Script Writing Ability

THUNDER ROAD ADDITIONAL SCENE

BY

JAKE MIKOLAITIS

January 31, 2010

This scene is designed to be placed exactly at the 0:07:07 mark in the movie.

FADE IN:

EXT. A Back Country Road in Rural Tennessee – Evening.

We’re looking at a man (16-20) and a woman (18) sitting in a 1957 Chevrolet coupe, their names are Niles and Roxy.

Niles is driving. He looks over at Roxy and smiles then slowly brings the car to a stop outside of her father’s store.

ROXY

Well thank you for the lift Niles, I hope your run goes well.

Niles

Thanks Roxy, I’ll be home round nine tomorrow.

ROXY

G’bye Niles

Niles

Bye Roxy

Roxy gets out of the car and runs up the steps of the store as Niles drives away.

Ext. A Different Rural Back Country Road- Night

Niles is driving as usual. And the camera is looking right at him as if it were sitting on the center of the hood.

Then, gunfire, and the car is suddenly riddled with hundreds or rounds of ammunition. We see the car completely and utterly destroyed as it veers off the road and into a ditch.

An unknown man, whose face we can’t see, in a long black suit holding a shotgun approaches.

He opens the driver’s side door and Niles’ bloody corpse falls out onto the street

UNKNOWN MAN

Damn, we missed.

Rest of the movie continues.

This movie is about a moonshiner, played by Robert Mitchum, in Tennessee that is fighting to protect his family and fellow moonshiners from the violent encroachment of a rival kingpin, portrayed by Jacques Aubuchon. I feel this scene is needed because the movie’s beginning does not seem to feel as dark and gritty as the end. It almost feels like the mood swing experienced by the audience is not as severe as it should be. Granted the movie was filmed in 1957 and released in theatres the following year, but I still feel that if this particular scene or one similar that serves the purpose of showing how “evil” Aubuchon’s character really is. Instead the writers just use dialogue and I feel it just doesn’t work as effectively.