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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

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.