GUY NOIR
(GUY NOIR THEME)
TR: A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its
secrets, but one man is still trying to find the answers to
life's persistent questions----- Guy Noir, Private Eye.
(THEME UP AND OUT)
GK: It was the first week of December and I was in New
York. I'd gotten a job offer, to go and promote a Broadway
show, "Our Town: The Musical" ---- and also I needed to
get away from my cleaning lady who was driving me crazy.
She walked around the office dusting and humming to
herself (SS WANDERING HUM, NO RESOLUTION) and
it would've been okay if she'd just hummed something but
no ---- and then she'd be vacuuming (SFX) and talking on
the phone (DM: Oh yeah? Uh huh............
Right............. Sure.......... Yeah.........Oh
really.......You don't say.......Well, isn't that
something.......Right.........No, I'm with
you..............Yeah..........That's right.) and it just got on
my nerves to the point where I had to get out. And then the
phone call.
TR: Mr. Noir? It's Mike Montaigne here, Montaigne
Productions ----- listen, I got a ten-million-dollar musical
opening in three days and word has it that the critic from
the Times is going to give it a real torpedo of a review. I
need you to change his mind. How soon can you get out
here? Money, no object. (BRIDGE)
GK: So I boarded a Broadway Airlines flight from St. Paul
to JFK. (BING BONG)
FN: Hello, this is Ricky your pilot and all I want to say
is.....(SINGS)
Fly me to New York and let me drift among the clouds
Fly me over Cleveland, let me see what it's about.
In other words. Let's fly east.
In other words. Keep it steady.
Fill the plane with song and
Tell us jokes and make us smile
Turn the autopilot on,
Come dancing down the aisle
In other words, let's have fun.
In other words, what the hey? (BRIDGE)
GK: "Our Town: The Musical" was playing at the Fiasco
Theater on West 47th, and I managed to sit through most of
it, until after Emily's death, Mrs. Gibbs leads the deceased
in a big dance number.
DM (SINGS, BIG BRASSY):
We are the dead of Grovers Corners
Making merry in the cemetery
So lighten up, all you mourners
It's cold and damp, sir,
Here in New Hampshire,
We are dead and our graves are dug
But that doesn't mean we can't cut a rug.
So scrape off the rot and rise from the stones
And let's----- shake----- our bones!!!!!!!!!!!
(SKELETON DANCE)
(BRIDGE)
GK: I left and it was clear that the show was going to tank,
but I'd been paid to make sure the Times gave it a rave
review, so that's what I did. I found him walking up
Seventh Avenue toward Times Square (TRAFFIC.
VOICES PASSING. SALVATION ARMY BELL & TR
SANTA HO HO HOING)
FN: Awww shudup, wouldja.
TR: Merry Christmas!
FN: Poor excuse for a Santa, you are---- anybody ever
show you how to ring a bell? (FOOTSTEPS, TRAFFIC.)
SS GIRL: Chestnuts, sir? Hot chestnuts? A sack for a
dollar?
FN: I get enough stale chestnuts going to theater, don't
need yours.
SS GIRL: How about a cup of warm cider?
FN: Get away from me. Leave me alone.
(FOOTSTEPS, TRAFFIC)
TR (MINN): Excuse me. Can you tell me where 42nd
Street is?
FN: What am I? Your personal guide? Is there a sign on my
hat that says, "Information"? No. There is not. Fortysecond
street is right there. Wake up.
TR (MINN): Thank you, sir.
FN: Bah. Humbug. (BRIDGE)
GK: I considered mood-altering drugs but I didn't know
what the right dosage would be for someone as sour as he,
and I went into a bar called Joey's to think it over (BAR
AMBIENCE) and ordered a ginger ale and I was accosted
by a beautiful woman.
DM: Excuse me, sir.
GK: One is accosted so seldom by any woman anymore----
Yes?
DM: I'm sorry to bother you, but I'm new to the city and
I'm looking for my brother. I'm supposed to meet him
somewhere around here.
