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	[Arzner paces before a camera. Lindstrom and Oberon rehearse a kiss scene over and over. They are dressed in military costume.]
ARZNER:	[bending to look in her lens] No, higher. I can see up Miss Oberon’s nose. Stop. [to Lindstrom] Take your bottom lip, pull it out – no, like this [she demonstrates] – and glide the inside of your lip just under the bottom of her lip – no, no. Miss Lindstrom, would you come here please? [motions Lindstrom over] Do as I do. [demonstrates kiss on Lindstrom]
LINDSTROM:	You’ll pardon me, Miss Arzner, but I’ve been kissed better by horses.
ARZNER:	[guiding Lindstrom to view scene through camera lens] Watch. [approaches Oberon, gives her a long, passionate kiss while Lindstrom watches] A kiss that feels good … rarely looks good.
OBERON:	[flustered] It’s like buying shoes.
ARZNER:	Let’s take five minutes, shall we? [into megaphone] Five-minute break!
	[Lindstrom exits.]
OBERON:	What did Cohn say?
ARZNER:	[unbuttoning Oberon’s blouse] Shhh. Not now. Not now.
OBERON:	When?
ARZNER:	You’re shaking …
OBERON:	I suspect I like you too much.
ARZNER:	[nuzzling Oberon] Courage, courage.
OBERON:	What did Cohn tell you?
ARZNER:	Harry told me I should take you behind the prop house and – [whispers rest into her ear]
OBERON:	Now that I believe!
ARZNER:	[places Oberon on her lap] Hmmm … I want a whole face of kisses.
OBERON:	[unbuttons her blouse, offers Arzner her breasts] Are you sure no one is watching?
ARZNER:	[laughing, fondling] You’re cute when you’re demure.
OBERON:	I’m cute all the time. Dorothy, tell me what Cohn said … annnnnd I’ll kiss the pink parts inside you. I’ll go so deep you’ll need a rope to pull me back.
ARZNER:	[kissing Oberon’s face] Hmmm … I love a good magic trick. [turns camera on Merle as they kiss] Just relax, be natural.
OBERON:	[sees camera is on] Jesus Christ! Turn that cursed thing off!
ARZNER:	[pulls away] Shhh!
OBERON:	[pushes away, buttons up blouse clumsily] Really, darling, you know my motto – natural acting is neither. What a nerve you’ve got.
ARZNER:	I seem to do better with women this big. [makes a small square with her fingers] Sorry, bad habit.
OBERON:	You are an odd creature.
ARZNER:	You’re so beautiful – [laughs] when I’m with you I have to prove I’m real.
	[Arzner tries to kiss and film Oberon again.]
OBERON:	[pushing Arzner away] You’re real enough. Real trouble. [fusses with blouse] Oh, hell, look at me now … what did Harry tell you?
ARZNER:	[angry, shuts off camera] Forget it. [into megaphone] Let’s get back to work, people!
	[Lindstrom returns, both stand before a white screen. Arzner faces them with a camera. Lindstrom’s face is traced by a blunt square of white light. Cohn enters, paces behind Arzner, anxiously watching the film shoot.]
ARZNER:	Please turn to the left, I need to check the light levels. Now the right, please. Thank you. Any time you feel ready … Action!
	[Lindstrom and Oberon silently act out their kissing scene.]
COHN:	[watching the scene] Dorothy, you’re ruining me! What am I gonna tell the Catholic League for Decency? Today I produced a nice little patriotic film about two bull daggers whoring around the fields of France killing Nazis. Cut!
ARZNER:	Cut! Get me a longer boom, and sharpen the focus on Miss Oberon’s torso. Can we try to reduce the shine on Miss Lindstrom’s shoulders? Thank you. [whispers to Cohn] You are undermining my authority on the set.
COHN:	You’re goddamn right I’m undermining your authority – I’m gonna bazooka your authority! Are you crazy?
ARZNER:	You don’t understand feminine behaviour.
COHN:	Fine, then please translate for me – do girls always kiss each other full on the mouth before they shoot Nazi collaborators? How come they don’t do that in westerns?
ARZNER:	Well, these women are Europeans. [to Lindstrom and Oberon] Let’s try the scene again, please. Miss Oberon, if you could place your left leg under your backside – no, the knee should be more pronounced. [drags a boom mike over the scene] Let’s have a sound check please, Miss Lindstrom.
