Below is an extract from a screenplay I've been writing about Dynamite Johnny's life. For anyone that thinks I've lost the plot (so to speak), this is not "A Captain Unafraid" the documentary, but rather a movie screenplay I've been toying with for fun the last few years. Extracts from the screenplay will form part of the book perk - "An Illustrated Miscellany Concerning 'Dynamite' Johnny O' Brien." To order your copy of that perk and help me set the "A Captain Unafraid" boat afloat, go to -
FADE IN:
INT. A STUDY IN HAVANA, CUBA, 1912 - EVENING
The shutters are open, on the street voices converse and laugh. We look onto
the rooftops of Havana.
JOHNNY (O.S.)
After all, what is bravery, if not an inborn
quality–the heritage of clean lives, of
fighting blood and un-weakened nerves?
The world is full of it. And if some portion
of this heritage has been mine I am
grateful, for in my warring days (and there
were many of them) I should many times
have found myself without delay in Davy's
locker.
"DYNAMITE" JOHNNY O' BRIEN, a small, stocky sea-captain, 72, and the
ghost writer of his autobiography, HORACE SMITH, 67, are in Johnny's
study. Johnny is standing up, Horace sits down, pen in hand, writing
down Johnny's spoken word.
JOHNNY (CONT'D)
Bravery is confined to no longitude or
latitude, and knows no race. I have found
brave men everywhere, as will presently be
told and it was my fortune to be intimately
associated with some of the best of them.
HORACE
(smiling)
And what of the beginnings of your time
on Gods green earth?
Johnny pauses, strokes his beard slowly and sips his coffee.
JOHNNY
Well it wasn't so much green, as gray,
black, and coal, with a flash of blue.
FADE TO:
EXT. NEW YORKS DOCKSIDE, 1837 - DAY
A view of New York's docks with seagulls crying and industry all about.
We gradually move in on one abode on a residential street. We see the
spars and masts of boats docked in the distance, the sound of an infant
crying mixes with the cry of seagulls.
JOHNNY (V.O.)
I myself, was born in the old "Dry Dock"
section of New York, almost on the bank of
the East river, on April 20, 1837. My
parents though, came from County
Longford, Ireland. In Ireland, my father
was a farmer, in America he became a
machinist. I was born in a cradle of
shipyards: Webb's, Browns, Westervelt's,
they were clustered all about. Amid such
surroundings I was predisposed to a life on
the sea, and a love of salt water and ships
came naturally. All around me was echoes of
the ocean, near by my childhood home was the
Morgan iron-works, where boilers were
built. But there were few steamships in
those days; sailors were sailors then, and
machinists stayed ashore. Tapering spars
crisscrossed the skyline, and romance was
in the air. The first thing I saw, when I
opened my eyes was a vessel, and almost
the next thing the sea. Maybe, I saw other
things too, but none of them held my
interest; ships and the sea impressed my
infantile mind as the most beautiful things
in the world, and my opinion has never
changed.
INT. JOHNNY'S CHILDHOOD HOME, EAST RIVER, NEW YORK, 1837 -
Johnny's Mother BRIDGET lies in her bed, exhausted from childbirth. The
bed faces a window which looks out onto masts of ships in the distance,
and the sea beyond. ELIZABETH SHERIDAN, the midwife, is a close friend
of BRIDGET'S. After washing him, Elizabeth brings Johnny into the arms
of his mother, he stops crying. PETER, Johnny's father, waits outside.
ELIZABETH
He's a fine and healthy child Bridget.
Bridget cradles her child fondly. Peter enters the room and goes to pick up
his son from Bridget.
PETER
(happily)
Let me see my son, show him
here to me.
Johnny begins crying once in his fathers arms.
PETER (CONT'D)
He's letting us know he's arrived. There's
no fear on him, he's a fine set of lungs.
EXT. JOHNNY'S CHILDHOOD HOME, 1838 - DAY
Johnny's mother is hanging washing, she is singing the song- "An Raibh
Tú i gCill Alla?" Johnny's older brother PETER JR. waltzes about with a
paper boat-pretending to float it on the sea-he weaves in and out of the
drying clothes. Johnny as an infant is hanging in a cradle attached to the
clothes line. We move with the washing on the line, like a boat bobbing on the
ocean. We change to Johnny's perspective-a vision of blue sky and
washing on the line. The blue sky: like an ocean, to-ing and fro-ing.
JOHNNY (V.O.)
And the ocean to's and fro's as the child's
cradle rocks. The sky too is like a blue
ocean, a strange mirror of the sea. I was
always entranced by the unhemmed
vastness of the sea, and the skies are much
the same, for who knows what lies just
beyond our vision in that wild blue yonder.
