"Every Morning When I Wake up and I See There's a Whole New Other Day, I Just Go Absolutely Ape!" - Paris When It Sizzles

Let's visit Audrey Hepburn and William Holden in Paris When It Sizzles!

via tumblr source unknown

It's by no means a good movie (in fact, I'd argue that overall, it's one of Audrey Hepburn's worst movies), but it's totally ape (maybe not in the way that Audrey's character means), so let's dive in!

If you've never seen Paris When It Sizzles, well... you're in for a treat, and it's not the same kind of treat you got watching Sabrina, arguably the better of the Hepburn/Holden collaborations. It's an experimental comedy that lampoons the film industry and its players, and it's très tongue in cheek as it pokes at Hollywood and its stars (at one point Audrey and Bill are indirectly referred to as overpaid heads). 

The premise is this: 

Richard Benson, played by William Holden, who was in desperate need of a drying out at this point in his life, is a screenwriter of such caliber that he can sell scripts on his name alone, nevermind actually putting pen to paper.

And here's the typist who's going to keep him on track, Gabrielle Simpson, played by Audrey Hepburn. Hello Givenchy wardrobe and perfume (a partnership that always worked, in my opinion). Richard hasn't even begun working on his latest script and the studio bigwigs are on his case. They hire Gabrielle to come and type the story for him, hoping for a completed script by the end of the weekend. 

And that's basically Paris When It Sizzles: a romantic comedy starring Audrey and Bill who also play the characters in the script Richard Benson's working on. 

But instead of doing a deep dive into the film itself, today I want to look at the screenplay they were working on, The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower, and see if it'd be worth watching.

(You know Netflix would probably be all over it...)

Gabrielle: The title is symbolic? She doesn't really steal the Eiffel Tower. Does she? What's the story about?

Richard: lt's an action-suspense, romantic melodrama. With lots of comedy, of course. And deep down underneath a substrata of social comment.

Gabrielle: Oh. Well, if l could see the pages you've written, I could estimate the size of the typing job.

Richard: The pages, my dear girl, are right here.

He lays blank pages out on the floor in a trail, while telling Gabrielle all about the script. 

The gist is that a boy and a girl fall in love. "Now, after some chitchat, getting-to-know-you stuff, which I do so brilliantly, we feel an unconscious attraction between the two," he says. There are switches, turns of event, all the usual melodrama in The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower. 

"And as the audience drools with sublimated sexual pleasure, the two enormous and highly paid heads come together for that ultimate and inevitable moment...

...the final, earth-moving, studio-rent-paying, theatre-filling, popcorn-selling kiss. Fade out. The end."

Gabrielle then asks what was the hold-up, why isn't the script finished. What has he been doing instead of working?

Richard: What any red-blooded American screenwriter would or should have been doing for the first 19 and a fraction weeks of his employment. Water-skiing in St Tropez, lying in the sun in Antibes, studying Greek.

Gabrielle: Greek?

Richard: There was this starlet representing the Greek film industry at the Cannes Festival. Then, of course, a few weeks unlearning Greek, which involved a considerable amount of vodka and an unpremeditated trip to Madrid for the bullfights, which fortunately, since I can't bear the sight of blood, had long since gone on to Seville. Weeks 17 and 18 were spent in the casino at Monte Carlo, in a somewhat ill-advised attempt to win enough money to buy back my $5,000-a-week, plus expenses, contract from my friend, employer and patron, Mr Alexander Meyerheim, thus not having to write the picture at all.

And now that we're up to speed, it's time for the first of many iterations of The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower:

"Exterior. Christian Dior. The camera pans, and now we see a white Rolls-Royce

pull up and come to a stop. No, wait a minute, make that a white Bentley. It's chicer. A chauffeur in white livery leaps out and opens the door."

"From inside emerges some classically glamorous star like Marlene Dietrich. And now she...Dot, dot, dot. She sweeps majestically into the store and... That's all we see of her."

No, that's not it. But then Richard gets another idea... 

Richard: A simple story of a simple Parisian working girl and how she spends July 14th. The whole picture plays in one day. And I've got two days to write it. Fade in. Exterior, Paris. As our story begins, it's early Bastille Day morning. And all the trumpets of Paris are sounding reveille. 

