapping herself in a blanket
as she goes.
 

INT. DELILAH'S ROOM - NIGHT

DELILAH is backed up against the wall, her face bleeding,
and she is throwing the contents of her chamber pot on MIKE
who is advancing on her with an open barlow knife and Davey
busts into the room naked and Alice follows him and people
are shouting in other rooms.

MIKE
(wiping shit off himself)
Hold the bitch, Davey, hold her.

The one coal oil lamp in the room gives off just enough
light that you can make all this out. Certainly you can see
that Mike, who is wearing leggings and no shirt, is a big
tough man, unshaven, eyes inflamed with whiskey...

MIKE
HOLD HER, DAMMIT, DAVEY!
If you don't hold her I'll
cut her tits off.

LITTLE SUE, a fifteen year old whore, is in the doorway,
eyes wide with terror and Alice screams at her.

ALICE
Get Skinny, for God's sake!
SKINNY!

Davey is reluctant about the whole thing but he is afraid of
Mike and he gets behind Delilah and grabs her.