Fortitude

The Time: the present. The place: Upstate New York, a large room filled with pulsing, writhing, panting machines that perform the functions of various organs of the human body--heart, lungs, liver, and so on. Color-coded pipes and wires swoop upward from the machines to converge and pass through a hole in the ceiling. To one side is a fantastically complicated master control console.

Dr. Elbert little, a kindly, attractive young general practitioner, is being shown around by the creator and boss of the operation, Dr. Norbert Frankenstein. Frankenstein is 65, a crass medical genius. Seated at the console, wearing headphones and watching meters and flashing lights, is Dr. Tom Swift, Frankenstein's enthusiastic first assistant.

Little: Oh, my God--oh, my God--

Frankenstein: Yeah. Those are her kidneys over there. That's her liver, of course. There you got her pancreas.

Little: Amazing. Dr. Frankenstein, after seeing this, I wonder if I've even been practicing medicine, if I've ever even been to medical school. (Pointing) That's her heart?

Frankenstein: That's a Westinghouse heart. They make a damn good heart, if you ever need one. They make a kidney I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole.

Little: That heart is probably worth more than the whole township where I practice.

Frankenstein: That pancreas is worth your whole state. Vermont?

Little: Vermont.

Frankenstein: What we paid for the pancreas--yeah, we could have bought Vermont for that. Nobody'd ever made a pancreas before, and we had to have one in ten days or lose the patient. So we told all the big organ manufacturers, "OK, you guys got to have a crash program for a pancreas. Put every man you got on the job. We don't care what it costs, as long as we get a pancreas by next Tuesday."

Little: And they succeeded.

Frankenstein: The patient's still alive, isn't she? Believe me, those are some expensive sweetbreads.

Little: But the patient could afford them.

Frankenstein: You don't live like this on Blue Cross.

Little: And how many operations has she had? In how many years?

Frankenstein: I gave her her first major operation thirty-six years ago. She's had seventy-eight operations since then.

Little: And how old is she?

Frankenstein: One hundred.

Little: What guts that woman must have!

Frankenstein: You're looking at 'em.

Little: I mean--what courage! What fortitude!

Frankenstein: We knock her out, you know. We don't operate without anesthetics.

Little: Even so....

Frankenstein taps Swift on the shoulder. Swift frees an ear from the headphones, divides his attention between the visitors and the console.

Frankenstein: Dr. Tom Swift, this is Dr. Elbert Little. Tom here is my first assistant.

Swift: Howdy-doody.

Frankenstein: Dr. Little has a practice up in Vermont. He happened to be in the neighborhood. He asked for a tour.

Little: What do you hear in the headphones?

Swift: Anything that's going on in the patient's room. (He offers the headphones) Be my guest.

Little (listening to headphones): Nothing.

Swift: She's having her hair brushed now. The beautician's up there. She's always quiet when her hair's being brushed. (He takes the headphones back)

Frankenstein (to Swift): We should congratulate our young visitor here.

Swift: What for?

Little: Good question. What for?

Frankenstein: Oh, I know about the great honor that has come your way.

Little: I'm not sure I do.

Frankenstein: You are the Dr. Little, aren't you, who was named the Family Doctor of the Year by the Ladies' Home Journal last month?

Little: Yes--that's right. I don't know how in the hell they decided. And I'm even more flabbergasted that a man of your caliber would know about it.

Frankenstein: I read the Ladies' Home Journal from cover to cover every month.

Little: You do?

Frankenstein: I only got one patient, Mrs. Lovejoy. And Mrs. Lovejoy reads the Ladies' Home Journal, so I read it, too. That's what we talk about--what's in the Ladies' Home Journal. We read all about you last month. Mrs. Lovejoy kept saying, "Oh, what a nice young man he must be. So understanding."

Little: Um.

Frankenstein: Now here you are in the flesh. I bet she wrote you a letter.

Little: Yes--she did.

Frankenstein: She writes thousands of letters a year, gets thousands of letters back. Some pen pal she is.

