New Year's Eve with Tay, Kay and Bill

Since she can't buy champagne for the house, her Internet house being somewhat too large for the bartenders to navigate, the Siren offers this instead: a small, year-end lagniappe to her patient readers.

Presenting the script to the greatest New Year's fadeout in movie history. (Yes, more so even than The Apartment. And the Siren worships The Apartment.)

From the screenplay One Way Passage. Tay Garnett, director; starring Kay Francis as Joan and William Powell as Dan. Story by Robert Lord; written by Wilson Mizner, Joseph Jackson, and an uncredited Tay Garnett. This one is finally on DVD via Warner Archives. And it's on sale. Cheaper than champagne, and no hangover, although it smudges the Siren's mascara something terrible.

DISSOLVE TO:

A TOY BALLOON
upon which is printed:

AGUA CALIENTE
HAPPY NEW YEAR

A crowd roars and hollers, "Happy New Year!"

A band plays a lively version of "Auld Lang Syne."

Someone sticks a cigarette in the balloon and we hear but do not see it burst.

Instead, we CUT TO a fast TRACKING SHOT that runs parallel to a nightclub--part of the Agua Caliente resort in Tijuana, Mexico. The place is packed with well-dressed revelers: tuxedoes and evening gowns and party hats. Streamers and balloons and noisemakers are everywhere. They dance, they drink, they sit at tables and order food, they make merry.

We SWOOP PAST them all to the far end of the club which is nearly deserted. Two bartenders stand together, polishing glasses at a bar. At one end of the bar, a lone figure sits on a stool. We don't recognize him at first.

But then we abruptly leave our parallel track and RAPIDLY GLIDE IN and PAST the man for a brief, seconds-long glimpse: it is Skippy as we have not seen him before -- well-groomed in a black tux, nursing a drink but looking very sober, lost in thought.

In a moment, he is gone and we catch a short view of the partying mob behind him as we PAN OVER to the two bartenders, wiping their glasses nearby.

BARTENDER #4

I'll be glad when this thing's over.

BARTENDER #5

You're telling me? These holidays are dynamite.

They hear the sound of glasses shattering.

BARTENDER #4

Hey! Look out for them glasses with your elbow!

BARTENDER #5

(indignant)

I never touched any glasses.

Confused, the bartenders turn in the direction of the noise. We hear Dan and Joan's theme as we PUSH FORWARD and between the bartenders to discover the stems of two broken glasses crossed on the countertop, dancing couples visible in the background.

After a moment, the broken glass vanishes, ghost-like, into nothingness.

FADE OUT


END TITLE

The Siren wishes everyone a gloriously romantic New Year.