Saving Anybodys, or: Forget Americans in Paris

 Another Clarence the “Wonderful Life” Angel Adventure

FADE IN.

EXT. Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high. Neither day nor night, yet both.

It’s a cloudy day at our heavenly way station, where we see an elegant, brilliantly lighted stairway emerging from below. Thankfully we’re in color—you know, 1950s movie musicals style, saturated primary colors and all.

Presently, a recently deceased yet vibrantly alive BILLIE HOLIDAY ascends the stairs and is greeted by MR. JORDAN (color version) and CLARENCE (carefully colorized, and not by Mr. Ted Turner’s ham-handed coloring team).

BILLIE (wearily) 
You people should put in an escalator.

CLARENCE (sniffing the gardenia in BILLIE’s hair, mesmerized)
Miss Holiday, it is an honor to greet you. I missed the performance, sadly, but I am here to escort you to the Winging Room.

BILLIE
It was only one song. I’m glad it worked. Thank you for letting me get to Paris first. … “Winging Room”?

JORDAN
If I may clarify, and offer my congratulations and gratitude: You have earned your wings, Miss Holiday!

CLARENCE
And on your very first mission! I can’t tell you how many tries it took me. (He twirls to show off his own wings, as BILLIE admires his glamorousness.)

GHOST OF JACOB “BIFF” MARLEY (off-stage)
He can’t count that high.

JORDAN
Miss Holiday, we were honored to let you fetch the special treasure from your friend in Paris, and we are satisfied you delivered it to the appropriate recipient.

BILLIE
She’ll do. Or he. “Them.” I think Lester would have been pleased.

CLARENCE
I’m so sorry I missed the show. Darling Mr. Jordan, can we please have a rewind?

MR. JORDAN sweeps his gigantic angel wings gently across the Cloud-o-scope, as he, BILLIE, and CLARENCE gather around.

BILLIE
Could somebody get a lady a chair?

BIFF MARLEY scoots a powder-puff settee up for BILLIE; she cozies herself onto it as the others watch the recap of her successful mission. On the Cloud-o-scope the scene dissolves to:

INT. Doc’s Candy Store on Manhattan’s West Side, 1959. A hot early summer night.

The SHARKS and the JETS have concluded their war council, which has been interrupted by the overbearing LT. SCHRANK, a mean-spirited bigot, a nasty snot of a cop.

JORDAN (voice-over)
No, we’re not here for him. Some other time, perhaps.

As the SHARKS leave the candy shop, whistling “My Country ’Tis of Thee,” leader BERNARDO gives one last look toward Jets leader RIFF, who returns his glance sympathetically. They both know it’s SCHRANK and his ilk that is their common enemy.

The scene fast-forwards on the Cloud-o-vision, and SCHRANK has left. The JETS are quiet, angry, reflective. The door opens presently and ANYBODYS pokes her head in to see if she is welcome. Treated by the world as a girl, ANYBODYS yearns to be accepted as one of the Jets; so far, the only Jet who accepts her as such is ICE, who is RIFF’s deputy and the Jets’ single-combat warrior.

ANYBODYS catches ICE’s eye, silently asking permission to enter. ICE turns to silently ask RIFF; RIFF nods. ICE turns back to ANYBODYS and nods his head, gesturing “Come on in.” She goes to the jukebox, and ICE tosses her a quarter.

ANYBODYS (thrilled)

Thanks, Daddy-o!

ANYBODYS puts the quarter in the machine, and the sweet sound of a Billie Holiday record is heard, “God Bless the Child.”

Drawn in by the sad, gentle music, the remainder of the Jets’ GIRLS return to the candy store and take their places by their boyfriends.

A sudden gust of wind blows the candy store door wide open; dazzling blue light surrounds the arriving angel BILLIE HOLIDAY. She’s swathed in the loveliest white feathers and furs that Heaven allows. All the very stunned JETS stare at her in shock.

BILLIE (laughing heartily)
What’s the matter, children? Ain’t you never seen a real Lady before? I thought I heard me singing.

BILLIE listens to her song and joins ANYBODYS at the jukebox.

BILLIE
What’s a matter, baby? Feelin’ left out again?

ANYBODYS
How would you know?

BILLIE
I know. I know. But you don’t know. You don’t know feelin’ left out till you can’t eat in the same club with your band, even if your name is on the ticket. Can’t even go to the bathroom. You don’t know. (She turns to the Jets, fiercely.) None of you know nothin’. (Jets continue staring. She laughs.) Ain’t none of you even been to Harlem?

ANYBODYS
I have.

BILLIE
I know, baby.

BILLIE whisks out of the folds of her grand furs the treasure she had just picked up in Paris. It is her late friend Lester Young’s saxophone.

CLARENCE (voice-over)
Is that what I think it is? Isn’t that what Joe Pendleton used to carry with him here?

JORDAN (voice-over)
No, not Joe’s. This belonged to the great tenor saxophonist, the late Lester Young. He’s now playing a command performance for … you know who.

The candy shop has now become crowded, not just with the JETS and their girls, but also the returning SHARKS and girls.

BILLIE (handing the instrument to ANYBODYS)
Here, baby. We know you’ve been practicin’ when nobody can hear Anybody. We know you can blow. There’s a hole in a band up the street. You go fill it.

BILLIE eyes ANYBODYS’ attire and looks around the room. ICE gets the hint and takes off his jacket, giving it to ANYBODYS. BILLIE shoos ANYBODYS out the door.

BILLIE
Go play. Go make us sad we couldn’t hear you.

