“Jack of Diamonds” is an early screenplay, but it is one of my favorite. It has a richness beyond the noun-verb-direct object action text that is the paradigm du jour in scriptwriting classes. I think it’s important to be evocative in a script; the writer’s job, after all, is to inspire not only his audience but the cast and crew that will be working on his project. The events of the script are based on a late nineteenth-century robbery in Arizona of a U.S. army paymaster and his money (the “Wham” robbery, after paymaster Major Wham). The robbers were never convicted, but there is quite a web surrounding the suspects, the nearby Mormon town of Pima, and a territory on the cusp of statehood. It would be a great TV series, of which this excerpt is a proof.
Jack of Diamonds |