LINDSTROM:	[acting scene, badly] That’s right, I said die – die because I love you –
ARZNER:	Thank you. [moves microphone] Again. [Lindstrom says line again, or shorter version of same] Stop. Perfect. [frames shot with a pocket lens] Miss Oberon, the knee? Silence please … Action!
LINDSTROM:	[acting scene with Oberon] That’s right, I said die – die because I love you. Remember me when the axe falls, remember that I love you. I’ll swing for you, but I’ll take the rope in both my hands and whisper your name.
COHN:	Get me the script girl! Script girl, I said!
ARZNER:	Cut! I need silence! Harry, it’s your money being wasted.
LINDSTROM:	Sorry. Was I outside my light again?
ARZNER:	No, Mr. Cohn was inside my ear. Take a few minutes and fix up your faces. [paces] Maybe the point of view is wrong. [to Cohn] What do you think – speech, responding shot, speech or speech, speech, speech and then responding shot?
COHN:	[wiping face with handkerchief] Here’s a responding shot – I come in from behind the trees dressed like a Kraut and shoot the both of them dead. A perfectly noble ending!
OBERON:	Mr. Cohn, let’s all settle down, shall we? Would you like some brandy? [snaps fingers at Lindstrom to get Cohn a drink; Lindstrom brings him a shot, he drinks it] Now, we’re all adults here. You have to forgive Dorothy – she’s Californian, she sometimes forgets to drive the speed limit.
COHN:	[puts down glass calmly] Don’t smooth talk with me, Oberon. I’ll eat your contract myself and shit it down your throat.
LINDSTROM:	Am I gonna have to learn new lines?
OBERON:	Now Harry, you know how I adore you. I love you so much that when I die I want my ashes spread across your driveway so your car won’t skid.
COHN:	I doubt your corpse will burn so good. [wiping face] Dotty, listen to me one minute – for a war picture I’m telling you gotta give me something more conventional.
ARZNER:	You mean more dishonest.
COHN:	More like legal.
ARZNER:	If you’d only let me show you what I intend –
COHN:	Shut up with that – you think maybe I’m stupid? Don’t forget who signs the cheques, Arzner. I’ve burned films before. They glow real pretty, all blue like.
	[Parsons enters, carrying a lunch bag.]
COHN:	Oh joy. Hey, ace reporter, where’s my blindfold and last cigarette?
PARSONS:	My dear, all you ever have to do is ask.
ARZNER:	Places, ladies.
COHN:	I’m gonna sit in my office for one hour and dream of a nice quick stroke. Then I’m coming back, and everything will be just the way I want it. Or else I get ugly.
	[Cohn exits. Oberon and Lindstrom reassemble on the set, trying to catch the conversation between Parsons and Arzner.]
PARSONS:	I like the way Harry explodes. Like a Mexican birthday party. Have you ever seen a woman ball up her fists like that? No. Men smash, women cut. I prefer the smash – so much more direct than journalism.
ARZNER:	[resets her camera while Oberon and Lindstrom wait for directions] You’ll forgive me if I work.
PARSONS:	We’re all working today, Dorothy. [tries to peek into Arzner’s camera] People say you have the tightest mouth in Hollywood. People say you wouldn’t yell fire in Hades.
ARZNER:	I have a fear of redundancy, and newspapers. It amounts to the same thing.
PARSONS:	[with pencil and notepad] What is this final scene about, Dorothy? Don’t you trust me?
ARZNER:	This film is about focusing and refocusing. Long shots and close-ups. This is a film about costumes and makeup and backlighting and set design and sound levels.     I wish they’d lock the doors around here.
PARSONS:	Be careful, Dorothy, nobody in America roots for the clever girl.
ARZNER:	Then I am a failure as an American. I root for the clever girl. I guess it’s a psychological block, but it makes me happy.
PARSONS:	Now we are flying with the birds. Psychology! No filth blows out my umbrella more briskly than psychology! Let’s you and I share an honest moment – you dress like a baseball player and you make movies about confused women in long silver dresses. Where the hell were you brought up?
