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I telegraphed and phoned
I sent air mail special, too
Yeah, I know.
Answer was goodbye There was even postage due
I fell in love just once
And then it had to be with you
Triple rhyme.
Everything happens to me
Oh, fuck.
Yeah.
WQXR notes the passing
of one of America's foremost songwriters,
Lorenz Hart, who died last night at Doctors Hospital in Manhattan
from complications of pneumonia.
Mr. Hart was 48 years old.
For over 20 years, Hart and his partner, Richard Rodgers,
Rodgers wrote the music, Hart the words,
combined their respective geniuses to create a string of musical-comedy hits.
Often referred to as America's Gilbert and Sullivan,
Rodgers and Hart will be remembered for such songs as,
My Funny Valentine, The Lady Is A Tramp,
Where or When, With A Song In My Heart, Isn't It Romantic?,
My Heart Stood Still, Bewitched,
I Didn't Know What Time It Was, Manhattan,
and Blue Moon.
Okla-Okla-Okla-Okla-Okla
We know we belong to the land
Here comes "grand."
And the land we belong to is grand And when we say
Yow! Ayipioeeay!
We're only sayin' "You're doin' fine, Oklahoma!"
I need a drink.
- Lorry. - I'll see you later, Mom.
L-A-H-O-M-A
Oklahoma!
Yow!
All right. For the last time, put the letters on the table.
"If Laszlo and the cause mean that much to you,
"you won't stop at anything."
All right, I'll make it easy on you.
"Go ahead, shoot. You'd be doing me a favor."
Just remember, I got this gun pointed at your dick.
Oh. That's my least vulnerable spot.
Jesus Christ! How many times have we seen that picture?
Worst line in Casablanca?
"Well, a precedent is being broken."
"A precedent is being broken"? How can you break a goddamn precedent?
Do they even speak English over there in Hollywood?
Still, you have to love Claude Rains.
He makes that picture.
- Sure. - You know why he's so great?
He's a leading man, and he's short,
which proves you can be both.
And I love this.
He says to Ilsa,
"Mademoiselle, he's the kind of man that, if I were a woman
"and I were not around, I should be in love with Rick."
Think about it. Whom does he end up with at the end of the picture?
Who's strolling away together arm in arm into the fog?
You're saying Rick and Captain Renault...
What do you think goes on over there
at the Free French garrison in Brazzaville?
That is a scene they can't show you.
Okay. Best line in Casablanca?
"Nobody ever loved me that much."
Isn't that magnificent?
Six words. "Nobody ever loved me that much."
And, really, who's ever been loved enough?
Who's ever been loved half enough?
Would you get me a shot?
Larry, you told me under no circumstances...
I'm just going to look at it.
Take the measure
of its amber heft in my hand.
- You told me not... - Just give me the drink.
Did I tell you what Elizabeth told me?
That's the girl I'm meeting here tonight.
- You mean the one you... - Eddie, Eddie, Eddie.
- What? - Show some class, all right?
Her mother is going to come walking in here any second.
- Sorry. - Seriously.
I... I adore this girl. And, I'm telling you, this is beyond sex.
- What's beyond sex? - I don't understand it.
She's completely undeserving, but isn't that the way it always is?
"Irrational adoration." That's the phrase she came up with.
She's a poet, too. Did I tell you that?
Oh, and would you give me a shot of club soda?
I'll drink one and admire the other.
So, this girl...
You really, you know,
with a 20-year-old college girl, huh?
It is more complicated than you could possibly imagine.
Uh, leave the bottle.
It's a visual poem.
You're not giving me any details here.
You know what my secret goal is for the rest of this year?
- What? - I'm serious. Really.
My secret goal is to stop being so scared.
- Elizabeth Weiland. For... - Those are mine!
Jesus! That is all you get for five dollars?
Plus delivery, yes.
Lorenz Hart?
You know, I kind of think I've heard that name before.
You just earned yourself a dollar tip, kid.
A precedent is being broken.
Hey, she gave this to me. Mailed it all the way from New Haven
because I said I wanted something she'd actually touched.
Christ! It's like I'm 17 again,
except I never was 17.
I went directly from childhood to washed-up.
- Eddie, get the kid a drink, would you? - No thanks. I'm... I'm working.
Oh, Christ, that's when you should be drinking.
What's your name? Sven, am I right?
- Troy. - Ooh, even better.
Listen, Sven, are you free tonight?
Eddie, would you get the kid a goddamn shot?
- Yeah. - 'Cause I am throwing
an enormous party at my place.
All of show business is going to be there.
I've booked the Golden Gate Quartet. I'm serious.
I want you to show up, bring a friend,
bring a dozen friends.
It's going to be like nothing you've ever seen before.
I'm up at the Ardsley, you know? 91st, on the Park.
Just tell the desk clerk that you're with Lorenz Hart's party.
You're going to need to know the password.
- Are you ready for the password? - Mmm-hmm.
"Nobody ever loved me that much."
Slow! Oh.
Now that is a beautiful sight.
What, you don't drink?
After one whole quart of brandy
Like a daisy I awake
You know that song?
Uh, no, no.
My funny Valentine Sweet comic Valentine...
I really don't listen to the radio that much.
You said you know my name!
- You don't know one Rodgers and Hart song? - I know...
I just can't really remember...
I'll take Manhattan
The Bronx and Staten...
We were on the cover of Time Magazine!
My picture is on the wall right...
Eddie, where's my picture?
They move 'em around.
- What do you... - Well, how about this one?
Blue moon
I know that one!
You saw me standing alone
Without a dream in my heart
Without a love of my own
Worst goddamn lyric I ever wrote!
- You wrote that? - Wasn't even supposed to be the title.
I like that song.
Hmm. I'll take my tip back.
I want you at my party, Sven!
Doc Bender said to me the other night,
after I told him I'd proposed to Vivienne again,
"She turned me down, again,"
he said... "Larry, make up your mind.
"Are you homosexual or heterosexual?"
I said, "Doc, I'm ambisexual."
He said... "What the hell does that even mean?"
I said, "It means I can jerk off
"equally well with either hand."
Oh, Larry! There's a lady present.
Well, women can use either hand, too.
But to be a writer, you have to be kind of omni-sexual, don't you?
You have to have, inside yourself, you know, everyone on earth.
Men, women, horses.
How can you give voice to the whole chorus of the world
if the whole chorus of the world isn't already inside you?
Eddie, what do you call a tireless, relentless homosexual?
"Indefagitable."
To the great and glorious past, when it all mattered so much.
Mmm.
Keep playing. You're good.
- Oh, thank you. I'm an aspiring composer. - "Aspiring"?
- That means you're breathing, right? - Mmm.
I better take your name down in case I need a new partner.
Hey, did you go to the opening tonight?
Oklahoma! With an exclamation point, no less.
Fact. Any title that feels the need for an exclamation point,
you want to steer clear of.
What did you say your name was again?
Uh, Morty Rifkin. But I go by the name of Morty Rafferty.
No one could possibly guess you're Jewish.
Wha'dja think of Oklahoma?
What did I think of Oklahoma?
Well, Knuckles,
Knuckles O'Rifkin, that's what I'm going to call you,
I saw the show a couple of times in previews in New Haven,
back when they were still calling it Away We Go! Exclamation point.
And I felt sure Dick was gonna call me,
"Larry, we're in big trouble.
"I need you to funny up the show. We need some big comedy numbers."
And I was all ready to say,
"Dick, instead of all this corn-pone Americana,
"let's do a send-up of corn-pone Americana!"
I was already writing lyrics in my head. I couldn't stop.
And did he call you?
Are you kidding? He was too busy writing more hits. Huh.
I sat in my box seat tonight and watched
"Oklahomo, exclamation point"...
...down there, glittering in all its pink lights
and all those cowboy hats and twirling lassos,
and I knew two things with absolute certainty.
It was a 14-karat hit
and it was a 14-karat piece of shit.
Oh. Friend of mine saw it in previews,
said it was one of the best shows he's ever seen.
The show is fraudulent on every possible level.
And this is not jealousy speaking, okay?
I watched that show tonight and I felt this great sinking in my heart.
And all around me people are roaring. They are roaring at third-rate jokes.
I wanted to grab the audience by the shoulders and say,
"What are you laughing at? Come on! Demand more!" And...
Rodgers is a genius.
I say that without one second's hesitation.
You're a piano player. You know that I'm right.
Yeah, he's pretty good.
Pretty good?
There is no one with his range, his inventiveness,
great soaring masculine melodies building like pile drivers.