JETS and SHARKS all applaud and cheer as ANYBODYS hurries out with the saxophone. BILLIE disappears in a bright blue cloud of heavenly mist and we return to:

EXT. Way station. Dusk or dawn, twilighty time.

JORDAN
I like that. It works. Well done, dear Miss Billie! Well done!

BILLIE
Thank you. I did have a little trouble in Paris, though—besides just wanting to stay and jam with my best men. You said I should look up Gerry Mulligan. Baritone sax, right?

JORDAN
Well, no. I can see the confusion.

CLARENCE
Yes, I thought I was assigned to Jerry Mulligan—the artist—or rather, cleaning up the mess he left behind in Paris.

BILLIE
Artist? Never heard of him.

JORDAN
American GI, went off to Paris after the War to become a painter. Not much of an artist, but a decent illustrator. He did rather miss the big picture, art-movement-wise. We needed to bring him back to New York. Imagine, imitating Toulouse-Lautrec and Matisse in an era of Pollock and de Kooning. And Helen Frankenthaler!

BILLIE, CLARENCE, JORDAN, and even BIFF MARLEY bow reverently.

MARLEY (waving a stack of papers)
Mr. Jordan, I was just coming to tell you, I finished the second draft. Our rewrite for “An American in Paris.”

Lise, Henri, Jerry, and Milo, about to switch partners

CLARENCE (twirling merrily)
Ah, Gershwin! I can hardly wait! Ta-da-da-deeee, da rum-pum-pum, rum-pum-pum!

BILLIE
Gershwin. The “Porgy and Bess” guy? Oh he’s not bad.

JORDAN
It wasn’t the music, of course. It wasn’t even the art, really, that needed repair. It was, as always, the souls who were left behind.

MARLEY (jumping up and down)
I know! I’ve got it! Please, oh please Mr. Jordan? I never get to do anything but snarky voice-overs.

BILLIE
Yes, let him read it. I’m tired. Let’s all just listen.

MARLEY (reading his manuscript)
And Hosaa has written: “Brokenhearted Henri has let his dear little fiancee, Lise, off at the entrance of the art students’ ball, where she runs up the stairs to meet Jerry—

BILLIE
“Stairway to Paradise”! Ha ha! I get it. I still think you people need escalators.

MARLEY
Ahem. “Jerry, the young American painter she has fallen in love with. And Jerry has left his brokenhearted so-called sponsor, American suntan-oil heiress Milo, in the arms of his friend, piano prodigy Adam Cook—

BILLIE (aside)
Played by well-known psychochondriac Oscar Levant. Now he was a good connection in Paris.

MARLEY (continues reading)
“Henri’s taxi bumps into Milo’s limo as the two brokenhearted castoffs leave the art students’ ball.

“Jerry Mulligan (not Gerry, the baritone sax player and band leader) and Lise (played by a bouquet of heavily scented cut flowers in the ballet dream sequence) realize the center of the art universe had actually moved to Greenwich Village by 1951.

“Unable to surrender his dreamy idealized realism, Jerry can only get work as an illustrator for an ad firm, whose major client is Milo's suntan oil company. Lise, schooled only in the poetry books Henri lent her while she was in hiding during the war, becomes a copywriter for the same ad firm. They live in New Jersey and raise three nice but not exceptionally bright children who never bother anyone.

“Meanwhile, Milo and Henri fuse their broken hearts into a glowing, passionate romance, warmed by the feeling of being wanted rather than mere recipients of Jerry’s and Lise’s loveless gratitude. They settle in New York, where Henri becomes a cabaret star and Milo continues to run her company.

“Adam composes a wedding serenade for Milo and Henri that is recorded by every vocalist from Broadway to L.A. Unable to cope with success, Adam returns to Paris to teach piano to the kids on the street where he had once been happily miserable.” The end.

BILLIE (wistfully)
I would love to have had that song.

CLARENCE
Oh, Mr. Marley, this is a dandy righting of what went wrong! When we go down, Mr. Jordan, can I be Adam? Or is it Oscar? I always wanted to play the piano.

JORDAN
I believe that can be arranged. But first you must escort our darling Lady Day to the Winging Room. Off you go!

The stairway seen earlier now magically begins extending upward, upward through another layer of clouds. As CLARENCE wraps his own wings around BILLIE HOLIDAY, they take the first step, which lights up and starts each additional step lighting up in turn. They pause as the stairway transforms into an escalator, which takes them up to the “Winging Room” somewhere in the hazy clouds above.

FADE OUT.

love, hosaa
rhapsodizing in blue

*hosaa's note: Our Mr. Jordan originally appeared in two versions: Here Comes Mr. Jordan, with Claude Rains manning the black-and-white chief angel and story fixer, famously fixing the untimely death of Joe Pendleton, and Heaven Can Wait, wherein Jordan was more colorfully portrayed by the equally dapper James Mason. 

In neither case did these Mr. Jordans have any dealings with Angel Clarence Odbody, the saver-of-suicidal George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life, or with Jacob Marley, the Scrooge-saving ghost in A Christmas Carol. This time of year, I find, my mind wanders through many stories needing minor alterations. Or major ones. Previous rewrites are as follows:

2013: Saving Mr. Potter
2014: Christmas Belle, or Saving Miss Fezziwig
2015: Saving Mr. Sawyer
2016: Saving Mr. Jordan
2017: Saving “Big” Susan
2018: Saving Miss Gulch
2019: How Now, Voyager? Or, Saving Dr. Jaquith
2020: My Fair Freddy, or Saving Pygmalion