"Cut to the Eiffel Tower. The main title. The trumpets segue into the inevitable title song. Maybe we can get Sinatra to sing it..." 

(They did! It's literally just Frank Sinatra singing the line "The girl who stole the Eiffel Tower also stole my heart.")

"There follows an interminable list of other credits acknowledging the efforts of all the quote little people unquote, whom I shall graciously thank in my acceptance speech at the Academy Awards...

"As the cymbals crash, 'Original Story and Screenplay by Richard Benson.'''

To make matters a little fun (or maybe confusing), the characters in The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower are played by Audrey and Bill with a few cameos thrown in, like Marlene Dietrich's appearance earlier.

Richard: A simple Parisian working girl, who looks remarkably like you, Miss Simpson, emerges from her simple Parisian dwelling and makes her way through the crowd and across the square. She seats herself at a table at this little café she goes to. With breathless anticipation, she awaits the arrival of her date." 

Richard describes her date as "curiously unattractive," but Gabrielle jumps in to correct him: "Philippe happens to be very handsome. In fact, he looks rather like, erm, Tony Curtis."

He adds in this characterization: "I see him as one of those mumbling scratching actors destined only for minor roles and character parts," which, we know, was the total opposite of Tony Curtis's career. But he plays the lines as 'written' by Richard. 

Philippe: Like, er, bonjour, baby.

Gabrielle: Bonjour, Maurice!

Philippe: Hey.

Gabrielle: Oh, l'm so excited. l didn't sleep a wink. Do you like my dress?

Philippe: Yeah, very groovy.

Speaking of Tony Curtis, he was brought in to film scenes while Bill Holden went to dry out at a clinic. He appeared as a personal favour to the screenwriter, George Axelrod (who also wrote Breakfast at Tiffany's). 

Anyways, Philippe's going to take off to film a movie, leaving the unnamed girl alone on Bastille Day. 

"Our heroine is left grief-stricken, not realising how much better off she really is."

Back to the apartment, and Gabrielle's arguing that Philippe would never behave like that in real life. Richard assures her that there's another gentleman about to enter the picture. Any guesses? 

Richard: He's American, of course. I can write him better that way. Now let's see, what else? I see him as rather tall, rather suntanned, rather handsome, athletic looking, with a rugged but curiously sensitive face. Poor sad creature. Little does she realise that in a moment she and the audience will have totally forgotten that dull clod Maurice, or Philippe, or whatever his name is. At this magic moment her life has indeed begun. Tenderly he folds her into his arms, and moving with the nimble grace of a Fred Astaire, he dances her off into the crowd.

The 'plot' is about to thicken... 

...he tells her that there's no time to explain, but in exactly ten seconds, she needs to slap him as hard as she can. Probably something to do with the men in trench coats watching from the wings. 

So, she does what he says.

And out come the trench coats! 

But then the idea fizzles out again, so, back to the drawing board for Richard and Gabrielle! 

Richard: We're alright through getting rid of her date for Bastille Day. The boy and the girl meet and they dance, and they dance, and they dance... And they dance, and they dance...

Richard: I know who the mysterious stranger is. He's a liar and a thief. Sure. A latter day Francois Villon, who lives by his wit and what he steals. A jewel thief, maybe. Expert safe-cracker. There isn't a safe in the world he can't open with his bare hands.

But now they have to start over again!

Richard: Let's see. We're alright through Alexander Meyerheim production, Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower, story and screenplay, Richard Benson. We keep the Bastille Day jazz, only this time we don't start on Gabby, we start on... Rick.

Gabrielle: Rick. That's a wonderful name for the mysterious stranger.

Richard: Don't editorialise. Just start typing. Exterior, day. A picturesque square. Amidst the throng of merrymakers, the camera picks up a rather tall, rather suntanned American... We'd better change his wardrobe for a liar and a thief suit. You know, various shades of black. Moving with the grace of a jungle cat, Rick approaches the table where Gabby is getting the brush-off from her actor. His almost super-human intelligence takes in the situation at once. He hesitates. If there's a single chink in Rick's armour, it's a pretty face. He comes to a decision and moves to another table where two denizens of the underworld await him.

But now they have to start over again!

Gangster: Well, Rick? Have you thought it over?

Rick: I'm considering the proposition.

Gangster: We need you for two things only. To open the safe and deliver the note. A few hours' work. And for this, a million dollars. Which we will of course split three ways.

