The Kings of Poverty Row, S1E2
If you missed The Kings of Poverty Row, S1E1, you can catch up here.
Teaser:
FADE IN:
INT. MITZI’S LUNCH COUNTER. DAY.
MITZI’S is a classic 1930s aluminum trailer. MITZI, middle-aged Jewish guy, wearing an apron and paper cap, is wiping down the counter. The only customer is MOISHE THE BOOKIE, sitting at the far end of the counter, chain-smoking and drinking coffee as he reads a tabloid newspaper.
MITZI looks up when the door opens, and HAROLD DINOWITZ enters. HAROLD looks around, nods at MITZI, and then walks the length of the diner towards MOISHE.
MITZI
What’ll it be, Mr. Dinowitz?
Nothing, Mitzi. Just stopped in to… to say hi to Moishe.
MITZI
Oh, sure. Ain’t that what I’m in business for?
HAROLD
Thanks.
(to MOISHE)
So, Moishe. Nu?
MOSIHE
Harold, my friend. I was starting to think I was going to have to pay a visit to your office.
HAROLD
No, no. Not necessary, Moishe. Ever! Especially when Jake is around.
MOISHE
That’s up to you, no?
HAROLD [nervous chuckle]
Anyway, I’m here now. You want more coffee? Let me. Mitzi! A refill for my friend!
MITZI glances at the sign on the wall over the coffeemaker. It reads, “UNLIMITED FREE REFILLS”.
MItzi
Last of the big spenders!
MOISHE
You got something for me?
HAROLD
Oh, yeah. Sure.
HAROLD glances around, then reaches into his overcoat and pulls out an envelope, which he puts down on the counter and slides towards MITZI.
MOISHE
Is that all of it?
HAROLD
Every cent.
MOISHE
(opens envelope, quickly counts)
There’s only five hundred here, Harold. You owe $2,000.
HAROLD
Every cent I could raise, that is.
MOISHE
Harold!
HAROLD [defensive]
Hear me out, Moishe! Listen, I came up a little short, I know, but there’s a sure thing running this afternoon at Belmont… you seen it? Lindy’s Hop in the third, twelve to one odds? See, they’re gonna have a wet track and this filly is…
MOISHE
I know the horse. She’d be more useful as dog food.
HAROLD
So, you say po-tay-toe, I say po-tat-toe. Cover me for $200 and when she comes in, we’ll be square.
MOISHE [shrugs]
It’s your funeral.
MOISHE turns back to his newspaper and cigarette. Smiling nervously, HAROLD gets up, waves, and backs away before turning to the door.
HAROLD
Great. Great! Okay then. Thanks, Moishe. I’ll be… right, okay. So long.
(Nods to MITZI)
Mitzi.
MITZI
Thanks for coming. We appreciate your patronage.
HAROLD exits.
CUT TO:
Scene 1
INT. ESTEEM PERIODICALS bullpen. day.
SHERMY has rolled his desk chair over to a row of flat files against the wall. The flat file drawers are all partially or wide open. There are stacks of comic book art boards strewn all over the place, different stories that he’s searching through for just the right one to slot into Hero Comics.
SHERMY
Nope--not enough pages...Enough pages, but ugly art--pass...No...nope...
(pauses over one story)
What’s this? The art’s passable... “Madame Doom”? Hmm. Let’s see... “In his quest for vengeance against the mobsters who murdered his family, actor Darren DeBois uses his thespian skills to masquerade as Madame Doom, an elderly woman whose advanced age serves as the perfect cover to lure his unsuspecting victims into his traps.”
(shaking his head in disbelief as he tosses that one aside and goes to the next)
It’s too soon to be out of ideas already! Okay, so...
“Doctor Fright, Master of Fear.”
(The next)
“The Green Badger.”
(The next)
“Mysterio, The Man With Two Brains.”
(The next)
“Derrick Duke, The Phantom Pilot.”
(The next)
“Zytron, The Detective From Mars.”
While SHERMY is lost in his search, JOAN—twentyish, petite, pretty—ENTERS, appearing in the doorway to the room and watching him as he works.
SHERMY
“The Green Lizard?” Aren’t all lizards green?
(The next)
“Muscles McMann, Private Eye.”
(The next)
“The Mighty Mastodon.”
