The Country Girl

#countrygirl

Director Bernie: "I hear he hasn't had a drink in a long time."
Producer Cookie: "To a drunk 10 minutes is a long time." (0:03)

Cookie asks Bernie, “Why can’t you be satisfied with a good, reliable, adequate, normal, sober actor?”
Bernie: “Because he’ll give you a good, reliable, adequate, normal, sober performance.”
Cookie: “You had to go to Stillman’s gym and get a punch-drunk fighter...”
Bernie: “A binge would be a real cause...” (0:10)

Bernie asks Frank’s wife Georgie about Frank, “Does he still drink?” (0:14)

Bernie tells Frank, “Cook thinks you’re a drinker.”
Frank explains to Bernie why he was drinking: "While I was playing in that show our son died."
Bernie: “I need an actor who can stay sober and learn lines.” (0:16)

Frank explains to Bernie, “And then our son died.” He continues about Georgie, “And there she is stretched out across the bed dead drunk, with her wrists cut and bleeding like... Inside of a year she was a hopeless drunk... She had fits of depression... That’s when I began hitting the bottle pretty hard.”
Bernie: “You are the weak one now. That’s what she wanted.” (0:24)

Frank recalls his son Johnnie’s death when he wanders into traffic while Frank poses for a photograph. Georgie discovers that Frank has started drinking again.
Georgie: “When we get to Boston I’ll get you some sleeping pills.” (0:36)

Georgie tells Bernie, “Next day you read he’s hung himself from the chandelier.”
Bernie, later: “Did it ever occur to you that you and your strength might be the very reason he is weak.?” (0:45)

Georgie tells Frank, “I’ll get you another sleeping pill.” (0:51)

While posing for a photograph again Frank experiences a flashback to his son’s death. A little later he takes a drink from a bottle. Georgie observes that the cough syrup has “22% alcohol in it.” (0:56)

Georgie predicts to Bernie about Frank, “He’s heading for a bender... after handling a cunning drunkard for ten years.”
Bernie: “... you could never call him a cunning drunkard.”
Georgie: “I’m a drunkard’s wife.”(0:58)

After finding the cough syrup bottle empty Georgie looks for another even though Frank tells her he poured it down the sink. After she leaves he pulls another bottle from a boot. In the next scene he drinks at a bar. (1:05)

At the jail Bernie confronts Frank, “She’s driven you to drink for ten years, and you call her weak?” (1:13)

Bernie, based on Frank’s story, admonishes Georgie not to make any “Phony suicide attempts.”
Georgie: “Suicide attempts are Frank’s department.”
When Bernie demands of Frank “Show me your wrists!” he realizes the truth.
Georgie asks Bernie, “Was I a hopeless drunk? Did I have fits of depression?” (1:14)

GeorgIe explains to Bernie how Frank behaved after “the boy was killed. Ever since then Frank has acted like a murderer... shunned any responsibility...”
Georgie: “He’ll be in the strong sober hand of Bernie Dodd.” (1:18)

Bernie tells Frank the only reason he will leave the show: “Because I fire you for being an unreliable slobbering drunk.”
Frank: “I could drink a little more. Nobody blamed me. They blamed it on the accident... I cut my wrists, not deep enough to die, just enough to bleed myself back into the center of attention. ” (1:24)

Georgie asks Bernie, “Depressed, aren’t you?”
Bernie: “Depressed and mean.” (1:31)

Bernie tells Frank, “Frank, there are as many reasons for drinking as their are drinkers, but there are only two reasons why a drinker stops: He dies, or he decides to quit all by himself.” (1:37)

alcoholism | Bereavement | enabling | flashback | para-alcoholic | reciprocity | suicide