Rick: Half for me. The other half to be divided between you two.

Gangster: But you already agreed.

Rick: Gentlemen, it's a well-known fact that I am not only a brilliant safe-cracker, but a liar and a thief. Half for me, the other half divided between you two.

Gangster: Very well. I will pick you up with a car at four.

Rick: Until four, then.

Gangster: And, Rick, resist at all costs your continuous and overwhelming

impulse to perform the double-cross. We will not this time be so understanding as we were last year in Tangier.

Richard: Now, Miss Simpson, having established a climate of suspense, intrigue and romance, we've arrived once more at that magic moment. The boy and the girl meet. OK. Now we need more conflict. A new character, maybe. I've got it! Seated nearby is Rick's deadly enemy, Inspector, erm, Gillette of the international police force. It is apparent he knows something the audience does not know.

Richard: We can pause for a few pages of chitchat, getting-to-know-you stuff, which I do so brilliantly. The question is, where should this charming little scene be played?

Gabrielle: At lunch!

Richard: Yes, he takes her to a beautiful restaurant for lunch in the Bois.

Gabrielle: Ridiculous. She wouldn't go off with a man who picked her up in a square. I mean, he's a perfect stranger.

Richard: Miss Simpson, nobody's perfect. Why, he asks, as they dance and dance and dance, are you so sad when everyone is so gay? And then a suggestion from the mysterious stranger. If you try raising your upper lip, you might at least create the illusion of a smile. That being somewhat of a disaster,

he really has to turn on the charm. Do you know the word serendipity, he asks. She shakes her head.

Richard: He explains the word, in a much more fascinating way than I did, and at the right moment proposes a glorious lunch in the Bois. She's tempted.

Gabrielle: But don't you think...

Richard: Miss Simpson, he's not asking her for a weekend at a motel in Asbury Park, New Jersey. He's inviting her to lunch! Now don't you think if he were terribly, terribly charming, she'd go?

Gabrielle: Well...

Richard: Serendipity.

Gabrielle: Alright, maybe. If he promises it's just lunch and that's absolutely all.

Richard: He promises. Unless she can think of something she'd like to do after.

Gabrielle: Which she won't!

Richard: Seren... Alright, then. He hails a horse and carriage and they go off to the Bois. Settled?

Gabrielle: Settled. And now I suppose we ought to write it.

Richard: Not at all. The audience is ahead of us. They've known she'll have lunch with him for an hour.

Gabrielle: But how do we get from the square through the charm and serendipity you do so brilliantly?

Richard:In motion pictures we have a simple device which takes care of exactly this situation. The dissolve. Over the years, the audience has been conditioned to understand that when a scene fades away, like an old soldier, before their very eyes, and another scene gradually appears to take its place, a certain amount of time has elapsed. So, Miss Simpson, we dissolve... We dissolve slowly and lingeringly to the Bois. A handsome cab bearing our handsome couple clippety-clops its way past waterfalls and trees toward a magnificent restaurant. Notice, Miss Simpson, how cleverly I play our suspense-filled melodrama against a background of holiday serendipity in gay Paris. We will spare the audience the pages of dreary small talk and get to the heart of the matter, by the simple use of the device I've just explained, the dissolve.

The Girl: Who are you? What do you do?

Rick: Who am I and what do I do? I'm nobody and I've done everything and nothing. Driven racing cars, white hunter for a while, piano player in a rather curious establishment in Buenos Aires. This and that, everything and nothing. The curse of having been born too rich.

The Girl: Oh, I know what you mean. The curse of having been born too rich. That's why I left the castle for Paris.

Rick: The castle?

The Girl: We've got houses all over the world, but my favourite was our summer place in Deauville with its own private zoo. As a little girl, on Sundays, if I'd been good, I could feed the giraffes.

Rick: Giraffes? Don't tell me that you had giraffes, too?

The Girl: You mean, you?

Rick: But of course. 

The Girl: Oh, what fun! Both of us having had giraffes as children. 

Rick: It's a small world, isn't it?

The characters then order lunch, which spills over into the real world where Richard and Gabrielle are actually ordering everything they list in the script. 

