Hands Across the Fence
HANDS ACROSS THE FENCE: A STORY FOR THE SCREEN (PART ONE) By LEON Z. SURMELIAN
PROLOGUE: Against a background of vine leaves: This is the story of a fence ... There are many such fences in America that divide our land and our people ... Their removal is the great challenge to our generation.
As the prologue fades out, a long view of a rich California valley fades in. We see a lovely panorama of hillside vineyards, under a clear blue sky. It's September, and the grape is ripe on the vines. The luxurious landscape includes clumps of large oak trees, manzanita and madrona, interspersed with hillside ferns.
This scene cuts to a narrow ROAD, winding along between two vineyards, with fences on both sides. A small truck, such as ranchers use, is moving along this road, and we get a close view of the driver, who is a GIRL. She is obviously happy, dressed in an outfit for field work, and is singing to herself some popular American tune. On one side of the road, behind a tall fence, stretches a vast vineyard, and we read its name on a sign at least twenty-feet long: GOLD STAR WINERIES INC. On the other side of the road, behind a lower fence, there is a small vineyard-small in comparison, but actually 80 acres-with a small, faded, a bit crooked sign on which we read: YEPRAD VINEYARDS, JOHN YEPRAD, PROP.
At a bend in the road an open car coming fast from behind swerves sharply to the right to avoid hitting the truck, but smashes a rear fender. Its driver is a YOUNG MAN, in sport clothes. The car is of expensive make. The two vehicles come to a stop · with screaming brakes, the drivers get out, and start arguing on the road, each blaming the other for the accident.
They demand to see each other's opera- tor's license-and thus we learn with them their names, addresses, ages, marital status. She is MARIE YEPRAD, living in St. John, California, age 21, single. He is EDWIN I. COCHRAN, living in San Francisco, California, age 25, single.
As Marie jots down the license number in the rear of ·Edwin's car, she sees its PRESS plate. This seems to take her by surprise.
Marie: I took you for William Cochran's son.
Edwin: (smiling) I am.
Marie: And you work as newspaper man?
Edwin: I do.
Marie: Well, Mr. Cochran, what do you intend to do about this fender?
By now, however, his anger has notice- ably subsided, for he has observed her shapely figure.
Edwin: Okay, we won't argue any more about it. You can send me the bill, I'll pay for the damage ... Maybe it was my fault.
Marie: (softening) Thank you.
Edwin: (filling his lungs with the pure air, and smacking his lips as if tasting it). What a country! You live anywhere around here?
Marie: Right here on this ranch. Don't you see that sign up there?
Edwin: I'm sorry I didn't notice it. (She climbs back into her truck.)
Edwin: (with a hand on the truck, and now openly flirtatious.) What's your hurry?
Marie: (impatiently) I've got to go, I'm very busy.
Edwin: Busy with what?
Marie: Picking grapes, if you must know.
Edwin: How about having dinner with me some day?
Marie: I'm sorry, but I don't go out with strangers.
Edwin: What do you mean strangers?
We are neighbors, aren't we?
Marie: (skeptically) Are we?
Edwin: You bet we are.
She starts the motor and drives off. Edwin whistles to himself as he watches the truck disappear through the gate of the Yeprad Vineyard. Then getting into his car he slowly drives around it, trying to catch another glimpse of her, and meanwhile to see what kind of place she lives in.
• • •
It's a fine vineyard, showing much ex- pert care. The house is of the California ran-ch type. The grounds are well kept, with rose bushes and parterres of various ornamental flowers. There is an arbor with fig and pomegranate trees, pavilion, and barbecue stand. It has an old world charm about it. He hears some feminine voices singing in the vineyard, and presently sees a group of women and girls singing while picking grapes. It's a foreign song, and their faces are somewhat foreign too. Meanwhile, in the yard, Marie is explaining to an OLD WOMAN, her grandmother, and to a MAN, her father, how the fender of their truck got damaged. We can't hear what they are saying, but see the old woman gesticulating and then raising her eyes heavenward as she goes inside the house. With a pair of shears in her hand, Marie swings down a graveled road and joins the singing women, her beautiful voice rising above theirs. Curious, Edwin parks his car under a tree along the fence and listens. They don't see him, until he blows his horn playfully to attract Marie's attention. She tries to ignore him; then looking embarrassed, and carrying a basket containing grapes, comes over. Edwin gets out of his car and leans over the fence as she approaches him.
Edwin: What kind of a song is that? Italian, Greek? Can't make it out.
Marie: It's an Armenian harvest song.
Edwin: I like it.
The old woman sees them talking from a window in the house, with obvious disapproval Marie offers Edwin a bunch of grapes from her basket. It's not a large cluster.
Edwin: What's wrong with your grapes? Can't you grow them any bigger than these? You should see the grapes in our new vineyard.
Marie· (smiling) These are wine grapes, and they require five times more care than the grapes in your vineyard. (She casts a worried look in the direction of her grand- mother) I think you'd better go now.
Edwin: Not until you tell me when I can see you again.
She turns and tries to go. He reaches over the fence and holds her back. The grandmother comes out on the porch, looking angry.
Edwin: Who is she?
Marie: My grandmother.
Edwin: I don't think she likes me.
Marie: Please go.
Edwin: You'll see me again.
He gets into his car and drives off, waving at her-and she cautiously waves back.
Grandmother: Marie.
Marie goes to her. The grandmother, at close range, appears to be a woman of commanding presence, with strong, handsome features. She is obviously a "character." She speaks with authority, in immigrant English, with occasional exclamations and outbursts in her native tongue, which Marie doesn't understand very well.
Grandmother: That man, who is?
Marie: Mr. Cochran's son, I told you about him, how it happened.
Grandmother: Cochran! Devil take him! What he want?
Marie: He just wanted to speak to me.
Grandmother: Fender break, then make love. Whatsa matter? You crazy? Lost head? (She raises her eyes heavenward and makes the sign of the cross in a gesture of despair and she goes back into the house.)
• • •
The scene dissolves to the OFFICE of WILLIAM COCHRAN, president of Gold Star Wineries, Inc. He is bawling out a subordinate.
Cochran: That's all poppycock? Our quota for Detroit is 300,000 cases. Why, man, we're spending $2,000 a month on billboards alone! I want sales figures, not excuses!
Subordinate: Yes, sir.
Exit subordinate. In comes JAMES R. MACKENZIE, the company's chief lawyer. A suave, cunning, violent and ruthless man, highly versed in all the technicalities of law pertaining to the activities and profits of his employer. He takes out some papers from his brief case, and we understand from his report to Cochran that Gold Star wants to build a private railroad across John Yeprad's property.
Cochran: We'll offer Yeprad fifteen hundred more.
MacKenzie: He says he won't sell at any price.
Cochran: What do you mean he won't sell? Every man's got his price. We've bought out dozens like him.
MacKenzie: I'm afraid he means it.
Cochran: Jim, we've got to build that railroad.
MacKenzie: He won't even sell us a strip of land along his ranch so that we can widen the road. Our trucks and tractors are having an awful time passing through, especially on rainy days.
Cochran: All right then, we'll get tough with him!
• • •
The scene dissolves to the main plant of Gold Star Wineries, a sprawling factory. A bird's eye view would show several concrete buildings, with smoke rising from a tall chimney, surrounded by a sea of vineyards. We see trucks, each loaded with a few tons of grapes, moving up to the receiving plat- form outside, where they are checked in by husky clerks and weighed before their loads are dumped with shovels into big crushers. It's the crushing season, and there is intense methodic activity. From inside the plant we can hear the muffled roar of machinery. The camera focuses on a truck marked YEPRAD VINEYARDS, driven by MANUEL YEPRAD, Marie's brother, with JOHN YEPRAD, the father, seated beside him. Manuel is a compactly built, intelligent looking young man, with strong hairy arms. The father is a graying man in his fifties, with shaggy brows and acquiline nose, more foreign in appearance than the son. Both men are in shirt sleeves and perspiring from the heat. As their truck reaches the receiving platform, father and son greet the clerks familiarly, who barely nod to them.
Clerk: Sorry, Mr. Yeprad, but we can't use your grapes this year.
Manuel looks at his father, and mutters something under his breath.
Manuel (to his father) They can't do this, we've a contract.
Yeprad: It's another of Cochran's tricks. Let's go see manager.
As father and son look for the manager, the camera shows the interior of the plant, the huge fermenting tanks, storage tanks, pumps, machines that "age" wine, and the complicated bottling equipment, where thousands of bottles are filled, capped and sealed automatically. Most of the employees are women, many with foreign faces. This plant is the latest word in the making of wines on a mass production basis. It is clean, enormously efficient,-a far cry from the wineries of even a decade ago. The manager is not in the plant, so they look for him in the cellar, where we can see rows of colossal redwood and oak casks, some large enough to hold 100,000 gallons, and everywhere there are advertising posters proclaiming the merits of Gold Star's sherry, Burgundy, port, sauterne, zinfandel, riesling, and other wines, and Gold Star's brandy.
The MANAGER is in the cellar. He is flustered and embarrased when the Yeprads complain to him of breach of contract. They say they have been selling their grapes to him for eleven years, before Gold Star bought out his winery and built the new plant. The manager is sorry but he can do nothing, it's "orders." He asserts the contract contains a clause which, under such and such circumstances gives the company the right not to buy from the party of the second part. Manuel says angrily to hell with the contract, they can sell their grapes elsewhere, and father and son walk out and drive off in their truck.
