A Movie Script for Rob Long
The other evening I pulled from my shelf a book entitled The Best of Robert Service, and I read to my children “The Shooting of Dan McGrew.” As I read the poem out loud and watched their rapt faces, I found himself wondering why no one had ever made a full-length movie based on the story told.
Consider how Service sets the scene:
A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon;
The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a rag-time tune;
Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,
And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that’s known as Lou.
You could begin with a narrator running through the first set of stanzas as the kid plays the rag-time tune. You could then have the protagonist enter as the narrator continues:
When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and glare,
There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog-dirty, and loaded for bear.
He looked like a man with a foot in the grave and scarcely the strength of a louse,
Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar, and he called for drinks for the house.
There was none could place the stranger’s face, though we searched ourselves for a clue;
But we drank his health, and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew.
Then, after a pause, the scene could shift from the saloon to Alaska’s Great Outdoors as the narrator continues:
There’s men that somehow just grip your eyes, and hold them hard like a spell;
And such was he, and he looked to me like a man who had lived in hell;
With a face most hair, and the dreary stare of a dog whose day is done,
As he watered the green stuff in his glass, and the drops fell one by one.
Then I got to figgering who he was, and wondering what he'd do,
And I turned my head — and there watching him was the lady that’s known as Lou.His eyes went rubbering round the room, and he seemed in a kind of daze,
Till at last that old piano fell in the way of his wandering gaze.
The rag-time kid was having a drink; there was no one else on the stool,
So the stranger stumbles across the room, and flops down there like a fool.
In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway,
Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands — my God! but that man could play.Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear,
And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could hear;
With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold,
A helf-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold;
While high overhead, green, yellow, and red, the North Lights swept in bars? —
Then you've a hunch what the music meant . . . hunger and might and the stars.And hunger not of the belly kind, that’s banished with bacon and beans,
But the gnawing hunger of lonely men for a home and all that it means;
For a fireside far from the cares that are, four walls and a roof above;
But oh! so cramful of cosy joy, and crowded with a woman’s love —
A woman dearer than all the world, and true as Heaven is true —
(God! how ghastly she looks through her rouge, — the lady that’s known as Lou.)
At this point, Rob Long could intervene and fill out the story by way of a flashback lasting, say, ninety minutes – which clearly must turn on the hopes of the miner and the infidelities of the lady that is known as Lou.
And when this part of the story has been told and the flashback is over, we could return to the saloon, and the narrator could resume as the denouement of the story unfolds before our eyes:
Then on a sudden the music changed, so soft that you scarce could hear;
But you felt that your life had been looted clean of all that it once held dear;
That someone had stolen the woman you loved; that her love was a devil’s lie;
That your guts were gone, and the best for you was to crawl away and die.
'Twas the crowning cry of a heart’s despair, and it thrilled you through and through —
"I guess I'll make it a spread misere," said Dangerous Dan McGrew.The music almost dies away . . . then it burst like a pent-up flood;
And it seemed to say, "Repay, repay," and my eyes were blind with blood.
The thought came back of an ancient wrong, and it stung like a frozen lash,
And the lust awoke to kill, to kill . . . then the music stopped with a crash,
And the stranger turned, and his eyes they burned in a most peculiar way;In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;
Then his lips went in in a kind of grin, and he spoke, and his voice was calm,
And "Boys," says he, "you don't know me, and none of you care a damn;
But I want to state, and my words are straight, and I'll bet my poke they're true,
That one of you is a hound of hell . . . and that one is Dan McGrew."Then I ducked my head and the lights went out, and two guns blazed in the dark;
And a woman screamed, and the lights went up, and two men lay stiff and stark.
Pitched on his head, and pumped full of lead, was Dangerous Dan McGrew,
While the man from the creeks lay clutched to the breast of the lady that’s known as Lou.These are the simple facts of the case, and I guess I ought to know.
They say that the stranger was crazed with "hooch," and I'm not denying it’s so.
I'm not so wise as the lawyer guys, but strictly between us two —
The woman that kissed him — and pinched his poke — was the lady known as Lou.
There have been at least shorts done of this tale. Here is one:
And here is another:
Neither captures the force of the narrative. That would require a full-length feature. But, to the best of my knowledge, none has ever been done. So I am hoping that Rob picks up my suggestion and makes both of us rich.