I was surely bewitched from an early age
by that wily siren they call the sea. And my
brothers too heard her call.
I/E. BOATHOUSE, GREENPOINT, 1851 - DAY
From the pier we can see the doors to a small secluded boathouse are
open. PETER JR. (Johnny's brother) and Johnny are working on a little
sailing boat. It is summer, the scene is pastoral and verdant. We move
inside to the boathouse.
PETER JR.
(wiping his brow)
Pass me that hammer John.
Johnny passes Peter the hammer.
JOHNNY
Did you ever want to sail home to Ireland?
PETER JR.
No John, I'm lucky out with my lot here.
(smiling at John)
Both yourself and myself. Hell this is our
home.
JOHNNY
I'd like to go over the ocean, maybe see
where we came from.
PETER JR.
I seen enough of the damned place, I was
just about your age when we left.
JOHNNY
Was just thinking.
PETER JR.
Think away boy. You want to know why
we came to New York?
JOHNNY
I've heard Pete, I'm his son too.
(in a droll mocking tone)
Us and the Sheridans were fighting the
Redcoats, and after we all lost,
(smiling starting to laugh)
Dad had enough of it and said let's
skedaddle, let's go off to America. There
ain't no Redcoats there!
PETER JR.
(smiling)
You're all in the know now.
They work for a while, but Johnny gets more restless.
JOHNNY
Can I take a break Pete, I'm getting a bit
stir crazy here, not to mention beat.
PETER JR.
(smiling and sweating)
Alright, we've been working long enough,
let's both of us take a rest. You're like an
old fella aren't you? Whatever happened to
vigour of youth and the like. You'll be
complaining of back ache and old bones
next. We might manage another hour in a
while, what do you say?
Peter hits the side of the boat.
PETER JR. (CONT'D)
I'd love to have her up an running soon
enough. We were lucky to get the
use of this boathouse, best we use it as we
have it.
They both walk outside the small boathouse and into the summer
sunshine. Peter Jr. and Johnny sit down on the small dock by the
boathouse. After a few seconds Johnny gets up and wanders off to the
right of the boathouse, up a small overgrown incline.
PETER JR. (CONT'D)
No faffing around Johnny, we've got work
to do.
JOHNNY
(as he walks off)
Alright Pete.
FADE TO:
EXT. SMALL SPORADICALLY FORESTED PATH - MOMENTS LATER
Johnny wanders along, lost in a daze, he mumbles to himself
intermittently and low; sometimes it sounds like the beat of a song. Then
the tune "Caniad Marwnad Ifan Ab y Gof" (played by Paul Dooley) starts to play, as
the trees sway with the wind. Johnny walks lazily along for a while.
PETER JR.
Johnny!
The music gradually starts to fade out after Peter roars, he has noticed an
old mine shaft in the ground right in front of Johnny. Johnny stops in his
track and looks behind at his brother, he then turns around and looks
down-seeing the opening of an abandoned mining shaft, he almost slips
into a 50 foot chasm. Taking a few steps back, shocked, he sits down in
the tall grass. Peter Jr. jogs up to him.
PETER JR. (CONT'D)
(upset and angry)
I told you not to go wandering off. God
damn John. If I hadn't followed you.
(looking at the mine shaft)
Christ, trust you to find one of those. Come
on, let's go home, we've enough done for
today. I've to work tomorrow and you've
school, whatever good that is to you.
Johnny gets up, he is visibly shaken, he says nothing. They walk off back
the way they came.
FADE TO:
EXT. SMALL SAILBOAT ON THE HUDSON - LATER
Johnny is still silent.
PETER JR.
Cat got your tongue? That's unlike you for
sure. Well, we might have finally knocked
some sense into you.
Peter pokes Johnny playfully.
PETER JR. (CONT'D)
(laughing)
What do think John? Have we knocked
some sense into you.
Johnny grunts at first, then starts to smile, then to laugh.
PETER JR. (CONT'D)
(more serious but with a slight
hint of a smile)
Right, enough of that, or we may have a
watery grave to contend with rather than
a hole in the ground for one.
I/E. BOWERY AND FOURTH AVENUE, NEW YORK, ON THE STREET AND
IN A TRAM - WEEKS LATER
Johnny ambles down the street he is lost in his own thoughts as the
world goes on around him.
JOHNNY (V.O.)
In those early days, a love of adventure
(and the verve that engendered), was my
one concern. I was constantly on the move,
and often drove my family to distraction
with my machinations.