But there are only two or three wineries in the district that produce the kind of wine Yeprad's grapes are especially suited for. His is a specialized vineyard, and Gold Star has been buying his grapes for its top quality wine, a small percentage of its total output, aimed for a more discriminating clientele. These other wineries also decline to buy his grapes with the excuse they have already contracted for their own supplies and don't need any more.
Father and son make frantic telephone calls, drive from one winery and shipper to another, to sell their crop, and find the market closed to them. One shipper breaks down and admits that he has been warned by Gold Star not to buy from him, and he can't afford to lose his biggest customer. Meanwhile, their grapes are spoiling, their value going down hourly. They finally find a small independent winery in another district willing to buy their crop at less than half its original value. This buying, selling and shipping of grapes has its own color and drama.
• • •
In the next scene we see the Yeprads in their H0ME. It is neatly and tastefully furnished. The living room has a piano, a combination radio-phonograph, bookshelves, and the floor is covered with an oriental rug. The Grandmother is busy cooking in the kitchen, which is spotlessly clean, with electric refrigerator. Pots are already simmering on the gleaming stove. There is a canary in a cage, to which she affectionately speaks from time to time in her native tongue.
Marie is in her room dressing when the telephone rings. Her brother Manuel answers it.
Edwin: Is this the Yeprad residence?
Manue : Yes.
Edwin: May I speak to Marie Yeprad?
Manuel: Who is calling?
Edwin: Just a friend of hers.
Manuel calls Marie to the phone. He looks at her suspiciously.
Marie: Hello.
1Edwin: Hello, Marie.
Marie: Oh ... ! Thank you for the check.
Edwin: When are you going to dinner with me?
Marie: I'm afraid we'll have to forget that.
Edwin: Don't take me for another wolf.
Marie: I'm sorry but I can't go out with fellows ... my family doesn't know.
Edwin: I'll come and introduce myself. I have a way with parents.
Marie: It won't do you any good. I shouldn't be speaking to you in the first place.
Edwin: Couldn't I meet you some place, sort of accidentally?
Marie: I'm afraid you couldn't.
Edwin: Don't you ever go out?
Marie: Oh, I go shopping, to church-I'm the choir leader of our church. I visit friends and relatives with my family.
Ed win: Don't you have any dates?
Marie: No.
Edwin: Why don't you?
Marie: That's what I'd like to know myself! But I've given up arguing with my family about it. It's no use. With us, if a girl goes out with a fellow once or twice everybody thinks they are engaged, and if they aren't, her reputation is ruined.
Edwin: I'll be damned!
Manuel: (from the yard) Hurry up, Marie!
Marie: I'm sorry, but I must hang up.
She hangs up, with a dreamy, worried look in her eyes. As she goes out, Manuel asks her confidentially.
Manuel: Who was that guy? Cochran's son?
Marie: (nods yes.) Don't tell father, please!
• • •
John Yeprad and his daughter drive to the bank in St. John, a small town with population of about 3,600, taking along a young goat as a gift to one of the bank officials, J. T. HARRIS.
Harris: Good-morning, John, good-morning, Marie.
Yeprad and Marie: Good-morning, Mr. Harris.
Harris: John, you ought to see the little goat you gave us. Its horns have come out, and it's that high now. The children are simply crazy over it. They hide the milk bottle from each other and not a day passes that they don't fight for the right to feed it.
Yeprad: (chuckling) I brought you another little goat, so no more fighting! It's out in my car. Want to see?
Harris, delighted, leaves his desk and goes out with Yeprad and Marie to take a look at the new goat. The animal is tied to a tree in the rear of the bank. Back at his desk again, the friendly Harris asks Yeprad what he can do for him. Nervous and embarrassed, Yeprad says he had bad luck selling his crop, needs some extra cash to pay his taxes and meet other obligations, with Marie putting in a word now and then. They don't go into details, and refrain from saying that Cochran is responsible for their present difficulty. Yeprad would prefer not to have Harris know he has an enemy like Cochran. It wouldn't be to his advantage and might react adversely on his credit.
Harris: I think that can be arranged, John. Your credit's good with us.
He helps Yeprad fill out an application, with Marie reading and explaining to her father the complicated phraseology in the documents he has to sign. She is there to act as interpreter. Her father's English is not equal to all this legalistic rigmarole.
Harris: You ought to be proud of your daughter, John. She has both beauty and brains.
Yeprad: Sure, she smart girl.
Father and daughter leave the bank with the assurance they will get the money in a few days. It's apparently only a matter of routine.
William Cochran has recently become a director of the bank in St. John. He has a finger in many pies. As director he has to pass on applications for large loans like Yeprad's. When it reaches his desk, Edwin is in the office with him. Father and son are close-Edwin is an only child. Cochran picks up the application his secretary places before him.
Cochran: Here's a man who wants to borrow ten thousand from the bank in St. John, and it gives me great pleasure to say no.
Edwin: Who is he?
Cochran: Just about the most ornery grape grower I've run across. I've been trying to buy his ranch for our railroad- it's right between our two big new vineyards in St. John, but he won't sell it.
Edwin: (Instantly curious) Let me see, Dad.
Cochran hands him the application and makes a telephone call as Edwin reads it.
Edwin: (in a disturbed tone) According to the record here this man's credit's good.
Cochran: (chuckling) It isn't good any more. He's on the skidrow, but doesn't know it yet, the poor sap. (Lighting a cigar he leans back in his chair.)
Edwin: I saw his ranch. I had a little accident on the road two weeks ago as I was driving along his vineyard. Damaged the fender of his truck. He wasn't in the truck, though, his daughter was driving it.
Cochran: He's lucky you damaged only his fender. That road is giving us a lot of trouble. 'It's too narrow for our trucks and tractors-and that's another reason why I want to buy that property.
Edwin: (after some hesitation, impulsively) Dad, I wish you wouldn't refuse this loan.
Cochran: (puffing at his cigar.) You let me run my own business. I'm losing a fortune every year on account of that jack- ass.
Edwin: I don't think you're being fair.
Cochran: (eyes narrowing) Why are you so much interested in this man anyhow?
Edwin: They seem pretty decent people · to me. You can't force a man to sell his vineyard if he doesn't want to even if it's between two vineyards we happen to own. I just don't like the whole idea, it doesn't seem right to me. You're turning down this application because you want to stop his bank credit-that's why. Force him out of business, I guess.
Cochran: He's out already. We have too many of these ignorant, stubborn foreigners cluttering up our business. They are 'way behind the times. They don't know a thing about efficiency, sanitation, modern methods. Wine making isn't a small scale family affair any more-it's Big Business. I made it Big Business. What I've done in the past five years they couldn't have done in five hundred. The whole lot of them put together. I've made the country wine-conscious, that's what I've done! You can't teach an old dog like this Yeprad new tricks. If I had my way I'd ship him back to where he came from. You've got to be tough with these fellows.
• • •
When John Yeprad goes to the bank a few days later hoping to get the money, Harris tells him his application has been turned down by the board of directors. He is sincerely sorry, but there is nothing he can do. He himself recommended him highly but the final decision is up to the board of directors, he says.. John Yeprad is crushed. He takes out of his pocket tax notices and bills that have to be paid. Harris advises him to apply to the government for a loan, gives him the address of the local office for agricultural loans.
We see John Yeprad and his son Manuel at this OFFICE. They have filled out all the necessary papers. SMITH, the government investigator handling their application, says he has checked on their references and is satisfied with the condition of their vineyard. But as it is necessary for him to list all their assets, he should like to see the grocery store and cafe Yeprad owns in partnership with another man, his cousin. Manuel is a little nervous and apologetic about this store.
Manuel: It's been in the same place for twenty-five years. The manager is a funny old bird.
We see Smith, Yeprad and Manuel entering a dilapidated old building on the out- skirts of St. John-the ARAX GROCERY & CAFE. It sells olive oil, goat's cheese, salted black olives, chick-peas, lentils, cracked wheat, imported tobacco in its original boxes, powerful drinks like vodka and raki (mastic brandy), sausages and sardines, large thin sheets of unleavened bread, tiny coffee cups and copper pots, backgammon boards, prayer beads, candles and tapers of bee's wax, etc. On the walls hang the pictures of George Washington, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and an old lithograph showing Noah coming out of the Ark on Mt. Ararat. In the back room men play cards and backgammon while sipping Armenian coffee. The card players are silent, but the backgammon players announce their dice loudly-Du Bara! Du besh! Shesh besh! They bang the men on the boards with much force. Others read newspapers. There are two or three shelves of much thumbed greasy books in a corner of the store, for it is also a lending library. Smith is greeted by the manager and co-partner, a mustachioed magnifico with thick, fierce eyebrows, wearing the helmet of an air raid warden and a tight, shiny black frockcoat, a vestige of the old country, worn by government officials and scholars fifty years ago.
Manuel: Mr. Smith, this is the manager and co-partner of the store, SENEKERIM G. BAGDASARIAN. Sam, or Uncle Sam, for short. Some call him Abdel-Krim ...
Sam shakes Smith's hand with violent cordiality.
Sam: Glad to meet, make at home yourselves!
Yeprad: Mr. Smith is government man. Came to see our store, meet and talk to you.
Sam: Shake hand again! (He fairly pulls off Smith's arm.) Me government man too. Official.
Manuel: (suppressing his laughter) Sam was air raid warden during the war. He was also in our Home Defense Corps.
Sam: You bet! I look for Japanese airoplanes, day and night. Government sent us reg'lar army officers. We drill nights, left right, left right. Alla time, left right, left right.