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Aug '10
Re: A Movie Script for Rob Long
Jojo:
Certainly "Dangerous Dan McGrew" would make a better movie than "The Cremation of Sam McGee", though. I'm with you there.
On the other hand, The Cremation of Sam McGee would make a great animated short.
There is one out there, from the National Film Board of Canada, but I cannot find it online.
Aug '10
Re: A Movie Script for Rob Long
Paul A. Rahe
Jojo: Sorry Dr. Rahe but the right way to experience Robert Service is recited from memory by a man who really enjoys it. Preferably my father, who regaled his family with Dangerous Dan McGrew and
".....The northern lights have seen queer sights/ But the queerest they did ever see/Was the night on the marge of Lake Labarge/ I cremated Sam McGee..."
From which he often applied "A promise made is a debt unpaid" to real life.
Certainly "Dangerous Dan McGrew" would make a better movie than "The Cremation of Sam McGee", though. I'm with you there.
I read "The Cremation of Sam McGee" to my kids the other day as well.
My great-aunt gave me the illustrated storybook edition of The Cremation of Sam McGee, and offered me a dollar per page if I could memorize the whole thing.
I never collected.
Apr '11
Re: A Movie Script for Rob Long
Paul A. Rahe
Rob Long: Deal.
And the best thing is, we don't have to split it with Service. I think his stuff is now public domain.
The snag is, they don't make movies like that -- or like anything else, unless they're heavily-laden with effects -- anymore.
But it is true, isn't it, that there's something truly magnetic and compelling about poetry -- when it's about life and people and relatable things. Poetry, like a lot of art forms, lost a lot when it lost its audience. · 2 hours ago
It is, indeed, in the public domain. You are right about poetry. This piece is mesmerizing. It is disheartening to think that you may be right about Hollywood as well. This story needs no special effects. Alaska provides them in winter without cost.
You should pitch this to a studio, nonetheless. · 1 hour ago
Sorry, Professor Rahe, but like most of Robert W. Service's poems, this is set in Canada's Yukon Territory, not Alaska.
Aug '10
Re: A Movie Script for Rob Long
Brent Cochrane
Paul A. Rahe
It is, indeed, in the public domain. You are right about poetry. This piece is mesmerizing. It is disheartening to think that you may be right about Hollywood as well. This story needs no special effects. Alaska provides them in winter without cost.
You should pitch this to a studio, nonetheless.
Sorry, Professor Rahe, but like most of Robert W. Service's poems, this is set in Canada's Yukon Territory, not Alaska.
... neither the Yukon nor Alaska are particularly practical for epic filmmaking. Too much of the budget would be spent on transportation. Alberta, on the other hand, offers snow-capped mountains AND easy access to infrastructure. ;-)
May '10
Re: A Movie Script for Rob Long
On a slightly different note...when I was little back in the day, my family would often go out to eat at a restaurant in Danville, CA (Bay Area) called Dan McGrew's. Western-themed steakhouse, with the entire poem tastefully represented on the menu. And the steaks were great too, which is what you should expect from Dangerous Dan McGrew.
Thanks for reminding me of some very happy memories.
Apr '11
Re: A Movie Script for Rob Long
I learned Sam McGee in the Boy Scouts. Have loved it ever since.
Sep '10
Re: A Movie Script for Rob Long
Jojo: Sorry Dr. Rahe but the right way to experience Robert Service is recited from memory by a man who really enjoys it. Preferably my father, who regaled his family with Dangerous Dan McGrew and
".....The northern lights have seen queer sights/ But the queerest they did ever see/Was the night on the marge of Lake Labarge/ I cremated Sam McGee..."
From which he often applied "A promise made is a debt unpaid" to real life.
Certainly "Dangerous Dan McGrew" would make a better movie than "The Cremation of Sam McGee", though. I'm with you there. · May 10 at 5:33am
Did we have the same father? My father, before my time, would entertain guests with a recitation of the Service classic.
Sam McGee, however, is my favorite Service poem. My dad liked to point out that Service got his geography wrong when he put Plumtree in Tennessee. It is actually in North Carolina.
I think the Cremation of Sam McGee would make a great black comedy movie, in the tradition of "Weekend at Bernie's."