Clarence the Angel’s Final “Wonderful Life” Adventure?
FADE IN.
EXT. Heavenly Way Station (or is it a “weigh” station?) It’s a dark and stormy night. Or day? Who can tell?
CLARENCE, attired in his favorite pale-pink chiffon angel gown, confers with long-time Way Station clerk JACOB “BIFF” MARLEY. They are watching scenes from The Sound of Music on a tiny past-viewing tablet at Marley’s workstation.
CLARENCE
Hills alive with music and dancing, a convent filled with worshipful worshipers worshiping and taking vows. What a beautiful scenario. (He twirls around to enjoy the floating chiffon gown.)
MARLEY (scrolling and fast-forwarding)
And Nazis.
CLARENCE
What do Nazis have to do with the price of schnitzel?
MARLEY
Nazis are the classic foils for all of us putting-right-what-once-went-wrong guys.
Entering the scene quietly in a serene shimmer is our distinguished Way Station manager, the nattily attired and twinkly-eyed MR. JORDAN.
JORDAN
That’s right, darling Biff, you have anticipated me. Our mission is once again to save a soul left behind. Have you finished the scenario?
MARLEY
Just polishing up the second draft now, Mr. Jordan!
JORDAN
Now, Biff, don’t try and con me!
MARLEY
No, no, of course not, sir. I mean, Clarence and I are just going over the major plot points. We’re looking for the fork in this young fellow’s fate.
CLARENCE
Rolfe! Rolfe!
JORDAN
Down, boy. Good Clarence. Yes, quite. Now, why would this young Austrian tenor with a dancer’s remarkable agility suddenly take up with these … I even hate the word itself. Name-callers call people names with it nowadays.
MARLEY
I know what you mean. Even Nazis call other people Nazis. It’s so, so …
CLARENCE
It’s so “I’m rubber and you’re glue. Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks on you.”
JORDAN
Yes, in a preemptive sort of way. Exactly so. Now, sweet Biff, what are the coordinates for this past scenario we are amending?
MARLEY
We’re in Salzburg, Austria, in the last golden years of the Thirties.
CLARENCE
That’s the nineteen-thirties, sir.
JORDAN
Ah, I see. Between those two so-called World Wars. Well, if I recall my history, young men began rallying together to protest economic inequity, or something like that. Can we really blame them?
CLARENCE and MARLEY gaze at each other uncertainly and fail to answer JORDAN’s clearly rhetorical question.
JORDAN
Of course we do! Who answers being bullied by bullying everyone else? Bullies! And Cowards!
CLARENCE and MARLEY
And Nazis!
CLARENCE
Oh, my!
Drawing his lovely enormous wings around his two direct-reports, JORDAN soothes their fears and directs their attention to the images on MARLEY’s small viewer. He then sweeps his wings magically to cast the images onto a much larger cloud-view-screen-thing.
VIEW: Message-boy ROLFE arrives at the von Trapp mansion to deliver a telegram, speaking with fellow Nazi-sympathizer FRANZ the butler.
BACK TO the angels conferring
MARLEY
A bit of a little-man-in-the-shadows-of-the-big-man syndrome, if you ask me. The butler and the messenger boy want to cut the Austrian Naval hero down to size, you betcha.
JORDAN
Yes, we’ve seen this situation often enough in this Way Station, haven’t we, sweet Clarence?
CLARENCE
Oh, yes. But sometimes the big men are the problems. Remember Mr. Potter? It was the little guy, our dear George Bailey, at the root of Potter’s wicked envy.
JORDAN
Yes. And in the scenario before us, the big man, again, is the problem.
CLARENCE
The Captain? But he’s the hero who saves his family and leads them to escape! How was he the problem?
JORDAN
It was he who was at the root of young Rolfe’s wicked envy. My dear Marley, if you please, let us first look at a few of young Rolfe’s exquisite production numbers, featuring von Trapp’s eldest daughter, Liesl.
ROLFE (on screen)
Some people think we ought to be German,
ROLFE (on screen)
I’ll take care of you!
MARLEY (voice-over)
A promise is a promise, Herr Rolfe.
LIESL (on screen)
I’ll depend on you!
MARLEY (voice-over)
After all, he is all grown up at seventeen going on eighteen, right, Liesl?
CLARENCE (voice-over)
Oh, what a beautiful couple they are! They just make me want to sing and dance and head for Fezziwig’s House of Brides warehouse …
BACK TO the three angels conferring.
