Which Lie Did I Tell? by William Goldman Read Free Book Online Page B

it, but he would have to be paid a lot of money and that Reiner would have to either produce or direct it.
    Reiner, who had no intention of directing, agreed. He would produce. He called me. I read Misery. I had read enough of King to know this: of all the phee-noms that have appeared in the past decades, King is the stylist. If he ever chooses to leave the world that has made him the most successful writer in memory, he won’t break a sweat. The man can write anything, he is that gifted.
    Misery is about a famous author who has a terrible car crash during a blizzard, is rescued by a nurse. Who turns out to be his number-one fan. Who also turns out to be very crazy. And who keeps him prisoner in her out-of-the-way Colorado home. It all ends badly for them both (worse for her). I was having a fine old time reading it. I’m a novelist too, so I identified with Paul Sheldon, who was not just trapped with a nut, but also trapped by his own fear of losing success. And Annie Wilkes, the nurse/warden, is one of King’s best creations.
    When I do an adaptation, I have to be kicked by the source material. One of the ways I work is to read that material again and again. So if I don’t like it a lot going in, that becomes too awful. I wasn’t sure halfway through if I would write the movie, but I was enjoying the hell out of the novel.
    Then on this page the hobbling scene began.
    Paul Sheldon has managed to get out of the bedroom in his wheelchair, and he gets back in time to fool Annie Wilkes. This is more than a little important to him, because Annie is not the kind of lady you want real mad at you.
    Except, secretly, she does know, and in the next fifteen pages, takes action.
    I remember thinking, Jesus, what in the world will she do? Annie has a volcanic temper. What’s in her head? She talks to Paul about his behavior and then she eventually works her way around to the Kimberly diamond mines and asks him how he thinks they treat workers there who steal the merchandise. Paul says, I don’t know, kill them, I suppose. And Annie says, Oh no, they hobble them.
    And then, all for the need of love, she takes a propane torch and an ax and cuts his feet off, says, “Now you’re hobbled,” when the deed is done.
    I could not fucking believe it.
    I mean, I knew she wasn’t going to tickle him with a peacock feather, but I never dreamt such behavior was possible. And I knew I had to write the movie. That scene would linger in audiences’ memories, as I knew it would linger in mine.
    The next half year or so is taken up with various versions, and I work with Reiner and Scheinman, the best producer I have ever known for script. We finally have a version they okay and we go director hunting. Our first choice is George Roy Hill, and he says yesss. Nirvana.
    Then Hill calls and says he is changing his mind. We all meet.And Hill, who has never in his life done anything like this, explains. “I was up all night. And I just could not hear myself saying ‘Action’ on that scene. I just haven’t got the sensibility to do that scene.”
    “What scene?” (I am in agony—I desperately want him to do it. He is tough, acerbic, brilliant, snarly, passionate.)
    “The lopping scene.”
    What madness is this? What lopping scene?
    “The scene where she lops his feet off.”
    “George, how can you be so wrong?” (After Butch Cassidy and Waldo Pepper, we have been through a lot together. The only way tosurvive with George is to give him shit right back.) “That is not a lopping scene, that is a hobbling scene. And it is great and it is the reason I took this movie and she only does it out of love.”
    “Goldman, she lops his fucking feet off. And I can’t direct that.”
    “It’s the best scene in the movie when she hobbles him. It’s a character scene, for chrissakes.”
    He would not budge. And of course, since it was the most important scene and the best scene, it had to stay. A sad, sad farewell. We were about to send the script