This Time Next Year

Hey, Gillis! We'd given up on you! Where you been keeping that gorgeous face of yours?

In a... deep freeze

Jesus, Joe, what are you wearing?

It's quite a crowd

Yeah, I invited all the kids doing walk-ons in DeMille's latest picture

Oh, where have you been hiding? I called your apartment, I called your ex-agent. I was about to call the Bureau of Missing Persons!

They always know where to find me

By this time next year

I'll have landed a juicy part[STEVE]

1950 will be my start

No more carrying spears!

I'll be discovered

My life won't ever be the same

Billy Wilder will know my name

And he'll call all the time

'Til he does, can one of you guys lend her

A dime?

Just an apartment

With no roaches and no dry rot

Where the hot water comes out hot

That's my Hollywood dream![RICHARD A]

Your resolution...

Is to write something that gets shot

With approximately the plot

I first had in my head

But you'll get rewritten even after you're dead

It's a year to begin a new life

Find a place somewhere quiet, somewhere pretty

When you have a young kid and a wife

Then you need somewhere green far from the city

It's a rambling old house with a big apple tree

With a swing for the kid and a hammock for me

I have some good news

It's 'Dark Windows'

You don't let go[BETTY]

I gave Sheldrake an outline, Joe

And he swallowed the bait

Well, hallelujah

While you've been buying your fancy clothes

I've been making a lot of notes

Now there's work we should do

Betty, you're forgetting that I gave it

To you

You remind me of me long ago

Off the bus, full of ignorant ambition

Thought I'd waltz into some studio and achieve overnight recognition

I've seen too many optimists sinking like stones

Felt them suck all the marrow clean out of my bones

I love 'Dark Windows'

But I can't write it on my own

Can't we speak on the telephone?

All my evenings are free

Hey, just a minute

I'm the fella who bought the ring

Artie, this is a business thing

It's important ot me

You'll be on location in Clinch, Tennessee

Please make this your New Year's resolution for me

By this time next year

I will get my foot in the door

Next year I know I've gotta score

An amazing success

By this time next year

I will get my foot in the door

Next year, know I'm going to score

An amazing success

Cut to the moment

When they open the envelope

Pass the statuette to Bob Hope

And it's my name you hear

We'll be down on our knees

Outside Grauman's Chinese

Palm prints there on the street

Immortality's neat!

This time next year

This time next year

We'll have nothing to fear

Contracts all signed

Three-picture deal

Yellow brick road career

Hope we're not still saying these things

This time next year!

You know what, I think I am available next year. In fact, I'm available right now!

Joe, that's great!

Hey, listen. Can you put me up for a couple of weeks?

It just so happens we have a vacancy on the couch

I'll take it

(JOE runs to a telephone and rings up MAX.)

Yes?

Max, it's Mr. Gillis. I want you to do me a favor

I'm sorry, I cannot talk now, Mr. Gillis

No, listen. I want you take my old suitcase—

I'm sorry! I'm attending to Madame

What do you mean?

She found the razor in your room. And she cut her wrists!

(The ensemble sets off several party poppers.)

Happy new year!

Should auld acquaintance be forgot

And never brought to mind

Should auld acquaintance be forgot

And days of auld lang syne

For auld lang syne, my dear

For auld lang syne

We'll take a cup of kindness yet

For the sake of auld lang syne