Rick: To begin, we'll have paper-thin slices of prosciutto ham wrapped carefully around well-ripened sections of Persian melon. To follow, a touch of Dover sole sautéed lightly in champagne and butter. With that, a bottle of Pouilly-Fuiss? '59 will do. And after that we'll have a Chateaubriand for two. Erm, make that for four. Charred and brown. Nay, black on the outside and gloriously rare on the in. With the beef we'll have white asparagus and a bottle of Chateau Lafite-Rothschild '47. And for dessert an enormous order of fraise du bois.

Nicole: Served, of course, with globs of heavy cream so thick you can put it on with a shovel, s'il vous plait.

Richard: You heard the lady. And make it snappy, we're starving.

Gabrielle: Have you any idea at all what happens next?

Richard: Do you, Miss Simpson, have any idea what will happen?

Gabrielle: Well...

Richard: We've got to remember that no matter how charming he seems he is a liar and a thief. It says so right here.

So the characters run off to be alone together and Gabrielle comes up with a second switch: that The Girl is actually not who she says she is and that she sees right through the handsome stranger. 

Gabrielle: I do know what happens next. What happens next is the second switch. The audience gasps as they realise they have been fooled. He has plied her with martinis, white wine, red wine, brandy, for only one reason. To make her drunk! Which incidentally she is not. Not at all, whatever he thinks. Now, as he forces one last brandy to her unwilling lips... Poor ingenuous girl. Charmed and serendipitied into believing she was safe in the hands of this suntanned handsome American. Alas, things are not what they seem. Not at all. The music turns ominous. And she becomes aware of the danger that she is in. The mysterious stranger. Who is he? What is he really like? And why does he keep nibbling on her neck?

Rick: Don't be frightened, my dear. It's only a bat. The creatures of the night are my friends.

The Girl: I know why you nibble on my neck. You're some kind of werewolf.

It's The Twilight Saga: New Moon! 

But no, Gabrielle is wrong, Rick's not a werewolf... 

He's a vampire! (Just kidding, it's actually Twilight!)

Rick: The inner reaches of these caverns make an ideal setting for my laboratory.

The Girl, naturally, runs off (because she's no Bella Swan). 

But in the distance, upon horseback, comes Rick chasing after her! 

The Girl kills him in the struggle and Gabrielle is distraught (and drunk, though she won't admit to it), so they find that's the perfect place to pause for the night. 

The next morning, Gabrielle comes out of her room to find pages of their script set out like a trail for her to follow. 

While Gabrielle slept, he added pages, edited the errors from what had already been written, and figured out the new plot. 

Richard: I found I had, in a moment of insecurity, underestimated the brilliance of the man. No simple safe-cracker he but a master criminal, wanted by the police of three continents. The dazzling scheme

has been worked out, step by painful step, for over a year by Rick himself. The two other characters

are just employees. That brings us back to where we were. Rick and Gabby have demolished a glorious lunch and it's almost four o'clock, time for the car to arrive.

Rick: My car and chauffeur will pick us up here at four, for a tour of Paris to see how the celebration's progressing, a brief stop at my office to pick something up, and then on to a party in my honour at the restaurant in the Eiffel Tower.

Rick sees the Inspector tracking him, and Tony Curtis's character, and he plays it like he knows they're there. But they're actually part of a sting with The Girl, who is working undercover with Tony Curtis to bring down Rick! 

Tony Curtis: Inspector, my imitation of a method actor was impeccable. I played the role internally, of course, indicating all the basic elements of this curious calling. The deep almost lunatic narcissism. The lack of personal daintiness. The appalling grammar. Pops, it was... Sir, it was flawless, brilliant. I came in on a motorbike in wheat-coloured-

Inspector: Now, please, don't get carried away. I remind you, you are not the star of this drama but merely a supporting player. A very minor one, at that. If life, like the theatre, came equipped with programmes, your billing, way down on the page and in tiny letters, would simply be second policeman. As I was saying, what he doesn't know, poor Rick, is that the girl is ours.

Rick: To the studio, Francois, please.

The Girl: Studio?

Rick: I said, I have to stop at my office and pick something up there. Have you been inside a motion-picture studio?

The Girl: No. Are you in the movie business?

Rick: In a way. The studio is particularly marvellous on a holiday like this. Silent. Empty. The vast sound stages completely deserted. Like the night before Christmas, not a creature is stirring.

