From: WarrenE@aol.com
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2003 21:07:44 EDT
Subject: BAD SIGNAL: Lock, Stock And Holmes
To: badsignal@lists.flirble.org

bad signal
WARREN ELLIS

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This is something I was messing around with a few months ago.
Don't read anything into the screenplay format -- I was trying to
find the tone, and screenplay format suited the attempt to
find the particular voice I was after. (Some things start out looking
like screenplays, some things start out looking like prose,
some things start out as linked monologues. I like to have as
many tools to hand as I can.)

I was messing about with it as a writing exercise, one of the
things that gets the brain moving. I decided to try and find a
way to do a Sherlock Holmes adaptation that might capture
a jaded audience and not echo previous shots. What I ended
up with was, if you like, the Guy Ritchie version -- honest to
the book and Conan Doyle's intent to his characters, while also
being honest to the way people actually speak. In particular,
letting Watson out of the strictures of writing and publishing
that Conan Doyle was working within in the 19th Century.
One did not say Fuck in the magazines of the time -- even
Jack London watched his mouth.

Anyway, it's just a bit of fun, and I'm taking it for a bit of
air before it gets backed up onto the Misc. File, never to
be seen again.

-- W

FADE IN:


EXT. LONDON DOCKLANDS - 1887

It's bleak and filthy here. Nineteenth Century London was
dark, and busy with swarms of people. So it is here, with
dockers going about their business as a long line of SOLDIERS
crocodiles out of a moored ARMY SHIP.

SUPER: 1887

Each of the soldiers passes through a CHECKPOINT that's really
just a wooden table and a seated INSPECTOR, reading through
the papers each soldier provides.

Reaching the checkpoint; DR JOHN WATSON, a lean man in his
early thirties. He stands straight, but is down on his luck: in a dirty
army uniform, with a weakened left arm and a small battered suitcase
in his right hand.

INSPECTOR
Papers.

Watson hands them over. The Inspector peers through thick
little glasses.

INSPECTOR
Captain John Watson.

WATSON
Doctor John Watson. I received my
discharge before boarding.

INSPECTOR
Take the sodding uniform off, then.
Next.

Wearily, Watson trudges off out of the docks, to the streets beyond.


EXT. LONDON STREET - DAY

Crossing a cobblestoned junction, not too different from the London
of today aside from the horses and the dung, Watson looks around.

WATSON
Good God.

Walks on, sourly.

WATSON
London's still a fucking toilet.

Pushing on through the light crowds, Watson sees a tough STREET
KID yanking the HANDBAG off an older lady.

WATSON
Hey!

The street kid looks him in the eye.

STREET KID
What?

Watson looks around, sees a POLICEMAN clearly turning his
back - can't be bothered.

STREET KID
Got something to say, you gimpy
bastard?

The kid pushes Watson in the left shoulder - Watson YELLS with
sudden pain.

STREET KID
Come on then. You want some?

Watson drops his suitcase as the kid shoves again -- feints with his
left side so that the shove doesn't connect --

-- and punches the kid in the head with surprising force.

The kid drops backwards, smacking the back of his head on the
cobblestoned street. He doesn't get up again.

Watson recovers the bag, hands it to the distraught woman.

WATSON
Madam, your handbag.

She's too shocked to speak. This just doesn't happen in London.


Watson, wincing, lifts his own case and soldiers on.

WATSON
A fucking toilet.



INT. PUB - DAY

A smoky pub, half-full. Watson is propped in a corner seat, reading
a copy of The Strand magazine. Glaring at it furiously, in fact. He
reads it to himself, as if that'd make what he's got there the more
believable:

WATSON
"…By a man's finger-nails, by his
coat-sleeve, by his boots, by the
callosities of his forefinger and
thumb, by his expression -- by each
of these things the scientific
enquirer may plainly reveal a man's
calling and background…"

He looks up, to see a large ROACH crawling across the damp,
yellowed wall next to him. He addresses it.

WATSON
Is callosities even a word? Honestly,
what crap.

He rolls up the newspaper and smacks the roach into pulp
with it, even as he hears someone call his name.

STAMFORD (V/O)
John Watson?

WATSON
Hello?

STAMFORD appears at the table, a very clean young man in a
suit, the very image of the young doctor.

STAMFORD
Dr John Watson? It is you, isn't
it?

WATSON
Is that… you were with me at St
Bart's Hospital, weren't you?
Young Stamford?

STAMFORD
Watson, whatever have you been doing
with yourself? You're thin as a rake
and you look like you've been roasted
on a spit, man.

WATSON
I've just been booted out of the
army, Stamford.

STAMFORD
That sounds like call for a drink.

WATSON
Several.

Stamford waves his arm at MARY, the grim woman behind the
bar, eagerly sitting down next to Watson.

STAMFORD
Mary! Two pints of best over here!

MARY
Get 'em yourself, you bloody layabout!

STAMFORD
They love me here. So tell. You
were in the Afghan War?

WATSON
Army surgeon. Took a bullet in the
left shoulder at Maiwand. Busted up
the bone pretty badly and clipped
the subclavian artery.

STAMFORD
Nasty.

WATSON
They got me back across British lines
and on to the hospital train to Peshawar.
Which was the worst thing they could
have done.

Watson reaches for his beer; just a slight shake in his hand.

WATSON
Men laying in their own blood and
piss and shit, Stamford. Breeding
ground for disease like you wouldn't believe.

STAMFORD
What happened?

