Hollywood Treatment The Grayling Second Page

Second Page
Author House Hollywood Treatment Date 3/9/2012
Treatment:
Micholovce, Czechoslovakia, October 1942 – Atop a hill, HENRY FREIER (5), a plump, cherub faced boy, climbs onto a jagged rock and takes a heroic, defensive stance. Henry’s sister, EDITH (17), gently coaxes him down and tells him that even heroes need to eat. Henry protests and says that he’ll skip dinner to stand guard. Edith, smiling, asks why he thinks he has to guard the family. “Because the Germans are coming,” he cries.
Henry and Edith enter their small home where the rest of the family waits at the table. JOSEPH FREIER (45) commends Henry for a job well done. Henry smiles proudly. His mother, ANNA (38) serves dinner to her other sons, SAM (16), MARTIN (13) AND BERNARD (10). Heavy footsteps, followed by the resonance of a rifle butt beating against the door, interrupt the meal. Joseph waits until the door is nearly beaten down, and then opens it. Three German soldiers enter. “Come with us,” they shout.
The family is piled into the back of a truck as their frightened neighbors look on. As the truck bounds over bumpy roads, the passengers listen intently, trying to figure out where they are going. The truck stops and everyone is told to get out. The prisoners are marched single file, along a winding dirt trail to a cramped, fenced in area. Hundreds of prisoners are there already.
Joseph notices that the fence is a flimsy mesh wire, and that one, lone guard patrols the perimeter. Sam motions to Joseph, and the family makes their way to the back of the pen. Sam lifts the wire and the family escapes into the nearby woods. They stumble for miles through the darkness until they reach a clearing where they collapse on the ground. No one speaks. Their exhaustion is debilitating and sleep comes quickly.
At dawn Joseph leaves his family and makes his way to the house o his friend FRANK (50). He knocks on the window pane of the living room. Frank waves him inside. “Please, help me and my family,” Joseph pleads. Frank nods reluctantly and tells him to stay put until he returns. Nazi soldiers patrolling the streets pay no attention to Frank as he hurries to the makeshift office of the town’s mayor, BENJAMIN (60). Frank tells Benjamin of the Freier family’s escape from the Nazis and asks for his help. With no consideration to the matter, Benjamin tells Frank that for three hundred dollars, Joseph’s family will be off of the list. He dismisses Frank abruptly.