I mean, Rodgers is a cold-hearted son of a bitch,
but he can get a melody to levitate,
and that is the hallmark of great art, levitation.
I've got a beautiful feeling
That's the moment. You hear that?
When your spine glows
and the whole apparatus of songwriting suddenly breaks free from gravity.
There's maybe five people on the planet that can pull that off,
and that son of a bitch is one of 'em.
And then, oy... Words by Oscar Hammerstein II.
What can I say about Oscar?
He's going to come striding in here any second,
all seven and a half feet of him,
and, you know, Dick deliberately went with somebody tall this time,
you know that.
But what can I say about Oscar?
He's so earthbound,
and let's face it, most of us are earthbound.
But there are moments, I swear to God,
there are moments in my work
when I have made something bigger than myself.
I agree, definitely.
Thank you. The words were bigger than the music,
bigger than the characters who sang them,
and they approached, for maybe one-half second, something immortal.
Excuse my limitless self-regard, but they did,
and if nobody else is going to say it, then I'm going to.
I have written a handful of words that are going to cheat death.
Spoken with the modesty of a true lunatic.
Hey! When Shakespeare wrote,
"Not marble nor gilded monuments
"Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,"
did people say, "My God, what an ego"?
No, they said he is a genius, and he knows his work is going to last.
So now you're Shakespeare?
Look, Oklahoma! is going to win the goddamn Pulitzer. I know that.
High schools are going to put it on from now till doomsday,
because it is so inoffensive.
But really, who wants inoffensive art?
Knuckles...
...are you listening to me? I'm trying to answer your question.
Is that why God put us on the planet, to not offend people?
The problem with Oklahoma! is this,
and the problem was right there in the original play,
Green Grow the Fucking Lilacs.
And Dick first showed that play to me, all right?
He asked me to adapt it first, and I said no,
and I don't mind that it's nostalgic,
but Oklahoma!, exclamation point,
is nostalgic for a world that never existed,
and do you really want to write a show where the main character's name is Curly?
Oh, here's an idea for a song.
"Hey, Moe! Hey, Larry! I Just Stepped in Cow Shit!"
I mean, am I bitter?
We write together for a quarter a century,
and the first show he writes with someone else
is gonna be the biggest hit he ever had. Am I bitter?
- Larry... - Fuck yes.
But I need to tell you about Elizabeth.
I need to cleanse my heart.
Here we go. The 20-year-old...
She's going to come in here any second.
Uh, Rodgers is gonna be here tonight, right?
- Don't worry, I'll introduce you. - Oh, that'd be great.
I'm trying to get somebody to listen to my songs.
Well, listen and learn.
I'm telling you about Elizabeth.
There's something appealingly...
ethereal about her face.
What the fuck does that mean?
Look, I got her all these presents.
You bought her something from Klein's?
She's gonna love this.
Yeah, but that's used shit. What are you doing?
This is an authentic first-edition.
You don't understand the magic
and the mystery of this girl.
"I have been waiting for this my whole life."
It's what Somerset Maugham says in that thing, you remember?
- Me? - Yeah.
"There's always one who loves and one who lets himself be loved."
That's the truth, isn't it?
Of course, you know you're in trouble
when you're looking for the meaning of life
in a book with the word "bondage" in the title.
Larry...
She's a girl. Right?
Okay. See, I always thought that your interests went more towards...
My interests?
So now you're going to analyze me?
Thank you, Doctor Bacardi.
Look, I met her at rehearsals for By Jupiter.
And she's not an actress.
She's a college student. Sophomore.
Yale. Not the general school, that's for the guys.
This is the School of Fine Arts!
Bohemian goddesses in gray smocks
mixing paint in morning light.
She's all of 20 years old.
And you're what?
A youthful 47!
You know what I call her in my letters?
"My irreplaceable Elizabeth!" Can you believe it?
If I could write what's in my heart this second,
I would have the entire audience levitating.
Oklahoma! would close in shame
if it could hear eight bars of what's in my heart.
And I've been in eight bars tonight, so I know what I'm talking about.
Go!
Last summer, I found myself awake at 4:30 in the morning.
And all I had done the previous five hours...
What the hell are you lookin' at your watch for?
- Larry, I'm working here. - What the hell do you think I'm doing?
And I'm not even getting paid. All right.
More flowers...
Oh. Eddie, get Sven another drink!
...for Richard Rodgers.
Jesus, how much did those cost?
Sixteen dollars. Plus delivery.
"Dick, I've got a beautiful feeling, everything's going your way.
"Love, Dorothy."
She's quoting Oscar?
I write with her husband for 24 years,
and she's quoting Oscar?
91st on the Park, The Ardsley. We'll be going late.
All right. Well, thanks again, fellas.
Good evening.
Indulge me for one second.
Let me recreate for you, Elizabeth.
Enough! Did you screw her or not?
Show some class, Eddie. Knuckles, may I speak with you?
Oh, sure, yeah.
So, did you screw her or not?
Elizabeth!
Larry!
My irreplaceable Elizabeth!
I'm so happy to see you.
Ah...
- Do you like the hair? - I love it.
- It's much better than the red. - I think so.
I mean, I liked the red, too. But this is much more other-worldly.
I have to go set up for the party.
No, no, no. I got you some flowers!
Aww.
- I'm overwhelmed. - Well, I have that effect on people.
- I have so much to tell you. - Like what?
- I've been writing in my journal again. - I hope you let me read it.
No, no, no, no. The big one.
And these are what Richard Rodgers is getting?
Larry, my mother would die if she saw this.
- With your permission. - Permission granted.
- That guy I told you about? - Cooper?
- It finally happened. - No!
Yes.
On my birthday. The night of my 20th birthday.
Pretty dramatic actually. You could write a play about it.
A musical. He Has Risen.
- Larry... - It's an Easter musical!
It's very religious!
Let me clarify by saying it almost happened.
Clarify immediately!
- I'm gonna tell you the whole story later. - No, no, I demand
to know the shorthand version now.
- The shorthand version? Okay. - Mmm-hmm.
The skin on his back was flawless.
Gotta run.
You're going to introduce me to Richard Rodgers, right?
Before the evening is over,
you're going to get a huge handful of Dick.
Larry! You're so vulgar!
Handful of Dick, that's funny.
- Hey... - Hmm.
I'm writing an entire musical about her.
It's inspired by those Frank Capra war pictures Why We Fight.
This one will be called
Why We Fuck.
And the big ballad at the end will be
The Skin On His Back Was Flawless.
Of course, when you're 20,
what other commodity do you have to trade in on except your body?
You haven't done anything, right?
Can you imagine what Elizabeth would write if she saw my back?
"The skin on his back
"looked like a white bed sheet someone had thrown-up on.
"His pecker looked like the horn of a retarded unicorn."
Just one...
to get me through congratulating him.
Larry.
To the skin on her back like every other part of her,
flawless.
Wow.
How can so much pleasure be compressed into so small a container?
That's it. Absolutely no more. Agreed?
God! I miss Gershwin.
I bet I saw Porgy and Bess more times than any other person in this city.
Best line in Porgy,
"When Gawd made cripple, He mean him to be lonely."
Did you ever think your entire life is a play...
- Hmm. - ...and that, you know,
99% of the people in it,
they got no lines, you know?
They're just like extras.
And you, you're just an extra in their play.
Deep. Very deep.
- I got thoughts, too, you know. - Really?
I thought you were just an extra.
Will somebody get these fucking flowers off my bar?
Okay!
You've got to see her as I did.
- I just seen her. - No, the first time.
If you can't see that,
you can't understand what this whole night is about.
I'm beginning to think you didn't screw her.
I want to practice this trick on you before I do it for her.
And I'm not showing it to her as a trick.
I'm showing it to her as an experiment to prove
there's an extra-sensory link between us.
She believes in all that horseshit, you know,
talking for 20 minutes about psychokinesis.
I don't understand a fucking word she's saying.
I'm sitting there, nodding, thinking,
"Is she really wearing a grape-colored brassiere?"
And later, I'm going to teach you boys my own card game.
- Cocksucker's Rummy! - Larry, language.
Ooh, you're offended by the word "cocksucker"?
All right, I won't use it. I give you my word
as a cocksucker.
But let me tell you about the first time I saw her.
I think I'd rather see the card trick.
Me, too.
You know what the sexiest thing on the planet earth is?
A half-erect penis.
Jesus Christ, Larry, nobody wants to hear this.
I'm not talking to you.
- Who you talking to? - Me.
I got to talk to somebody interesting. I mean it, though.