Me, fighter in the old country, for revolutsia! Afraid of nothing. In three Turkish jails, two Russian jails. Fight on mountains, sleep on snow. But here, left right, left right.
Manuel: Uncle Sam had some trouble learning which side is left, which side right.
Sam: American officer say, dis left, dis right. Alla time. And me also officer, government man. Equal. Absolootely! No can understand why left right so important. So van day I say to him: Look, give me gun, I shoot! Give me Japanese, I break him on my knee, like dis! ... No more left right, please! I quit, resign!
Manuel titters. The playing in the back- room has ceased and the men stand in the doorway and smile at Sam's noisy antics. Yeprad and Smith also smile.
Manuel: When are you going to take your helmet off, Uncle Sam? The war's over, you know. It's been over for years.
Sam: Never! When I die I will be buried with dis helmet on my head.
Sam is anxious to prove to Smith his patriotism as American citizen so that Yeprad will get his loan. Manuel teases him about his frock coat.
Sam: My father wore dis coat in the old country. He was big man, professor! He play backgammon with the governor, yes sir! Big man! Five diplomas. Knew everything! American consul, English consul, French consul, his pals. Very big man! (Sam produces a letter from his pocket and shows it proudly to Smith-a routine letter of thanks from the U. S. Treasury Department but a precious document to him, attesting further to his "official" importance.) Mr. Smith, American government sent me official letter from Washington, thanking me for selling $325,000 war and victory bonds. When I say, give money, everybody give! I make speeches everywhere! Sam's buxom, shy wife serves the guests Armenian coffee and sweetmeats. She is respectful not only with Smith, but also with the Yeprads, father and son, for they are on a higher social and economic level. As he sips his coffee noisily, Sam praises Yeprad in his picturesque language.
Sam: John and me cosins, but better than brothers. We born in same place. His father also big man. John finish school, me didn't. Me fight alla time for freedom and democracy. Me no care much for books, though my father very big professor. John got good head on his shoulder. He wanted to sell me store, but I say no, let's always be partners, better for store, good business. John's word good as his bond. Everybody respect him. And Manuel very smart boy. He no tell you, but I will. Manuel shoot down four Japanese planes-Purple Heart, Distinguish Flying cross. American Hero! Aferim, Manuel! (He pats the youth on his shoulder. His eyes fill with tears.) My son no come back. My son Corporal, k-k-killed in 0-o-kkinava, only twenty-two years old ... (He takes out a big checkered handkerchief, wipes his eyes, blows his nose. Yeprad's eyes also glisten. Manuel is now serious and grim.)
Smith asks a few questions, makes some notes, and departs.
• • •
Yeprad is able to borrow money from the government. He decides to make his own wine and thus be independent of both Cochran and the grape market, which Cochran controls. He negotiates with an Eastern concern to deliver 50,000 gallons of immature wine, and will keep 10,000 gallons as his initial inventory, to be bottled and sold by him under his own name three years later, when properly aged-the inventory to be increased year by year, so that eventually he will bottle all of his wine himself. Cochran can "age" wine in a few weeks, but to Yeprad machines can't take the place of time. Yeprad will produce a superlative table-wine according to a method that has been handed down in his family from generation to generation. He can't possibly compete with Gold Star on a quantity basis, but he has a chance in the quality market, on a small scale. It's quality versus quantity, artist versus factory, little man versus big corporation.
In addition to their usual field work, the Yeprads are now busy with the building of their own winery. They have bought most of their building material on credit, and are staking everything on their next year's crop. At nights, after a hard day's work, Marie types business letters and balances the books, while the Grandmother, seated in a rocking chair, reads the enormous family Bible.
• • •
A warm spring day. A gentle breeze is playing with the tender shoots in the Yeprad vineyard. Young leaves, fresh and delicate, some a pale waxen green, others bordered with brilliant reds and violets, are opening up. We see the new winery building, not completed perhaps. John Yeprad, the father, goes from vine to vine, inspecting, caressing each individual vine with experienced tender hands. Marie is busy cultivating, pruning, tying the vines to stakes or trellises with a group of other workers. High up on the tankhouse Grandmother is watching them all with a pair of binoculars. She is there to see that nobody stalls on his job. When two workers - Mexicans or Southern darky types-stop their horse- drawn cultivator and lie down behind some vines to rest and smoke, Grandmother waves her arms wildly and cries out in a shrill voice:
Grandmother: Get up! Get up! Work! Work! (Followed by a volley of incomprehensible words in her native language. The two surprised culprits get up and continue working.)
Marie: Grandmother is at it again! (She laughs.)
A Woman: She isn't taking any chances.
Grandmother, satisfied that everybody is working again, trains her 'binoculars on the Gold Star vineyard on the other side of the high fence, where a fleet of tractors are drawing cultivators and harrows, and all the workers are hired casual laborers-mostly Mexicans, Filipinos and Negroes, under white foremen-in contrast to the small Yeprad vineyard, where much of the work is done by the Yeprad family and relatives. The Gold Star vineyard, spreading out for miles is a vast factory in the field. Grand- mother watches the proceedings on the other side much like an artillery officer reconnoitering enemy territory.
On the road, Edwin drives by in his car and Marie Yeprad turns pale when she sees him. He signs to her to meet him at the end of the Yeprad vineyard, where he parks. She finds an excuse to leave her companions. She is glad to see him but tries not to show it as she goes up to him.
Edwin: Long time no see. You have grown prettier. Busy as ever?
Marie: Yes.
Edwin: What have you been doing?
Marie: Well, right now I'm hoeing and tying up some vines. You have to break up the surface of the soil to conserve the water in it and pull all the weeds. There's always something to do!
Edwin· The country here is lovely in the spring.
Marie: I only hope there's no more danger of frost. Everything depends on this year's crop-we've worked so hard ...
Edwin: Isn't there some place around here we can sit down and talk for a few minutes?
Marie: (After some hesitation.) All right ... I know a place behind this hill.
She crawls through the fence as he holds it up for her and helps her to the other side. Both are seen reacting to this, their first physical contact. They cross a field-Grandmother from the tankhouse sees them, and frowning, watches them through her binoculars until they disappear from her view. They walk around a hill, and sit down under a solitary cherry tree, white with blossoms. Marie: This is my tree. I found it when I was a kid. I like to come and sit here by myself.
A glorious view of the valley spreads below them, with its variegated pattern of vineyards, orchards, plowed and unplowed fields, and the white ribbon of a highway. Butterflies flutter around in the warm sunlit air. Birds sing. The whistle of a passing train echoes throughout the valley, puffs of white smoke from its locomotive clinging to the blue mountain range in the distance.
Edwin: This is fine!
Marie: I love this valley. I think it's the most beautiful valley in the world.
Ed win : (after a silence) You don't hate me?
Marie: You? No.
We see his hand closing on hers as the scene dissolves to the dining room of the Yeprad home.
• • •
The table is set. Grandmother is puttering around in the kitchen, but John Yeprad and Marie are already seated. Manuel is not in the room.
Yeprad: You never acted like this before. We have been poor, we have had ups and downs, but we have always been a decent family. I never been ashamed of nothing. Now . . . I can't understand. You were always a good sensible girl until you met this Cochran boy. You say he's not like his father, he's nice. Maybe so. But you can never be happy marrying him, never!
Marie: Who said we're marrying? How many times do I have to tell you that we just sat down and talked for a few minutes. Is that something so terribly wrong?
Grandmother: (from the kitchen.) No shame! No shame!
Marie: Grandma, this is America! It's no disgrace for a girl to talk to a boy ..
Grandmother: You marry American boy-I die.
Yeprad: We have many fine boys in the valley. You marry one of our boys, in our church, like a decent sensible girl. To us marriage means something, home means something. It's not marry today, divorce tomorrow. It's not like a joke.
Grandmother: (from the kitchen) Eat? They don't know. Drink? They don't know. Good time? Crazy. They even don't know how make love! When we drink we enjoy. We no drink just to drink, but when it's holiday, celebrate. All together. They how drink? Alone, no sing, no dance, no nothing. Just drink. And they how eat? Open can, or sit in drugstore counter three minutes. And they how make love? Avtornobile! Just terrible! (She brings in a roast leg of lamb on a platter, with potatoes around it, sets it on the table before Yeprad.) Crazy! Crazy! Oh Sourb Sargis! (St. Sergius!)
Manuel: (Entering the dining room.) What's all the shooting about? (He also sits down at the table, all four are now seated.) The temperature is falling fast. I don't like it.
Yeprad: You think we'll have frost?
All four exchange alarmed looks. The argument ends. They are silent now. They cross themselves and bow their heads as Grandmother says grace. She murmurs a native prayer, we can't hear the words.
Night-the sky is clear, studded with bright stars and inside their house the Yeprads sit worried. John Yeprad stays up all night. In the morning the sun rises over a scene of desolation in the Yeprad vineyard. The frost has withered and blackened the tender buds, leaves and shoots. The Yeprads walk mournfully between the dead vines, inspecting the awful damage. There are tears in Marie's eyes. Black leaves crumble to ashes in Yeprad's trembling hands. They walk silently, as if in a cemetery, in an ashen city of the dead. (Row by row, we see sickening disaster.)
Marie: Everything's lost. We're ruined!
Manuel: Not a green leaf left in this section.
Grandmother with eyes heavenward murmurs a prayer.
Marie: (Her voice breaking.) What are we going to do?
Manuel: Some of the vines have only their tips burnt out-the ones that are on a higher level.
