Mank

It's all right. I've got this. I'm good.

- -

Here.

I had them set you up out here so you wouldn't feel quite so confined.

The ladies will scandalize the neighborhood

by occupying both bedrooms.

I will be staying in town at a bucolic spa called,

if you can believe it, the Shoulder Arms.

I will do my editing there.

As you know,

Fraulein Freda is not only a nurse and physical therapist,

she studied nutrition back in the old country.

- Ja, liebes Fräulein? - Jawohl, Herr Houseman.

It's a dry house.

The owner of the ranch doesn't permit alcohol.

- But you're from Pennsylvania.

You're no doubt used to it.

Saved by the proverbial bell.

Set it here, please.

And, uh, careful.

- Careful. Thank you. -

- Observe. -

Naturally, you'll do your damnedest to get at it.

By the time you finish the first draft, which is to say, in 90 days,

you should be a world-class sprinter.

Rita, come in here, will you?

This is Mrs. Alexander.

She types 100 perfect words a minute and takes dictation like a clairvoyant.

Rita Alexander, Herman Mankiewicz.

How do you do, Mr. Mankiewicz?

Uh, that's a big question.

Well, since you like working nights, Rita here runs on London time.

Her husband is one of our bold lads in the RAF.

- Flies... What is it, Rita? Spitfires? - Hurricanes.

- My sympathy and prayers. - I beg your pardon?

Given the speed, climb, and turning radius of the Messerschmitt Bf 109--

I hope we won't need your sympathy, Mr. Mankiewicz.

We'll do the praying and the fighting.

I will meet with Orson weekly. Keep him to date on our progress.

We're expecting great things.

What is it the writer says? "Tell the story you know."

- Hmm.

I don't know that writer.

- Hello. -

Yes. Yes, he's right here.

Well, you should have everything. If I've forgotten, there's a clipboard.

- Yes? Hello? - They're getting him.

Our wunderkind does have the gift of theatrical timing.

- Orson, hello. We just got in. -

Oh.

- Hello. Mank!

Houseman tells me we have you just where we want you.

Lucky me.

- How's the leg? - "Thigh bone's connected to the hip bone."

Excellent.

Ready and willing to hunt the great white whale?

Just call me Ahab.

I understand we've 90 days.

Let's aim for 60.

He's just cut a month.

I used to do it in five for you at the Mercury. This is leisurely.

- Sixty days, and then we can noodle. - Nothing like a good noodle.

Uh, is the reason you lopped 30 days to run it past the RKO legal?

I thought I told you, Mank. I have final cut, final everything.

There are no studio notes.

We'll have no one but ourselves to blame.

Sixty days and a noodle. Mr. Welles, we're ready.

Gotta run. I'm doing tests for Heart of Darkness.

Oh, little that, lesser Joe Conrad.

If anyone should ask, tell 'em you're adapting.

Oh, you don't know this sun-bleached sewer here, my friend.

Break wind at Hollywood and Vine,

and a producer in Santa Monica reports a ruptured main.

No, I don't know this burgh, not yet.

I'm toiling with you in spirit, Mank. And I don't hear any typing.

No notes.

And then he turns 24.

Trapped.

- Uh-uh.

Let me take off these clothes.

They let me go just as I achieved perfect equilibrium.

I won't work with half the producers on the lot,

and the other half won't work with me.

What's this, a racing form?

- You stop reading, you stop learning. -

Hold still.

Lay back.

Cigarette, please.

Hermie, if a match gets anywhere near your breath,

you'll burst into flames.

Even the dog's name is awful.

Sounds like a Japanese houseboy.

You mark my words, Sara.

The Wizard of Oz is gonna sink that studio.

Sleep. You're driving to New York tomorrow.

Remember when you used to take the train

from back East?

I'd sneak aboard in Albuquerque and climb into your compartment naked.

I also remember how I spent my honeymoon in Berlin,

with hookers running up and down the stairs all night

because my dashing correspondent couldn't afford a nice hotel.

Weren't those the days?

Yeah, yeah, and the nights weren't bad either.

Schnutz. - For the last time, what?

- What year is it? - Herman...

- I should have done something by now. - Oh, Hermie...

Give me a sign, oh, Lord.

I am as your servant Moses, though I won't work half as cheap.

Go to sleep, meshuggener.

Schnutz? - What?

Why do you put up with me?

I don't know.

That bush in the front yard,

if it catches fire tonight, you will let me know?

I mean, you know all kinds of things.

Iambic pentameter, the words of the great poets.

What about the way she signed it? "Always, Ethel."

Can you beat that? Not just "Ethel." "Always, Ethel."

Tommy, if we can find civilization by sundown,

I hope to climb out of this crate and into a cold martini.

She's not the kind to use "always" if she didn't mean it.

If she meant just "Ethel," she'd write just "Ethel," not "always."

- Wouldn't you think? - Uh, the road, Tommy.

I know.

You read it and see what I mean.

- -

She loves me, don't you think?

Mank? It's Orson Welles.

- Of course it is. I think it's time we talked.

I'm all ears.

Once a castle on a hill,

now a memory of what once was.

Alone in his unfinished, already decaying pleasure palace,

aloof, seldom visited, never photographed,

we see an old man in a robe, smoking a pipe,

sitting alone by his pool...

- -

...um, uh, discarded pages scattered at his feet.

Narrator,

"An emperor of newsprint continued to direct his failing empire,

vainly attempting to sway, as he once did,

the destinies of a nation

which had long since ceased to listen to him..."

No. "Had ceased to trust him."

We see through trees as an aide pushes this old man in a wheelchair

across neatly groomed lawns.

Narrator, "There, last month,

as it must to all men, death came to--"

- -

- Let's have that cuppa, Mrs. A. - Oh.

- I know who it is. -

Or who it's meant to be.

What makes you think it's meant to be anybody?

Oh, come, now.

Everyone in the English-speaking world will recognize him instantly.

Exactly what he would say.

- Did you know the man? - Maybe.

I used to.

- You wrote for one of his papers? - Oh, no, praise God.

I met him after he started bankrolling his girlfriend's pictures.

You knew Marion Davies?

- If anyone did. - Really?

What's she like?

Why is it when you scratch a prim, starchy English schoolgirl,

you get a swooning moving-picture fan

who has forgotten all she ever learned about the Battle of Hastings?

Hastings. 14 October 1066,

ten centigrade.

Mank?

Sorry. Somebody told me Mankiewicz was in here.

He is. I'm the promising brother, Joe.

- I didn't know Herman had a brother. - Neither does anyone else.

Let me guess.

"There are millions to be made,

and your only competition is idiots," stop.

How did you know?

I hate to tell you, anyone who can rub three words together

and make a sentence gets one.

Come on.

It's after lunch, and we're on a deadline. He may be busy.

- I promise I won't be a bother. - Not exactly what I meant.

Come on! Hey. You know I'm good for it.

- Fellas. - Shh. These are high stakes.

Go on.

- Ooh, tails! That's it! - God damn it!

Oh, Mank! - All right. Double or nothing.

This time, banjo-eyed son of a bitch, let it hit the floor.

- "Banjo-eyed." Son of a bitch?

Mank once bet me a five-spot

to see how long it would take a falling leaf to hit the ground.

- Had to go to management to cover it. - For five bucks?

Five thousand.