A half-erect penis is a promise.
A fully-erect penis is an exclamation point.
As a writer, it offends me. It's too loud, it's too adolescent.
The story's already over.
But a half-erect penis, is it going or is it coming?
But women appeal to me precisely for their absence of penises.
Me, too.
Oh, they live in a much more interesting emotional landscape than we do.
A landscape we can only dream about.
But this evening is not about landscapes.
It's a portrait of Elizabeth, and only Elizabeth.
Here we fucking go again.
Wait, you saw that she was beautiful, right?
I mean, if not classically beautiful, then, what's the right word...
Nice tits.
Small but very inviting.
I wish I could paint her.
That seems to me the most intimate way of looking at a person.
At the same time, the least sentimental.
To accurately reproduce the planes of her face,
the two tiny freckles on her left cheek.
You look familiar. I've seen your picture somewhere.
You're a writer?
Well, then you will appreciate this story.
Because it concerns the...
Ineffable?
That's the perfect word.
Christ! You're E.B. White! You're "Andy" White!
I cannot tell you how much I enjoy your essays.
Nothing has given me more pleasure.
- I'm in love with your language. - Thank you.
I'm in love with your punctuation.
You can't move a single comma. Am I right?
I mean, you're a musician, White.
You're the musician.
You know, you, above all people, will appreciate this story.
This girl, Elizabeth.
I... I can't do my act for her. You know what I mean?
She wouldn't be interested. She never asks me about me.
Never. And it isn't so much indifference, I think,
as much as we both recognize
that she's legitimately more interesting than I am.
And I genuinely mean that.
Did you guys see her hair?
That's what I first noticed when she walked into the theater last July.
It was as if she were breathing different air than I was.
- I like that. - I'm telling you, White,
she would make a great musical!
And not one goddamn corn stalk in the whole show!
And, hey, fellas, just for the record,
"The corn is as high as an elephant's eye"
is the stupidest lyric in the history of American songwriting.
Yes, it makes perfect sense, and, yes, it scans,
but the image of an Oklahoma cornfield
with a fucking elephant standing in the middle of it?
- I like elephants. - Yeah, we all like elephants, Eddie.
Look, Andy, I need you to see this.
I'm listening to her talk,
but I couldn't tell you a single word she said
'cause all I'm really thinking is,
"Wait till you feel the warmth of her glance,
"pensive and sweet and wise."
I was writing about her when I wrote that lyric.
Three perfect words, in the perfect order.
And, you tell me, what other lyricist could've gotten away with "pensive"?
What song was that?
Just telling you, when I'm good, I'm really good.
Just the sound of it! That's what a writer does.
We wear our vulnerability like a cloak for all the world to witness.
I like the word "cloak."
That's 'cause it's an antique like us.
Can I get you another drink?
Sure. Why not?
I can think of a thousand reasons why not,
but they can't compete with the reasons why.
Eddie, pass the Lord and praise the house physician!
Another round! Just a little, just...
You know what I loved in that essay you wrote about Florida?
That line.
"The sea answers all questions and always the same way...
"'So soon?'"
Jesus.
To take a sound and transform it into what?
A sigh of eternity.
My diminutive gift.
To the poetry that pours down on us from a thousand unexpected sources.
To your poetry.
Hmm.
Look, she's 20, I'm 47.
Let's discuss this like two sensible alcoholics.
It was in the beginning, everything was exactly as it seemed.
I was her mentor, and I suppose I was, you know,
the "grand old man" of the theater in her eyes.
I'm over at the Shubert rehearsing By Jupiter,
the show is a holy mess.
And I'm having this debate with Johnny Green
about the lyrics to Give My Regards to Broadway.
I remember, as a kid, falling in love with that song.
Give my regards to old Broadway
And say that I'll be there 'ere long
I knew instantly, even as a kid,
that what gave that line its speed, its inevitability, was the inner rhyme.
And not just the "there, 'ere." But the other one. The "way, say."
The line should logically be,
"Give my regards to old Broadway and tell them that I'll be there."
But to change the verb to "say,"
it made all the difference.
Knuckles, do you know any Cohan?
Over there! Over there!
Send the word, send the word Over there
That the Yanks are coming! The Yanks are coming!
The drum drum-drumming everywhere...
We'll be over We're coming over!
And we won't come back 'till it's over, over there!
You know what the Yanks really sang in the Great War?
"We won't come back. We'll be buried over there!"
And they were.
Total number of deaths in the Great War, 37 million.
I think maybe the adjective "great" should never precede the word "war."
Amen to that.
What does God think when he looks down on his creation
and sees that under the noblest of motives,
we sent 37 million people to their grave?
That's why it's raining all the time. God is weeping.
Well, I'm a patriot. I am.
I mean, you're a soldier. God bless you.
But how many are going to die this time around?
Will we even be able to put a number on it?
I'm on leave. Taking care of my mother.
She's more terrified than I am.
When do you ship out?
In two weeks, they're sending me back to that hotbed of enemy activity.
Bradley Beach, New Jersey.
I'm teaching Morse code at the Hotel Grossman.
Bradley Beach, where enemy agents stroll the boardwalk
disguised as elderly Jewish women in furs.
I used to play hide the sausage
with a girl from Bradley Beach.
Oh, yeah?
Did you read that piece in Life about Guadalcanal?
- Mm-mm. - How before the battle,
the soldiers were skipping silver dollars in the water
instead of stones
'cause they knew they were never coming back.
I couldn't enlist. My eyes.
What's the matter? They open?
Speaking of people who are not coming back,
I would like you to read this.
It's from the By Jupiter playbill.
Out loud!
Uh...
"Rodgers and Hart,
"they're as different as a dachshund and a dromedary.
"One likes opera and home life, the other goes for night clubs and people.
"One is married and has two children,
"the other is single and supports bartenders."
You're welcome, Eddie.
"The little fella, that's Larry, smokes cigars,
"big, black, small, brown, any kind.
"While Dick, that's Rodgers, only uses cigarettes.
"One goes to bed about 4:30 every morning, the other never dissipates."
Perfect verb, right? Mmm.
"Despite their physical and temperamental differences, however,
"their intellects complement each other like ham and eggs.
"Their individual songs number well over a thousand."
A thousand songs?
"They disagree violently, but they never fight,
"and in the 20-odd years they've been practicing their craft,
"they have never worked with anyone but each other..."
Until now.
Impressive.
I wrote it myself.
And not one single mention of Blue fucking Moon.
I sent Elizabeth some of my sheet music. No response. I don't get it.
She's a bitch.
That's what they're gonna put on my tombstone.
- "She's a bitch"? - "Lorenz Milton Hart.
"He didn't get it."
And people will come to my gravesite and say, "You know what?
- "I didn't get it either." - I definitely didn't get it.
- Hey, Larr, I get it! - So, listen.
Elizabeth and I had a weekend.
We actually did.
One passionate, transcendent weekend, end of last summer
before she went back to Yale.
It's the closest I've ever felt in my life to pure selflessness.
It was nuanced, it was deep.
How deep exactly?
Listen, clown. I met her,
and the first thing I said to her was, "Excuse me,
"but you have the best style of anyone in this theater."
I wish I had a photograph of that moment.
I wish I had a photograph of every moment I've spent with her.
I'm having trouble getting this right. I'm trying to pin down...
Oh, Andy, help me. What's the right word?
Enchantment?
And you know how hard that is.
I couldn't believe that it was me she wanted to talk to.
I kept looking around the theater,
there must be somebody else she's interested in.
But no! She's plunking herself down in the theater seat right next to me,
as close as modesty will allow.
And my heart is actually racing.
And I don't ever feel this way, not for men or for women.
But she's wearing this yellow sundress,
and it is hot in the theater.
And she's talking to me for hours.
Bare leg draped over the armrest.
And I know this sounds like I'm some middle-aged putz
with a crush on a pretty co-ed,
and maybe that's what it is.
But you know something?
Maybe that's not what it is.
Sometimes I feel... and don't laugh,
after a lifetime of blindly colliding into strangers,
we've finally found a friend.
Maybe that's the definition of enchantment.
One light-filled weekend!
I've got to finish telling you this before she comes back.
Are you listening to me?
Yeah, she got her legs draped over the thing.
It was as if all the love lyrics I had ever written
had, like, some sort of verbal ectoplasm, suddenly taken human form.
Ecto what?
That might be her mother.
She cannot hear this.
What about me?
You're just an extra.
Okay, but I still get paid, right?
Absolutely.
It's important to me that I nail this down.