Little: Is she--uh--generally cheerful most of the time?

Frankenstein: If she isn't, that's our fault down here. If she gets unhappy, that means something down here isn't working right. She was blue about a month ago. Turned out it was a bum transistor in the console. (He reaches over Swift's shoulder, changes a setting on the console. The machinery subtly adjusts to the new setting.) There--she'll be all depressed for a couple of minutes now. (He changes the setting again) There. Now, pretty quick, she'll be happier than she was before. She'll sing like a bird.

Little conceals his horror imperfectly. Cut to patient's room, which is full of flowers and candy boxes and books. The patient is Sylvia Lovejoy, a billionaire's widow. Sylvia is no longer anything but a head connected to pipes and wires coming up through the floor, but this is not immediately apparent. The first shot of her is a Close-up, with Gloria, a gorgeous beautician, standing behind her. Sylvia is a heartbreakingly good-looking old lady, once a famous beauty. She is crying now.

Sylvia: Gloria--

Gloria: Ma'am?

Sylvia: Wipe these tears away before somebody comes in and sees them.

Gloria (wanting to cry herself): Yes, ma'am. (She wipes the tears away with Kleenex, studies the results) There. There.

Sylvia: I don't know what came over me. Suddenly I was so sad I couldn't stand it.

Gloria: Everybody has to cry sometimes.

Sylvia: It's passing now. Can you tell I've been crying?

Gloria: No. No. (She is unable to control her own tears anymore. She goes to a window so Sylvia can't see her cry. Camera backs away to reveal the tidy, clinical abomination of the head and wires and pipes. The head is on a tripod. There is a black box with winking colored lights hanging under the head, where the chest would normally be. Mechanical arms come out of the box where arms would normally be. There is a table within easy reach of the arms. On it are a pen and paper, a partially solved jigsaw puzzle and a bulky knitting bag. Sticking out of the bag are needles and a sweater in progress. Hanging over Sylvia's head is a microphone on a boom.)

Sylvia (sighing): Oh, what a foolish old woman you must think I am. (Gloria shakes her head in denial, is unable to reply) Gloria? Are you still there?

Gloria: Yes.

Sylvia: Is anything the matter?

Gloria: No.

Sylvia: You're such a good friend, Gloria. I want you to know I feel that with all my heart.

Gloria: I like you, too.

Sylvia: If you ever have any problems I can help you with, I hope you'll ask me.

Gloria: I will, I will.

Howard Derby, the hospital mail clerk, dances in with an armload of letters. He is a merry old fool.

Derby: Mailman! Mailman!

Sylvia (brightening): Mailman! God bless the mailman!

Derby: How's the patient today?

Sylvia: Very sad a moment ago. But now that I see you, I want to sing like a bird.

Derby: Fifty-three letters today. There's even one from Leningrad.

Sylvia: There's a blind woman in Leningrad. Poor soul, poor soul.

Derby (making a fan of the mail, reading postmarks): West Virginia, Honolulu, Brisbane, Australia--

Sylvia selects an envelope at random.

Sylvia: Wheeling, West Virginia. Now, who do I know in Wheeling? (she opens the envelope expertly with her mechanical hands, reads) "Dear Mrs. Lovejoy: You don't know me, but I just read about you in the Reader's Digest, and I'm sitting here with tears streaming down my cheeks." Reader's Digest? My goodness--that article was printed fourteen years ago! And she just read it?

Derby: Old Reader's Digests go on and on. I've got one at home I'll bet is ten years old. I still read it every time I need a little inspiration.

Sylvia (reading on:) "I am never going to complain about anything that ever happens to me ever again. I thought I was as unfortunate as a person can get when my husband shot his girlfriend six months ago and then blew his own brains out. He left me with seven children and with eight payments still to go on a Buick Roadmaster with three flat tires and a busted transmission. After reading about you, though, I sit here and count my blessings." Isn't that a nice letter?

Derby: Sure is.

