Wednesday 22 August 2012

It'd be a great plot for a psychological thriller...

From the BBC:

Actress Natalie Wood's death certificate has been amended to reflect some of the lingering questions surrounding the star's death in 1981. Wood drowned during a boat trip with her husband, TV star Robert Wagner, and actor Christopher Walken. At the time it was ruled to have been an accident.

But police reopened their inquiry last year after receiving new evidence. The death certificate now says she died as a result of "drowning and other undetermined factors". The amended document, obtained by the Associated Press news agency, also says the circumstances of how she ended up in the water are "not clearly established".


The psycho-thriller film noire would involve some old actors sitting around on a yacht at dusk, with the lights of Los Angeles twinkling in the background. They're drinking vast quantities of booze and bickering about what might or might not have happened thirty years ago; there'd be loads of flashbacks to their earlier movies which might or might not be clues to what they know but won't say; all sorts of old jealousies bubbling to the surface etc*.

Meanwhile on the other side of town, some over-ambitious young DA** is feverishly going through all the old transcripts and tapes and so on and trying to nail at least one of the actors concerned (and probably his attractive young assistant*** as well, as a sub-plot). The DA uncovers facts in parallel with the conversation which is taking place on the boat, one is a running commentary on the other.

Question is, would Robert Wagner and Christopher Walken be up for playing themselves?

* A bit like "Rope" by Alfred Hitcock, basically, but on a yacht not in a penthouse. And it's not going to be filmed in one single take because you have to show the sun setting on the other side of the boat.

** Played by somebody who is handsome in a traditional sense, but still a bit creepy, like Billy Zane. So the audience wants to find out the truth, but they don't particularly want him to find out the truth as he would be unbearably smug about it.

*** Natalie Portman, probably. If not, the delightfully goofy Anne Hathaway can do it.

4 comments:

James Higham said...

If Walken was involved, she didn't fall off Golden Gate bridge by any chance?

Mark Wadsworth said...

JH, if you could build that into the plot, it would be awesome.

neil craig said...

I think the Thomas Ince story has first dibs on being filmed. Also set on a yacht it has the advantage that everybody inhjvolved is dead & that Hearst, the reputed killer, is a rather bigger character.

Mark Wadsworth said...

NC, having googled that to see what you mean, yes, that would be the perfect sort of storyline. But can we persuade Walken and Wagner to appear in it?