(The next)
“The Meerkat Man...bitten by a radioactive meerkat...strength and agility of one of nature’s most fascinating...”
(tosses it aside)
No! The Green Mystic.
(The next)
The Blue Avenger.
(The next)
The Yellow Avenger.
(The next)
The PURPLE Avenger.
(The next)
The RED Avenger. What? No Green Avenger?
(The next)
Ah! The Green Avenger. We meet at last!
JOAN [deep voice]
Don’t you fear, citizen...The PINK Avenger is here!
SHERMY
Huh? Oh, hi, Joan. What brings you up from the depths of the third floor to the lofty spires of the fourth?
JOAN
I had to bring up the cover for this month’s Girls Spiciest Dates for the brothers to approve.
SHERMY
I don’t know why they think they have to approve all the covers. It’s not like they have any idea what it is they’re looking at. All the ever do is tell me do is make the action more violent or to show more cleavage and leg on the girls.
JOAN
The same here. No matter how much we show, they want more. It drives Al crazy. How do you handle it with the comic magazines?
SHERMY
I pretend to take notes and ignore any of their changes that would take more than two minutes to make.
JOAN [laughing]
Don’t they want to see it after you’re supposed to have changed it?
SHERMY
Sure, but like I say, they have no idea what they’re looking at. So, I stop in their door, hold up the “fixed” cover and say, “Better?” Half the time they don’t even look up from the racing form and if they do, they’ve already forgotten what it is they asked me to do in the first place, so they tell me how much better it looks thanks to the genius of their art direction and give me the go-ahead.
JOAN
What are you doing in here?
SHERMY
A Hail Mary pass.
JOAN
Shermy! Was that a sports reference--?
SHERMY
(looking forelornly at the endless stacks and drawers around him)
Was is? I heard someone use it on the radio the other night. I thought it had a nice ring to it.
JOAN
I should have known there wasn’t any room in that head of yours for anything besides cartoons and comic strips. You’ll always be Doodlebug, boy cartoonist, won’t you?
SHERMY
That’s just the silly little comic strip I do for myself. But I may be Doodlebug the unemployed boy editor if I don’t find what I’m looking for. And fast.
JOAN
Can I help?
SHERMY
I wish, but this is one of those times when I won’t know what it is I’m looking for until I find it.
JOAN [claps hands in delight]
A treasure hunt! I love those, Shermy.
SHERMY
Only the prize to this one is kind of my job. On the line. A little.
JOAN
How little?
SHERMY [sheepish]
A lot a little.
JOAN
Oh my. Did you do something rash, Doodlebug?
SHERMY
A little rash.
JOAN
A lot a little rash?
SHERMY
I sort of poured a bottle of India ink over all sixteen pages of the lead feature for the first issue of Hero Comics, thereby rendering it unfit for publication. I mean, further unfit.
JOAN
Oh, Shermy.
SHERMY
You don’t get it, Joan. It was a terrible, awful, horrible, not good even by Esteem Comics standards. Bad even by Eiber Studios standards, and the only time Morty Eiber ever rejected a story for quality issues was that time Abe Martino’s cat pee’d on the art. This art deserves to be peed on, and the story makes less than no sense. Character’s names and what they’re wearing change from panel to panel. A mysterious lady shows up on page three, kills the heroine’s best friend, and then you nobody mentions it again. You know how Mighty Miss got her special powers and abilities? From a lifetime of drinking a secret mixture of carrot, beet, and mango juices and vitamins whipped up by her kindly old Uncle Mighty Mike, a retired circus strongman.
JOAN
Carrot juice?
SHERMY
Don’t forget the beets.
JOAN
Okay. So, bad story. And the brothers...?
SHERMY
They don’t care. They paid Morty Eiber for Mighty Miss, they expect to see Mighty Miss starring in the first issue of Hero Comics.
JOAN [sorts through art]
Wouldn’t Mighty Miss technically be a heroine, not a hero?
SHERMY
You think Harold and Jake care about pronouns?
JOAN
I’m not sure they even know what a pronoun is.
SHERMY
I’ve made a complete shambles of the Mighty Miss story. No amount of work would make it useable. It would have to be completely redrawn, but there’s no time. See, my plan was to find something in the files, finished and ready to go, that was so much better than Mighty Miss and would sell so well, the brothers would, at best, forget about Mighty Miss, and, at worst, at least not fire me. I thought it would be a cinch, you know?
