These Walls Scream by Michael K. Snyder - Short, Drama - Alone in his cold, dark cell, a once big-shot mobster awaits his death. In the darkest of hours, some find peace. He finds his long lost childhood friends, and the memories of his past. - pdf, format

  Dialog is crisp. Story seems a little disjointed. Had to look up Romans 12:21 to confirm where this was going.
  The argument exists if this lives up to the spirit of the challenge.
  I think the only change I would have liked is some more "present" time with Harvey. It would have stretched the story to 12 pages and given the opportunity to know him better.

$0.02

This script has the distinction of being the only OWC script I’ve read so far that has a flashback within a flashback. Nice work. Anyway, I liked this script. Setting it in the past gave it a nice texture, and the whole mob thing added another element that enriched the script. Had a Godfather kind of vibe to it. The dialogue had a nice flow to it and it fit the theme/genre well enough; and it was a welcome change to get out of a jail cell for a little bit.

My big complaint is with this Lucky character. We only see him once, and he doesn’t have a line. Why exactly does Harvey has his golden rosary and why does he throw it into the ocean at the end? Maybe I missed something, but I didn’t understand why it was there.

Other than that, this was a good script. Good formatting and good storytelling. Nice work.


Matt.

this was a pretty cool entry. good characters, dialogue and action.

a few nit picky notes:
towards the beginning, was the stranger grabbing the kid, parents and stabbing them, all at the same time?

i don't know how i felt about the flashback within a flashback but hell, it was a nice creative touch

the dialogue had some random apostrophes

aside from that, great job.

This was pretty decent. I love old-school gangster films so I was always going to enjoy it.
I thought the descriptions at the start were good but Harvey's V.O was a little cheesy.
Enjoyed it though and fits the criteria well. Good work.

Very good mobster story...Got a little confusing with the multiple flashbacks jumping all over the place...Can tell it was rushed and spell check betrayed you a few times. Liked Harvey as gangster; not sure what the point of the kid getting kidnapped was other than to show his inaction towards it...Maybe that moment haunted him as something he should have done, but didnt...Dialogue is good and liked that action is implied rather than stated (the walk to death row with the priest...

This was a cool one and I liked how it showed more of the past than the present.

What was the point of the kidnapping and the stabbing? To show how things are changing?

I didn't catch the flashback in a flashback until people mentioned it, and I thought that was pretty cool. Though, I did notice that they were younger in it, so I sort of caught it, but it didn't connect in my brain.

"dieing" sorry, a pet-peeve of mine. I don't know why people do that! I mean, doesn't the rule "remove the -ie, add a 'y' and -ing" stick in everyone's mind? Sorry, a rant of mine got in this review.

The dialogue was great and so were the descriptions, and I'm pretty sure that Harvey went to jail because the police thought it was him who killed his bodies rather than Lucky? And I also thought it was funny how they stood in the middle of the street and the cars had to move out of their way without honking...probably because if they did, they'd get whacked, right?

Sean

This story has a cool sense of place and time. Because of some of the famous movies in this style it is easy to picture how this all plays out. It’s a nice read but it needs straightening out.

I thought Harvey went to jail because he killed Lucky and stole his rosary when he did it?

I think the flashback in the flashback would be OK but for the fact that it is someone else having the flashback inside someone’s flashback. I can see how you could recall having a flashback within your own flashback but to recall someone else having one when you weren’t even there would be a really neat trick. I need a technical definition of “flashback” to decide if this is allowed.

The second flashback is in 1914 and one of the characters has figured out the dangers of smoking 50 years ahead of medical science. I’m not sure that the 1914 sequence added much.

Philip

I don't have a lot to say about this one other than I dug it. Most of these other scripts feature criminals on the lower end of the food chain. It was refreshing to read a script about gangsters, especially considering it's set in the earlier half of the 20th century. The feel is very old school (although a Goodfellas era gangster script wouldn't have disappointed me). The nonlinear narrative was a little disorienting at times. I think perhaps the chronology could've been arranged a little better but I think the present serving as bookends to the narrative was very effective. The final scene on the beach made for a good closer as well.

A solid entry, I'd say.

Glad you all liked it! If you have any questions, just PM me!!

-Michael