Marie: If we cut off all the black shoots-
Manuel: Cut them off clean, and those which have only their tips burnt we can cut back as far as damaged. I'll bet you anything in one week we'll have the lower buds coming to life, at least on some of the vines.
Yeprad: We've got to save what we can.
Grandmother: God will help!
Manuel: We haven't any time to lose. We'll go over the vines with the small shears we use for picking the grapes, and hire all the help we can. With a dozen workers I can finish the job in two weeks.
• • •
By working hard and courageously, from morning to night, the Yeprads save part of their crop. The vines, sheared clean and presenting an utterly barren appearance in the most severely damaged sections, begin to grow again, put out new leaves and shoots. In July, the vineyard is in full bloom. They harvest their crop late, averaging two tons to the acre, considerably less than the usual yield, but as other vineyards also were damaged by the frost, there is a scarcity of grapes and their price has gone up. They crush their grapes in their new winery; sell, at a good price, 30,000 gallons of immature wine to an Eastern concern, and store away in wooden casks 6,000 gallons as their first year's inventory, instead of the 10,000 gallons they had planned on. They have survived the frost, pay the interest on the government loan, meet their taxes and other obligations.
Mackenzie, meanwhile, has been busy on the Yeprad case. He puts before Cochran a stack of legal papers he has prepared.
Mackenzie: We can prove Yeprad has no legal title to his property whatever, he is nothing but a trespasser. We can prove his property deed is invalid.
Cochran: Good! I understand he has sold 30,000 gallons of juice to an Eastern concern. He's pretty slick! He put one over us all right! And he has built his own winery. Well! Well! So he's going to compete with me! (He laughs.)
Mackenzie: These Armenians are tough nuts to crack. You've got to be on your toes with them or they'll out smart you by playing dumb. This Yeprad isn't as dumb as he looks. He never says much, but oh boy, that mind of his is busy figuring things out for himself.
Cochran: I understand he has a good looking young daughter.
Mackenzie: Yes, she has big brown eyes and a cute figure.
Cochran: I've a notion my boy is stuck on her. He has been seeing her. He even wanted to bring her home and have us meet her. I hit the ceiling. His mother is sick over it. Jim, we've got to kick 'emout, root and branch. This Yeprad is becoming a thorn in my flesh.
Mackenzie: I don't think he will move out without a court trial. He's stubborn as a mule.
Cochran: (Shouting angrily.) We'll drag him to court then!
The scene dissolves to the Country Courthouse, Dept. 8, JUDGE WESTOVER, presiding. He is known as a "hard" judge. In front of the judge's rostrum, at a long table, sit Cochran, MacKenzie, Yeprad, ALBERT IGNATIUS, Yeprad's attorney, and a battery of other lawyers, MacKenzie's assistants. To the right sit the twelve members of the jury, only three of whom have foreign looking faces; the others are old stock Anglo-Saxon Americans. The courtroom is crowded with witnesses, friends, relatives, and the merely curious. Edwin also is present. MacKenzie, confident, superior, stands up to make his opening speech, and emphatically, if not altogether clearly, states the case for his client, using a verbiage of legal terms. He accuses Yeprad of being a trespasser on a property belonging by law to Gold Star Wineries, Inc. The camera cuts to:
The Yeprad home, where we see Grandmother putting on a new dress, getting ready to go to court. She is as fussy about her appearance as a young girl going to her first dance. Marie is in the room with her, helping her dress. This is Grandmother's private room, furnished more in old country style. There is a divan with hard square cushions, a fine rug on the wall, the floor is completely covered with a rug. There are many dolls in native costumes--quite an exhibit. Making such dolls is her hobby and she is a real artist. With an air of mystery Grandmother opens an old trunk and takes a shawl out of it, with a pattern of red roses.
Marie: Oh, Grandma, I wish you'd wear a hat! Women in this country don't wear shawls!
Grandmother: Hat? Ugh! (She stands before the mirror, and carefully drapes the shawl over her shoulders.)
Marie: (Smiling.) I hope you aren't out to vamp the judge!
Marie drives Grandmother to the courthouse, where we see them entering an elevator. It is full, there is hardly standing room in it. Grandmother is squeezed into a corner and looks perplexed.
Grandmother: Vat ve do in dis room? Where is judge?
Marie: (Embarrassed, in a low voice.) It's an elevator, Grandma. It will take us to the fifth floor.
Grandmother: No joke, please!
Marie: (To one or two of the other occupants, who are smiling.) She has never been in an elevator before.
Grandma upbraids her in her native tongue for exposing her ignorance. She makes a dramatic entrance into the courtroom; nobody is going to scare her. She holds her head high, confident in the righteousness of her cause. Cochran is on the witness stand. As the bailiff leads Grandmother and Marie to a bench, Edwin looks at Marie. There is sorrow and indignation in her eyes.
MacKenzie asks Cochran the right questions in order to present him to the court as a great benefactor of the state in general and the wine industry in particular: That Cochran has revolutionized the industry, put it on a sound business and scientific basis, assured its future prosperity. He has taught other wine makers how to make and sell wine at a profit. Yes, Cochran is a great citizen, a great American!
"Your witness," MacKenzie tells Ignatius, who proceeds to cross examine Cochran.
Ignatius lacks the diction, the polish, the ruthless driving power of MacKenzie. But he is a smart lawyer, an Armenian American. He presents the other side of the Gold Star medal: That this corporation is a giant octopus the tentacles of which reach far and wide, and woe to the individual that dares defy its power. Cochran has been buying all the vineyards and wineries he can lay his hands on in order to eliminate competition and make the industry his private monopoly. He asks Cochran some elementary questions about grape growing and wine making, which he can't answer. Mackenzie violently objects, such questions are wholly immaterial, irrelevant, etc., and the judge says, "Objection sustained."
Ignatius: Your honor, to Mr. Cochran, the wine industry is nothing but a business. But to my client the growing of grapes and the making of wine is a way of life. His vineyard is also his HOME. He would be lost without it. And that is the reason, your honor, why Mr. Yeprad refused to sell his property when Mr. MacKenzie first approached him with an offer to buy him out. By the same token, a glass of good wine is as sacred to my client as a piece of bread was in the old country. He has no aging machines! He will not sell a drop of wine under his own name unless it has been properly aged in wooden cask1s for a period of at least three years. In certain things the old way is still the best way.
More violent objections by MacKenzie. Cochran is purple with rage as he comes down the witness stand after Ignatius has completed his cross examin1ation and exposed his ignorance.
Yeprad next takes the witness stand. He is worried and nervous. The law, courts, judges, as he has known them in the old country, are terrifying enemies, against which he feels powerless. He thinks both judge and jury are prejudiced agla1nst him and will favor Cochran.
After answering the routine questions as to his name, age, birthplace, residence, etc., Yeprad testifies that he is an American citizen, showing his naturalization papers. During the testimonies of both Cochran and Yeprad we convey to the audience all the necessary details about the Gold Star Wineries, and Yeprad's vineyard and winery. This is the place to give acreage, production and other figures. MacKenzie extolled Cochran's great abilities. Ignatius capitalizes on his clients origin, and quotes both from the Bible and modern scientific authorities to prove that the European vine on which the states grape and wine industry is based, is indigenous to Armenia, that it was there that the first vineyard was planted after the flood, by Noah. His documents include a Bible, and with the permission of the court he reads from Chapters 8 and 9 of the Book of Genesis:
And the Ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat ... And God spake unto Noah, saying, Go forth of the Ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons' wives with thee . . . and be fruitful and multiply upon the earth . . . And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard: And he drank of the wine.
Ignatius contends that the property deed in question was bought by his client in good faith, and paid for by the sweat of his brow. He asks Yeprad to tell the court exactly how he acquired his vineyard. And as Yeprad begins to tell the court his story, the scene dissolves to flashbacks:
• • •
ELLIS ISLAND. Yeprad, a young man of twenty-one, is in a motley crew of immigrants . . . A SHOE FACTORY in Lowell, Massachusetts, where Yeprad works at a machine from morning to night, making shoes . . . In a brief scene he tells a fellow worker of his dream of owning a piece of land in America and growing grapes. He is making good wages, but factory life isn't for him. He has heard grapes are grown in California, where it's just like in the old country . . . Yeprad gives up his job at the shoe factory, counts the money he has saved at the blank, and joins a group of other immigrants leaving for the paradise on the West Coast.
• • •
CALIFORNIA, 1920. The immigrants, true agricultural pilgrims, are enchanted by what they see, and Yeprad is the happiest of all . . . As they get off the train they are met by a loquacious REAL ESTATE AGENT, who takes them to a marvelous new "development" they purchased, to establish their agricultural colony. This new development turns out to be nothing but wasteland with a few dilapidated shacks and rubbish piles, actually condemned by the Department of Agriculture as unfit for cultivation.
The disillusioned newcomers have burnt their bridges behind them. They don't know what to do, which way to turn. Land sharks have deceived them. They hold a meeting, presided over by their priest, at which John Yeprad speaks. He tells his disappointed countrymen that true, they have been cheated, this land isn't what they expected, and the buildings and improvements on it they were told about are nonexistent, but thank God, they are free and safe, and still in America! Didn't they grow grapes practically on rocks in the old country? They can grow grapes here too. They can make this wasteland flourish like the Garden of Eden.