Sylvia: There's a P. S.: "Get well real soon, you hear?" (she puts the letter on the table) There isn't a letter from Vermont, is there?

Derby: Vermont?

Sylvia: Last month, when I had that low spell, I wrote what I'm afraid was a very stupid, self-centered, self-pitying letter to a young doctor I read about in the Ladies' Home Journal. I'm so ashamed. I live in fear and trembling of what he's going to say back to me--if he answers at all.

Gloria: What could he say? What could he possibly say?

Sylvia: He could tell me about the real suffering going on out there in the world, about people who don't know where the next meal is coming from, about people so poor they've never been to a doctor in their whole lives. And to think of all the help I've had--all the tender, loving care, all the latest wonders science has to offer.

Cut to corridor outside Sylvia's room. There is a sing on the door saying, Always enter smiling! Frankenstein and Little are about to enter.

Little: She's in there?

Frankenstein: Every part of her that isn't downstairs.

Little: And everybody obeys this sign, I'm sure.

Frankenstein: Part of the therapy. We treat the whole patient here.

Gloria comes from the room, closes the door tightly, then bursts into noisy tears.

Frankenstein (to Gloria, disgusted): Oh, for crying out loud. And what is this?

Gloria: Let her die, Dr. Frankenstein. For the love of God, let her die!

Little: This is her nurse?

Frankenstein: She hasn't got brains enough to be a nurse. She is a lousy beautician. A hundred bucks a week she makes--just to take care of one woman's face and hair. (To Gloria) You blew it, honeybunch. You're through.

Gloria: What?

Frankenstein: Pick up your check and scram.

Gloria: I'm her closest friend.

Frankenstein: Drop her a line.

Gloria: I'm her only friend.

Frankenstein: Some friend! You just asked me to knock her off.

Gloria: In the name of mercy, yes, I did.

Frankenstein: You're that sure there's a heaven, eh? You want to send her right up there so she can get her wings and harp.

Gloria: I know there's a hell. I've seen it. It's in there, and you're its great inventor.

Frankenstein (stung, letting a moment pass before replying): Christ--the things people say sometimes.

Gloria: It's time somebody who loves her spoke up.

Frankenstein: Love.

Gloria: You wouldn't know what it was.

Frankenstein: Love. (More to himself than to her) Do I have a wife? No. Do I have a mistress? No. I have loved only two women in my life--my mother and that women in there. I wasn't able to save my mother from death. I had just graduated from medical school and my mother was dying of cancer of the everything. "Ok, wise guy," I said to myself, "you're such a hot-shot doctor from Heidelberg, now, let's see you save your mother from death." And everybody told me there wasn't anything I could do for her, and I said, "I don't give a damn. I'm gonna do something anyway." And they finally decided I was nuts and they put me in a crazy-house for a little while. When I got out, she was dead--the way all the wise men said she had to be. What those wise men didn't know was all the wonderful things machinery could do--and neither did I, but I was gonna find out. So I went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and I studied mechanical engineering and electrical engineering and chemical engineering for six long years. I lived in an attic. I ate two-day-old bread and the kind of cheese they put in mousetraps. When I got out of MIT, I said to myself, "Ok, boy--it's just barely possible now that you're the only guy on earth with the proper education to practice 20th Century medicine." I went to work for the Curley Clinic in Boston. They brought in this woman who was beautiful on the outside and a mess on the inside. She was the image of my mother. She was the widow of a man who had left her five-hundred million dollars. She didn't have any relatives. The wise men said again, "This lady's gotta die." And I said to them, "Shut up and listen. I'm gonna tell you what we're gonna do."

Silence.

Little: That's--that's quite a story.

Frankenstein: It's a story about love. (To Gloria) That love story started years and years before you were born, you great lover, you. And it's still going on.

Gloria: Last month, she asked me to bring her a pistol so she could shoot herself.

Frankenstein: You think I don't know that? (Jerking a thumb at Little) Last month, she wrote him a letter and said, "Bring me some cyanide, doctor, if you're a doctor with any heart at all."