(Spreads his arms to take in all the art around him.)
I mean, I had all these well written and beautifully drawn stories that people have been submitting to us sitting in the drawer that I could pick and choose from. Anything had to be better than Mighty Miss, right?
(SHERMY sweeps pages aside)
It turns out my memory of what I’d been looking at was a little faulty. A lot a little faulty. Oh sure, it’s better than Mighty Miss...but not by as much as I thought.
JOAN
I’m no expert, but... “Motor O’Reilly, the Robo-Detective?” And I thought the pulps I worked on were far-fetched.
SHERMY
It doesn’t have to be.
JOAN [on to the next story, dubious]
“Trickster Tracy, the Girl with the Magic Handbag”--?
SHERMY
I didn’t say it isn’t ridiculous. I said it doesn’t have to be. I mean, who decreed that the combination of sequential drawings and speech balloons was meant only for stories of no consequence and to be read only by children? Sequential drawings were man’s first means of expressing stories and ideas. The earliest forms of written language were symbols and images to represent things and thought. Illuminated manuscripts. Thomas Nast and the political cartoons of the last century. All illustrated stories or ways of telling stories, not just for children but for entire societies.
JOAN
I see you’ve given this some thought--!
SHERMY [embarrassed)
Sorry. I wrote a paper on the subject when I was a junior in Industrial Arts.
(ducks his head, back to going through the art)
I got an A-plus.
JOAN
Like I said, I’m no expert, but from what I’ve seen working for the brothers and the rest of the publishers I hear about, I don’t think any of them are interested in stretching any artistic limits.
SHERMY
What about you, Joan? You’ve been in the art department working on the pulps for a year now. What do you think of all the stuff the brothers publish?
JOAN
I’ve never really thought about it, at least not the way you have. I suppose... well, it’s pretty much exactly what it’s meant to be. Cheap entertainment, some of it good, some not, but in the end, a kid usually gets their ten cents’ worth before they toss it in the trashcan or leave it behind in the park.
SHERMY
Is that why you’re here? Is Esteem Publications all you think your talent is worth?
JOAN
I could ask you the same question.
SHERMY
You could, but only after you answer me first.
JOAN
Okay. No. Al Adler gave me a job in the production department straight out of school because he liked how neat my paste-up samples were and because he could pay me five dollars a week less than he pays the boys. I took the job because I couldn’t even get my foot in the door of the art departments of any of the slick magazines. But I decided experience was experience, and nothing gives you experience like being one of three production artists—two and a half, really, since Benny gets drunk at lunch every day—trying to get out five 284-page pulp magazines a week. But Al lets me draw some spot illustrations on staff time when we need a fast piece to fill space, so I’m getting some nice samples to add to my portfolio.
SHERMY
Ha! I’ll bet he invoices for those illos under a phony name and pays himself for them.
JOAN
Oh, I know, but I don’t care. It’s not about the money.
SHERMY [impressed)
No. No, it isn’t.
JOAN
And, sooner or later, I’ll convince Al to let me do a cover painting...
SHERMY
I didn’t know you were a painter!
JOAN
You didn’t ask.
SHERMY
I’d love to see your work someday, Joan.
JOAN
I...I’d love to show you some of it, Shermy.
SHERMY
Uhm, so... what’ll you do if Al gives you the assignment?
JOAN
I’ll fool him. Instead of the usual spicy, lurid canvas, I’ll give him a masterpiece!
SHERMY
That’ll be a first for Esteem!
JOAN
I know. It will shock the pulp world...and the shockwaves will be felt all the way uptown to the art departments of the finest slick magazines!
SHERMY [dreamy)
Gosh, I wish I could use painted covers on the comic magazines, Joan. I’d assign one to you.
JOAN
That’s silly, Shermy. You haven’t even seen my work yet...
SHERMY [still dreamy)
I don’t have to. I can tell a real artist when I meet her...one. Meet one...her or he!
Embarrassed SHERMY dives back to his search. JOAN starts to dig through the file drawers.
JOAN
I can’t believe how many people want to draw for the comics! There are dozens of stories.
SHERMY
This is a few months’ worth of submissions. I haven’t been able to make the time to re-pack it and return it to the artists.