GK: She was tall and it took a long time to look at her and
it was worth the effort. I looked at her twice, just to make
sure I didn't miss anything.
DM: I'm sure you're very busy, but I need your help, sir.
GK: You're an actor, aren't you. You came to New York
with a dream of getting into theater and you're going to
stay with your brother until you can land a part in a
Broadway show and grab the brass ring that leads to fame
and fortune.
DM: Not on your life. Unemployment in the theater is
somewhere right around 98%. No, my boyfriend and I are
partners in the Penelope Applicable Preparation
Corporation.
GK: At the mention of a boyfriend, I felt a cold chill.
So tell me about your boyfriend-----
SS (DEEP): I don't have one, that's why I'm sitting in this
bar.
GK: I wasn't talking to you lady. I was talking to her.
SS (DEEP): Sorry. No need to yell.
DM: He waited on me at a shoestore. I was looking for a
pair of slippers.
GK: Glass?
DM: Leather. He took my foot in his hand and the way he
slipped it into that shoe ----I knew that he adored me.
SS (DEEP): My husband Bob bought me a pair of theme
underwear once but I don't know what he meant by it.
GK: Would you mind? I can't believe that you're not an
actor. Let me hear you recite a poem. A love poem.
SS (DEEP): My, you get right to the point, don't you.
DM: I used to know that poem that begins, " Let me not to
the marriage of true minds
admit impediments.
GK: Love is not love
which alters when it alteration finds,
or bends with the remover to remove.
DM: Oh no, it is an ever fixed mark
that looks on tempests and is never shaken.
It is the star to every wandering bark
whose depth's unknown although its height be taken.
GK: You know that poem well.
DM: At Piscacadawadaquoddymoggin High School we
were required to memorize poems.
GK: Piscacadawadaquoddymoggin. On the Penobscot
peninsula?
DM: Exactly.
GK: My aunt Persis used to live there. That's where you
make the preparation?
DM: Yes. Penelope Applicable Preparation ---- its made
from pumpkins, peapods, pipewort, protoplasmic peachpits,
pipetted poppyseeds, purple peppers, and pre-printed
papyrus.
GK: I'm sorry. What was that again?
DM: Pumpkins, peapods, pipewort, protoplasmic
peachpits, pipetted poppyseeds, peppercorn, and preprinted
papyrus. Cures palpitations, pimples, populism,
pulpitry, priapism, impropriety, dilated pupils, perspiration
due to plumpness, purposelessness, purpuric dermatosis,
and the propensity for pomposity.
SS (DEEP): What are you people talking about?
GK: It's a tonic.
DM: A preparation.
SS (DEEP): Well, I'm not going to need any where I'm
going. I'm off to Palm Springs. Bought myself a brand new
Porsche. I told Bob: thirty-seven years of marriage and I
need a little room to grow. I've been bored out of my gourd
for the past thirty-five.
GK: I wish you'd tell it to someone else.
SS (DEEP): I'm telling it to everyone, mister.
GK: So where are you supposed to meet your brother?
DM: At the New York Times. I figured it was near Times
Square.
GK: He works at the Times?
DM: He's a typesetter.
SS (DEEP): Got my Porsche out front and she's pointed
south, mister.
GK: I'm too old for romance, lady.
SS (DEEP): It's Christmas. You just pick out a star that
looks good to you, and you follow it.
GK: Take this to your brother, kid. It's a rewrite of the
review of "Our Town: The Musical" -----
DM: And you're the reviewer?
GK: I am now. Yes.
DM: "Our Town: The Musical" lights up the Great White
Way with a wit and verve seldom seen in a Broadway
production." And that's true?
GK: There's no show like it. None.
SS (DEEP): Last chance at Palm Springs.
GK: Merry Christmas, kid. Hope the applicable preparation
business goes well. What was in it again? Peachpits and
peapods and purple pepper----
DM: And preprinted papyrus. And pumpkins and paprika.
(THEME)
TR: A dark night in the city that keeps its secrets, but one
guy is still trying to find the answers to life's persistent
questions----Guy Noir, Private Eye.
(MUSIC OUT)