Little (startled): You knew that. You--you read her mail?

Frankenstein: So we'll know what she's really feeling. She might try to fool us sometime--just pretend to be happy. I told you about that bum transistor last month. We maybe wouldn't have known anything was wrong if we hadn't read her mail and listened to what she was saying to lame-brains like this one here. (Feeling challenged) Look--you go in there all by yourself. Stay as long as you want, ask her anything. Then you come back out and tell me the truth: Is that a happy woman in there, or is that a woman in hell?

Little (hesitating): I--

Frankenstein: Go on in! I got some more things to say to this young lady--to Miss Mercy Killing of the Year. I'd like to show her a body that's been in a casket for a couple of years sometime--let her see how pretty death is, this thing she wants for her friend.

Little gropes for something to say, finally mimes his wish to be fair to everyone. He enters the patient's room. Cut to room. Sylvia is alone, faced away from the door.

Sylvia: Who's that?

Little: A friend--somebody you wrote a letter to.

Sylvia: That could be anybody. Can I see you, please? (Little obliges. She looks him over with growing affection.) Dr. Little--family doctor from Vermont.

Little (bowing slightly): Mrs. Love-joy--how are you today?

Sylvia: Did you bring me cyanide?

Little: No.

Sylvia: I wouldn't take it today. It's such a lovely day. I wouldn't want to miss it, or tomorrow, either. Did you come on a snow-white horse?

Little: In a blue Oldsmobile.

Sylvia: What about your patients, who love and need you so?

Little: Another doctor is covering for me. I'm taking a week off.

Sylvia: Not on my account.

Little: No.

Sylvia: Because I'm fine. You can see what wonderful hands I'm in.

Little: Yes.

Sylvia: One thing I don't need is another doctor.

Little: Right.

Pause.

Sylvia: I do wish I had somebody to talk to about death, though. You've seen a lot of it, I suppose.

Little: Some.

Sylvia: And it was a blessing for some of them--when they died?

Little: I've heard that said.

Sylvia: But you don't say so yourself.

Little: It's not a professional thing for a doctor to say, Mrs. Lovejoy.

Sylvia: Why have other people said that certain deaths have been a blessing?

Little: Because of the pain the patient was in, because he couldn't be cured at any price--at any price within his means. Or because the patient was a vegetable, had lost his mind and couldn't get it back.

Sylvia: At any price.

Little: As far as I know, it is not now possible to beg, borrow or steal an artificial mind for someone who's lost one. If I asked Dr. Frankenstein about it, he might tell me that it's the coming thing.

Pause.

Sylvia: It is the coming thing.

Little: He's told you so?

Sylvia: I asked him yesterday what would happen if my brain started to go. He was serene. He said I wasn't to worry my pretty little head about that. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," he told me. (Pause) Oh, God, the bridges I've crossed!

Cut to room full of organs, as before. Swift is at the console. Frankenstein and Little enter.

Frankenstein: You've made the grand tour and now here you are back at the beginning.

Little: And I still have to say what I said at the beginning: "My God--oh, my God."

Frankenstein: It's gonna be a little tough going back to the aspirin-and-laxative trade after this, eh?

Little: Yes. (Pause) What's the cheapest thing here?

Frankenstein: The simplest thing. It's the goddamn pump.

Little: What does a heart go for these days?

Frankenstein: Sixty thousand dollars. There are cheaper ones and more expensive ones. The cheap ones are junk. The expensive ones are jewelry.

Little: And how many are sold a year now?

Frankenstein: Six hundred, give or take a few.

Little: Give one, that's life. Take one, that's death.

Frankenstein: If the trouble is the heart. It's lucky if you have trouble that cheap.(To Swift) Hey, Tom--put her to sleep so he can see how the day ends around here.

Swift: It's twenty minutes ahead of time.

Frankenstein: What's the difference? We put her to sleep for twenty minutes extra, she still wakes up tomorrow feeling like a million bucks, unless we got another bum transistor.