The Girl: I don't understand. Are you an actor, a writer, producer, director?

Rick: Nothing so creative, I'm afraid. My interest in movies is purely financial.

The Girl then tells us that she loves movies, "Not those terrible New Wave pictures, where nothing happens" though, real movies, like Westerns, romance, and horror flicks. 

But Rick zeroes in on her lipstick and remembers that she wrote something on a napkin and gave it to the Inspector, so he knows she's double-crossing him!

A chase ensues and they wind up in a very opulent, very brass bedroom.

The Girl: Stop, Rick, stop. Or I'll shoot, I swear I will.

Cut to Gabrielle, acting out the scene: Mr Benson, what happens next?

He doesn't know! That's as far as he got plotting overnight. 

Gabrielle: You know what I think? I think we need another What would that be? A switch on a switch on a switch on a switch. On a switch.

Richard: I thought I knew movies but Roger Roussin was never like this. I wonder if he knows about switches. And switches on switches. And switches on switches on switches. I don't think so. It would change his whole life.

Gabrielle: Not only would they not play Scrabble they would also not play Parcheesi. I must say, the mind reels. Anyway, you know what I think?

Richard: Yes. You think she is not a creature of the streets with a police record. You think she's an American intelligence agent. Well, Miss Simpson, you happen to be wrong. Our Gabby happens to be that most reliable, steadfast, and you-cannot-miss-with-no-matter-how-badly-you-write-it character in all popular literature. The prostitute with a heart of gold. No, actually, the P with the H of G is secondmost. The most is Frankenstein. Sure, someone who creates or remakes another human being and either falls in love with it or it destroys him. It can go either way. That's what gives it such flexibility. Miss Simpson, did you ever realise that Frankenstein and My Fair Lady are the same story? One ends happily and the other one doesn't. Think about that for a while.

Here's the latest switch on top of switch on top of switch: The Girl doesn't have a gun, it's a lighter.

Rick: And so my big magic-eyed Gabby, who came to Paris to live, turns out to be a spy for the police. An informer. A common stool pigeon.

The Girl: No, Rick, don't say it! It's that devil Gillette. Oh, how I hate him. He is relentless! He'll stop at nothing until he tracks you down. He'll never forgive himself for last year in Tangier or the year before in Hong Kong. You are his obsession.

The Girl: He had me paroled to be the luscious and irresistible bait squirming on the hook he has prepared. If I do not extract the plan you have been building step by painful step for the last year, my life, well, it's over. Back I go behind the bars, matron in uniform once more, no longer Gabrielle or Gabby but simply a number. If, however, I succeed...

Rick: And if you succeed?

The Girl: Freedom!

Rick: What exactly do you have to do to extract this plan?

The Girl: Anything.

Rick: Anything?

The Girl: Anything. It's not so hard. I too in my own way am a highly paid professional. Not so highly paid as you, perhaps, but still a professional.

Rick: We're two of a kind, you and I.

Meanwhile...

Gabrielle: I like it, but can you get away with it?

Richard: Get away with it? Get away with what?

Gabrielle: Well, that scene with them on the bed is rather suggestive. Don't you think the censors will object?

Richard: How can they possibly object? We dissolved, didn't we?

Back to the movie! We find out what Rick's carefully laid plan is: he's going to steal the reels for The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower! 

And Rick and The Girl are getting ready for the costume party at the Eiffel Tower, when Rick notices... 

that The Girl is partaking in a gratuitous bathtub scene that audiences lap up, apparently. Gabrielle was worried about the censors but it's like Rick said, for all we know, thanks to the dissolve, they could've been playing Parcheesi! 

Anyways, Rick has a cowboy costume for himself and a medieval princess costume for The Girl, and once they're on their way to the party, he announces that he wants to tell her the carefully crafted plan, and that he hopes he can trust her.

The Girl: How can you ask, Rick? After our Parcheesi game this afternoon, I am yours for ever and ever and ever.

L'amour! 

Rick: In the back of this car are 28 cans of motion-picture film. The Eiffel Tower party is being

given by the picture's producer.

The Girl: Tell me the plan in a minute, Rick. It's a long drive to the Eiffel Tower and the traffic is heavy.

