Pinter Kills

 

If you ever wondered what a HAROLD PINTER ACTION MOVIE would be like (and which of us has not?) this short extract from his screenplay VICTORY (adapted from Joseph Conrad for director Richard Lester) may provide the answer.

EXT. THE CLEARING Ricardo, standing, holding his head. Jones comes out of the shadows. 

RICARDO

Guv’nor! I thought he’d done for you. He nearly had me just now. 

JONES

No, it wasn’t him. It was me. 

RICARDO

Eh? 

JONES

It’s me now, too. 

He shoots him. Ricardo falls.

This project was set to go in the early ’80s, at a modest budget, when another production company announced a version of the same (out-of-copyright) book. Lester’s funding collapsed.

Mark Peploe made a version of the Conrad classic in 1995, but apparently thought he could do better than Pinter and wrote his own script. The film was barely released.

*

Well, now I know — pasting from Word into this blog really messes up the formatting!