It was a boiling hot summer weekend,
and I asked, with all the casualness I could counterfeit,
if she'd like to, you know, escape the heat of the city,
spend the weekend with me on Lake Dunmore in Vermont.
And without a moment's hesitation she said,
"I'd love to, Larry."
Oh, I'm telling you, Andy, this is my type of girl.
I'm sorry, excuse me, I'm babbling,
but how else do you describe the actual present tense
of falling in love?
Is that what this is?
Maybe. I mean, I haven't done anything wrong, okay?
I haven't violated the Mann Act or even the Middle-Aged Man Act.
I bought her this painting of Lake Dunmore,
bought it off this old salt Vermonter.
I bought it so that she might remember.
I once did a little canoeing up around there.
Hey, Larry!
And then?
Act Three. Later that day,
she's in the warmth of the cabin.
There's a pennant from Fort Ticonderoga pinned to the wall.
She's wearing this blue men's work shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
All of her suddenly available to me,
this gift of youth and brain
and clavicle.
I touched her shoulder,
and as some hack once scribbled,
"My heart stood still."
She took my hand and said, "Larry,
"let's save this for another day."
And all I can tell you, my friend,
is there is a real possibility that tonight is "another day."
Clearing back a little bit. Ladies, beautiful, beautiful!
Rodgers! Rodgers!
Yeah, beautiful!
Okay.
I appreciate that. Thanks.
Hey, thank you so much.
I appreciate it. Thank you.
Bravo!
Thank you so much.
Now, time for the real performance of the evening.
Eddie, Eddie. Eddie, get rid of this!
Hey.
So, did he fuck her or not?
He thinks tonight might be the night.
Oh... Larry. Larry, Larry.
What do you think she sees in him?
I think she sees a rich and famous guy who can help her career.
I think she recognizes she's being adored
by one of the great appreciators of beauty.
- You know what else I think? - Yeah?
I think she is wearing a grape-colored brassiere.
All right, Rodgers. Gentlemen, please let's get one.
Beautiful. Come on. All right, big smile!
- Beautiful. - Dick! Dick!
My God! The show is going to run 20 years!
It's going to be bigger than Abie's Irish Rose!
- We'll see. - And much more goyish, so it can tour.
Well, thanks for coming, Larry.
- Oh, Oscar! - Larry.
You get taller every time I see you.
What can I say? The lyrics are brilliant.
Poetic when they need to be poetic, funny when they need to be funny.
Not a rhyme out of place, easy on the ear.
I'm just a fool when lights are low
Perfect! Did you hear me applauding?
I think you were the loudest person in the entire theater!
That's because I loved it more than anyone else in the entire theater!
- Let me get you boys a drink. - Oh, no, thank you.
- Um... - Larry, you got two minutes?
Give us a minute.
Excuse us, Oscar.
Um...
So, uh, Dwight Wiman and I
have been talking about bringing back A Connecticut Yankee.
Terrific!
Yeah, I'm thinking of asking Vivienne Segal.
Oh! Mein Gott! Oh, it's gonna run longer than Oklahoma!
I'll buy 50 seats myself.
I've got a new title, Ohh, Camelot!
Well, I think we're gonna stick with A Connecticut Yankee.
Camelot Exclamation Point?
Okay, come on. I'm being serious here.
I'm always serious. That's why people find me so funny.
So I was thinking, if you feel up to working, then maybe...
- I've never felt better in my life, Dick. - Congratulations, Dick.
I don't want to bother you. I just... We all just loved it.
- Oh, you did? - It's going to be a big hit.
Oh, thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that.
- It's Gladys, right? Yes. - Yes! Yeah.
Yes, nice to see you. Um...
Yeah, I was... I was thinking, um, not just a revival,
I was thinking a whole new book.
We were thinking four or five new numbers.
That I write?
Of course, that you write. That we write together.
It's been 16 years, you know that, since we did that show?
- It needs updating, don't you think? - 1927! The Vanderbilt!
Yeah, it can be the new Rodgers and Hart show for the fall.
- New gags, new songs. - New references.
We'll satirize the whole war.
Rationing, rubber drives, nylon drives,
a new number for Vivienne.
- Go easy with the satire, Larry. - Very nice job.
- Hello, nice to see you. - Very nice piece.
Appreciate it. Thank you.
There came a lull then Cordell Hull sent orders from above
I'm sorry, girls, put down your pearls 'Cause now we're rationing love
And how do we get Cordell Hull into Camelot?
Who cares? It's funny!
Dick! From the New York Journal-American.
"As enchanting to the eye as Richard Rodgers' music is to the ear."
- Okay. - Yeah, it's nice.
That's good. Good start.
So, uh, are you up for that? Are you feeling healthy?
Is that something you could take seriously?
Yeah. I'm on the wagon, Dick. I'm serious.
Been drinking ginger ale all night.
Well, except for this second 'cause this second we have to celebrate.
This is the greatest musical in the history of American theater.
No, no. I'm not drinking with you, Larry.
Okay, okay, all right.
Weegee! Weegee! Shoot this!
- What? Oh, no. Larry, I got to... - No, no, no. Hey.
Rodgers and Hart, together again!
All right, closer! Come on, closer!
I want ten copies of that.
Great. Write me a check.
Yeah.
So, you... you think you're up to that?
It's the best idea I've heard in 16 years.
At the same time, I think we should be dreaming about something completely new.
Don't you agree?
New Rodgers and Hart, something people haven't seen before.
Something big!
Let's start with the revival first.
- Absolutely. - We'll take it one step at a time...
- Yeah, but... - ...because I really think
- Hear me out. - ...we can have a future together.
Who doesn't think that?
But I want to be one of those composers who works with, uh, you know,
other lyricists.
Like Arlen, Kern. You love Kern.
I love Kern. I wanted to be Kern.
But we have to work like professionals, Larry.
Since when haven't I worked like a professional?
I want to work at specific times in the morning, at my office.
- I want to adhere to a schedule. - Yeah. That's what we do.
I don't want to spend any more time looking for you, Larry.
- Well, I'm right here. Small as life! - You know what I mean.
I don't want to be calling up your mother
at nine o'clock in the morning, so that,
maybe, you might roll out of bed at noon. Right?
- Dick... - I just don't want to do what we did.
That's all I'm saying.
It's a business, that's all.
Maybe I shouldn't bring it up tonight, but I don't know,
- I wanted... I wanted to... - All I want is to...
That was your best one yet.
- Really. - All right, thank you.
- Who is that? - All I want is to write a show
we both love.
Yeah, I feel the same way.
Dick! Burns Mantle just called it
"The most thoroughly and attractively American musical comedy
"since Show Boat."
- Since Show Boat? - Yeah.
Wow. That's good.
- Truly spectacular. - Thank you, nice to see you.
I have to fall in love with a show, Dick.
I have to want to write that show more than anything in the world,
to be in that audience, sitting there not missing a single word.
All right, well, we start with A Connecticut Yankee,
- four or five numbers, and we go... - Okay, look.
Here's what I'm thinking. The Adventures of Marco Polo.
Dick, Dick! Wonderful show.
Oh, thank you so much. Nice to see you.
Just... just big. Bigger than Jumbo. Epic.
A three-ring musical circus.
The show lasts four hours with a dinner break!
It's grand comic opera. And the stage set is the world!
- Uh-huh. - We satirize everybody.
And you get to satirize them musically.
We send up every national musical cliche there is.
The France number, the Italian number,
when they get to the Heart of Darkness,
the cannibals are doing Porgy and Bess. Boom, boom.
Bess, you is my dinner now!
Jesus, Larry. Come on.
This show is going to have the scope of a novel.
It will be the greatest challenge you've ever had as a composer.
And what grounds it all, what lets the audience enter this story
is the girl.
- Uh-huh. - This ethereal girl
whom Marco Polo has left behind.
She's half his age...
...but it's the first time he's felt that inkling of love in years, maybe ever.
He swears in the first scene.
We set this up like Benedick in Much Ado...
- Right. - He swears that he's beyond
the reach of any woman. He scorns love.
And we do a whole number satirizing love songs.
No. Larry, I want to write shows that have some emotional core to them...
- Dick, great music. Great show! - Hello, how are you?
Thank you. I'll take that. You're a tough critic.
- Thank you. - Thank you.
Remember, we established in the first scene that he's anti-love?
Then he meets the girl. She's a sort of free-spirit,
Scandinavian-looking with two freckles on her left cheek,
- it's absurd. - Don't do that.
She lives socially, psychologically, sexually
in another universe than he does, but he is slain.