Others second this opinion. Despondence gives way to a wave of enthusiasm. John Yeprad is elected a member of the committee. They decide to name this new town St. John. (Note: St. John the Baptist was buried in Armenia, and is considered by its natives their patron saint.) The founding of this new town of St. John is performed with a religious ceremony. A sacrificial ram, tapers of bee's wax burning on its spiral horns, is led around its boundaries, while the priest, in gorgeous Byzantine vestments, holding a silver cross, blesses the land. The immigrants, singing beautiful hymns, walk bareheaded behind their priest, each holding a burning candle in his hand. The ram is butchered, roasted on a spit, and eaten at a community feast that evening, under the stars of California. The scene ends with folk songs, folk dances, and the deep lonely music of guitars . . . .
The next morning the newcomers start clearing the land of rocks and stumps and rubbish heaps, many on their hands and knees. They lay out and plant their vineyards-some have brought cuttings from the old country with them-build houses, a church, and a public bath, cleanliness being next to godliness for them. It's gruesome, but joyous toil.
We see the settlers harvest their first crop of grapes, and bringing choice clusters to church, for the traditional rite of the blessing of the grapes. The church choir, composed of children and young people, under the direction of a trained musician, sings grand, soulful hymns during this rite. There are trays of grapes placed before the altar, with its painting of the Virgin and the Child. John Yeprad also has brought a sample of his grapes, a happy, proud smile on his now sunburnt face.
We learn from the conversation of the people in the churchyard-they are already speaking English--that Yeprad has one of the best vineyards in the settlement and it's time for him to marry. Yeprad's mother--the Grandmother in our story--is already with him, keeping house for him, but he needs a wife, they say. Yeprad is very respectful with his mother, and she stands out in the crowd by her mature good looks and proud, almost aristocratic bearing. It is evident that she already occupies a position of authority in the community, and we learn from cautious but sarcastic remarks about her that no girl is good enough for her son.
• • •
This church scene dissolves to a gay young people's party at which apples are distributed by way of announcing the coming wedding of John Yeprad and ELIZA, a pretty girl of 18 or 19. All of these young people are speaking English. The apples are distributed by a woman in a native costume, and arouse much curiosity, until the announcement is made by her. It is greeted by applause, exclamations, shrieks and sighs. The girls embrace and kiss Eliza, who is obviously popular among them. John Yeprad receives the congratulations of the boys.
• • •
This scene dissolves to the PUBLIC BATH-HOUSE of St. John, a steam bath, where we witness the traditional ceremony of the WEDDING BATH of the bride-to-be. Old country customs still prevail in the community. Especially in the matter of marriages parents strictly enforce the old traditions.
A dozen girls, the bridesmaids who were present at the party at which each received the symbolic love apple, undress Eliza in the cool or dressing chamber of the bathhouse, singing a song. We see them opening gorgeous bundles containing snow-white towels, silver bowls for pouring water, rubbing gloves, high pattens of wooden sandals inlaid with mother-of-pearl, large ivory combs, etc., previously family heirlooms. Besides the bridesmaids the bathing party includes John Yeprad's mother, Eliza's mother, aunts and other female relatives, among them Yeprad's mother being the most honored. In a sense, this ceremonious bath is staged for her, so that, seeing Eliza in the nude, she will know what her son will be getting. . . .
After Eliza is undressed, a striped silk cloth, reaching down to her knees, with the two upper ends thrown over opposite shoulders, somewhat like a Roman toga, but fully revealing her shape, is put on her, while the bridesmaids and the women wear shorter and less elaborate loin cloths, all of silk. The bridesmaids now lead her into the bathhouse proper, where there is an octagonal platform of colored tiles in the center, and marble or tile basins, with faucets of hot and cold water, all around. Each is wearing an ivory comb suspended from her neck, and the pattens on their feet make exciting rhythmic sounds on the tiled floor.
Thus singing, the bridesmaids, under the watchful eyes of the older women, lead Eliza to the platform in the center, where she is seated on the bottom of a copper water vessel of classic form turned upside down. Now she is really put on exhibit before the critical eyes of her future mother-in-law, as a sort of female jury. We hear some music, and see a small male orchestra, fully dressed, and blindfolded, coming in, led by a woman bath attendant. It's composed of a guitar, violin, flute and tambourine. (The players can be women, too, in which case they are not blindfolded.) The bridesmaids form a circle around the platform, holding each other's hands, and proceed to dance to the gay, lilting music of the orchestra. (The dances and the music are an important feature of this story.)
After this dance, cool drinks--lemonade and liquid sherberts--are served in silver cups. The musicians depart. As they leave a few of the more daring girls take off their loin cloths and snap them playfully after them, swaying their hips meanwhile.
Eliza is helped down the platform. Her future mother-in-law sizes her up from head to foot, and feels her hair, as if to make sure it isn't false.
Eliza: (With a shy, mischievous smile.) Do I pass?
Mother Yeprad: You beautiful child, but-(she feels her arms and shoulders) all bones!
Eliza: You don't want me to get fat!
Mother Yeprad (with a wise, sly grin): Men like to grab plenty. My John is strong boy.
Eliza looks helplessly at her companions, who smile and giggle.
A Bridesmaid: In America it's stylish to be thin. If Eliza puts on three more pounds, she'd lose her lovely figure.
Mother Yeprad: No, it's no right for wife to be thin.
The bridesmaids lead Eliza to one of the water basins, which can be made of black tile, contrasting with the white bodies of the girls. Each girl sits on the edge of her basin, and they start singing again. In the middle of the song Mother Yeprad stops them with a wave of her hand.
Mother Yeprad: No, no! You no sing right!
She sings it herself, just a few snatches, to correct their mistake. The girls repeat it, and she nods approval. The waters are turned on dramatically. We see the basins filling up, steam rising. The girls now all stand up on the floor with gymnastic precision, each before her basin, and as their song reaches high notes of joy, they all takeoff their loin clothes and snap them together in the air, as the scene dissolves amid clouds of steam, to:
• • •
THE BRIDES HOME: The bridesmaids sing and joke like a flock of modern American girls as they dress Eliza in a beautiful costume in which her mother and grandmother were married in the old country. It consists of red silk bloomers under skirts of lavender satin, a red velvet jacket, almost too tight for her breasts and embroidered around the edges with gold thread, with flapping loose sleeves; a silver belt; red shoes with silver buckles; a headdress of red velvet with gold coins suspended from strings of pearls reaching down to her shoulders; a white bridal veil in the back.
At the sound of bag pipes and drum--like those of Scottish highlanders--the scene cuts to a procession of cars out in the dark, headed for the bride's house. It's the GROOMS PARTY. The scene cuts back to the bridesmaids, who rush to lock the doors. Then it cuts to John Yeprad and the BEST MAN outside, who alight from a car and knock on the front door.
Bridesmaid's voice: What will you give us if we open the door?
Best Man: Ten dollars!
Bridesmaid's voice: Are you kidding?
Best Man: Fifteen dollars!
Bridesmaid's voice: Make it twenty-five for the church!
Best Man: Okay! It's twenty-five!
The door is opened, and the noisy party surges in. John Yeprad is wearing a native costume like that of a Russian Cossack, with cartridge pockets across the breast of his tunic, held up at the waist with a silver belt; top boots; a lambskin cap; and a sword or dagger. His movements are sure, martial. He has come to claim his bride. The camera cuts back to Eliza's room, where we see mother and daughter kissing each other a tearful farewell, while the guests help themselves to the drinks and food on the tables. They are already tipsy. The scene dissolves to:
• • •
THE CHURCH: It's ablaze with lights. John Yeprad and Eliza kneel on the altar before the priest, their foreheads touching, while the best man holds a silver cross over their heads. The priest, murmuring prayers, ties colored strings around the necks of the bride and groom--he literally ties the knot, as we say in English. Bride and groom drink sacramental wine from a golden chalice, which takes the place of kissing. Kissing is forbidden.
After this brief but impressive and solemn rite, the wedding party, taking along the happy priest, starts out for the groom's home, with the bagpipes and drum going full blast and Roman candles filling the night air with fountains of sparks. The procession of automobiles comes to a halt: the road is blocked by a couple of young boys holding a sheep or goat, who don't allow them to pass until a ransom is paid, by the best man. It's an old custom. Laughingly the best man pays the demanded ransom. He pays and pays, but his position is one of great honor, and worth the price.
The cavalcade of cars continues on its merry way, until it reaches the groom's house. This is not the fine ranch house we saw at the beginning of the picture, but a modest home, adjoining a small vineyard. The best man draws Yeprad's sword or dagger from its scabbard and holds it over the heads of the bride and groom at the door of the house, saying, "May your sword be always sharp." As they enter, the groom steps on a plate the bride's mother puts on the floor before him, cracks it to pieces--a symbol of his power to shatter all obstacles.
Mother Yeprad; to express her joy over her son's marriage, starts dancing as she leads them into the house. She is as light and graceful on her feet as a girl of twenty. Tables have been set for the wedding feast. Toasts are drunk and glasses smashed. The groom is called King, and the Bride Queen, during this feast. They are king and queen for a night. The strings are still tied to their necks, and not until the priest unties them late that night, when the feast is over and the guests start leaving with the usual jokes and innuendoes, are they really considered man and wife. In the old country this wedding would have lasted for three days and nights in succession, and as long as the strings are not untied, the bride and groom cannot consummate the marriage. It was customary for an older woman to sleep in the same room with the bride, to keep away the groom, lest he try to sneak in before the priest removes the strings.
• • •
VINEYARD: Bright sunny morning. John Yeprad is working in the vineyard with his wife. He caresses the vines as they walk. A baby--Manuel at 18 mos. old--is smiling and playing in a creche nearby.
Yeprad: Pretty good, eh? And you wait and see, someday we'll .ave forty acres!
