Page One: ‘Patton’ (1970)

Screen story and screenplay Francis Ford Coppola and Edmund H. North

The movie version of the scene:

One notable difference from this script written a half-century ago compared to contemporary screenplays: We rarely, if ever, see paragraphs of scene description 18 lines long. Instead, screenwriters have determined it is much easier to read a script which breaks up scene description into shorter paragraphs — 1, 2, or 3 lines.

Page One is a daily Go Into The Story series featuring the first page of notable movie scripts from the classic era to contemporary times. Comparing them is an excellent way to study a variety of writing styles and see how professional writers start a story.

For more Page One posts, go here.

You may follow the daily conversation on Twitter as I cross-post there: @GoIntoTheStory.