He stands there paralyzed in the light of her pale green eyes.
This is the greatest explorer in the history of the world,
and none of it means anything to him unless it's a way to make her see him.
That is the emotional core of the story.
- Okay. - We take this legendary,
larger-than-life man,
and we make him bleed.
Mr. Rodgers, my name is Robert Heffner. I'm the Mayor of Oklahoma City.
Eve and I have traveled all the way to New York
- just to see the show. - Okay. You know...
Welcome to New York. We're finishing a conversation.
He'll be with you in two minutes. Does that sound good?
Two minutes, I'll be right with you. Thank you, I hope it was worth it.
- It certainly was. - Good to see you. Thank you.
All right, so come on. Come on, come on, come on.
And they end up together? Come on.
That's what the audience is waiting around to find out!
That's the engine that's driving the whole story.
All right, well, look, Larry,
if you're willing to write it,
really write it, and rewrite it, and rewrite it again,
then, you know, it could work.
But I'm not gonna beg you for this, Larry. You know?
We work for 15 minutes,
you're out the door looking for a cigar store.
- It drives me... - Okay.
It drives me really crazy. I don't like it.
- I don't want to do it anymore. - We've worked like that for 24 years.
Congratulations, Dick!
That's exactly what we've done for 24 years.
- Thank you. - About time the Guild had a goddamned hit.
Yeah. You're absolutely, absolutely right.
Anyway, I'm not going to... I'm not going to fight with you, Larry.
- Who's fighting? - I don't know.
With a war on,
do audiences really want to watch cannibals singing Porgy and Bess?
And what do audiences want to watch?
Cowboys a-whoopin'-it-up at the box social?
Well, yes. Apparently.
Oh, that's right, I forgot.
Oklahoma, exclamation point, addresses the urgency of a nation at war.
I think every serviceman in that audience tonight
thought about what we're fighting for,
even for a second or two, he thought about it.
And what is it we're fighting for, exactly?
Feisty little girls in gingham dresses who can't say no?
- Okay. All right. - Dick, Dick, Dick. Come on.
Just between you and me,
those characters are unrecognizable as human beings.
I think plenty of people recognized them. They recognized love.
He needs rescuing, big time.
They recognized, uh, family. They recognized pride in their country.
You're starting to sound like Yankee Doodle Dandy.
I think there's significantly more there to recognize, Larry,
than a bunch of singing cannibals.
But cannibals are much funnier, admit it.
Dick, you want to come and read these!
- Yeah, hang on! Hang on. Be right there. - Okay, okay, okay, okay.
Okay, okay, okay, okay. I know exactly what you mean.
Just tell me... What do you really want to write?
What's your dream show?
- My dream show? - Yeah.
Oklahoma!
I mean, next.
Uh... We're talking about getting the rights to Liliom.
- The Molnár play? - Yeah.
- That was cornball in 1909. - Yeah?
You really want to write a musical about a carnival barker
who beats up his girlfriend,
- dies, comes back... - I think it'll work.
Yeah, and at the end, all the dead people could take off their halos and go,
"Oh... Purgatory!"
Look, I will do it if you force me to.
- It's just in my heart of... - No, I'm not forcing you to.
Oscar's going to do it.
What does Oscar know about turn-of-the-century Budapest?
He's going to Americanize it.
He's going to modernize it.
We're going to set it in Maine.
Maine? Right, with all due respect, modernizing Molnár
- is a deeply... - You got to read this!
Is it the Times?
Burton Rascoe's World-Telegram review.
- It's a rave. - Good.
- We'll have the Times any moment. - Okay.
Larry, I've got to go. The Times is coming.
Okay, okay.
- Wish me luck. - Mazel tov!
As they say in Maine.
Hey, Dick. That was perfect. Oh, thank you.
Nice to see you. Did you enjoy it?
What does Dick Rodgers know of Maine? He was bar-mitzvahed for Christ's sake!
How long are they going to keep selling that fairy tale?
"Have faith, have hope, the dead will arise to comfort us!"
Like fuck they will.
Give me another shot, Eddie. A real one.
Join me for a shot, Andy? Please.
How ya holding up?
You know how in a marriage they say "for better or for worse"?
I think in terms of my life, I've entered the "for worse" part.
And it happened so quietly I didn't even recognize it.
Have you ever felt that way?
Every day of my life.
Thank you.
Sometimes I think, "Even God is finished with me."
I've had my hits,
I've loved a small, dear collection of people.
And now he's turned the page.
I feel superannuated.
"Superannuated." That's a good thing, isn't it?
It means your dick doesn't work.
- Must be why I don't know that word. - Hmm.
Put me on the list.
You notice the birds are back in Central Park?
Hmm. What are you working on these days?
Children's book.
Must have burned myself out writing those essays,
it's not going well.
I think, as far as my writing goes,
I've also entered the "for worse" part.
What's your story about?
I wish I knew.
The journey everybody takes?
Searching for what's perfect and unattainable?
The ineffable!
Probably too elusive an idea to put into a children's book.
I have a line for you.
"He chased her around the bed all night before concluding
"she was ineffable."
Sure you don't mean "uneffable"?
Better.
You know, I'm in the park every morning,
liberating this mouse I keep catching in my kitchen.
- Yeah? - I have this little glass box
that captures the mouse but doesn't kill him.
And every morning I walk into my kitchen,
and there he is, at the bottom of the refrigerator.
My little brown mouse, happily eating the cracker I left for him.
And every morning, I carry him down to the park,
open the box. He leaps out ten feet, scurries into the underbrush.
And then the next morning, I'll be damned,
he is back in the box!
How do you know it's the same mouse?
Well, he certainly looks the same.
He has that same New York look of doomed hopefulness.
But how does he get up the 19 floors?
Maybe he's tipping the doorman.
You know, this morning he wasn't there.
Just the cracker lying in the box.
I actually missed the little fella, I really did.
I think I've started to identify with him.
Does he have a name?
I'm calling him Stuart.
With a "W" or a "U"?
Hmm. A "U." Nothing fancy. Just a regular middle-class mouse.
I think you'll have to excuse me.
All this jubilation has gone to my bladder.
"Agnes de Mille works small miracles
"and devising original dances that fit the story and the tunes.
"Oklahoma! is fresh..."
- Okay, I got something funny. - Hmm.
What do you call a tired homosexual?
I don't know.
Fuck, I forgot.
That's really funny.
"The play's spine-tingling, out of this world!"
You know, when Atkinson wrote that review for Pal Joey, you remember that?
"Drab and mirthless.
"Can one draw sweet water from a foul well?"
I cried. That's how hurt I was.
I cried in Vivienne Segal's arms.
She hugged me and said,
"History is going to prove him wrong, darling."
Wasn't that the sweetest thing in the world
for someone to say?
And she actually calls me "darling." Hmph.
Wow.
Time magazine wrote,
"For those who can park their morals in the lobby,
"Pal Joey is a wow."
What kind of piece-of-shit praise is that?
- I'm talking about Pal Joey. - Right.
I didn't see that one.
Wolcott Gibbs, he loved the show.
He said it was, "A song and dance production
"with living three-dimensional figures,
"talking and behaving like human beings."
- Ah, see? There you go. - Mmm-hmm.
You're still going to introduce me to Rodgers tonight, right?
Urination for me has turned into a two-act play
with a brief intermission.
Oh, I love Vivienne. God help me.
Her compassion.
Oh, did I tell you she calls me "darling"?
We were up at the Starlight Roof.
I turned to her and I said, "Vivienne, will you please marry me?"
That's what I told her. Right to her face.
Can you imagine having the courage to say that to a woman?
I've never had the courage to even dream of saying that.
Mmm-hmm. Yeah. It was a moment.
Let me tell you. 2:00 a.m., the band was playing I've Heard That Song Before.
She said, "I love you, darling,
"just not that way."
"Not that way."
Three little words.
Ten little letters that mean,
"Game over, schmuck."
Ah, "Think it over," I told her.
I took her hand in mine, her nail polish was pale gray...
Now... I can drink.
May I remind everybody what Mike Todd said about Oklahoma! in New Haven,
"No laughs, no tits, no chance"?
We have a chance now. All right, read that out. Okay, wow.
Wonderful. This is what Nichols said in the Times.
"Wonderful is the nearest adjective,
"for this excursion of the Guild
"combines a fresh and infectious gaiety, a charm of manner,
"beautiful acting, dancing and singing,
"and a score by Richard Rodgers which doesn't do any harm either,
"since it is one of his best.