JOAN pulls a large, sealed envelope out from under a stack in one of the drawers.
JOAN
Here’s one you won’t have to re-pack. It’s hasn’t been opened yet!
SHERMY
See? I can’t even keep up!
(peeling open flap)
This wasn’t mailed. It was hand delivered. “Please contact...Jerry Richter or Joe Reiner at...,” the addresses are up in the Bronx.
(starts to pull out the art boards)
Here goes nothing!
JOAN
You don’t know that!
SHERMY
Call it an educated guess.
Pulls pages from envelope, they’ve backwards, he turns them over and stares at the first page, stunned.
JOAN
That bad?
SHERMY shuffles to second page, still stunned, then to the next, and the next, etc.
SHERMY [softly]
No.
JOAN
You mean it’s good?
SHERMY [softly]
No.
JOAN
So... it’s bad?
SHERMY [looks up, stunned, eyes wide]
No. It...it... Joan...it’s beautiful!
She hurries over and sits next to him as he hands her pages.
JOAN
Oh...Shermy!
SHERMY [clapping pages to chest, wild-eyed]
Oh my god, I’m afraid to read it. It’s beautiful...but what if it’s stupid?
JOAN [reading the first page)
Maybe it’s not.
(beat as she reads the second page)
Shermy. I could be wrong, but...
SHERMY takes the first pages back from JOAN. They both read. After a few moments, they exchange a quick, excited look.
JOAN
I mean, I don’t read the comic magazines...
SHERMY
Yeah?
JOAN
...But...
SHERMY
Yeah?
JOAN
... And I’ve only read the first few pages...
SHERMY
Yeah?
JOAN
... But this is good!
SHERMY
It is, isn’t it? Thank god! I thought I might be so desperate to like it I was just fooling myself that it’s good.
JOAN
It is!
SHERMY [looks lovingly at the art]
Sam Strong. Okay! Let’s read the rest of this and then get in touch with...
(SHERMY checks the names on the envelope)
... Richter and/or Reiner and see how they feel about being published by Esteem Comics!
CUT TO:
Scene 2
INT. ESTEEM PERIODICALS. JAKE AND HAROLD’S OFFICE. DAY.
HAROLD is leaning back, feet on his desk, reading the newspaper. JAKE bent over the books.
JAKE
Anything look good?
HAROLD
Depends. We got any cash in the cigar box?
JAKE
A couple of hundred.
HAROLD
In that case, there’s a nag I kind’a like in the sixth at Aqueduct. Eleven to one odds. We could pay a few bills and still have enough left over for a couple of nice steaks at Delmonico’s.
JAKE
What’d you know that the people who make the odds don’t?
HAROLD
You know me. I don’t go by the numbers. I go by my gut.
JAKE
If your winning streak was half as big as your gut, I might be impressed.
HAROLD
Jake, the horse’s name is High Esteem. High Esteem, bubbalah!
JAKE
You’re right. It’s a sure sign from god we should give our two hundred dollars to Moishe the bookie.
HAROLD
Oh yeah? Listen to this, Mr. Know-it-All. The owner’s name is Jackson...and the jockey riding it is...are you ready?
JAKE
I’m braced.
HAROLD
J.K. Harry!
JAKE [finally looks up]
Who’s he?
HAROLD
How the hell do I know. But his name is J.K. Harry. It sounds like Jake Harry.
JAKE
So? Your name’s not Harry.
HAROLD
No, but some people named Harold are called Harry, for short.
JAKE
First, short for Harold is usually Hal, and second, nobody calls you Harry. And how’s it short for Harold anyway? They’re both two syllables. What time are you saving? Har-ry. Har-old. Same difference.
HAROLD
You’re missing the point...
JAKE
You got no point to miss, Harold. And we don’t got two hundred bucks to risk on your gut.
HAROLD
A hundred, then. This is a sure bet, I’m telling you.
JAKE [back to his books]
No.
HAROLD
Fifty. That’ll win us three-fifty.
JAKE
No.
HAROLD
What’s happened to you, Jakey? You used to be more fun than this.
JAKE
I used to be twenty years old, single, and have all my hair. Now I’m forty-three, with a family, a bald spot, and a two-hundred-pound spendthrift on my back.
HAROLD
I don’t weight an ounce over one ninety-five!