Little: Why don't you have a television camera aimed at her, so you can watch her on a screen?

Frankenstein: She didn't want one.

Little: She gets what she wants?

(continued on page 106)

Fortitude (continued from page 102)

Frankenstein: She got that. What the hell do we have to watch her face for? We can look at the meters down here and find out more about her than she can know about herself. (To swift) Put her to sleep, Tom.

Swift (to Little): It's just like slowing down a car or banking a furnace.

Little: Um.

Frankenstein: Tom, too, has degrees in both engineering and medicine.

Little: Are you tired at the end of a day, Tom?

Swift: It's a good kind of tiredness--as though I'd flown a big jet from New York to Honolulu, or something like that. (Taking hold of a lever) And now we'll bring Mrs. Lovejoy in for a happy landing. (He pulls the lever gradually and the machinery slows down) There.

Frankenstein: Beautiful.

Little: She's asleep?

Frankenstein: Like a baby.

Swift: All I have to do now is wait for the night man to come on.

Little: Has anybody ever taken her a suicide weapon?

Frankenstein: No. We wouldn't worry about it if they did. The arms are designed so she can't possibly point a gun at herself or get poison to her lips, no matter how she tries. That was Tom's stroke of genius.

Little: Congratulations.

Alarm bell rings. Light flashes.

Frankenstein: Who could that be? (To Little) Somebody just went into her room. We better check! (To swift) Lock the door up there, Tom--so whoever it is, we got 'em. (swift pushes a button that locks door upstairs. To Little) You come with me.

Cut to patient's room. Sylvia is asleep, snoring gently. Gloria has just sneaked in. She looks around furtively, takes a revolver from her purse, makes sure it's loaded, then hides it in Sylvia's knitting bag. She is barely finished when Frankenstein and Little enter breathlessly, Frankenstein opening the door with a key.

Frankenstein: What's this?

Gloria: I left my watch up here. (Pointing to watch) I've got it now.

Frankenstein: Thought I told you never to come into this building again.

Gloria: I won't.

Frankenstein (to Little): You keep her right there. I'm gonna check things over. Maybe there's been a little huggery buggery. (To Gloria) How would you like to be in court for attempted murder, eh? (Into microphone) Tom? Can you hear me?

Swift (voice from squawk box on wall): I hear you.

Frankenstein: Wake her up again. I gotta give her a check.

Swift: Cock-a-doodle-doo.

Machinery can be heard speeding up below. Sylvia opens her eyes, sweetly dazed.

Sylvia (to Frankenstein): Good morning, Norbert.

Frankenstein: How do you feel?

Sylvia: The way I always feel when I wake up--fine--vaguely at sea. Gloria! Good morning!

Gloria: Good morning.

Sylvia: Dr. Little! You're staying another day?

Frankenstein: It isn't morning. We'll put you back to sleep in a minute.

Sylvia: I'm sick again?

Frankenstein: I don't think so.

Sylvia: I'm going to have to have another operation?

Frankenstein: Calm down, calm down. (He takes an ophthalmoscope from his pocket)

Sylvia: How can I be calm when I think about another operation?

Frankenstein (into microphone): Tom--give her some tranquilizers.

Swift (squawk box): Coming up.

Sylvia: What else do I have to lose? My ears? My hair?

Frankenstein: You'll be calm in a minute.

Sylvia: My eyes? My eyes, Norbert--are they going next?

Frankenstein (to Gloria): Oh, boy, baby doll--will you look what you've done? (Into microphone) Where the hell are those tranquilizers?

Swift: Should be taking effect just about now.

Sylvia: Oh, well. It doesn't matter. (As Frankenstein examines her eyes) It is my eyes, isn't it?

Frankenstein: It isn't your anything.

Sylvia: Easy come, easy go.

Frankenstein: You're healthy as a horse.

Sylvia: I'm sure somebody manufactures excellent eyes.