"Mr. Rodgers's scores never lack grace,
"but seldom have they been so well-integrated as this for Oklahoma!
"He has turned out waltzes, love songs, comic songs and a title number
"which the State in question would do well to adopt
"as its anthem forthwith.
"Oh, What a Beautiful Morning, and People Will Say We're in Love
"are headed for countless jukeboxes across the land.
"And a dirge called 'Pore Jud', in which the hero of the fable
"tries to persuade his rival to hang himself
is amazingly comic.
"The Farmer and the Cowman and The Surrey with the Fringe on the Top
"also deserve mention only because they quite clearly approach perfection."
Read that part again.
"...because they quite clearly approach perfection."
Put that on the marquee!
"Quite clearly approaches perfection."
Come on, everybody! Party upstairs! Cake and champagne.
Oh, Oscar! Bravo, bravo.
Congratulations. Oh...
Can I speak with you for a moment?
Can we talk later, Larry?
No, no, no. It's just a second. I have something important to say.
Just a moment with the musical genius.
I just have one thing I want to tell you, Dick.
Uh... Just one second, Dick. It's important.
I remember when I first heard about you,
you were just Morty Rodger's little brother.
- What, were you 17? - 16.
- Yeah, I was 23. - Swell job.
Yeah, you were the wise old man on the mountain.
But when I first heard you play your stuff,
I knew you had it.
I wasn't entirely convinced that I had it,
but I heard something that afternoon.
Originality, melody, grace...
Oh...
Come on. Come on, Larry. Stop it. Come on, what's the matter with you?
You worked your whole life for this night, Dick.
Nobody's worked harder. And nobody deserves it more.
All right, thanks. Thanks, Larry. Thank you.
All right, that's what I wanted... Just go...
...enjoy your party.
- Hey, look at me. Look at me. - Mmm-hmm?
We're going to do A Connecticut Yankee, all new.
- Yeah, yeah. - We're gonna write four or five new songs.
- I have ideas already. - Right?
Yeah, yeah. And if I get some pages down for Marco Polo,
can I send them over?
You have to ask me that? Larry, I owe my professional life to you.
Summer journeys to Niagara And to other places
Aggravate all our cares...
You remember we heard that on the radio for the first time?
In your parents' living room. Our first hit.
That was one of the most astonishing moments of my life, Larry.
- I was 22. - And I'm telling you, I swear to God,
our best work is still ahead of us.
Yes, the new Connecticut Yankee!
Yeah, yeah. And bigger stuff.
- Dick, get up here. - All right. I'm coming!
I mean, Marco Polo is going to be a show about joy...
but a hard-earned joy, an unsentimental joy.
- Something wrong with sentimental? - What? It's too easy.
Oklahoma! is too easy?
The guy actually getting the girl at the end is too easy?
You've just eliminated every successful musical comedy...
...ever written, Larry.
Then it's too easy for me.
Did you hear the audience tonight?
Yes.
Sixteen hundred people didn't think it was too easy.
You're telling me 1,600 people are wrong?
I'm just saying...
that you and I can do something so much more emotionally complicated.
We don't have to pander to what audiences...
- Oscar and I are pandering? - No. I didn't say that.
- Irving Berlin is pandering? - I love Berlin.
- White Christmas is pandering? - Well, I don't believe White Christmas.
Okay.
Well, maybe audiences have changed.
Well, they still want to laugh.
They want to laugh, but not in that way.
- Not in what way? - In your way.
They want to laugh, but they also want to cry a little.
They want to... they want to feel.
Hmm.
You're my oldest friend.
You're...
- you're unique. - Hmm.
Sounds like you're writing my obituary.
- I'm just saying. - I'm right here, right now.
- Ready to work. - Yeah?
Hmm.
And you're willing to go back to Doctors Hospital?
I don't need to go back to Doctors Hospital,
and I don't need a psychiatrist either.
- Thank you very much. - We were just trying to help you, Larry.
Who's we? You and Oscar? Help me?
Oscar? You think Oscar had anything to do with it?
Oklahoma! is going to be the biggest hit of your career.
- You don't know that. You don't know that. - You got that asshole Kron
to manage my money. Now I'm incapable...
I did that at the insistence of your brother, Larry.
Teddy literally begged me...
Well, maybe you and Teddy should write the lyrics.
I did write the lyrics.
What is that supposed to mean?
By Jupiter? Have you conveniently blocked that out?
Blocked what out?
How Logan and I begged you for extra choruses, extra verses,
and you were so drunk that you didn't even show up.
So, yes, I had to write the lyrics.
- You didn't write one fucking word... - How would you know?
- ...of that show. - How would you know, Larry?
You weren't around to even...
You know what?
I'm actually not going to argue with you tonight,
- if that's all right with you. - I like to argue.
Well I don't. I don't.
Look, I am sorry.
I don't care if somebody attacks me.
It doesn't mean anything to me.
But nobody can attack my work. It is all I've got.
Your work is brilliant. That's not the problem.
Your work has been brilliant since the day I met you.
Do you still remember that?
You, standing there in your carpet slippers and your stripy bathrobe?
Yeah, with the five o'clock shadow at 11:00 a.m.
I'll remember that till the last day of my life.
Okay.
- Larry, I got to go upstairs. - I know.
- The whole company's waiting. - Of course. Of course.
Four or five songs, yes?
I'm telling you, I'm having ideas already!
A big comedy solo for Vivienne
about how she's killed off every single one of her previous husbands.
Might be funny.
We can call it To Keep Our Love Alive!
- You okay, Larry? - Mmm-hmm.
What happened to White?
- Left. - "So soon?"
There was so much more I wanted to say to him.
Maybe he was an extra, too.
One more?
Last one, Larry.
Do you know the ineffectual blues?
That's because I haven't written it yet.
They should put my picture on that bottle.
"The Whiskey That Made Lorenz Hart Unemployable."
"Buy War Bonds."
You know, I've started to hear things wrong.
The other night, I was listening to this singer go on
about "her cigarette heart."
And I thought, "Now that is an original metaphor,
"'My cigarette heart.'"
Then I realized she was singing "My secret heart."
I can't remember anything anymore either.
That should be the title of my autobiography,
"Stop Me If I've Told You This Already."
And we'll print the entire text twice.
No, I'm serious. I've seen her do it before.
As long as there's no dancing later on in the night.
You better watch yourself...
My irreplaceable Elizabeth!
Larry!
- Do you like it? - It's...
Oscar Hammerstein just said I was a gem!
He has such a way with words.
George, this is Lorenz Hart.
I am legitimately honored to meet you.
Would you mind if I spoke to Elizabeth alone for two minutes?
And then she's all yours.
It would be perfectly all right
as long as you promise me your autograph before I go.
George is a senior at Yale.
He's studying music, but he wants to be a director.
A director. Well, what's your name?
George Hill.
Here's my advice to you, future director, George Hill.
Do you want my advice?
I'd be honored.
Be careful of love stories.
Think about friendship stories.
That's where the really enduring stuff lives.
- Thank you. I'll remember that. - Hmm!
Catch up with you later, George.
My mother just gave me this.
I was really touched she gave it to me.
My well-tempered clavicle.
Careful. My mother...
Okay. All right...
Sorry. Now, I know your birthday isn't until November 19th.
I'm a scorpion.
I never doubted that for a second.
Did you get the sheet music I sent you?
Ah, I was so busy with exams, I put them away, honestly, and...
And then I kind of forgot about them. But now I've got the time. I promise you.
I'm going to get a friend of mine
to play every single one of those songs for me.
Take your time.
That's the wonderful thing about art, isn't it?
It waits for you.
Thank you for all the letters you wrote me.
I really enjoyed reading them.
My roommate couldn't believe I was actually corresponding with Lorenz Hart.
I remember in Vermont, you were drinking red wine.
Malbec. It's a big Yale drink.
You ask for the French Malbec, and then you act
as if you can actually tell which vineyard it came from.
Oh...
Don't mention Vermont around my mother, okay?
She doesn't know anything about our little getaway.
Actually, thank goodness.
She doesn't know about 90% of what's going on in my life.
Well, I feel privileged that I do.
Or that I did, back in August.
I've got much more stuff to report on since then.
Well, tell me about the guys. That's what I'm interested in.
Honestly, I'm much smarter than most of them.
So I sort of sit back and watch them trying to impress me.
It's pretty entertaining.
If I were a college guy, I think I would be afraid of you.
This intelligent, mercilessly observant,
wickedly unsentimental beauty sitting there,
evaluating me from somewhere behind those green eyes,
annotating all my gaucheries.
