(Lyrical scene of boys in white flannels and girls in pretty dresses frolicking
on a lawn to the accompaniment of a piano played by one of the boys.)
SUPERIMPOSED CAPTION: 'SALAD DAYS (1971) DIRECTOR SAM PECKINPAH'
(The boys and girls cease frolicking and singing. Lionel enters holding a tennis racket.)
Lionel: Hello everybody.
All: Hello Lionel.
Lionel: I say what a simply super day.
All: Gosh yes.
Woman: It's so, you know, sunny.
Lionel: Yes isn't it? I say anyone for tennis?
Julian: Oh super!
Charles: What fun.
Julian: I say, Lionel, catch.
(He throws the tennis ball to Lionel. It hits Lionel on the head. Lionel
claps one hand to his forehead. He roars in pain as blood seeps through
his fingers.)
Lionel: Oh gosh.
(He tosses his racket out of frame and we hear a hideous scream. The
camera pans to pick up a pretty girl in summer frock with the handle of
the racket embedded in her stomach. Blood is pouring out down her dress.)
Girl: Oh crikey.
(Spitting blood out of her mouth she collapses onto the floor clutching at
Charles's arm. The arm comes off. Buckets of blood burst out of the
shoulder drenching the girl and anyone else in the area. He staggers
backwards against the piano. The piano lid drops, severing the pianist's
hands. The pianist screams. He stands, blood spurting from his hands
over piano music.
The piano collapses in slow motion, shot from several
angles simultaneously as per 'Zabriskie Point '. Intercut terrified faces of
girls screaming in slow motion. The piano eventually crushes them to
death; an enormous pool of blood immediately swells up from beneath
piano where the girls are. We see Julian stagger across the frame with the
piano keyboard through his stomach. As he turns the end of the keyboard
knocks off the head of a terrified girl who is sitting on the grass nearby. A
volcanic quantity of blood geysers upwards. Pull out and upward from
this scene as the music starts again.)
(Cut to Apology)