(beat)
Twenty-five bucks?
JAKE without looking up, fishes into his pants pocket and pulls out a bill, tossing it on his desk.
JAKE
Here’s a fin. Knock yourself out!
SHERMY enters, a little hesitant, loitering by the door, unnoticed by the brothers. He’s got stack of art he’s holding art-side to his chest.
HAROLD
Feh! What’s with you? We’re making money, aren’t we?
JAKE
We’re making pay the rent money. Not hand our money over to Moishe the bookie money. Not yet, anyway. You keep wasting what we do make at the track and the dames and we’ll never get there.
HAROLD gets up and goes to snatch the five-dollar bill from JAKE’S desk.
HAROLD
Just for that, no Delmonico’s for you.
JAKE
With your record at the track, you’ll be lucky to be to afford a cheese sandwich at Mitzi’s.
SHERMY [clears his throat]
Ahem!
HAROLD
There I wouldn’t eat even if I was starving!
JAKE
Sure. You’re too good to live within your means.
HAROLD
Haven’t you ever heard of thinking positively? You think and act like something’s already something and that’s how you make it something for real.
SHERMY [clears throat again]
Ahem!
JAKE
You wanna learn a little something about reality, start bouncing company checks because you can’t keep your wallet in your pants.
HAROLD
You got to spend money to make money, bubalah. You want people to think we’re broke.
JAKE
We are broke.
SHERMY [clears throat again]
A-hem!
HAROLD [turning on SHERMY, annoyed]
What already, for crying out loud? You need a glass a water or you want to stand there coughing on us all day?
SHERMY
Sorry, Harold, I didn’t want to interrupt...
HAROLD
So instead you thought you’d do your impersonation of a TB ward while you were waiting? What do you want?
SHERMY
Well, it’s about the Mighty Miss story? For Hero Comics?
HAROLD
Oy! This again, Shermy? Do me a favor and just shut up and print the damned thing.
SHERMY
Yeah, about that...I’ve sort of run into a problem.
HAROLD
What problem?
SHERMY
A... technical problem.
SHERMY slowly turns the stack of art so that it’s facing out...showing the ink splattered MIGHTY MISS splash page.
HAROLD [horrified]
Shermy!
(grabs the art from SHERMY’S hands)
What have you done?
SHERMY
I...I...guess I must have knocked over a bottle of ink and—
HAROLD [horrified, shuffling through the art]
How could you do such a thing?
JAKE joins them, taking the ruined pages that HAROLD’S passing to him.
JAKE
Jesus!
SHERMY
It was an accident, Harold.
HAROLD
Accident, my tuchus! You’ve been here eight months and the first accident you’ve ever had just happens to be to a story a couple of hours ago you were screaming was too horrible to print?
SHERMY
A... a coincidence, Harold! Every good story is allowed one good coincidence. But calm down. It’s not as bad as it looks. This story has a happy ending.
JAKE
No, no, it’s exactly as bad as it looks. You can’t fix this. It’s ruined! We got a schedule, Shermy. We miss our press time and it costs us two hundred bucks in penalties from the printer. You got two hundred dollars to throw away like that?
SHERMY
We’ll make the schedule, Jake. I know it looks like a disaster, but this could turn out to be a...a blessing in disguise.
JAKE [getting hysterical]
You expect us to believe you can make a silk purse out of this ink-stained sow’s ear?
HAROLD
Calm down, Jake, please. Remember your gall bladder!
SHERMY
I couldn’t make confetti out of Mighty Miss, but...
JAKE
This is why I hate working with artists. They’re crazy in the head. Every last single goddamned one of them!
(shouts off-screen)
Lillian! Lillian....bring me a bromo, goddammit!
JOAN ENTERS, sneaking up to the door to eavesdrop.
SHERMY
...But I’ve already found a feature to replace it. It’s sixteen pages and it’s perfect.
HAROLD
What is it?
JAKE
What difference does it make? The question is, do we own it?
SHERMY
Do we...?
JAKE
Own it. Oh. Double-u. En! As in, is this a property already in our possession?
SHERMY
In our possession?
(beat)
Oh. Sure. Yeah. It...it’s just been sitting there in our slush file for months.
HAROLD
What about Eiber? He’s expecting to see his Mighty Miss story headlining the magazine.