Frankenstein: RCA makes a damn good eye, but we aren't gonna buy one for a while yet. (He backs away, satisfied) Everything's all right up here. (To Gloria) Lucky for you.

Sylvia: I love it when friends of mine are lucky.

Swift: Put her to sleep again?

Frankenstein: Not yet. I want to check a couple of things down there.

Swift: Roger and out.

Cut to Little, Gloria and Frankenstein entering the machinery room minutes later. Swift is at the console.

Swift: Night man's late.

Frankenstein: He's got troubles at home. You want a good piece of advice, boy? Don't ever get married. (He scrutinizes meter after meter)

Gloria (appalled by her surroundings): My God--oh, my God--

Little: You've never seen this before?

Gloria: No.

Frankenstein: She was the great hair specialist. We took off everything else--everything but the hair. (The reading on a meter puzzles him) What's this? (He socks the meter, which then gives him the proper reading) That's more like it.

Gloria (emptily): Science.

Frankenstein: What did you think it was like down here?

Gloria: I was afraid to think. Now I can see why.

Frankenstein: You got any scientific background at all--any way of appreciating even slightly what you're seeing here?

Gloria: I flunked earth science twice in high school.

Frankenstein: What do they teach in beauty college?

Gloria: Dumb things for dumb people. How to paint a face. How to curl or uncurl hair. How to cut hair. How to dye hair. Fingernails. Toenails in the summertime.

Frankenstein: I suppose you're gonna crack off about this place after you get out of here--gonna tell people all the crazy stuff that goes on.

Gloria: Maybe.

Frankenstein: Just remember this: You haven't got the brains or the education to talk about any aspect of our operation. Right?

Gloria: Maybe.

Frankenstein: What will you say to the outside world?

Gloria: Nothing very complicated--just that....

Frankenstein: Yes?

Gloria: That you have the head of a dead woman connected to a lot of machinery, and you play with it all day long, and you aren't married or anything, and that's all you do.

Freeze scene as a still photograph. Fade to black. Fade in same still. Figures begin to move.

Frankenstein (aghast): How can you call her dead? She reads the Ladies' Home Journal! she talks! She knits! She writes letters to pen pals all over the world!

Gloria: She's like some horrible for tunetelling machine in a penny arcade.

Frankenstein: I thought you loved her.

Gloria: Every so often, I see a tiny little spark of what she used to be. I love that spark. Most people say they love her for her courage. What's that courage worth, when it comes from down here? You could turn a few faucets and switches down here and she'd be volunteering to fly a rocket ship to the moon. But no matter what you do down here, that little spark goes on thinking, "For the love of God--somebody get me out of here!"

Frankenstein (glancing at the console): Dr. Swift--is that microphone open?

Swift: Yeah. (Snapping his fingers) I'm sorry.

(continued on page 217)

Fortitude (continued from page 106)

Frankenstein: Leave it open. (To Gloria) She's heard every word you've said. How does that make you feel?

Gloria: She can hear me now?

Frankenstein: Run off at the mouth some more. You're saving me a lot of trouble. Now I won't have to explain to her what sort of friend you really were and why I gave you the old heave-ho.

Gloria (drawing nearer to the microphone): Mrs. Lovejoy?

Swift (reporting what he has heard on the headphones): She says, "What is it, dear?"

Gloria: There's a loaded revolver in your knitting bag, Mrs. Lovejoy--in case you don't want to live anymore.

Frankenstein (not in the least worried about the pistol but filled with contempt and disgust for Gloria): You total imbecile. Where did you get a pistol?

Gloria: From a mail-order house in Chicago. They had an ad in Real True Romances.

Frankenstein: They sell guns to crazy broads.

Gloria: I could have had a bazooka if I'd wanted one. Fourteen-ninety-eight.

Frankenstein: I am going to get that pistol now and it is going to be exhibit A at your trial. (He leaves)

Little (to Swift): Shouldn't you put the patient to sleep?

Swift: There's no way she can hurt herself.

