BIGGIE: He left me.
CUTBACK.
(Bogus in the studio)
BOGUS: Well, she asked me to leave. No, actually, she told me to ...
CUT.
(Biggie is sitting with Colm and Couth around an outdoor table under a large umbrella set up on the Pillsburys' dock. It is a deliberately formal, stilted scene, and the three of them look distrustfully at the camera. There is sync sound; Ralph [offstage]is interviewing them)
BIGGIE: I had no idea he was going to stay away, for so long, I mean ...
COUTH: She had no idea where he was, even.
BIGGIE (Looking hard at the camera, speaking to Ralph angrily): You knew more than anyone, you bastard. You knew where he was going - you even helped him! Don't think I don't remember ...
CUT.
(Ralph Packer in the editing room of his studio, running film strips through a machine. Other strips clipped to rods overhead hang down all around him. There is
no sync sound)
RALPH (voice-over): That's true ... I knew where he was going, all right, and I helped him to leave. But he wanted to leave!
(He pushes the heavy splice lever of the machine down emphatically)
CUT.
(The first in a series of still photographs. Bogus and Biggie in an Alpine Village, leaning against a strange old car and smiling at the photographer. Biggie looks sexy in her stretch ski clothes)
RALPH (V.O.): He went back to Europe, that's where he went. Maybe he was nostalgic ...
(Another still: Biggie and Bogus clowning in a big rumpled bed, the covers pulled up to their chins)
RALPH (V.O.): He never made it clear why he went to Europe, but he mentions this friend he had ... a Merrill Overturf.
(Another still: a strange-looking fellow wearing a weird hat is sitting in an old Zorn-Witwer, '54, grinning at the camera out his rolled-down window)
BIGGIE (V.O.): That's him, all right. That's Merrill Overturf.
CUT BACK.
(The table and umbrella on the dock. With sync sound, Biggie speaks into camera)
BIGGIE: Merrill Overturf was absolutely crazy, completely mad.
CUTBACK.
(Bogus in the studio [sync sound])
BOGUS: No! He wasn't; he wasn't crazy at all. She never really knew him like I did. He was about the most sane person I've ever known ...
CUTBACK.
(In the editing room, Ralph raises the splice lever and looks through more film strips)
RALPH (V.O.): It's very hard to get anything very concrete out of him. He takes it all so personally. He can really be uncooperative sometimes ...