WATSON
Enteric fever. Nine months I was
in bed. Had my last rites twice.
And with my health therefore
officially irretrievably ruined,
here I am back in London, pensioned
off.

Stamford laughs and raises his pint.

STAMFORD
Cheers. So what now?

Watson takes some more of his beer, settles back and considers.

WATSON
Well. No living relatives in England.
Hell, no living friends in England.
So, first thing is to look for
somewhere to live, on eleven shillings
and sixpence a day. Comfortable rooms
at a reasonable price, anything so
long as it's not a bloody tent in Afghanistan…

STAMFORD
Funny. You're the second man to use
that phrase to me today.

WATSON
Tents in Afghanistan? Don't tell me
it's some new slang phrase I have to
learn. Doesn't mean anything to do
with bums, does it?

STAMFORD
No. The comfortable rooms bit.
There's a man at the chemical
laboratory at Barts right now,
and he was moaning just this morning
that he couldn't find anyone to go
halves with him in some nice rooms
he couldn't otherwise afford.

WATSON
Well, if he wants someone to share
the rooms and the expense, then,
right now, I'll share with anyone
who doesn't intend to shoot me in
the subclavian artery.

Stamford looks uncomfortable.

STAMFORD
Yes, well. You'd have to talk to him
about that.



EXT. ST BART'S HOSPITAL - GARDEN - DAY

The gardens surround the ancient old edifice of St Bart's
Hospital, flowers blazing with the first real colour we've seen.

STAMFORD
The St Bart's Gardens stil amaze me,
y'know. No matter what the state of
the rest of London, they still bloom…

WATSON
You know why, of course?

STAMFORD
Why?

WATSON
Why the gardens are so rich and
beautiful, no matter what? The
gardens are planted on mass graves.
Lepers, mostly. Good compost.

Stamford looks around with new eyes, and then hurries into
the building. Watson follows, smiling.



INT. ST BART'S - CORRIDOR

Footsteps echo in here - all marble floors and wooden walls.
The pair walk together, past flocks of nurses.

WATSON
So he's a medical student?

STAMFORD
No. I mean, don't get me wrong,
first-class chemist, excellent
anatomist, but he flits in and out
of here like a mayfly. I have no
idea what he intends to go in for.

Some shouting ahead. STUDENT DOCTORS in white coats
running out of the LAB they're approaching, and down the
nearby STAIRS.

STAMFORD
Hey, hey. What's all the noise?

STUDENT DOCTOR
Your crazy mate's up to something
in the morgue!

Watson eyes Stamford sourly, and then they follow. The sign
on the stairs shows that they're descending to the MORGUE:



INT. MORGUE

The morgue's dissecting-room is a separate office within the
larger room of the morgue, big windows allowing one to see clearly
inside. There is a door into the dissecting-room, currently locked,
and an aged MORGUE ATTENDANT sits on the floor outside it,
tending a cut lip.

In the dissecting-room, two male corpses are arranged on benches.
And a tall, spidery man in black is waving a cricket bat above them.
His name is SHERLOCK HOLMES.

STAMFORD
What in the name of God is going on?

MORGUE ATTENDANT
He's beating up the dead people,
Dr Stamford.

And, true enough, as they stand there, the tall man laughs out
loud and smacks one corpse in the belly with the cricket bat.

WATSON
Bloody hell!

STAMFORD
Get that door open.

MORGUE ATTENDANT
He's locked it from the inside. I
tried to stop him, but he smacked
me one and then said if I kept
bothering him he'd do an experiment.
On me privates, like.

The morgue attendant dissolves into tears, as the others look up
at the lunatic in the dissecting room.

The tall man puts his bat aside and hunches over the body, peering
at the place where he struck. His eyes narrow. He studies the area
intently.

And then snaps upright, walks to the door, unlocks it, and greets
Stamford with a brilliant smile.

HOLMES
Stamford, old man! Good to see you.
Come in, come in. I was attempting
to conduct an experiment.

WATSON
With a cricket bat?

Holmes looks Watson up and down, as if studying a small turd
placed in his path, and then turns his attention back to Stamford.


HOLMES
It is, you see, extremely important
imperative that I know how long
after death the body can produce a
bruise. These things matter.

WATSON
So you were slapping corpses with a
cricket bat for science.

HOLMES, dismissive
Yes, yes, of course.

Stamford turns to Watson.

STAMFORD
Dr John Watson, I'd like you to
meet Sherlock Holmes. He's looking
for someone to share an apartment
with.

Watson sags.

WATSON
Good God.




INT. ST BART'S - STAIRS

They head up the stairs. Holmes, tall and quick, leading the way.

HOLMES
Back from Afghanistan, then? I trust
your recuperation wasn't too distressing.

Watson glares at Stamford. Stamford puts his hands up, like; how
would I have told him?

WATSON
How did you know that?

HOLMES
Doctor, yet clearly military. Your
face is darker than your wrists, yet
not the rich tint of a man fresh from
the tropics. Your face is haggard,
you are somewhat undernourished, and
you hold your left arm in a stiff
manner. Where else could an army
doctor gain and lose a tan, and take
an obvious battle injury?

Holmes crests the stairs and turns to grin at Watson with
intellectual triumph.

HOLMES
Plus, I think you've had the shits
recently.

WATSON
You sound like a magazine article
I just read.

HOLMES
In the Strand?

WATSON
Yes, actually.

HOLMES
I should think so too. I wrote it.

Watson turns to Stamford.

WATSON
If I give you my service revolver,
will you please shoot me in the head?

###