What you are looking at is an artifact of untold value. It is the original handwritten script to Kat Killer, the very first Danman Production. All over it are the scribbles, revisions, and doodles of yours truly. From whence did this veritable Shroud of Turin come? From a cardboard box in an Iowa basement, where I conducted (one last time) the final, ultimate search for all surviving movie materials. What I found - in both quantity and quality - will shock you.

First, let's take a closer look at this seminal screenplay.

Even as a teen I had an innate sense of drama. Look at the first three words I ever wrote: "Guy walks in." Guy? What guy? Walks? Walks how? In? Into where? So many delicious mysteries to be solved! Kat Killer was just one of the many scripts, notes, tapes, and figments of esoterica that I uncovered. Like the explorer who first disturbed the fetid air of King Tut's tomb and glimpsed that first gleam of gold, here is what mine eyes did see:

The Francis Ford Iowa project has been a nostalgia trip of epic distance, but up until this point my memories had been reliant on the finished films themselves - there was no scrap of behind-the-scenes matter. Suddenly, I was faced with the ample evidence of my hurried tomfoolery, my hasty compromises, and my dependence upon a certain exclamation:

Not a single script I found didn't have someone screaming "Noooooooooo!!!!!!" at some point (if not multiple points). For example, there were several such wails of protest in Misery. Oddly enough, the script itself was titled Misery II. It was my first remake, so I must have toyed with the idea of considering my movies as sequels rather than copies. Anyway, note the "Noooo!!"

Even more incredible is the promotional material that survived. I've already shared t