ARZNER:	This is a film about high contrasts. You see, in this scene I’m using very high-powered lights [points to Parsons’s face] to bleach out crow’s feet, shadows under the eyes. Like most pictures, this is a film about hairdressing and set decorating and props.
PARSONS:	Do I appear to be without the blessing of hearing? Am I speaking Spanish? You are too smart for my own good: talk to me, buttercream, before somebody else does. I need an angle for this story by this afternoon – make sense now, before Harry takes all your pretty girls away.
ARZNER:	This is a film about … two women bonding together during a time of international conflict.
PARSONS:	Try again, loverboy.
	[Oberon and Lindstrom giggle nervously.]
ARZNER:	[to Parsons] Damn you! Get off my set!
PARSONS:	Dorothy, heavens! Such language.
	[Arzner swings the boom mike over Parsons’ head and shoves the microphone aggressively into Parsons’ face.]
ARZNER:	[takes boom mike in hand] I invented this. The boom mike. My idea. Watch any talkie from ’31 or ’32. You’re old enough to remember – nobody moves. All the actors are like chess pieces, frozen, waiting for their square to open up. Like you. I changed all that – I let actors use their legs. The same way I’m going to liberate you.
PARSONS:	Don’t you dare lay a hand on me!
ARZNER:	[laughing] Look at you, you’re frozen. Frozen in old stories and ancient scandals and the entire history of sexual intercourse in Southern California since 1900. You’re cornered. [takes Parsons by the arm]
PARSONS:	[prepares to defend herself] Miss Arzner, you are taxing my composure!
ARZNER:	Here’s your chance to get out, here’s your chance to write a real story, here’s your ticket out from under the mattresses of teenage girls – you have one chance to ask me one singularly adult, intelligent and useful question about the art of filmmaking.
PARSONS:	[into the microphone] Is it true Miss Oberon promised to do three pictures for free just to get out of this one?
OBERON:	Really! The only people I allow to lie to my face are royalty.
	[Oberon exits in anger. Arzner turns the boom away from Parsons’ face, defeated.]
PARSONS:	[looks into lens of Arzner’s camera] Am I in there too? Am I allowed in your privileged, highbrow world? I am a woman too – why else would I watch?
ARZNER:	[shoves Parsons away from camera] This is my film, my eye … you’ll watch, you always watch. You’re drawn to the light.
PARSONS:	Finish your thought, Dorothy. For once in your life finish an honest, clean sentence. It’ll set you free.
ARZNER:	If I give you an honest answer, one of us will disappear.
PARSONS:	Shit on Sunday, Dorothy, I’ll say it for you: this is a film about two girls fucking. Any poor fool can see that, and this poor fool can print it.
	[Parsons exits.]
ARZNER:	[to Lindstrom] Clear the set!
	[Lindstrom exits. Arzner is left alone. She focuses and refocuses the camera obsessively, plays with the lights and microphones, paces.]
ARZNER:	Nothing pleases them. Nothing. All these years, making movies to please people who don’t know what they want. I’m tired of it.     Make it sexier, Dorothy. Dorothy, that’s too racy. Your female characters are too mean, Dorothy. Dorothy, why don’t you give these girls some spunk? That’s an odd camera angle, Dorothy, I can’t see her tits. Dorothy, you’ve got your camera down her top. Dorothy, you’re too highbrow. Dorothy, you are simplifying the story. Your films are too cold. Whoa, Dorothy, turn the heat down. Dorothy, your films are so poetic. Dorothy, if people want poetry, they buy a book.     DAMN DAMN DAMN     Nothing is ever enough, ever just right … I have spent my entire career giving the least possible intellectual content to the most educated audience in the history of the world. All I’ve got, everything inside me, I have given to people who can’t remember the title of my films ten minutes after the credits. [pause]     Not this time. One kiss. One kiss will forgive all the lies, clear off all the mud, the years and years of saying yes and meaning I hate you. One kiss will complete my open, cloudless blue sky of a movie. No winks, no layers, no hidden stories, no secret signals. One perfect, true film and I can start over. I can make honest movies, honest movies for discerning, mature audiences.     One kiss, and this film is mine.
	END

Prologue   Act One   Act Two   Act Three   Act Four   Act Five   Coda Characters   Production Notes   Details