159 Quiz Answer

The answer this week is “North by Northwest.” a Cary Grant film directed by Alfred Hitchcock.  The screenplay was written by Ernest Lehman, who wanted to write "the Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures."

(Also for Three-Word Wednesday and ABC Wednesday: "I" is for "Ike")
Here’s this week’s Berownial quiz question. 

I wrote the following little scenelet, basing it - loosely - on a very popular motion picture. Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is: name the movie.

“Morning!  You’re the crop duster?”

“Right.  The agency sent me.  My name is Ike Barnes and I’m from Muleshoe, Texas; I’ve been spraying since I was 19.  Out there on the runway is my plane, an Air Tractor 802A.  I usually spray corn, cotton, pumpkins and potatoes.”

“Great.  That would make quite a lunch.  Except maybe for the cotton.”

“You say you got work for me?”

“Right.  We need a very experienced crop duster for a special assignment.  We’ll pay double what you usually get for a job.  You’ll do what you always do in your work and we’ll be shooting film of you.”

“I’ll be in the movies?”

“That’s right, and with a famous director.”

“Man, I’m getting excited.”

“We’re going to have a guy standing alone on a road out in a vast wilderness; no one else is around.  Your job will be to fly at him, very careful and low, low as you can get, and the preservation instinct will cause him to drop down flat on the ground so you can’t hit him.”

“Wait a minute.  That sounds dangerous.”

“For him, not for you.  He’ll be an actor so we can easily get another one if we need to.”

“This is sure a strange kind of crop dusting.”

“The guy will than run into a corn field where he can hide in the corn stalks.  You then swoop back and this time spray some pesticide on him.”

“What!?  That’s it, I quit!  I could use the money, but I don’t want to wind up in jail!”

“It won’t be real pesticide, Ike.  It’ll be fake.  In fact, it’ll be water.”

“Oh.”

“And that’s all there is to it.  We’ll probably shoot the scene a couple of times to be sure there are no mistakes.  Then it will be hugs all around and you can pick up your check and get back to your pumpkins and potatoes.”

(Also submitted to Sunday Scribblings)