Richard: And now, darling, Rick and Gabby make their way to the elevator which will carry them and us to the inevitable party scene, so dear to the hearts of movie directors everywhere. It's summer time and the vita is dolce. Breakfast is at Tiffany's and everybody is high. And now that the director has distracted the audience with these totally extraneous vignettes, he reluctantly returns to the plot and another new character.

Bonjour Mel Ferrer, Audrey's then-husband, in an uncredited cameo appearance as a party guest who imbibes and starts sprouting hair everywhere. 

The Inspector is appropriately dressed like an executioner. 

The bigwig producer looks just like Alexander Meyerheim.

Anyways, The Girl manages to communicate Rick's plan to the Inspector, that he has the negative and the print of The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower. It comes out that he plans to destroy the movie unless he gets the key to a safe deposit box, but the producer is overjoyed, since he thinks the movie's terrible. 

Producer: The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower is frankly a disaster. The title is symbolic. She doesn't actually steal it. Or I don't think she does. The end's so confusing it's hard to tell. Anyway, the script is so ghastly it could never possibly be released.

Oh, and Tony Curtis is back. 

And then the movie turns into a chase, because why not! 

The Inspector winds up in Rick's costume...

Rick gets the Inspector's costume and the key to the safe deposit box in Casablanca...

...and Tony Curtis is also told at one point, when he tries to correct what his character's name is, that "Dear boy, you are a minor character and your name is of no importance," which was probably a first for him. 

Tony Curtis: You're Rick. I don't understand.

Rick: No, you're not supposed to. Can't you get it through your mind? You're only a bit part. Nobody cares about you. You're a mere literary convenience. Someone for the hero to punch in the jaw at the correct moment.  And that moment, I'm happy to state, has finally arrived.

And, with Rick's plan stopped, that's the end of the movie, The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower. 

Know who's not a fan? (I mean, along with anyone who probably would've seen this movie if it had been made?) Gabrielle. She doesn't understand why the movie had to end like that. She tries to advocate for a happier ending, where Rick and The Girl wind up together. 

Richard: It won't work. You see, he is a liar and a thief. And he's been one for too long. He can't retire now. In addition to which, he has become, I'm afraid, a hack.

So Gabrielle tries to convince him that it's not too late, that "Rick" can still have love, but he won't hear of it (for himself, too). 

Richard: It's too late. He's 43 years old. Or will be this October. He's been married twice, both times disastrously, and there have been too many years of too much dough, too much bad writing and too much whisky. He's got nothing left inside to give. Even if he could, which he can't.

They admit that they love each other but Richard wants to send her on her way before he can corrupt her. 

Gabrielle: To you, Richard Benson. To you and your glorious professional know-how. Long may you wave. And may you go on fooling the people.

So she leaves and the next time we see her, it's Bastille Day, a day she'd been looking forward to so she could go out and celebrate. She looks so chic in this pink Givenchy dress. 

And there's a note for Alexander Meyerheim when he comes knocking at Richard's door. 

And then we find out where Richard's gone: he's out to return Gabrielle's pet bird, which she (somehow) forgot at Richard's place. 

And he finds her with her decidedly not Tony Curtis beau! 

Richard: Miss Simpson, stop overacting, you know very well what I'm doing here. Of all the hokey cornball grade-B picture devices. She forgot the bird, she forgot the bird.

Gabrielle: I don't know what you mean.

Richard: Yes, you do. Girl leaves bird. Boy has to come looking for girl. I've written that scene a thousand times myself. Always works, of course. That's point one. Point two. How dare you quit me

when we haven't even started? Point three. I love you. Miss Simpson, if you don't feel up to the job, tell me now. I'll get someone else.

Gabrielle: Oh, no, I'm perfectly capable.

So they run off, after she abandons not-Tony, to finish the screenplay, which he says he now has a brilliant idea for... 

...but it's Paris, after all, and an utterly romantic moment, which needs to be recognized.

She wants to know if the new script will have a happy ending. No contrived drama, no running off at the end. 

Richard: On the contrary, Miss Simpson. The music soars and there, totally oblivious of the fireworks,

the fountains and the holiday-mad throngs they fall happily and tenderly into each other's arms.

Gabrielle: I know what happens next.

Richard: You do?

Gabrielle: The two enormous and highly paid heads come together for that ultimate and inevitable moment. The final, earth-moving, studio-rent-paying, theatre-filling, popcorn-selling...

THE END!