My God, I would be terrified.
Hey, I'm not that intimidating.
Tell me more about this Cooper.
This is embarrassing.
I love it when you're embarrassed,
you get this scarlet blush that washes up over you,
and a second later it's gone.
This one might last considerably longer.
- I'd love to... - Elizabeth. Hello, Larry.
I hope I'm not interrupting anything too weighty.
Well, weighty affairs will have to wait.
She's a gem, isn't she?
Please, Mr. Hammerstein.
I'll only bother you for a moment.
Larry, I just wanted to say...
Well, firstly, I recognize this must be a difficult night for you.
No, I'm a professional, Oscar. We're both professionals,
we understand the nature of our business.
Larry, did you really like the show? I don't think I do the comedy numbers
half as well as you do. They're not my strength.
I laughed my ass off. I had to have it re-attached.
Larry, we're the same age, but you were always the teacher.
- No, Oscar. I... - No, your whole career,
- you showed us the way. - Well, I doubt...
You liberated us all.
You made American songs finally sound like American speech.
Stop. I dislike eulogies, especially my own.
Oscar, tonight is your night.
A hit for you and Dick is a hit for all of us.
People finally want to go see shows again.
Real shows. Dick and I were just tossing around a few ideas.
- Wonderful. - Yeah, we have this idea for a big...
Marco Polo show... huge...
- Wow. - ...a kind of musical circus.
Dick's excited about it.
He said you're adapting Liliom.
Well, if we can finagle the rights.
Sounds exciting.
- Elizabeth told me she's your protégé. - Stop.
"She's the promised kiss of springtime that makes the lonely winter seem long."
Oh, please.
- You wrote a great lyric. - For a show that didn't run three months.
- I saw it twice. - You...
You know what we're talking about here, Stevie?
Very Warm for May. Produced by Max Gordon.
Music by Jerome Kern.
Alvin Theatre. 59 performances.
This is my neighbor. He's a kind of a walking encyclopedia of musical theater.
Well, I'm a kind of walking pneumonia for musical theater.
- Nice to meet you. - Pleasure to meet you.
He wants to write musicals when he grows up.
Who's your favorite lyricist?
- Oscar. - Mmm-hmm.
Of course. And what do you think of my work?
I like it. It's funny.
Thank you.
Can be a little sloppy at times.
He's very tired. It's been a long day.
Come on, Stevie. It's a long ride back to Doylestown.
- You want to go to the bathroom? - I'm not tired.
He asked me what I thought of his work.
"Weighty affairs will just have to wait"?
I so regret not having children.
Cooper.
- I can't believe I'm telling you this. - Tell me.
You have to remember, I've had a hopeless crush on this guy
for over a year.
Hold this. Come here.
Renee, may I buy five minutes of privacy, please?
Anything for you, Larry.
Thank you.
Tell me what he looks like, I'm trying to visualize him.
Apollo? Blue eyes. Tall.
So, basically, the skin on his back
- was flawless... - Stop.
It's the night of your birthday. Tell me everything.
- A group of my friends are taking... - Boyfriends, girlfriends?
- Mixed. - Okay.
Come on, Larry, I'm a college lady.
So they're taking me to Mory's, which is technically no women allowed,
but they smuggle us up those backstairs like so much heavily-scented contraband,
and, of course, one of the girls has brought along her date.
Cooper?
Which is both destroying me and exhilarating me.
I mean, he's there. Near me.
The evening is getting late,
empty wine bottles are filling up the table.
Half of us are underage,
but we're flirting so shamelessly with the waiter that nobody seems to care.
- Drinking your French Malbec. - Exactly.
I'm nothing if not a good student.
That's why everybody loves you, Larry. You're the best listener I ever met.
That's because I have absolutely no interest in myself whatsoever.
Back to your tale of natal debauchery.
Empty wine bottles filling the table...
- So it's late. - Mmm-hmm.
- And Marjorie... - The girl who came with Cooper?
She's left to go home and study.
Aww...
People are staggering out one by one.
It's midnight.
And I find myself sitting right next to him.
Take your time.
You know, there's no place else on earth I'd rather be
than sitting right here with you.
Oh, did you get my letter? There's a party at my place tonight.
Oh, I think I've got to stay here and help my mother...
It's not getting started till late.
You'll have plenty of time to work the room here.
I've got the Golden Gate Quartet showing up. Promise me you'll come.
320 Central Park West.
You said you wanted to design sets and costumes,
everybody in New York theater is gonna be there.
Okay, back to Cooper.
Okay.
We leave Mory's together.
It's a perfect November night. A fingernail clipping of a moon.
He's got his arm around me. We're both a little drunk,
stumbling in and out of each other's arms.
He's wearing this red and green flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
Not that you noticed.
He's looking good!
- And you? - Um...
It's my birthday, right?
- I'm supposed to be looking good. - Tasty.
So I'm leaning against that flannel work shirt,
and I'm telling you,
I can smell the maleness coming off of him.
I remember thinking that huge purple letters should have lit up the sky...
- "Desire." - Okay.
Hold on one second.
I have to go find some ice-water and pour it down my trousers.
You may need some extra ice.
We end up in the basement of his fraternity,
in this tawdry sort of derelict bar.
God only knows how many acts of depravity have taken place down there.
And here comes one more.
Oh, yeah.
So I've been watching this guy for a year,
dreaming about him, and now, here it is.
The night of my birthday,
the only light is coming from this dim little lamp
with horses and jockeys printed on the shade.
I mean, really, Larry, what's a girl to do?
Happy birthday!
He begins to take off his clothes.
You really want to hear this?
Uh, I'm mildly interested.
It's humiliating.
'Cause basically nothing happened.
Nothing?
Like you and me at the lake house?
No.
That was a deliberate decision we made, right?
Based on what? Rationality? I mean, as rational as you and I ever get.
But this...
This was based on the fact that he couldn't get the rubber on.
Oh, no.
He tried.
- He tried again. - No.
- I tried. - Oh, stop.
It was the worst 10 minutes of my life.
It felt like 10 hours.
Oh, I'm sorry.
And you know what the worst part was?
He just wasn't there, you know?
He kept mumbling that it was, um, the wine.
That, um...
...the rubber was too small, if you can believe that.
And this whole time what's clear to me
is that he just... hasn't sufficiently...
I don't know what the right word is. Maybe...
"he-just-doesn't-love-you-enough" is the right word.
I mean, there's no way around that one, is there?
When the girl loves the guy with all of her heart,
and he just doesn't return her feeling?
Do you have any idea what that feels like?
"Nobody ever loved me that much."
I brought into that basement a year's worth of adoration,
yeah, studying his photograph,
memorizing his phone number.
And there he was, this half-drunk junior
who couldn't even pretend to love me...
And... I wouldn't have minded if there'd been...
some... passion underneath.
Or even empathy.
There was nothing.
Just... that lamp with the horses on it.
You deserve so much better.
Yeah.
I asked my roommate about it the next morning,
you know, girl to girl.
She said that men sometimes can't perform because they're too nervous.
I wish I could believe that to feel a little bit better about myself.
But...
...he was not nervous. Not in the least.
He had his eyes shut.
As if he were trying to dream me into somebody he really wanted.
I felt stupid.
I felt debased.
I felt furious at myself that I could allow him
to make me feel so worthless.
We tried a few creative alternatives.
Oh, no.
It got uglier and uglier.
Finally, he said, "Elizabeth, I owe you a rain check."
And that...
That was my 20th birthday.
Ta-da.
Jesus wept.
But it gets worse.
I don't think I can take it.
Okay, I can take it.
But just tell me in a way that doesn't make me ashamed to be a human being.
That's going to be difficult.
About a week later...
...everybody's leaving for Thanksgiving.
He gives me a call. Would I like to have dinner with him?
You know me. No pride.
I say, "Sure," and make my way over to his fraternity again,
which sits under this huge gingko tree.
The leaves have turned yellow,
the trunk of the tree is black from the rain.
I'm thinking this is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
I remember saying to myself,
"God is giving you a second chance."
We go up to his room,
his roommate has already left for the holiday.
The door clicks shut,
and suddenly...
there's no more discussion about dinner.
Rain check cashed!
In spades.
I mean, it's suddenly pouring.
We're practically tearing each other's clothes off.
There is no conversation.
And this time...
there is no difficulty.
Not the first time. Not the second time.
Stop it.
He says to me, "Happy belated birthday, Elizabeth."
Mmm.