Our children will never go hungry-not in America. (Dreamily) We'll send them to fine American schools . . . and just think, four years ago we came to America with nothing. It's been hard work. Never worked so hard in my life. But now, when I look at our vines and our home I forget all our troubles.
DISSOLVE back to COURTROOM, where we see an older Yeprad, finishing his testimony.
Yeprad: Your honor, my wife died after our second child, Marie, was born. She never complained, always smiled to me when I was cross and worried. Sometimes price of grapes dropped to nothing, or frost turn our vines black, and we couldn't buy new shoes for the kids because all the money we had went to pay off the mortgage, but she never got discouraged, she thought I could do everything. We always happy together. And somehow, with God's help, I managed. I started out with ten acres, now I have 160 acres, all clear. It's our home. We love every one of our vines. We can't give them up, even if I lost money on them, and it don't pay to grow grapes, and sometimes it don't. They are like my children. I can't sell them to nobody. And now when after much trouble this year on account of the frost, we are going to harvest our grapes again, they tell you my property deed is no good, and they own my land, my home, the vines me and my wife planted...
Grandmother is next on the witness stand. MacKenzie requests an interpreter, commenting sarcastically on her ignorance of the English language. An interpreter is provided, and raising her hand she is sworn in to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth. She adds, raising her hand higher still.
Grandmother (Interpreter translating): And let me change to stone if I lie.
Titters in Courtroom.
MacKenzie immediately makes an issue of the fact that she is not a citizen and refers to her throughout her testimony with proper intonation of voice as an "alien." But she proves a difficult and disconcerting witness. Disregarding his questions and the rules of the court, she attacks him with her sharp tongue, and the court, not knowing what she is saying, has to let her speak, with the interpreter doing his best to translate later.
Grandmother: Your voice may reach to seventh heaven but it won't reach God's ear! You aren't of this world, you weren't born of woman, you Godless lawyer. There is no shame and no fear of God left in you. But remember, everybody is responsible for his own sins. Why don't you leave my son alone? Why are you trying to be like a flock of hungry crows on his head? What harm have we done you? We are honest Christian people, but you are nothing but a fox's tail.
Grandmother's testimony causes laughter and not a few tears in the courtroom. The Judge repeatedly has to rap for order--but we can tell, he likes her.
(End of second installment.)
• • •
COCHRAN'S HOME: Cochran takes three or four different pills as he sits down to breakfast. His wife, Mrs. Cochran, is obviously completely dominated and overshadowed by him . She is essentially a fine feminine woman, but with the prejudices and snobberies of her class. As she pours his coffee, he asks for his morning paper. Wife and BUTLER exchange a worried look. The nervous Butler brings him the paper. After a quick glance at the headlines , Cochran's eyes rest on a report of the court trial. Edwin has written an honest story , giving all the alleged facts, impartially, but waxing lyrical on the saga of the Yeprads and on America as the land of opportunity for the oppressed and persecuted of the world, the gifts immigrants have brought with them, reclaiming waste lands and contributing to the wealth and prosperity of the state. There is a picture of the Grandmother, with a caption, "Steals Show From Veteran Corporation Lawyer."
Edwin comes downstairs, gay and nonchalant, greets everybody with a cheery good morning, and sits down at the table. The irate father turns on him.
Cochran: You wrote this?
Edwin: (indifferently, yawning.) Yeah. This bacon looks good. (Helps himself to the bacon.)
Cochran: What are you trying to do? Hand the case over to them on a silver platter? (Reads aloud a passage or two.) What has all this sentimental gush to do with our case? Why don't you stick to the facts?
Edwin: I have.
Cochran: All this highfalutin' nonsense has nothing to do with the case.
Edwin: Oh, I wouldn't say that.
Cochran: (Exploding at last.) It's all on account of that girl.
Edwin: (In a level voice.) I happen to believe in what you call nonsense.
Cochran: Poppycock. You've a lot to learn yet--and it isn't in books either, it isn't poetry.
Mrs. Cochran: Edwin, you aren't really interested in that girl.
Edwin: I am, mother.
Mrs. Cochran: You don't mean you're going to marry her?
Edwin: We haven't reached that stage yet. . . but why not? I think she'd make a swell wife.
Mrs. Cochran: You must be completely out of your mind. Why, this is the most impossible and ridiculous thing I've heard. I thought you were infatuated with her. It must be infatuation. You can't surely be in love with her!
Cochran: (Wearily.) Don't you see the mess you'll be getting yourself into if you married her? I saw her. I'll grant you she isn't bad looking---but so what? They're a dime a dozen. Let her stay on her side of the fence, with her own kind. Why drag her to our side when you know darn well she won't fit in? And the next thing you know, her folk's will be expecting us to invite them to dinner. Wouldn't it be just lovely if I walked into my club arm in arm with her old man?
Edwin: You could do a lot worse than that.
Mrs. Cochran: Edwin, what's come over you?
Edwin: Why are you so dead set against her?
Cochran: Because we don't like 'em. And we want them to stay where they belong. (He gets up and angrily leaves the table.)
• • •
Dissolve again to COURTROOM. The trial is over, and Judge Westover announces the verdict of the jury: it's 9 to 3 against Yeprad. Cochran wins the case on a technical point, which makes Yeprad's property deed in the opinion of the jury, illegal and invalid. Yeprad has to give up his land with all improvements and buildings. After announcing the verdict, the Judge adds a few words of his own, addressed to Yeprad, saying he is sorry his hands are tied by law, and praising him for his attachment to the soil. Yeprad takes the court's verdict in respectful silence, but when the Judge makes this little speech at the end tears trickle down his face. As the Yeprads, struck dumb by the court's decision, leave the room, MacKenzie, jubilant, approaches Ignatius.
MacKenzie: We give them exactly 30 days to get out.
Ignatius: I'm going to appeal the case.
MacKenzie: (Smirking.) It won't do you any good.
• • •
Dissolve to Yeprad ranch. John Yeprad is seated in an arm chair on the porch, a blanket around his shoulders. He looks a broken, shrunken man, his face gray with a few days' stubble, staring vacantly into space.
Marie: (who has been nursing him) How about a little soup, Father? You haven't eaten anything for two days. The doctor said you can have soup.
Yeprad shakes his head. The telephone rings inside the house. Marie goes in to answer it. The camera cuts to Edwin. He is calling from a bar.
Edwin: Well, here I am. What do you have to tell me? Go ahead and say it. Marie: (Realizing he is drunk, bursts into tears.)
Edwin: I want to see you.
Marie: What for? What's the use?
Edwin: Because I love you----I love you very much. Tell me, you don't hate me.
Marie: (impulsively crying) Edwin, I love you too, I can't help it.
Edwin: What's that I heard? Did you say you love ... me?
Marie: Yes.
Edwin: (With drunken elation.) I'm coming right over.
Marie: (alarmed) No, please. We can't see each other yet. We've got to wait, dear. My father's sick.
Edwin: Your father's sick? What happened to him?
Marie: He had a stroke, three days ago, after we came back from the court. It would kill him if he saw us together. If he'd only get well. He doesn't eat, doesn't speak, I don't know what to do. (She hears Grandmother's footsteps.) I'd better hang up. My grandmother's coming in. Goodbye, dear. (hangs up.)
Grandmother enters the room, noticeably older and grayer, looking as if she is angry with God. She doesn't speak. We see the deep sorrow and bewilderment in the haunted, ghost-like glance of her deep-set eyes: tragedy is written on the wrinkles of her face, a tribal face, symbolic of the universal indomitable spirit of grandmothers in grief and adversity the world over, as the scene dissolves to.
• • •
A STREET IN ST. JOHN. Groups of people here and there, mostly foreign looking. Cochran drives by in a shining limousine. MacKenzie and a couple of deputy Sheriffs are in the car with him. Evidently Cochran has made many enemies by his victory in court and feeling is running high against him in this community. The town seems tense with a dangerous excitement. Groups of people are discussing the case in street corners. As the limousine drives past the Arax Grocery Store and Cafe, Sam still wearing his helmet, shakes his fist at Cochran.
Cochran and his party drive to the road between the two fences separating the Gold Star and Yeprad vineyards. Surveyors here are busy with their instruments. The limousine comes to a stop. Cochran and his party get out. An engineer, holding a check-board, tells Cochran some technical details about the railroad to be built, and Cochran okays the engineer's plan and figures. Then, with his party, including the deputy sheriffs, he enters the Yeprad vineyard through the main gate, as if he already owns the place. They look around, at the buildings, study the general layout of the ranch, the engineer making some notes on his check-board. Work has stopped in the Yeprad vineyard. It's May, and the vines are already covered with reddish green foliage, with shoots several inches long. As they pass by the porch where Yeprad is seated with a blanket around his shoulders, a pathetic figure, not a word of greeting passes between them. Yeprad's eyes follow them silently. Grandmother and Marie watch the invaders from inside the house. Grandmother, looking heavenward, murmurs something which we understand to be curse or imprecation. Marie smothers a sob in her handkerchief. Manuel is not on the ranch.
• • •
DISSOLVE TO THE OFFICE OF ALBERT IGNATIUS, where Manuel is in conference with the attorney.
Ignatius: Sign this too. (Manuel signs a legal paper.) I'm positive the appeal will be granted if we can raise the bond. It might take two or three months for the Appellate Court to review the case, and pending it's decision, you'll be allowed to stay on your ranch. We have to put up the bond as a guarantee that no damage will be done to the buildings and the vines if we lose our appeal.
Manuel: Twenty-five thousand dollars is an awful lot of money. I'll see what I can do.