CLARENCE (continuing)
See, see? Didn’t I tell you? This is where they start the happily-ever-aftering, isn’t it?
MARLEY
This is still only Act One, you stoo--
JORDAN
Now Biff. Language!
MARLEY presses a few buttons futilely trying to fast-forward the cloud-screen image.
JORDAN (with a sweep of his magnificent wings)
Oh, never mind.
On the big SCREEN: ROLFE confronts CAPTAIN VON TRAPP at the convent.
VON TRAPP (voice on screen)
Come away with us!
ROLFE (voice on screen)
“I’ll kill you!”
 |
VON TRAPP (voice on screen)
You’ll never be one of them.
FREEZE briefly on ROLFE’s reaction, then BACK TO the angels
JORDAN, MARLEY, and CLARENCE, as one:
Stop!
JORDAN
I believe we’re there. The crucial moment. Young Rolfe is disarmed and humiliated by the “big man” his friends call the enemy.
CLARENCE
Why was the Captain so nasty?
MARLEY
Derisive? Disdainful?
JORDAN
We don’t know. But we must undo the damage, or young Rolfe is lost to us forever.
MARLEY
He should have stopped at “Come away with us.”
JORDAN
I know, right?
CLARENCE
Is this where I quantum-leap in to somebody? Oh, oh, can I be the Mother Abbess?
CLARENCE sweeps his smaller-than-JORDAN’s wings across the cloud-viewer to show who he means, with a CUT there-to
 |
CLARENCE (voice-over)
Shouldn’t she be the one singing to Rolfe, so he can climb that mountain at the end with the von Trapps?
BACK TO the angels
MARLEY
I could go. I know who needs to put right what once went wrong.
JORDAN
I’m sure you do, darling Biff, but I need you here for now. Our sweet Clarence can handle this. He is more, oh what’s the word. Romantic.
JORDAN sweeps his magical angelic wings and, with thunder and lightning and other grand effects, CLARENCE leaps into the convent rooftop where LIESL recognizes ROLFE
EXT. Convent roof top. Night.
CLARENCE (as LIESL)
It’s Rolfe! Father, please, will you let me handle this? He is my would-be boyfriend, after all!
CLARENCE (as LIESL, continuing)
Rolfe, please! Come away with us! We need you! You promised, remember? You’ll take care of me! I’ll depend on you!
ROLFE
I’ll … I’ll kill you!
CLARENCE (as LIESL)
But don’t you want to join our new act? We need your clear, bright tenor voice! Especially with Kurt just about to hit that voice-destroying teenager thing.
While ROLFE struggles with his conscience, the von TRAPPS escape. The LIEUTENANT enters to find out what’s keeping ROLFE from the rest of the storm-troopers. Er, the Nazis.
ROLFE
Run, Liesl, run!
CLARENCE looks heavenward for guidance
JORDAN (voice-over)
Run, Clarence, run!
CLARENCE dissolves away and real LIESL exits, running
CUT TO: Ext. The mountains to Switzerland. Day
A single RIFLE SHOT is heard in the far distance, stopping LIESL cold.
BACK TO:
EXT. WAY STATION. Day or night or whatever. It's cloudy up there..
CLARENCE and MARLEY stare at the large cloud-screen as the image fades out on the von Trapps
CLARENCE
Was that shot what I thought it was? Oh golly. Those Nazis. I am so sorry, Mr. Jordan. I really thought I could save him. Poor Rolfe. What a sweet, young boy.
JORDAN
Oh, but you did save him. Because he saved the von Trapps. Don’t you see, darling? We are really only interested in souls up here. And as for you, Biff. Oh, sorry. Jacob. Mr. Jacob Marley. I have one task for you now. Please go to the waiting room and bring our friend here.
MARLEY
Right away, sir! My pleasure!
MARLEY exits and just as quickly returns with ROLFE.
JORDAN
Now my dear ones, I have one last surprise. Jacob Marley, Clarence Odbody: Your time at this Way Station has ended. You may now escort young Rolfe here up where he belongs, to join his beloved Liesl.
CLARENCE and MARLEY happily embrace each other, then JORDAN, and sweep ROLFE into their arms and, all dissolving upward into the clouds, whereto we also dissolve to the awaiting LIESL
LIESL
Wheeeee!!
FADE OUT.
Love, hosaa
And thereby we conclude our adventures of Clarence, the Wonderful Life Angel who just wanted to make everyone’s stories come out right. Me too.
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