Tag Archives: fiore

Quote of the Week

Posted by Marisa on

EXT. MAN KOW CAFE – NIGHT

Chinese – Cantonese Restaurant, downtown. Old, oriental section.

INT. CAFE – NIGHT – FULL VIEW

Old. Worn booths; out-dated restaurant, two cockroaches race up the wall; few Chinese customers. On large, round table in rear of dining section, near entrance to kitchen, Fiore, Josie and Phil are seated in that order around table.

PHIL DIONE: Fiore’s friend is 44, husky, medium weight and height, pleasant. He has a long time crush on Josie.

Fiore is wearing his colorful bib, chop sticks in hand. Adorning the table are six platters of exotic food. Waiter brings out last platter, sets it on table.

FIORE

(watering at the mouth)

Now it’s complete. That’s my favorite: pigtails and peanuts… smell that sauce…

(inhales)

…Toa deea (thank you, in Chinese)

Josie and Phil are surveying all the gourmet dishes.

FIORE

(spreading his arms)

Boy! King Faruk had nothing on us… if people only knew what they are missing…

JOSIE

Then, we couldn’t get a seat.

FIORE

Let me have your plates.

Takes Josie’s and Phil’s plate, large spoon and proceeds to load them up with food.

FIORE

Chow toy…

(smells)

mmm…

(Ground pork with pickled spicy green roots or preserved garlic tops.)

Phil laughs.

JOSIE

He swears by this food.

FIORE

Son of a bitch; what an incredible edible.

CLOSE VIEW ON FIORE

picking around food with chop sticks.

FIORE

Black mushrooms from Tibet in oyster sauce… mmm…

Fiore with his chop sticks, picks up and devours a large dripping black mushroom. Fiore is in ecstasy.

FIORE

I feel like this is my last meal before the execution.

FULL VIEW

Phil and Josie start withdrawing their plates, loaded with food, ready to dig in.

FIORE

Hold it! You gotta try this. Sweet and sour Rock Cod. Fileted fish and those pickled lemon rinds, fresh ginger, pineapple, green peppers. Fantastic!

He puts it on their plates, deftly picks up a piece, gulps it down.

FIORE

How hun hoh (tastes good)

Phil and Josie take their plates.

FIORE

Squid.

Takes Josie’s plate, piles on more food, does the same with Phil.

JOSIE

That’s enough, Fiore!

She takes her plate.

FIORE

Hey, waiter!… where’s the plum sauce and mustard! More hot tea please. Got to have it so hot, it’ll burn your lips.

Waiter hurriedly brings small dishes with plum sauce and hot mustard. Phil and Josie are eating away with forks.

FIORE

(shakes head)

Use chop sticks… that’s the only way to eat Chinese food.

Phil, mouth full of food, shakes his head, swallows.

FIORE

(demonstrates with pigtail)

Spot of sauce, dash of mustard…

CLOSE ON FIORE

Fiore, with his chop sticks, expertly samples every platter, then touches it, Chinese-style, to his bowl of rice, before eating it.

FIORE

Let me show you the Chinese custom… take the bowl in your left hand like this, hold your chop sticks like a pencil, pick up what ever you want… you touch it to the rice first, bring the bowl to your lower lip, take your chop sticks and scoop the rice into your mouth, like so.

PHIL AND JOSIE

eating but not really enjoying it.

CLOSE ON PAUL LEE, the chef, standing at kitchen entrance smiling.

FIORE (O.S.)

Paul Lee is the world’s greatest Chinese chef… Long live Man Kow!

PAUL LEE

Thank you.

CLOSE ON FIORE

as he picks up a piece of squid, letting the tentacles dangle from his lips.

O.S. Phil and Josie burst out laughing.

FIORE

After this I’m taking you to a Chinese philosopher.

– Timothy and Doris Carey, Fiore (an original screenplay or three-hour teleplay); final draft May 1982

He'll Never See Daylight (1975)

From the Baretta episode “He’ll Never See Daylight”, but obviously the Fiore spirit is there. Also, I’m hungry for Chinese food now.

Quote of the Week

Posted by Marisa on

All of Carey’s collected stories to this point are borne of the humility of working class underdogs who dream of artistic expression. There’s Menudo, the 52-year-old Mexican singing cowboy from his teleplay, My Casa Is Yours, who still wants to become a pro soccer player. There’s the title character in Fiore – written with his wife, Doris – a car wash attendant who plays detective in a local murder/necrophilia case to win the reward money for a girl’s art school tuition. In Commercials, another teleplay written with his wife, an ad exec teams up with an anti-establishment, dog-loving street entertainer. Then there’s songwriter Cass Matthews from Greenwood, who finances his 25,000 acres of alligator sanctuary by recording hit pop records in Memphis.

All of these characters constitute a clear autobiography, embarking on impossible schemes, risking public ridicule and physical injury in pursuit of their personal ideals, and none more so than Carey’s alter-ego, The Insect Trainer‘s main character, Guasti Q. Guasti. Guasti represents all of Carey’s loneliness throughout his career, directly tied to the rejection he repeatedly faced amongst those whose art he shared. The booting off of location sets, the months spent developing a character only to be whittled down to a few moments by the time it hit the big screen, doing a screen test and not getting called because someone easier to work with would come in and use Carey’s test as a primer, having idea after idea shot down…these are the elements that went into creating Guasti.

– Ara Corbett, “Rebels With a Cause: The Timothy Carey – John Cassavetes Partnership,” Filmfax magazine #56 (May/June 1996)

Quote of the Week

Posted by Marisa on

Today’s quote is not exactly a quote. It’s The Vagabond, a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson. Timothy’s character Morgan Morgan recites parts of it in John Cassavetes‘ Minnie and Moskowitz (1971). It also turns up in Fiore (1982), the screenplay that Tim wrote with his wife Doris. I think it expresses a side of his psyche that he rarely got to indulge. I truly believe Timothy was a gypsy at heart.

The Vagabond

Give to me the life I love,
Let the lave go by me,
Give the jolly heaven above
And the byway nigh me.
Bed in the bush with stars to see,
Bread I dip in the river –
There’s the life for a man like me,
There’s the life for ever.

Let the blow fall soon or late,
Let what will be o’er me;
Give the face of earth around
And the road before me.
Wealth I seek not, hope nor love,
Nor a friend to know me;
All I seek, the heaven above
And the road below me.

Or let autumn fall on me
Where afield I linger,
Silencing the bird on tree,
Biting the blue finger.
White as meal the frosty field –
Warm the fireside haven –
Not to autumn will I yield,
Not to winter even!

Let the blow fall soon or late,
Let what will be o’er me;
Give the face of earth around,
And the road before me.
Wealth I ask not, hope nor love,
Nor a friend to know me;
All I ask, the heaven above
And the road below me.

Minnie and Moskowitz

As Morgan Morgan, Minnie and Moskowitz

Gypsy Traders (1953)

In the Cowboy G-Men episode “Gypsy Traders” (1953), with Charlita