Ignatius: By the way, I don't like the looks of some of your friends. We can't afford to have any trouble, you know. The slightest disturbance might ruin our chances. You've got to control the hot-heads.
Manuel: There won't be any trouble.
The appeal to the higher court is granted. Sam helps Manuel raise the bond money from their mutual friends. Most of this sum is subscribed to in the Arax Grocery Store and Cafe, which is a sort of community center and news exchange. Sam also promises Manuel to keep the hotheads under control though he is the worst among them. Manuel makes plain to him that any damage to Cochran's property, or, God forbid, assault upon his person, will have the most tragic consequences, and Sam passes along the word that everybody keep quiet until "the biggest judges" decide the case. He talks as if "the biggest judges" have made an "official" appeal to him, as to a "government man," to keep the people in line as respectful law-abiding citizens. This order, he declares to every customer that comes to his store, is "absolootely official."
The Yeprads and their friends wait tensely for the decision of the Appellate Court. We show in a brief scene the Appellate Court in session, reviewing the Yeprad case. It reverses the judgment of the lower court, as the scene dissolves to:
• • •
The Yeprad ranch again. Friends have gathered there, congratulating the Yeprads and Ignatius for their court victory. Ignatius is carried on the shoulders of Sam and other men with "hurrahs." Sam declares him to be "the greatest lawyer in the State," adding with a smile, "It's absolootely official." John Yeprad is no longer in a wheelchair; he can walk now, supported by Manuel or Marie though still leaning on a cane. He smiles sheepishly at his friends as they shake his hand and pat him affectionately on the back.
Grandmother: (kissing Ignatius on both cheeks.) God bless you, Ignas.
Sam: (Oratorical, but sincere.) I no want to make speech, but when I was in jail in the old country, judges all against me. Poor man like me had no chance. Maybe I deserve it. But I fight for justice. Here, Cochran worth 50 million dollar, maybe 100 million dollar. John got nothing hut this ranch. But American law says, Cochran wrong, John right.
It just make you proud to be American citizen.
• • •
DISSOLVE TO AN EVENING CLASS IN AMERICANIZATION in a local school. This is primarily a class of English for the foreign born, where adult pupils learn English and enough about American laws and the Constitution to apply for their naturalization papers. We see Grandmother entering the class all dolled up, and wearing a hat. She is now sold on America and wants to be a citizen. Bosomy middle-aged housewives, rancher's in collarless shirts or in overalls, and a few neatly dressed young people, are learning to read and write "man", "cat," "dog." There is a large alphabet hanging on the wall and these words have been written by the teacher on the blackboard. THE TEACHER is an earnest, patient young woman with a kindly smile. She welcomes Grandmother, and leads her to a desk where she sits down. She helps her fill out a registration card--or rather, fills it out for her, and we learn that Grandmother has been 26 years in the country. She shows her how to hold a pencil, struggles with these simple words on the blackboard. There is intense concentration and determination on her face. After they practice writing and reading, the teacher shows them different articles--an apple, a book, carrots, sugar beets--and teaches them their English names.
Teacher: Mr. Popoff, do you know what beets means?
Popoff: (bearded giant) Da-da (Yes-yes.) He beats his wife.
After the class stops laughing, the teacher explains to Popoff the difference between "beets" and "beats" and finally getting the joke Popoff roars with laughter.
Teacher: Mrs. Yeprad, what's the capital of the United States?
Grandmother: (proudly) Washington, C. O. D.! More laughter, as the scene dissolves to:
• • •
BAG PIPES AND DRUM. Their shrill, gay martial music explodes on the screen, as we see them, with the faces of the players, in a vivid closeup. The camera then focuses on a group of dancers nearby, men and women dancing round and round with their arms thrown over each other's shoulder, their legs rising and falling together--somewhat like chorus girls--led by Manuel, who waves a handkerchief and does the fanciest steps of all, whirling around, dropping first one knee, jumping up and then dropping on the other knee. Most of the men are coatless--simple men of the soil--with handkerchiefs tied around their perspiring necks. Cooks, under Grandmother's supervision, are barbecuing with exclamations of delight, bits of lamb and eggplants alternately strung on long iron skewers. Sam, with the eternal air raid warden's helmet on his head, is distributing candy and pops to young children, who call him Uncle Sam. There is a large basket of grapes on a table. In the noisy, festive throng gathered on the Yeprad ranch we see a priest. John Yeprad, the honored host, looks much better, but he is still with a cane. Marie is dressed in a native costume, which is extremely becoming to her, and there are other girls in such costumes, members of the church choir, which she directs. A few boys, also members of the choir, are dressed like junior Cossacks. Marie is keeping to herself, though she cannot altogether avoid the crowd. She is not dancing. There is a sad thoughtful expression on her face. She is pale, and her beautiful dark eyes are aglow with the searing fire of an inner agony, we feel. A woman we have seen before working with her in the vineyard, a relative, approaches her.
Woman: Come on, cheer up! Your worries are over! Everybody is having a good time. And it's your name day, too!
Cook: Come and get it !
Woman: The shish kebab is done. Am I hungry! Come on, Marie, let's join the line.
Marie: I'm not hungry.
Grandmother: (Overhearing this conversation.) That's what she says all the time--not hungry. No sleep, no eat. You'll get T.B. Already lose your looks. Ugh.
Woman: (Smiling at Marie fondly and tenderly.) Oh, I don't know about that. She has grown a bit thinner, but she's as pretty as ever. I've been watching our young men, they haven't eyes for anybody else.
The camera cuts to the Gold Star vineyard on the other side of the road. Cochran is entertaining friends at a cocktail party in the garden of his summer home. This is strictly society stuff, with white coated waiters scurrying about with trays of drinks and hors d'oeuvres. Food is served buffet style. Edwin is with Betty Jane--but his mind obviously is elsewhere.
Cochran (To Banker.): The market is wide open, and we'll have a record crop this year. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to build my railroad--on account of the fool jackass that owns the vineyard over there, where they're making all that noise.
We cut to Edwin and Betty Jane. She is a sleek, slender girl of the society type, in a white tailored suit over a black shirt with a wide collar, and a wide-brimmed hat. She is chic, cool, self-possessed, very pretty, and probably hard as enamel inside.
Betty Jane: You have your walking papers, you know. I'm going to New York next month.
• • •
We see Edwin slipping out of the garden, while another man is talking up to Betty Jane, and the camera follows him as he gets into his car and drives over quickly to the Yeprad ranch. The picnickers have eaten their lunch, but the basket of grapes remains untouched. Edwin comes joins the noisy crowd, looking for Marie. There is rapture and terror on her face when she him. She makes an impulsive gesture to run to him, but controls herself. The dancing has been resumed. Edwin makes his way through the crowd and walks up to her.
Edwin: I . . . I had to come.
Marie: Oh, I am so glad you did! (She casts a worried look about her.)
Edwin: I hope they wouldn't mind, my being here . . . You look wonderful in that costume.
Marie: This is our annual picnic. It's St. Mary's day--a big holiday for us--and also my name day.
Edwin: I just escaped from a cocktail party my father is giving for some stuffed shirts . . . and from a girl I've gone with for some time.
Marie: (Alarmed, with anger and worry on her face.) Who is she?
Edwin: We went to high school together. Quite a gal--but not my type. There never was anything real between us, I can assure you there's no triangle.
Marie is relieved, her eyes sparkle with love for him.
Edwin: (Taking a deep breath, as he looks at her with wonder and admiration.) You're the only one . . . I got it bad, Marie.
Marie (Confused, but breathless with the enchantment of being with him.) Now that you're here, you might as well meet my people. Here they are, enjoying themselves.
Timidly, yet proudly, she introduces him to some people around her. They freeze up. She doesn't dare introduce him to her family. Manuel is again leading the dance, and her father is absorbed in a backgammon game with some men, while Grandmother is puttering around the barbecue stand. They haven't seen Edwin. Sensing the stiffness and reserve of the people around him, Edwin proposes to Marie that they join the dance. This would attract too much attention, but it might break the ice, and she agrees. She gives him her hand, and they join the circle of dancers, who are dancing around hand in hand. Manuel recognizes him--but apparently he has no objection. Soon many curious eyes are fixed on them. At first Edwin dances awkwardly, but the steps are simple, and he catches on. This pleases those who know who he is, and they start commenting favorably about him among themselves, a few even smiling encouragement to him.
After the dance, as the crowd moves toward a table where a sort of outdoor altar has been set up, Marie has to introduce Edwin to her brother. Manuel, American born, a former officer in the Air Corps, is broad minded, if not exactly friendly. His attitude is one of non-interference in the love life of his sister. And he knows she has been suffering.
Manuel: This is quite a surprise.
Edwin: (Who has warmly shaken his hand.) I can't tell you how glad I'm to be here, with you people. I understand you're celebrating a big holiday ... there might be a story in it for my paper.
Manuel: I want to thank you for the fair way in which you reported our ... unfortunate court affair. The priest is now going to bless the grapes.
Marie: Every year, on St. Mary's Day, we have a ceremony of the blessing of the grapes. It's a sin for us to eat grapes before they are blessed. And now, if you'll excuse me, I've to conduct our choir.
Some twenty young people, who form the choir, and can be distinguished by the native costumes they are wearing, now stand together on one side of the outdoor altar, on which a man puts the large basket of grapes. Leaving Edwin and her brother, Marie takes her place at the head of the choir. The crowd thickens around the altar. Her father and grandmother come over too. They see Edwin standing beside Manuel, and unable to take his eyes off Marie. They look at each other, and Grandmother shrugs her shoulders, as if it's something beyond her comprehension. Edwin and Manuel talk in whispers.
