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| Nothing Sacred is a classic screwball comedy, and one of the most cynical films ever made. Legend has it that Hecht wrote the entire first draft on a train ride from Chicago to Los Angeles. In reality, the script went through three major rewrites -- the last being done while director William Wellman was shooting the film. The following scene was in Hecht's final rewrite, but was removed because of its racy nature.
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NOTHING SACRED
By Ben Hecht - Final Shooting script
June 12th, 1937 (revised June 18th)
 NOTE: At this point in the script, Hazel Flagg of Warsaw, Vermont, is on an all-expenses-paid visit to New York, compliments of the Morning Star newspaper, which thinks she's dying from radium poisoning. She's not. On the day Hazel learned she was mis-diagnosed by her small town physician (Dr. Enoch Downer), reporter Wallace Cook arrived from New York to make her this offer of a final holiday. Tired of her hum-drum life ("It's kind of startling to be brought to life twice - and each time in Warsaw," she weeps), Hazel can't refuse, and pretends to be dying while enjoying her tour of the Big Apple. Unfortunately, now Wallace has fallen in love with the supposedly doomed Hazel, and surreptitiously called in a radium poisoning specialist, Dr. Emil Egelhofer, to try and cure her. Hazel is confronted by the doctor and his colleagues in her hotel room, and must submit to an examination:
INT. HAZEL'S BEDROOM
Hazel is just finishing the donning of her negligee. She is busy putting the top on the can of radium paint and she darts into the bathroom and hides it. Then she darts back, hesitates a moment at the closed door, opens it and calls sweetly.HAZEL: You can come in now, if you wish. The medicos solemnly enter the room. Dr. Vunch, he of the beard, walks to the bedside table and solemnly inspects the three eggs which Hazel sucked clean earlier in the day (Dr. Downer's remedy for Hazel's hangover) and which have been left in a saucer... they being unbroken. Dr. Vunch holds them up to the light. The shell breaks as he pinches it... He drops the remains, expecting to be squirted with egg and is surprised to find the egg empty... he continues a scientific examination of the other two eggs, finding each of these empty and his wonder and confusion deepening. In the meantime, while these doings of Dr. Vunch have been going on, Dr. Egelhofer has been speaking. EGELHOFER: Diss is vun of the few diseases, Doctor Vunch, vich a child can make the diagnosis. Please Doctor, put the eggs avay... (Vunch drops the last egg.) How long haf you had this radium poisoning, Miss Flagg? HAZEL: (swallowing hard and trying to face the intimidating Egelhofer blandly) Oh, for quite a while, I think... EGELHOFER: Hm... (he removes a pair of ribboned glasses and begins adjusting them as he speaks) Sit down, doctors, ve are going to see something interesting. Miss Flagg, you vill kindly remoof your kimona. Not now, but ven I turn out vith the light... Ven the disease of radium poisoning iss this far advanced the skeleton of the patient begins to glow like a lightning bug. VUNCH: Ya, I haf seen dis vunce in the Alps... A Sviss vatch vorker vass valking around like a Chapanese lantern. EGELHOFER: Miss Flagg, haf you noticed yourself in the dark? HAZEL: Oh yes... I... I light up inside. EGELHOFER: Hm... Kindly turn out vit the lights, Dr. Marachuffsky... and we shall see how far the disease has made progress in the patient. Please stand motionless where you are, Miss Flagg. Dr. Marachuffsky turns out the lights and the room is plunged in total darkness -- in which are dimly visible the dark outlines of the group.We hear Egelhofer's voice. EGELHOFER'S VOICE: Vill you be kind enough, Miss Flagg, to remove your kimona. There is a mysterious movement in the dark and we suddenly see Hazel's ribs and arm bones glowing reddish like part of a skeleton. VUNCH'S VOICE: Ach! Diss iss unbelievable! EGELHOFER'S VOICE: Chentlemen! I haf never seen such an advanced condition of this disease. Look! Every rib is on fire! VUNCH'S VOICE: It is better than vat I saw in the Alps... EGELHOFER'S VOICE: I call your attention to the skull. The skull iss normal... Miss Flagg, vill you kindly turn around... if you please. HAZEL'S VOICE: (stunned) What? What did you say? EGELHOFER'S VOICE: I said, vill you please turn around... We see the glowing skeleton parts disappear and darkness engulf Hazel. EGELHOFER'S VOICE: Vat is diss? Nothing shows from behind! VUNCH'S VOICE: But it iss impossible...! EGELHOFER'S VOICE: I think ve have found out something very interesting, chentlemen. (he lights a cigarette and we see his smiling face) I vill show you the fastest cure for radium poisoning ever performed. Dr. Vunch, vill you kindly get me a sponge -- a vet sponge... (DISSOLVE TO THE NEXT SCENE)
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Ben Hecht wrote or co-wrote Scarface, The Front Page, Monkey Business (Marx Brothers), Twentieth Century, Hurricane, The Prisoner of Zenda, Nothing Sacred, A Star Is Born, Gunga Din, Stagecoach, Wuthering Heights, It's a Wonderful World, Gone With the Wind, His Girl Friday, Foreign Correspondent, Lifeboat, Spellbound, Gilda, Notorious, Rope, The Thing, Strangers On a Train, Roman Holiday, Guys and Dolls, The Man With the Golden Arm, and hundreds of other films. And just think -- that's when he was writing down.
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