Johnny hums the air of the song "Bowery Gals." He starts walking faster
and whistling more intently; until he starts singing the song. He runs
down the street, singing.
JOHNNY (CONT'D)
(Singing and running)
As I was walking down the street down the
street, down the street, pretty little gal I
chanced to meet, and we danced by the
light of the moon. Bowery girls are sweet
and swell, sweet and swell...
Four kids hang out at the side of the street. Johnny is running by. TALL KID #1
stops Johnny in his tracks.
TALL KID #1
Hey, Where you running to? You running
from something? What you running from?
JOHNNY
Nothing.
TALL KID #1
(squaring off to Johnny)
Whats the rush with you.
Johnny kicks the kid in the shins, throws a punch at his right flank and
scarpers. Johnny runs off down the street, all four kids race after him,
shouting. He turns a corner the kids are still tailing him. Johnny jumps on
a horse drawn tram that he sees just moving off, the kids count their
losses and are left behind. Johnny sits down opposite JACK
MONTGOMERY- a bearded sailor. Johnny stares at him for a while, Jack
smiles back. People wait around in relative silence. Johnny stares at the
sailor, after a time Jack speaks.
JACK
(dramatically)
Were you ever out on the open sea?
JOHNNY
(more dourly)
No sir. But I've been on the boats in the
harbour; my brother Peter works the ferry
boats, I know my way around his one sail
ferry boat. My father works as a machinist
on the docks, so I've barely seen a day
without a boat in it, though I've never been
out on the wide ocean.
JOHNNY (CONT'D)
You're a sailor I guess?
JACK
Indeed I am.
They pause, and the streets roll jauntily by. It is evening and the
passengers are slightly lethargic, Jack talks to Johnny to relieve his
boredom, there is a small hint of some other motive.
JACK (CONT'D)
(light-heartedly smiling)
I am lately returned from Callao, Peru, on
the steamship Canton and intend to ship
out directly for that country again -
(wide eyed)
a wild and wonderful place if I do say so
myself. I bet you've never seen such sights?
JOHNNY
(jokingly but with enthusiasm)
No, but I'm only 14. I work in the
shipyards after school, tend pitch pots,
wedge tree nails. I often wondered what
places those boats I work on end up in,
though I'm sure none ended up in Peru!
Once, one did sail to California though.
What sort of things did you see when you
travelled to Peru?
JACK
We sailed to Peru from the South China
coast; but as for Callao, the port there is
teeming with all kinds of life, countless
tribes of people meet there. The colours seen
on the streets are as plentiful as the
languages been spoken. Besides the many
tongues of the natives; you can hear
Spanish, Chinese, German, Dutch. Oh! it's a
veritable tower of babel there. I suppose it's
like our own New York, but with more of
the Indian kind. And that's where I docked
my vessel, just a month past, while
transporting guano for the company of
Wetmore and Cryder. I met a man there
who had sailed up the Amazon, he
encountered a tribe that practiced
cannibalism, he was lucky to escape with
his life. And his own spared hide he owed,
on account that he had brought a shiny
mirror with him which they were quite
taken with. The sailor managed to escape
from his bonds, while they stared wide
eyed into it, and he ran down to the river
bank to where his recently sequestered
boat was still waiting.
JOHNNY
So you captain your own ship?
JACK
Indeed I do. I am captain and sailor,
warden and jailor.
They pause again, looking out at the streets rolling by and the evening rolling in.
JACK (CONT'D)
So what's your name boy?
JOHNNY
Johnny O' Brien, Sir. Pleased to meet you.
JACK
(smiling wide-eyed)
And Pleased to meet you too. My own name
is Jack Montgomery.
JOHNNY
How did you come to be a sailor?
JACK
When the sea calls you must obey. It's a
calling of sorts, If I do say so. But, the
freedom that blue ocean engenders, and
the far-flung ports it carries you to, more
than makes up for the hard graft.
Even as a lowly cabin boy, I escaped the
drudgery of my station by imagining what
the next port of call might bring, or what
strangeness and wonder lay right under
our feet in the wide wild ocean. Once, while
sailing on a fishing vessel in the North
Sea, we netted a giant squid as big as that
there house.
Jack points to a terraced Georgian house. Johnny stare follows the house fixedly as
the tram passes by it. A lady sitting next to Jack turns her head a little towards the
conversation.
the tram passes by it. A lady sitting next to Jack turns her head a little towards the
conversation.
JOHNNY
(pointing, incredulous)
That house there, with the red curtains in
the window. A giant squid, how did you net
the thing?
JACK
With trouble boy, with trouble.
