Page One: ‘The Third Man’ (1949)

Screen play by Graham Greene

Yes, yes. Camera shots, I know. As I’ve explained many times, before the spec script era of the 80s, screenplay were pretty much shooting scripts, often one camera shot after another. When you read such a script, you need clear that aspect out of your mind and focus on the scene description.

Check out the ending of the movie, one of the more famous final shots in cinema history. Here are the last two pages of the script:

Here is the movie version of the ending:

Such droll description of that final image. Note two sets of numbers:

• 1251. That is the number camera shots as indicated as official shots. There are others within scene description as well. That’s a lot of camera action!
• 222. That’s the page count of the script. The movie’s run time: 104 minutes. That means that each page translates into slightly less than 30 seconds.

One final thing: The writing credit indicates the script is a “screen play.” As this narrative form evolved, particularly when the “talkies’ came along beginning in 1927, Hollywood hired playwrights to pen all that dialogue. Thus, the designation screen play, a screen version of a play. As movies became more and more a visual medium, the words eventually were joined as a screenplay.

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.

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