4INT. SARDI'S BAR - ENTRACE/MAIN BAR AREA - NIGHT

It is about ten thirty on the same evening: Caricatures of theatrical celebrities fill the walls. The bar is still relatively empty; we see EDDIE, the bartender (energetic, humorous, round-framed glasses) and a FEW COUPLES. MORTY RIFKIN, working part-time as a cocktail pianist, is dressed in a military uniform with a Signal Corps lapel pin; he's playing "Manhattan."

For the first time, we get a good look at Lorenz Hart, a diminutive man with thinning hair, now 47 years old, dressed in a perfectly-tailored dark-blue banker's suit with a handkerchief in his pocket which matches his tie. He enters with a rumpled S. Klein's shopping bag under his arm, an unbuttoned topcoat draped over his shoulders. As Hart sits at the bar, the bartender matter-of-factly pulls out a pistol from beneath the bar and aims it at Hart.

EDDIE

All right. For the last time, put the letters on the table.

HART

If Lazlo and the Cause mean that much to you, you won't stop at anything. All right, I'll make it easy on you.

(puts down shopping bag and stands)

Go ahead, shoot. You'd be doing me a favor.

EDDIE

Just remember, I got this gun pointed at your dick.

HART

That's my least vulnerable spot.

The pianist, by this time, has figured out the scene they're parodying; he segues into "As Time Goes By." Hart nods to the pianist as if to say: Good, you got it.

EDDIE

Jesus Christ, how many times have we seen that picture?

HART

Worst line in Casablanca? "Well, a precedent is being broken."

(savoring its stupidity)

A precedent is being broken? How can you break a Goddamn precedent? Do they even speak English over there in Hollywood?

Still, you have to love Claude Rains. He makes that picture. You know why he's so great? He's a leading man, and he's short. Which proves you can be both. And I love this: He says to Ilsa, "Mademoiselle, he's the kind of man that--if I were a woman and I were not around--I should be in love with Rick." Think about it: Whom does he end up with at the end of the picture? Who's strolling away together arm in arm into the fog?

EDDIE