Script To Screen: “Tootsie”

“That’s what I said! So if a tomato can’t move, how can it sit down?! I was a great tomato! I was a stand-up tomato!”

A critical scene from the 1982 comedy Tootise (screenplay by Murray Schisgal and Larry Gelbart, story by Don McGuire and Larry Gelbart) because you have to absolutely believe that Michael Dorsey (Dustin Hoffman) has no other resort than to take on the persona of Dorothy Michaels — or else you don’t have a movie. This scene locks down that critical point. Track all the ‘doors’ that Michael’s agent George Grey (Sydney Pollack) closes, limiting Michael’s choices until he has only one.

Here is the script version of the scene:

Here’s the scene in the movie:

Here are the doors that close on Michael:

• People want name actors; he’s not a name.
• George is not going to produce Jeff’s play.
• Besides nobody wants to see Jeff’s “downer” play.
• No one wants to work with Michael because he’s impossible to work with.
• Michael has a horrible reputation, nobody will hire him.
• Not just New York, but Hollywood as well.
• There’s nothing George can do for Michael.

George also reminds Michael that he hasn’t worked for two years, so we can infer that Michael is low on cash. Michael’s declaration that he’s going to raise $8,000 to put on Jeff’s play forces the issue: Now Michael has his pride on the line. And because all the doors are closed and he’s got to raise that $8,000, he’s got to do something.

Fortunately, George also tosses Michael a bone, if unknowingly: Terry Bishop, who is in Michael’s eyes a lesser actor than Michael, works on a “soap.” So if no one will work with Michael, that means he has to change his appearance to get work. And if Terry Bishop can get a gig on a “soap,” then Michael figures he can, too.

Cue the shot: Michael dressed as a woman en route to an audition on a soap opera.

One of the single best things you can do to learn the craft of screenwriting is to read the script while watching the movie. After all a screenplay is a blueprint to make a movie and it’s that magic of what happens between printed page and final print that can inform how you approach writing scenes. That is the purpose of Script to Screen, a Go Into The Story series where we analyze a memorable movie scene and the script pages that inspired it.

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