The priest, assisted by a deacon and sub-deacon, blesses the grapes with a silver cross, chants some prayers, and reads a chapter from the Gospels. From time to time people cross themselves, and Edwin, following their example, crosses himself too (he is a Catholic), which does not fail to make a good impression. The choir, under Marie's direction, sings two beautiful hymns. After the ceremony, the blessed grapes are passed around, and Marie brings a small cluster to Edwin and Manuel. Manuel and Marie now introduce Edwin to their Father and grandmother, who are stiffly polite, as if unable to make up their minds one way or another. But the ice is broken and Edwin obviously accepted by these people as the scene dissolves to:
• • •
A LONG VIEW OF THE VALLEY ENVELOPED IN MIST AND RAIN.
The scene cuts to the Yeprad vineyard, and we see that its crop has been harvested, there are no grapes left on the vines. It cuts to the Gold Star vineyard, where we see the vines still heavily loaded with grapes, some clusters already turning into raisins or rotting. It stretches desolate under the rain, with no signs of activity. This scene cuts to the INTERIOR of Cochran's summer home, where we find Cochran making a telephone call in an angry, frantic voice.
Cochran: This rain will destroy our whole crop. We need six or seven hundred workers right away to pick our grapes. They are rotting on the vines.
MacKenzie. (At the other end of the wire, just as agitated.) I talked to Brown, who is the labor boss. Luzzi has paid him a little more for his men, to pick his grapes. Brown won't give us a single worker for our crop.
Cochran: Luzzi can't do this to me. I'll make him pay for it, the dirty rat. Can't you find some other workers? Call up the county agent, the state employment bureau.
MacKenzie: It's no use, I've tried. They don't have any workers to give us. Grape pickers are scarcer than hen's teeth right now. I offered good wages to a gang not under Brown's control, but they don't want to work for us on account of our trouble with Yeprad. By the way, Luzzi has been palsy-walsy with Yeprad and has signed him up too.
Cochran: I won't let these foreign cutthroats and radical agitators ruin me.
• • •
The scene cuts back to the Yeprad ranch again, where we see the Yeprads talking on the porch of their house as they look at the Gold Star vineyard on the other side of the road.
Manuel: Cochran's egg is cooked. Those grapes should have been picked two weeks ago.
Marie: (Anxiously.) Can't we do something to help them? I hate to see those grapes rotting.
Manuel: We should worry. Let them rot. Serves him right.
Grandmother: No, Manuel, God punish those who spoil food. If you see piece of bread on ground you pick it up, kiss it, and put it away so the people won't step on it because bread is holy. All food is holy to Christian people.
Yeprad (Leaning on a cane). Mother is right. It don't matter who owns the grapes. We can't let them rot like this when there are millions of hungry people in the world.
Manuel: But what can we do? We have enough troubles of our own. It would take us at least six months to pick all those grapes.
Grandmother: You listen to me. Go get everybody you can. Bring them here, and we go pick them. Understand? Quick Haideh. No time to lose.
• • •
DISSOLVE TO:
SMALL PRINTING SHOP, which is also the office of the local Armenian weekly.
The EDITOR is busy correcting proofs. The ASSISTANT EDITOR is playing a guitar with his feet on his desk.
Manuel (Entering): Good morning, friends.
Editor (Looking up from his desk): Good morning, Manuel!
Assistant to Manuel, and continues playing his guitar.
Manuel (Looking at him with a faint smile) : I wish I could do that. Just play and sing all day and let the world go by--or hang, for all I care.
Assistant Editor starts singing with a quavering nostalgic voice.
Manuel: And he is supposed to be the assistant editor.
Editor (Smiling): I think he is the real editor. I do not think I could publish the paper without him. That is why I hired him; just to play and sing for me. Now and then I print one of his poems. Do you understand what he is singing?
Manuel: I get the general drift of it. Bad days like winter. ...
Editor: (Translating the song):
Days of misfortune like the snows of winter
Come and go;
But despair not, like changing seasons
Come and go.
Manuel: Cochran's in trouble. This rain will ruin his crop. I don't think he can get any pickers. McKenzie tried to hire some of our people but they wouldn't work for him. My father and grandmother don't like the idea of grapes spoiling on the vines for lack of pickers. I guess in the old country grapes were sacred like bread.
Editor: That is right! Grapes and Mt. Ararat are the ancient symbols of our people.
Manuel: They sent me to find some pickers. We'd better hurry if we're going to do anything. I thought maybe you could print something in your paper about it. It comes out this afternoon--maybe it isn't too late.
Editor (Thinking): No, it is not too late. I shall do that!
• • •
DISSOLVE TO:
A NOISY MOB of some 800 people, led by Grandmother, with Manuel on her right, Sam on her left, and Yeprad bringing up the rear, moves on Cochran's house. Marie is with a group of women in the mob. Many of these faces are familiar to us. The rain has stopped; the skies are clearing.
Cochran, his wife and a servant are terrified when they see this mob from the windows of their house.
Cochran: I don't like their looks. You never can tell what these foreign ranchers will do. Close all the doors and windows! I'll call the Sheriff's Office. (He calls the Sheriff's Office for help, exaggerating the size of the crowd, and begging them frantically to come and save them. He next calls Edwin in San Francisco, but he is out on an assignment, and he leaves a message for him to call back as soon as he can, and if no answer, to call the Sheriff's Office at St. John; his family is in danger.)
The mob comes to a stop before the house.
Manuel: Mr. Cochran!
Nobody answers from inside the house. Cochran is now calling the manager of his vineyard, who lives on the grounds in another building at some distance from the house. But he too is terrified, pleads he has only five men on the ranch. Cochran asks him to go out and see what the mob wants, but he says he couldn't take the chance, they are all his enemies.
Sam: Hoo-hoo! Meester Cochran!
Manuel (rings the door bell, still no answer. Then shouts louder) : We've come to pick your grapes!
Cochran: It's a trick! I wouldn't trust them for anything in the world! They are up to something. We'll wait until the sheriff comes with his men.
Manuel: (To the crowd): Nobody's in!
Grandmother: We start picking anyhow! No time to lose!
Voices: Where is the tool shed? Where are the trucks? Here they are! Let's go!
Divided into groups they scatter through the vast vineyard and start picking. Manuel meanwhile goes to the winery and finds it closed. Marie and some women start singing the HARVEST SONG, which is picked up by the rest of the crowd, and increases in volume.
The doors of Cochran's house is flung open, and Cochran runs out, tears of joy streaming down his cheeks. We see the manager and a few other men--caretakers left in the vineyard--also coming out of their hiding, looking dumbfounded. Cochran comes and shakes Grandmother's hands, who is shouting orders to everybody.
Cochran: Thank you, God bless you, you've saved my crop!
Grandmother: God no like to see grapes spoil. It's sin. Here, take these, help! No time to lose! (She hands him a pair of shears and starts ordering him around too, to his immense delight.)
Presently Mrs. Cochran and servant also come out, and Grandmother promptly assigns them to a young women's crew of which Marie is leader. Marie leads them to her section, meanwhile giving them pointers on picking grapes.
Cochran is so happy he is running from one group to another, from one picker to another, thanking them. We see boxes of grapes piling up in trucks, and other trucks moving to the winery, where men are waiting with shovels to dump their loads into the crushers.
Deputy sheriffs and a squad of motorcycle officers arrive on the scene to quell the "riot." They rub their eyes, dumbfounded. Grandmother puts them to work too. Manuel is here, there and everywhere, carrying out Grandmother's orders and giving orders of his own, working like a demon to see that everything's done right.
Cochran (To Manuel): I've a nice spot for you in my company, young man. I want you to be general manager of all my vineyards. You are in.
Manuel: Thanks, Mr. Cochran. I'll do my best.
There is a traffic jam on the muddy road between the two fences, what with the trucks moving toward the winery or getting back to be reloaded, sheriff's cars, motorcycles, etc. The sun is now shining brightly through a patch of blue, the raindrops reflecting its brilliance. Cochran, Yeprad, Grandmother and Sam walk down to the road together; Manuel is directing the traffic.
Cochran: We don't need this fence any more! Let's tear it down so that the trucks can pass freely.
Yeprad. Tear down our fence too. Make more room. If trucks get a little to one side or the other it doesn't matter.
Manuel sends a group of people to tear down the fences along the road. Meanwhile Edwin arrives from San Francisco, thinking he'd find his parents dead, perhaps. Grandmother puts him to work too. Edwin is soon with Marie.
Cochran (To Yeprad): How about consolidating our vineyards, John? We need a man like you, who knows all about grapes, as vice-president.
Yeprad: Thanks, Bill, but you keep your vineyard, and I keep mine. As I always said, my vineyard is also my home. But I'll be glad to give you right of way for your railroad through my property--let's forget old troubles.
Cochran: Why, that's great! I'll pay for it anything you say!
Yeprad: We'll make a fair deal.
Cochran: Let's shake hands over that. (They shake hands.)
As they are walking along, like good friends and neighbors, they come upon Edwin and Marie kissing over the fence behind some vines. The fence here is partly torn down. They stop, and wink and smile at one another. Edwin and Marie see them after they have kissed--and kiss again, their hands meanwhile removing the fence entirely from between them. Cochran looks at Yeprad, Grandmother, Sam, grinning--who grin back. Edwin and Marie turn to them, smiling.
Sam (Mugging): Dat's now official. Absolootely!
THE END