Gloria (to Little): What does he mean?

Little: Her arms are fixed so she can't point a gun at herself.

Gloria (sickened): They even thought of that.

Cut to Sylvia's room. Frankenstein is entering. Sylvia is holding the pistol thoughtfully.

Frankenstein: Nice playthings you have.

Sylvia: You mustn't get mad at Gloria, Norbert. I asked her for this. I begged her for this.

Frankenstein: Last month.

Sylvia: Yes.

Frankenstein: But everything is better now.

Sylvia: Everything but the spark.

Frankenstein: Spark?

Sylvia: The spark that Gloria says she loves--the tiny spark of what I used to be. As happy as I am right now, that spark is begging me to take this gun and put it out.

Frankenstein: And what is your reply?

Sylvia: I am going to do it, Norbert. This is goodbye. (She tries every which way to aim the gun at herself, fails and fails, while Frankenstein stands calmly by) That's no accident, is it?

Frankenstein: We very much don't want you to hurt yourself. We love you, too.

Sylvia: And how much longer must I live like this? I've never dared ask before.

Frankenstein: I would have to pull a figure out of a hat.

Sylvia: Maybe you'd better not. (Pause) Did you pull one out of a hat?

Frankenstein: At least five hundred years.

Silence.

Sylvia: So I will still be alive--long after you are gone?

Frankenstein: Now is the time, my dear Sylvia, to tell you something I have wanted to tell you for years. Every organ downstairs has the capacity to take care of two human beings instead of one. And the plumbing and wiring have been designed so that a second human being can be hooked up in two shakes of a lamb's tail. (Silence) Do you understand what I am saying to you, Sylvia? (Silence. Passionately) Sylvia! I will be that second human being! Talk about marriage! Talk about great love stories from the past! Your kidney will be my kidney! Your liver will be my liver! Your heart will be my heart! Your ups will be my ups and your downs will be my downs! We will live in such perfect harmony, Sylvia, that the gods themselves will tear out their hair in envy!

Sylvia: This is what you want?

Frankenstein: More than anything in this world.

Sylvia: Well, then--here it is, Norbert. (She empties the revolver into him)

Cut to same room almost a half hour later. A second tripod has been set up, with Frankenstein's head on top. Frankenstein is asleep and so is Sylvia. Swift, with Little standing by, is feverishly making a final connection to the machinery below. There are pipe wrenches and a blowtorch and other plumber's and electrician's tools lying around.

Swift: That's gotta be it. (He straightens up, looks around) That's gotta be it.

Little (consulting watch): Twenty-eight minutes since the first shot was fired.

Swift: Thank God you were around.

Little: What you really needed was a plumber.

Swift (into microphone): Charley--we're all set up here. You all set down there?

Charley (squawk box): All set.

Swift: Give 'em plenty of martinis.

Gloria appears numbly in doorway.

Charley: They've got 'em. They'll be higher than kites.

Swift: Better give 'em a touch of LSD, too.

Charley: Coming up.

Swift: Hold it! I forgot the phonograph. (To Little) Dr. Frankenstein said that if this ever happened, he wanted a certain record playing when he came to. He said it was in with the other records--in a plain white jacket. (To Gloria) See if you can find it.

Gloria goes to phonograph, finds the record.

Gloria: This it?

Swift: Put it on.

Gloria: Which side?

Swift: I don't know.

Gloria: There's tape over one side.

Swift: The side without tape. (Gloria puts record on. Into microphone) Stand by to wake up the patients.

Charley: Standing by.

Record begins to play. It is a Jeanette MacDonald-Nelson Eddy duet, "Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life."

Swift (into microphone): Wake 'em up!

Frankenstein and Sylvia wake up, filled with formless pleasure. They dreamily appreciate the music, eventually catch sight of each other, perceive each other as old and beloved friends.

Sylvia: Hi, there.

Frankenstein: Hello.

Sylvia: How do you feel?

Frankenstein: Fine. Just fine.