“My god! Who authorized this?”
“Umm…you did, sir.”
“I did? And, you actually let me?”
“You…err…do own the studio…”
“So? Does that mean that I have to be surrounded by a bunch of yes men who won’t disagree with me no matter how stupid my ideas are?”
“Well, you, uhh, have shown a preference for that in the past…”
“But, the signs were all there. How could I have missed them? Gentlemen, we have embarked upon a new era in the making of quality motion pictures. Take the new Bond film – The Living Daylights. Now, Bond has been a symbol of casual sex for almost 25 years, and what have they done? Given him a regular female partner and turned Bond flicks into commercials for safe sex! And, what about that Canadian film – The Decline of the American Empire? The Hollywood version is going to be changed in order to de-emphasize the casual sex. But, casual sex was what the original was all about! Even an innocuous film like Dragnet has a scene endorsing safe sex. We’re ruined! Ruined, I tell you! It’s the end of MegaDeal Studios!”
“Why is that, sir?”
“We’ve committed $20 million to film the life story of Casanova! Our timing couldn’t be worse!”
“Well, sir, if only it would render that decision inoperable and save the Studio, you know we’d all give up our lives gladly…”
“Don’t try to cheer me up, Maladwat. That won’t be necessary – not yet, in any case. We’ve got a serious problem, here, gentlemen: how do we make a film about the world’s most famous lover, a man who has sex with hundreds of women, without appearing to endorse his behaviour?”
“What if we show him not enjoying it very much?”
“Oh, shut up, Maudlin!”
“Okay. What if, instead of showing him having a sexual relationship with hundreds of women, we make a movie that shows him having sex with one woman hundreds of times?”
“Uhh…that’s better, Wicker. The right direction. Unfortunately, I have a slight reality problem with that suggestion. The legend of Casanova is fairly well known – it’s even become part of the language. We can’t very well make a movie about the world’s greatest lover if he doesn’t actually do anything that the rest of us can’t do.”
“Making love to one woman hundreds of times? I don’t know anybody who could stand it.”
“Yes, well, I’d get help for that if I were you…”
“Why don’t we just run a disclaimer before the film?”
“Oh, brilliant, Maladwat! Why don’t we forget about the film altogether and write off the $10 million we’ve already spent on it?”
“Okay by me.”
“What happened to my timing? I used to have great timing. I made a Vietnam War movie long before they became popular…”
“You mean, when they were unpopular?”
“Haven’t I fired you yet, Maudlin?”
“Sorry, sir…”
“I used to have a great sense of what the public wanted. Megadeal Studios was the first to turn down Star Wars – and we were right. It didn’t become a hit for months. Timing is everything in this business.”
“If you’ll allow me, sir, I think I see a solution.”
“Tenorsax – talk to me.”
“Well, sir, I’m thinking of a final scene – late at night, a storm raging outside, Casanova wandering aimlessly through an insane asylum. His once fine silk clothes are in tatters. His hair hasn’t been gelled in weeks – possibly months! Shaking, barely able to stand, he turns to the camera and says something like, ‘I have come to realize that there must be something more – that instant gratification of physical desires is spiritually unfulfilling and can only lead to madness and death.’ Or, something like that.”
“Tenorsax, you’ve just done something I didn’t think was possible…”
“Sir?”
“You’ve returned film morality to the 1930s!”