JAKE
What his Mighty Miss? We bought the stories, didn’t we? It’s our Mighty Miss.
HAROLD
Naw, the fahcocktah character was his idea. First story he’s written and drawn in three years, he said. He was so proud, you would’ve thought he gave birth to it instead of scratched some lines on paper.
SHERMY
Eiber was proud? Of this?
HAROLD
Go figure. Part of the deal was Mighty Miss appears every month, on the cover. That’s why he gave us such a break on the rest of the art, to sweeten the pot.
SHERMY
That stuff’s sweetener?
JAKE
You gonna stand there and ask stupid questions or help out here?
SHERMY
I can do both. Look, we’ll start Mighty Miss in the second issue. And we make good to Eiber by... by...
JAKE
You better not say by giving him a refund!
SHERMY
No, sir. No refund. We could, I dunno... maybe... how about...
HAROLD
He doesn’t have a clue!
JOAN [rushing in, startling all]
Put his name on the cover!
JAKE
What?
HAROLD
Who the hell are you?
SHERMY
Cover credit! Yes!
JOAN
Right there, for everyone browsing the newsstand to see...“Mighty Miss, by Morty Eiber!” Just like we do with the authors on the pulp magazines.
JAKE
Hmm.
HAROLD [to no one]
Who the hell is this?
SHERMY
Morty will eat that up, Jake. If there’s anything bigger than his greed, it’s his ego.
JAKE
But Harold promised him the first issue...
SHERMY
We can tell him... tell him...
JOAN (inspired)
... Tell him... Mighty Miss is too good to waste on the first issue!
HAROLD [louder]
Am I the only one wondering who this strange girl is who’s making important decisions about my company?
SHERMY
Right! Tell him we want to take the time to... to really prepare the readers for the introduction of his great new character. Tell we’re planning a whole campaign... a full-page ad… a teaser blurb on the first issue cover… the works.
JAKE
Eiber will buy that malarkey?
SHERMY
Sure! And that’ll give me time to redraw the ruined story so Eiber never has to know.
JAKE
You can draw like Eiber?
SHERMY
I’ll trace it on the lightbox. And use my left hand.
(beat)
Maybe my left foot.
HAROLD
What are we gonna do for a cover? We already sent the original Mighty Miss cover to the color separators.
JOAN
I can take care of that, Mr. Diniwitz. Shermy’s sent out a couple of pages of the Sam Strong story to be Photostat’ed so I can cut and paste-up a new cover with those images as soon as we get them.
HAROLD
Excuse me, miss, but do I know you?
JOAN
I work for you, Mr. Diniwitz. For Al Adler, in the production department.
JAKE
So, what are you doing up here? We don’t pay you to stand around and chat.
JOAN
Sorry, Mr. Diniwitz. I was—
SHERMY [grabbing her hand]
Wait. I was going to ask Al if Joan could be assigned to work with me, temporarily, just to get the first issue of Hero Comics out the door.
HAROLD
Sure, sure. Whatever it takes!
JAKE
As long as it doesn’t cost us any more money.
SHERMY [gathering art boards]
Thanks, Jake. It won’t cost you a nickel.
JAKE
Not even a penny!
As the excited SHERMY and JOAN finish gathering up the boards, HAROLD and JAKE go back to their desks.
JAKE [continued]
Harold, call Eiber. Break the news to him.
HAROLD
Sure. Right after I talk to Moishe the bookie.
JAKE
You still going on about that nag?
HAROLD
I’m telling you, Jakey, I got a feeling about this one!
JAKE
Yeah, and you’ll thank me when all you’ve lost is that five bucks I gave you.
JOAN and SHERMY pause at the door, looking worriedly back at the brothers as they settle back at their desks.
JOAN [whisper]
So, you had a chance to talk to Richter and Reiner?
SHERMY [whisper]
No, not exactly…
JOAN [whisper]
But you just told the brothers…?
SHERMY [whisper]
Uh-huh.
JOAN [whisper]
Shermy! What are you going to do if they don’t want to sell Sam Strong to Esteem Comics?
SHERMY [whisper]
I’ll tell you later, okay?
JOAN [whisper]
When the brothers aren’t around?
SHERMY [whisper]
No. When I figure it out.
FADE OUT.
To be continued...
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