And you want to hear the unbelievable ending to this sordid little story?
That was the last time I saw him.
That was November. Over four months ago.
I was absolutely sure he'd call. If only to have sex again, right?
No. Never.
I thought he'd write.
No.
So I call him, of course.
Mmm.
He couldn't get off the phone fast enough.
So I wrote to him.
- A four-page typed letter. Single-spaced. - Oh, no.
No response.
I tell myself it was like a fever dream, you know?
And maybe the fever finally broke.
And it all sounds sane and sensible.
But you know something?
If he called me right now, right this very second,
I'd drop everything in my life and...
drive three hours, drive 30 hours just to spend one more night with him.
What is the matter with me, Larry?
Why would you drive 30 hours to see someone who treated you like that?
Because I'm in love with him?
You are?
It's illogical. Obsessional. Pathetic.
And this is not the first time this has happened to me.
It keeps happening to me.
I feel like I can't see people clearly.
I wrote a song once, years ago,
called The Heart is Quicker Than the Eye.
It's not a great song, but it's a good title.
And it's true, I think.
The head has nothing to do with the madness of love.
And...
It doesn't matter at all about worthiness, does it?
We invest our hearts in worthless stocks.
And we know they're worthless.
But we cling to them like little children clutching their little stuffed bears.
Oh, Elizabeth.
Tell me truthfully.
How do you feel about me?
How do you mean?
I mean,
at the lake house, with the light burning off the water,
we talked through half the night,
and I touched your shoulder...
Did you actually love me a little bit that night?
You know I love you, Larry.
You do?
Just... not that way.
You said you'd drive 30 hours to see Cooper.
How many hours would you drive to see me?
Oh. My hands are shaking.
I feel something wiser and deeper for you.
- Mmm. Thank you. - Respect.
Gratitude for the generosity and selflessness you've shown me.
No one has ever been more interested in my life than you have.
I don't deserve a friendship like yours. I am so grateful for you.
I will be grateful forever.
I'm grateful to you, too, for resurrecting me.
Stop.
Larry! There's people out here.
One second!
Can I ask you something?
Something that's probably too personal for me to ask?
Too personal is the only thing that I'm interested in.
Uh... My mother...
You know, she works for the Guild, she knows everybody.
So she saw us spending time together last summer...
I see where this is headed.
She said to me... I don't... I don't know how to say this.
Just say it.
Okay.
She said to me, more than once,
"Elizabeth, not only is he twice your age,
"but I don't think his primary interest is women."
What did you say?
I said, "Look, Mother, I know what I know.
"And I know what we're both feeling."
Mmm-hmm. What are we both feeling?
"Irrational adoration?"
And what may I ask does your mother think she knows of my primary interest?
I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything.
Please forgive me.
To all our mothers. May they remain mercifully silent.
I apologize. That was stupid of me to have asked.
And I do know what I know, and what I feel.
Here's what you tell that mother of yours,
as she sits by the fire,
wistfully counting up her royalties from Oklahoma!
You tell her that Larry Hart is drunk with beauty.
And italicize the word "drunk."
Drunk with beauty, wherever he finds it.
In men, in women, in the smell of cigar stores,
in the impossible beauty of a 20-year-old poet
with pale green eyes and two tiny freckles on her left cheek.
Are you all right?
It's...
...my cigarette heart.
Larry, Dick Rodgers is looking for his coat.
Coming.
Introduce me?
Thank you, Renee.
Wonderful, thank you so much.
Dick, I want to introduce you to my protégé, Elizabeth Weiland.
Your protégé?
- Hello. - Hello.
Well, you've got yourself a damn good role model there
if you can stay away from the bourbon.
Mmm. She's interested in writing and set design and costumes.
Okay, really?
Mr. Rodgers, the show tonight,
I thought it was magnificent.
Well, thank you.
It was as perfect a musical show as I've ever seen.
Well, that's a lovely compliment.
Your mother's with the Guild, am I right?
- Yes, Theresa Weiland. - Yeah, Theresa, yeah.
- Right, so you've seen a lot of shows. - Too many shows.
Yeah.
I know what you mean.
But tonight what I saw was what I'd always hoped a show might be.
Uplifting. Smart. Magical.
Larry, this is the most perceptive young woman you've ever introduced me to.
- I've had a good teacher. - Mmm-hmm.
So, what do you write?
At this point, poetry mostly.
It's very strong.
And you do set design, too?
- I'm studying. - Right.
Well, I'd love to... read some of your poems.
Uh... See your sketches. This is my... This is my private number.
I'm flattered.
I haven't seen Dorothy around. Is... Is... Is your wife here?
No, she's headed back to the apartment. We're all going to meet up there
to look at the late reviews, Larry.
Yeah, so I'd love for you to join us, Elizabeth.
It would be refreshing to have someone of the younger generation amongst us.
And maybe you can explain to me, Elizabeth,
why exactly the young girls scream over Sinatra.
I don't scream over Sinatra.
No, she screams under Sinatra.
Okay, Larry!
Larry, of course, you're welcome to come.
Oh, I'm going to try to make it, I'm just throwing a little soirée over at my place.
I've got the Golden Gate Quartet coming...
Well, I can't compete with Larry in the soirée department.
- I'd love to stop over. - You would?
Dick, you coming?
Yep, yep.
Do you have a ride?
You know what, I can take her in a cab later.
We're going right now if you want to come with us?
- I'd love to. - Great.
Just let me inform my mom.
The dutiful daughter.
Wow. She is... She is so lovely, right?
She's really striking.
Are you... Are you and she...
Oh, no, no. I mean, I'm in love with her,
but, uh, everybody's in love with her.
Just not that way.
Okay.
Hmm.
So we'll see you later on tonight?
Absolutely.
Mmm-hmm.
Hmm.
Thank you for everything.
Mr. Rodgers.
Miss Weiland.
Thank you.
And we'll see you later, Larry, right?
"With a song in my heart, I behold your adorable face!"
You ever meet someone, and you know instantly
that both your lives are going to be irretrievably altered?
Just as I suspected. You are a sentimentalist.
When do you get off work?
I got to lock this joint up.
Ah, what about you, Knuckles, you're done here, right?
Not yet.
Oh, 'cause I am throwing an enormous party at my place tonight.
I forgot to give her the presents.
I'm having such trouble with sleeves recently.
I have arthritis in this shoulder.
I'm going to have to start wearing a cloak.
I mean it. Single-handedly, I'm going to bring back the cloak.
You're going to see me on opening nights with a top hat
and a cloak, flitting through the fog with a silver-tipped cane.
You boys are coming tonight, right?
She's going to be there. I'm telling you, she will.
She'll arrive late.
And get this, 'cause this is the remarkable part,
sometime late, maybe around 5:00 a.m.,
after a little too much Malbec,
she's going to turn to me and say,
"Hey, Larry, what are you reading?
"Hey, Larry, when's your birthday?"
For the first time in her life,
she's going to be interested in me.
It has to happen sometime, right?
All the other guys have disappointed her.
But I never will. I'm just...
a little touch of Larry in the night.
Knuckles. Some travelin' music.
Blue moon
You saw me standing alone
Wise guy.
Without a dream in my heart
Without a love of my own
Well, it's a helluva lot better than The Surrey With the Fucking Fringe On Top.
Larry, you coming uptown to Dick's with us?
Oh, no, you go on ahead, I'll be up there later.
You knew just what I was there for
You heard me saying a prayer for
Someone I really could care for
That's not bad. Triple feminine rhymes, and they all make sense.
And then suddenly you appeared before me
The only one my arms will ever hold
And I heard somebody whisper
Please adore me
And when I looked The moon had turned to gold
Blue moon
Larry, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
"Isn't it romantic?"
Not really, no.
You know, it wasn't even supposed to be called Blue Moon.
I called it The Bad in Every Man.
We wrote it for this movie, Manhattan Melodrama.
Jack Robbins, formerly "Rabinowitz," he had his name circumcised over at MGM,
he hears the song, he calls us into his office,
he lowers his pastrami, says...
"Dick, I love the melody.
"Strong as anything you've ever written.
"But, Larry, those words, they're too artsy-fartsy!
"They're not too artsy-fartsy for me. I know how brilliant you guys are.
"But you have to write for the schmucks in the dark.
"Nobody's going to sing that lyric."
So I said, "What's wrong with it?"
He said... [IN NASAL VOICE] "I can't even remember the fucking title!
"Boys, give me something I can promote."
So I say, "What do you want me to call it?"
Blue Moon?
Punchline, biggest hit we ever wrote.